Todd was a sadly quiet eleven-year-old struggling to adjust to the death of his mother. His father left long ago and he was living with an aunt who made it
COMMENTARY: Mental Sunshine and Flowers
Dave had to undergo painful throat surgery. Since he’s not a young man and makes his living as a professional speaker, the experience was frightening and traumatic. He told me his surgeon was skilled and the hospital workers were competent, but the cold indifference of the parade of nurses and doctors who came in and out of his room was …
Independence Day and Courage
We celebrate this year’s Fourth of July holiday at a time when millions of people in Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Bahrain, and Yemen are at various stages of their own struggle to replace dictators with some form of democracy. It’s a good reminder that the fight for liberty has always required courage. In our own case, 56 men we now …
COMMENTARY: A Person of Character
Let’s face it, it’s not easy to become a person of character. It takes a good heart, but it also requires wisdom to know right from wrong and the discipline to do right even when it’s costly, inconvenient or difficult. Becoming a person of character is a lifelong quest to be better. A person of character values honesty and integrity …
COMMENTARY: Refuse to Be Afraid
Tim Wrightman, a former All-American UCLA football player, tells a story about how, as a rookie lineman in the National Football League, he was up against the legendary pass rusher Lawrence Taylor. Taylor was not only physically powerful and uncommonly quick but a master at verbal intimidation. Looking young Tim in the eye, he said, “Sonny, get ready. I’m going …
COMMENTARY 988.1: Saying the Right Thing
When someone you care about is suffering greatly, what’s the right thing to say to make him or her feel better? There are all sorts of traumas that can send us to the darkest dungeons of despair – the death of a loved one, being raped, getting a divorce, losing a limb, seeing a child sent to jail or on …
COMMENTARY: Memorial Day, a Day of Remembrance
It’s not just an excuse for a three-day weekend or a day for barbecue and beer. Memorial Day is a time for Americans to connect with our national history and core values by honoring those who gave their lives fighting for this country.
IMAGES OF WAR. Expression of gratitude for the sacrifice of those who died, were wounded or suffered in war is truly the very least we can do. The rhetoric of patriotism and the nobility of battle mask the horrible, awful, terrible nature of war and its ravages on the men and women (and their families) who fought for us through the years and those that are today sacrificing on our behalf.
CIVIL WAR WORLD WAR I WORLD WAR II KOREAN WAR
For the many men and women who gave so much, be thankful.
Please take Memorial Day seriously. Find a moment to genuinely pause and reflect on the sacrifice of others to keep our country free.
Memorial Day Thank You
Thank you for your dedication, your duty, your unwavering loyalty and most importantly your unbelievable sacrifice. Americans have the freedom to be Americans because of you. There are many ways to serve. None is more significant or worthy of appreciation than sacrificing personal comforts and gain to serve in the military. Remember, we have this long weekend not simply to …
COMMENTARY 985.4: Slow Dance
I once heard the chairman and CEO of a huge public company tell a roomful of ambitious, hardworking, dedicated executives that if he had to do it all over again, he would have spent more time with his family. That’s not news, but to Type-A personalities, it’s easier said than done. David L. Weatherford’s poem “Slow Dance” sends the message …
COMMENTARY 984.1: Changing Self-Limiting Beliefs and Bad Behavior
Shavonne, a third-grade teacher, was at the end of her rope with disciplinary problems, but she wasn’t enthusiastic when she was told that her school had adopted the CHARACTER COUNTS! program. Now she was expected to explicitly seek to instill and enhance in her students core ethical values like honesty, respect, and responsibility, and to help them develop positive social …
COMMENTARY 977.5: Things Are Just Things
Years ago, a listener told me her mom died leaving only a general will and a house full of personal items with sentimental and, in some cases, significant financial value. My listener said tensions were building among her and her two sisters as they approached the problem of allocating their mom’s stuff. Each sister had different and conflicting expectations. The …
COMMENTARY: Coaching for Character
I’ve spent lots of time with some of the world’s most successful coaches. I discovered that many of them think about character a lot, especially traits that are important to winning – like self-discipline, perseverance, resiliency, and courage.
COMMENTARY 977.3: Changing Lives Through Love
Imagine being put in charge of a residential camp for delinquent teenage girls confined because they are considered dangerous. Many have serious mental health issues, impulse control problems, and an awful lot of anger. One of the last terms you’d apply to any of these girls is lovable. So when Pauline Starks and her colleague Gerry Davis (both with more …
COMMENTARY 977.2: Tell Someone They’re Valued
The students at Sandy’s high school were badly shaken by the news that a classmate had killed himself. The suicide note said, “It’s hard to live when nobody cares if you die.” Glen, a teacher, realized this was a teachable moment about the importance of making people feel valued. He asked the class to imagine they were about to die …
COMMENTARY 976.2: Motive, Tact, Tone, Timing
Trustworthiness is essential to good relationships, and honesty is essential to trustworthiness. Being honest isn’t simply telling the truth, though. It’s also being sincere and forthright. Thus, it’s just as dishonest to deceive someone by half-truths or silence as it is to lie. But what if honesty requires us to volunteer information that could be damaging or hurtful? For example, …
COMMENTARY 975.4: A Parent’s Love for the Family Treasure
There are all kinds of love. The passionate romantic love immortalized and often fantasized by poets and novelists; Platonic love among friends, the love of humanity preached by missionaries and ministers, the love of country, and even the love of our work. I’ve been fortunate to have experienced all of these forms but none has impressed me more than the deep, enduring …
Avoiding Unkind Words
People don’t always remember what you say or even what you do, but they always remember how you made them feel. – Maya Angelou When I had four teenagers
COMMENTARY 974.5: Courtesy Is Kindness in Action
As a society we have become almost obsessed with identifying and asserting our rights – to think, say, and do what we want. That’s not surprising, given the history of our country and the prominent role the Constitution and Bill of Rights have played in shaping our culture. We have a right to be unkind, thoughtless, and disrespectful — but …
COMMENTARY 973.1: The Power of Words
“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” Really? Insults, teasing, gossip, and verbal abuse can inflict deeper and more enduring pain than guns and knives. Ask anyone who as a kid was fat, skinny, short, tall, flat-chested, big-busted, acne-faced, uncoordinated, slow-witted, or exceptionally smart. In schoolrooms and playgrounds across the country, weight, height, looks, …
COMMENTARY: Acts of Kindness and Two Sets of Proud Parents
I received an email with a story worth sharing. Only the names have been changed to preserve privacy. Doug is the proud and loving father of Emma, a high school junior who takes a leadership class responsible for putting on dances and other student events.
COMMENTARY: The President’s Day Un-Celebration — Honoring Not Just the Great, But All U.S. Presidents
If you’re not going to school or work today, it’s because it’s a national holiday. The country used to celebrate the birthdays of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln separately, but in 1971 Richard Nixon and Congress, in order to create a perpetual three-day weekend, merged the two holidays into a brand new one called Presidents Day, to honor all U.S. …
COMMENTARY: Making a Difference – Being Nice & Talking to People
What can be more meaningful and fulfilling than making a positive difference in this world by making a difference in the lives we touch? It is the essence of living a life that matter. As the following story illustrates it is so much easier than it we might think and its something we all can do every day of the …
COMMENTARY 970.2: A Government Program That Is Working
I was pleasantly surprised that my visit to detention camps for juvenile girls run by the Los Angeles Probation Department turned out to be encouraging and uplifting. Instead of finding a cadre of angry and hostile girls in a punitive prison setting, I saw clean classrooms attended by very
The first duty of LOVE is to LISTEN
The first duty of LOVE is to LISTEN. -Paul Tillich. Listening doesn’t mean obeying, it means making a true effort to hear and understand what the other person is saying and feeling. Think how much better relationships would be if parents really listened to their children; if children – minors and adults – really listened to their parents and if …
WORTH SEEING- POSTER: GIVING THE GIFT OF SELF-ESTEEM: “You is kind. You is smart. You is important” – Aibileen Clark (from the wonderful film “Help”).
Grammar doesn’t matter nearly as much as the sentiment – one that every parent and every teacher should express to every child. I hope you were fortunate enough to receive that message from someone early in your life and that some child was fortunate enough to receive the message form you. CLICK TO SEE POSTER.
COMMENTARY 892.5: Worth More Than a Million Dollars
If you had the choice of winning $1 million in the lottery or saving a stranger’s life, which would you choose? I suspect many of you think you should say, “saving a life,” but what you are really thinking is how much better your life would be if you were rich. If the test was which act improves the world …
COMMENTARY 887.1: Democracy and Respectful Discourse
On this Fourth of July, I hope you will take time to experience pride in and appreciation for the great qualities of our country. One quality of our democracy is that every citizen is a public official. Thus, the passionate advocacy of political convictions is not only a right, it’s a patriotic obligation. What worries me, however, is the tendency of many …
COMMENTARY 886.2: The Paradoxical Commandments
In 1968, when Kent M. Keith was a 19-year-old sophomore at Harvard, he wrote the Paradoxical Commandments as part of a booklet for student leaders. He describes the Commandments as guidelines for finding personal meaning in the face of adversity: 1. People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway. 2. If you do good, people will accuse you of …