[First Published – March 2015] Tell me what you know and I can begin to see the walls around you. Tell me where have you been and I can begin to understand who you are. Tell me who you are with and I can begin to see the patterns of your life. Tell me how you spend your time and I can begin to see how much you really care. I’ve told many what I knew and found that I knew little...
We are all different in many ways. We hear this all of the time. One of the more subtle differences between individuals is what they do with their knowledge. I find that people do one of four things with their knowledge: They store it and call on it in conversation simply to help someone understand something better. They use it in conversation to make themselves feel good by demonstrating that...
‘It’s easy” is one of the most misunderstood phrases that we regularly use. Most commonly used with either ideas or solutions, it implies that little effort is needed to get to a stated outcome. People can make things look easy when all we see is the last few steps of their journey. The athlete who astounds us by her skill never shows us the never ending hours of practice that...
Nothing destroys a relationship between two people, or in any situation that involves others, is the feeling we get from requests that we interpret as meaning “I want what I want”. The underlying translation of requests made in this form is always felt as a declaration. The selfishness of this underlying tone feels frightening and strange. Its direct effect on others is to simply...
Recently I listened to a TED Radio Hour presentation on quiet. What it means to be still. Two of the people they interviewed quit speaking for a number of years voluntarily. After they began to speak again, they learned that they became much more effective listeners. Why? Because by not saying anything, their words could never get in the way of understanding what the other person was trying to...
No phrase has been as helpful in my life as “it wasn’t meant to be”. It’s one of my wife’s favorite sayings. Each stage in our lives are filled with its own unique challenges. During this journey through life, we try many things. Some that work while many fail. “It wasn’t meant to be” serves multiple purposes during these times of disappointment...
To do lists, urgent-important lists, lists where you put down everything in your brain so that you can unclutter it, apps, software, suggestions, reviews……… The list is endless. Everyone wants to help us by sharing their personal favorite ways to keep themselves organized. Why be organized? Many would say, it’s the best way to get a lot of things done. The problem with...
Tests and quizzes are a big part of school. Pick the right answer. Get a good grade. There always was only one right answer. Year after year it was always the same. We get out of school and what do we do? We continue to look for the right answer. Of course, it’s habit. I’ve done it a million times. What I couldn’t figure out for a long time after leaving school was why did my...