If you are willing to learn how to listen, it will take hard work to learn the skills and constant practice to stay in shape. However, it is all worth it. Remember, people feel relieved when they find someone who understands what they have to say. Once you truly understand others by actively listening to […]

For a sustained good image, master emotional self-control. “Those who command themselves,” goes an old saying, “command others.” That is true, and it means being disciplined enough to put your personal feelings on hold even when tempted to blow your stack.
If you otherwise make a great first impression, yet allow yourself to be pushed over […]

A mentor is someone you admire and under whom you can study. Throughout history, the mentor-protégé relationship has proven quite fruitful. Socrates was one of the early mentors. Plato and Aristotle studied under him and later emerged as great philosophers in their own right. I was fortunate enough to have several mentors - each for […]

In 1966, when I was just 19 years old, I made more money than anyone else in my family did. I sold pots and pans, believe it or not. These were very expensive pots and pans; they sold for nearly $300. This was over 35 years ago - you could buy a decent used car […]

You might be tempted to say, “What’s wrong with a little competition?” Nothing’s wrong with it. It’s healthy. It’s when your need to compete and be superior to someone else gets in the way of the best possible outcome for both of you. That’s when competition becomes a liability. I’m talking about the kind of […]

“Don’t put off for tomorrow what you can do today.” (My Mother, ever since I can remember.)
Procrastination is like a virus. It creeps up on you slowly, drains you of energy, and is difficult to get rid of if your resistance is low. Procrastination is a close relative of incompetence and a first cousin to […]

The genius of humor obviously pertains to communication, but humor is not just a secondary form of genius. Humor is vital. However, there is a wrong way and a right way to use it.
Here are my suggestions for improving your sense of humor: First, find out what your strong suit is, humor-wise. Ask a friend […]

“If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always gotten.” In addition, if you keep doing what you have always done when conditions radically change, you will get a lot less than you have always gotten. How much can you accomplish when you really see things as they are - […]

Awareness refers to a continuously heightened sensitivity to what is going on in both your internal and your external environment. It has two separate but closely related ways of expressing itself. You must be aware of what is outside you — aware of the subtle behaviors of the people around you. In addition, you must […]

Goals are the most important tools you need to accomplish anything, and there are certain steps you can take to complete your goals after you’ve made them. There are certain areas you need to consider while working toward your goals, which will help you succeed:
Define your goal. Your first task is to work out the […]

With the natural differences among the four behavioral types in mind, pretend that you want to give four people 15-20 minutes to make three simple decisions:
1. Where the next meeting will take place
2. When it will happen
3. The theme of the meeting
Quite by accident, your group consists of one Relater, one Thinker, one Director, and […]

Actually, it is — and we all should care because it’s enthusiasm, not apathy, that makes the world go ’round. John Wesley, the famous founder of Methodism, was asked how he was able to attract such crowds when he preached. He replied, “I just set myself on fire and people will come from miles to […]

“The longest journey on earth begins with a single step.”
(Anonymous)
Can you remember when you first learned how to drive a car? Before you learned how, you were in the Ignorance stage. You didn’t know how to drive the car and you didn’t even know why you didn’t know how to drive it.
When you first went […]

Our society is moving toward a view of artistic genius that is both new and old. It is new in the sense that truly incredible tools and technologies are now available for creative work. It is old because our present view of the artist’s place in society has much more in common with the Middle […]

Managers are especially torn between trying to be both accessible and productive. They want to be modern, sensitive bosses who will hear out customer complaints and employee problems — but they also have planning to do, projects to complete, paperwork to handle, goals to meet, and higher-ups to satisfy.
Here are some techniques for striking a […]

One of the interesting things about great leaders is the degree to which they’re tolerant of people who are very different from themselves. Under the most difficult circumstances in the Second World War, Dwight Eisenhower managed to create a coalition including the egomaniacal Viscount Montgomery, the self-effacing Omar Bradley, and the gifted but totally bizarre […]

Have you ever been having an important conversation, in which the other person is telling you something you need to know, and while you know you should give your full attention to what’s being said, you just can’t stop thinking about that annoying sound of static coming from a nearby radio? Or you can’t stop […]

A fascinating study was conducted at the University of Stamford some years ago. Four-year-old children were placed in a room, one by one, and a marshmallow was placed in front of them. Each child was told that if they didn’t eat the marshmallow in fifteen minutes, they would get two; but if they ate the […]

One major aspect of your personal image comes from how well you’ve developed what’s inside your skull. I’m not talking about a high IQ or your skill at Trivial Pursuit. I’m referring to your mental fitness.
Can your mind lift abstract concepts from The Wall Street Journal or from the professional journal in your field? Can […]

Have you ever gotten to the end of the day and wondered where all your time went? You were up-and-down, left-and-right busy all day, yet you barely made a dent in your to-do list; so what did you do? What happened to all that time if it wasn’t spent accomplishing your projects?
Time-wasters come from the […]

I’ll see it when I believe it!
It has been estimated that we each have upwards of 50,000 thoughts per day. How many of yours are negative? Sometimes you have to do a mental spring-cleaning to get rid of those negative thoughts that have become ingrained attitudes. Stopping self-destructive thoughts is like stopping any other bad […]

Adapt your connections with people!
When you are speaking with someone, how well do you speak the other person’s language? How well you get on that person’s wavelength? There are some people, as professional as they are, as knowledgeable as they are, as helpful as they are, that simply just rub you the wrong way. They […]

“Well, I don’t know what will happen now. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountain top, I won’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long time. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s […]

Organizational conflict can occur at several levels: between individuals, between groups and between organizations. While we will focus on interpersonal conflict, the principles and ideas discussed here are also valid for inter-group and inter-organizational conflicts.
Conflict typically proceeds through four stages even if each step is not recognized as such. The phases identified by theorist Louis […]

Because street smarts are so important to every part of your life, here is a quick review of the major elements that go into street smarts. Print this list out and keep it with you, for a regular reminder to be street smart every day.
I. Heightened Awareness
A. Trust your intuition
B. Develop perceptiveness and ability to […]

Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King were both spiritual giants. While it may seem difficult to see yourself in those terms, there is a lot to be learned from them - a lot that can be applied in your own life.
Spirituality is looking beyond the material dimension of your life and discovering something that’s intangible […]

Enjoy this compiled list of “Tonyisms” with your morning cup of coffee!
- To achieve more and better results, more resourcefulness is as important as more resources.
- Anything in excess is a poison.
- One of the problems with the future is that good things always take longer than they should, whereas bad things happen right away.
- […]

When we think of genius, for the most part we think in terms of mental or intellectual power. We think of brilliant human beings. We think of mathematicians or inventors or writers. Painters and sculptors may be in a slightly different category — a little more physical and intuitive — but even here, we still […]

Adaptability is your willingness and ability to behave in ways that are not necessarily characteristic of your style in order to deal effectively with the requirements of a situation or relationship. Adaptable people make the choice to go beyond their own comfort zones so others feel more comfortable.
With adaptability, you can treat people the way […]

Self-confidence is the food that feeds our personal growth. It is an indispensable part of achievement. Self-confidence stems from the self-awareness of our intrinsic worth as individuals. We are blessed with an incredible amount of potential, most of which is untapped. George Santayana once wrote, “Man is as full of potentiality as he is of […]

As someone once advised, “Grow antennae, not horns.” If you prejudge someone as shallow, crazy, or ill informed, you automatically cease paying attention to what they say. So a basic rule of listening is to judge only after you have heard and evaluated what they say. Do not jump to conclusions based on how they […]

“The reason you don’t understand me, Edith, is because I’m talkin’ to you in English and you’re listenin’ to me in dingbat!” - Archie Bunker
Archie was right about finding a common language or wavelength, but it takes two to communicate– the speaker and the listener. Both need to make the effort to understand each other. […]

No matter how outrageous, inconsiderate, false, self-centered, or pompous the person you are talking to is, remember: He or she is simply trying to survive, just like you. We are all participating in the same physical and psychological struggle. Some of us just have better survival strategies than others. Thus, the obnoxious person deserves more […]

In order to control your time, you have to know what you are doing with it now. The best way to determine this is to do an exercise that takes a maximum of a half an hour a day for 10 days. You will not have to go on a crash diet or run three […]

A number of the world’s all-time great geniuses were at first thought to be anything but gifted.
Einstein, we know, left school in Germany because of poor grades in history and the language arts. The problem wasn’t Einstein, of course, but the type of learning he was forced to do, which required a lot of rote […]

Occasionally we hear stories of people who struggle against great odds, prove the naysayers wrong, and achieve the nearly impossible. They turn around a defunct company; they stop a highway from going through virgin land; they beat the odds on terminal cancer.
In order to do extraordinary things, these people - and you! - don’t need […]

Back in the early 70’s, recently accredited with my MBA and happily engaged in my first college teaching position, a friend asked me what my long-term career goal was. When I answered that I would like to eventually become the president of a large university, my friend chuckled and replied, “Tony, there’s no way!” I […]

Meetings are not supposed to be, as one office critic said, “a practical alternative to working.” In fact, if you plan the time and space, meetings can be productive as well as a means of promoting relationships.
Time. Meetings have been described as “a place where you keep the minutes and lose the hours.” To avoid […]

For your own life, the example of Disney as artistic genius is especially relevant. While it is possible that you may patent thousands of inventions or become president of the United States, the odds are against it, but on a smaller scale, the tools of artistic genius are always available to you.
Walt Disney was born […]

You’re a genius and you don’t even know it
Paul MacCready is a writer and inventor who has carefully studied genius and the ways people understand that concept. MacCready has evolved several categories of what genius seems to mean, but the most important category for you is the one in which you belong - read on!
Types […]

I have a teacup poodle named Vito. Vito is the size of a toaster, but every time I take him for a walk, he never fails to pick a fight with some dog ten times his size. It’s become clear to me that Vito has an image problem - he’s a little dog who thinks […]

We accomplish much more when we learn to focus on others
There’s an old story of a young lady who was taken to dinner one evening by William Gladstone, and the following evening by Benjamin Disraeli, both eminent British statesmen in the late nineteenth century. “When I left the dining room after sitting next to […]