For years I’ve had a personal “Board of Directors.” This isn’t a formal group that has scheduled meetings. And (so far) none of them has asked to be paid. But they are close friends and trusted colleagues with whom I share important questions or problems. Each one of them has a professional specialty, and I […]
Communication, Personal Board of Directors, professional circle, social circle
Viktor Frankl’s powerful book Man’s Search for Meaning is a gem. (He nearly published anonymously, until someone convinced him otherwise.) It has profoundly impacted my outlook on life. Frankl was a psychiatrist and Nazi concentration camp survivor who lost everything that he had including family and his wife. Based on his experiences in the camps, […]
influential, power, thinking
Mark Twain said,” There are two kinds of people in the world: one kind separates people into two kinds of people and the other kind doesn’t.” I’m definitely the kind that separates people into two kinds of people. I think there’s people who listen to respond or reply, and the other kind who listen to […]
effective listening, focused, Listening
I’ve been inspired and encouraged over my life by quotations from people both famous and also regular people that I know. And one of those people was my maternal grandmother. She died when I was a child, but a relative told me that when people needed encouragement after getting through a difficult time, she would […]
inspiration, Motivation, quotes
A participant at one of my seminars came up during a break to talk. She said that during a recent review, her boss had told her that doing formal presentations was a weakness for her and she would need to turn into a strength if she ever wanted to be promoted into a leadership […]
self improvement, strength, weakness
A longtime New York City psychotherapist Robert Akeret wrote a book called Tales From a Traveling Couch. In it, he describes a cartoon; In the first frame, a man is riding on his bicycle to his therapist’s appointment and there’s a monkey on the man’s back. It’s a representation of a problem or burden that […]
gettinghelp, help, sharing
A caller to the Clark Howard Personal Finance radio show told of a habit she has: She puts a dollar in a box each night. And at the end of a year on her birthday she has $365 to spend on herself. Aside from that being completely charming, it’s also an example of how doing […]
actions, finance, results
I wanted to share with you a 15-minute exercise I do to prepare for the day in the morning. It’s not a physical exercise, it’s a mental or thought exercise and so you can do it while you’re doing other things, and that’s what I do. The first five minutes I spend thinking about all […]
exercise, positivity, tips
Roy Campanella was a Hall of Fame baseball catcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1940s and 50s and his career ended when he had a car accident that left him paralyzed from the shoulders down. He was being treated in a New York rehab hospital and had really turned inside himself: He didn’t want […]
anxiety, worry
One of my favorite stories is in James Kirkwoods’ book, “There Must Be a Pony,” and it’s about a father of twin sons, age eight. One son is an incurable optimist and the other is a complete pessimist. The father decides to try an experiment because he’s a little alarmed about this difference: On […]
Joy, optimism, optimistic, positivity