What do you do when… You’re not able to sleep due to a neighbor’s late-night music or barking dog? Your boss wants you to work overtime this weekend when you’ve planned a big outing with your family? You and your partner have totally different opinions when it comes to a major life decision? This is […]

When we get clear about boundaries we can make choices rather than just react. We become empowered. We can now search for creative solutions to what seemed to be intractable problems.

I’m very mindful, as I sit at my computer this morning, of the utter horror of last weekend’s shooting in Las Vegas. My emotions vacillate from shock to anger to sadness that something so inhumane can happen, yet again, in America. Such events occur all too frequently and effect each of us deeply as we search […]

Lesson From a Boy Cavett Robert, founder of the National Speakers Association, told a story about watching a young boy going door-to-door selling books. As the boy headed for his house he said to his wife, “Watch me teach this kid a lesson about selling. After all these years of writing books about communication, lecturing all […]

For many couples marriage is a difficult journey. Since the early 1970’s close to 50% of all marriages in America have ended in divorce. An even higher percentage of second marriages end in divorce. And many of those couples who stick it out express dissatisfaction and, at some point, seriously consider ending their relationship. Indeed, […]

In my last blog post I wrote about people who are late. I want to continue exploring this theme today. Of course, all of us are late sometimes. And some of us are late much or even most of the time. Although some may consider this to be a minor problem, I think it is […]

This black and white sketch was drawn for us by Dev, a new friend in India. I love it. For Christians, it represents one of the most important events in history—the birth of the Christ child. But whether you are Christian or not the painting embodies the tender love of family—the sweet innocence and radiance […]

In my last post I introduced four principles for creating positive relationships: empathy, honesty, responsibility and shared vision. I consider them the four cornerstones of a good healthy relationship, whether it be marriage, parent-child, boss-employee and so on. My goal is to grow in my ability to live these qualities in each of my relationships. […]

In my last post I talked about the relationship between positive social relationships and happiness. Unhappiness is not a mental illness caused by something mysterious going on the brain. Generally, it can be linked to what is going on in your relationships. How are you and your boss (or co-workers) getting along? How close do […]

In my studies of gratitude, I came across this beautiful story told by Maureen Deuterma.