​A friend of mine shared a story where he brightened another person’s day without saying a word. “I was driving along a busy street when I stopped for red light. Next to me was a guy on a beautiful shiny new Harley. I gave a quick beep on the horn. When the guy looked at…

Minimalist Joshua Becker asserts in a blog post that for far too many people, the desire to impress others is their major motivator in life.  This desire determines the cars they buy, the clothes they wear, the technology the embrace and so forth.  He goes on to say that this often proves to be elusive…

Validation reinforces a positive sense of worth in people and makes them feel good about who they are. Furthermore, people who feel good about themselves do good things. One of the ways that we can all help make the world a better place is to serve as an instrument of validation. For example, we can…

​An article in USA Today written by Nanci Hellmich discussed ways that people could enrich their lives during their retirement years. She said the key is to: “…get out and try new things.” I think her advice is right on, but we don’t have to wait until we retire to take advantage of it. Trying new things…

For the longest time it was thought that people donated to charity or did things to aid the less fortunate because of their unselfish concern for the welfare of others. On the other hand, an article which appeared in The Wall Street Journal concluded that doing things to benefit others falls into the category of being a…

​ A professional golfer told me that the biggest reason most golfers’ scores don’t improve much is that they tend to play with other golfers whose skill levels are roughly the same as theirs. As a result, there’s no one to learn from, so there’s no growth or improvement. The same holds true for other…

​​I grew up in an environment where daydreaming was considered loafing or wasting time. The prevailing logic was simple: If you were daydreaming, you weren’t working. While reading Brian Clark’s blog on the web site Lateral Action, I learned there is sound scientific evidence connecting daydreaming with creativity—people who daydream more are more creative, innovative…

I attended a party where one of the guests was intent on bragging about his latest exploits. I watched as he moved from group to group trying to get people to listen to his story. As soon as he started talking about himself, one by one, people in the group would excuse themselves and move…

Part of our interpersonal success is tied to saying the right thing at the right time.  But, an even larger part of that success is tied to our being able to avoid saying the wrong thing at the tempting moment.  There are times when we so want to tell somebody off or give them a…

A set of studies reported in The Wall Street Journal found that even the most virtuous of people can become corrupt once they get a taste of power. Google is a case in point. Twenty years ago, Google had two employees. Today it has more than 94,000. Twenty years ago, there was very little power to be…