WORTH SEEING: Watch your thoughts . . .

Watch your THOUGHTS; they lead to attitudes. Watch your ATTITUDES; they lead to words. Watch your WORDS; they lead to actions. Watch your ACTIONS; they lead to habits. Watch your HABITS; they form your character. Watch your CHARACTER CHARACTER DETERMINES YOUR DESTINY

COMMENTARY: Making the Best of Family Relationships

For most of us, there’s something both wonderful and worrisome about large family gatherings. On the good side, we often can experience real pleasure in spending time with relatives with whom we have so many common memories. What’s more, being with parents, siblings, and cousins who have known us since childhood often helps us see ourselves

QUOTE: How many times do you get to lie before you are a liar? How many times can someone lie to you before you start asking yourself: What else has he/she lied to me about?

The moral significance and real life impact of lies embedded in the concept of trust. Your ability to generate and sustain trust is not dependent on the frequency of lying but the capacity of the lie to damage or destroy trust. The best liars hardly ever lie, not because they are more honest but because they are more clever. They …

MEMO From Michael: Bound for Bogota — and Medellin!

As mentioned in last week’s updates, I’ll be in Colombia next week. I will post dispatches on the What Will Matter Facebook page, so be sure to Like that page so you can stay in the loop. Much of this week has been spent collaborating with Dr. Gary Smit, the de facto dean of our national CHARACTER COUNTS! training faculty, and two of …

OBSERVATION: If you were given a wish from an all powerful genie as to one attribute for your children what would you choose. There are lots of candidate’s: honor, intelligence, perseverance, common sense, integrity – I want my kids to have all of this. But if I really could bestow on them one attribute I think it would be optimism.

Optimism is the most powerful of the children of positivity (experiencing the world and expressing oneself in positive  terms). Its siblings: gratitude, enthusiasm, cheerfulness, hopefulness are other attitudes that not only improve the way we experience our lives, they set into motion actions and reactions that dramatically improve the likelihood of success as well as happiness. People react positively to …

Character may determine our fate, but character is not determined by fate. The quest of an honest parent: Strive to be the person you hope your children think you are.

There’s no doubt that our character has a profound effect on our future. What we must remember, however, is not merely how powerful character is in influencing our destiny, but how powerful we are in shaping our own character and, therefore, our own destiny. Character may determine our fate, but character is not determined by fate. It’s a common mistake …

MEMO From Michael

It’s been a busy month for us as we adjust to our new, very lean staff resulting from the downsizing last month. If you value what we do either personally or what we are doing for the world, please, please consider making a donation here. I know these are difficult times for everyone, but even $5 or $10 could make …

Critical Educational Outcomes: Model Standards for Academic, Social, Emotional, and Character Development. Making the Common Core easy.

This week we completed a monumental project: Critical Educational Outcomes: Model Standards for Academic, Social, Emotional, and Character Development. These standards, the first-ever effort to integrate all major educational outcomes, form the backbone of the new CHARACTER COUNTS! 4.0, a fully integrated school improvement and student development system any school can use. If you are an educator, please print them out and share …

We All Need to be Appreciated

The deepest craving of human nature is the need to be appreciated. – William James Expressing appreciation with words, a smile, or a hug costs so little and means so much. It can make a day or even change a life. — Michael Josephson

Think Outside the Box

Here’s the original test about thinking outside the box. The task is to connect all nine dots with four straight lines without lifting your pen from the paper or retracing any of the lines. Duplicate the dots on a piece of paper and try it. Solution on next page.

The Myth of the Little White Lie

So-called “little white lies” are not so little. Anytime someone discovers that you lied to them, for whatever reason, they ask themselves., “What else has he lied to me about?” And this seed of doubt can grow big enough to destroy trust. The ultimate test