Over and over when I review arguments after their emotional intensity has decreased, everyone’s most important motivation seems that they want to feel understood. It doesn’t matter if I’m arguing or I see other people arguing. They don’t even need agreement, just to feel listened to and understood. When both parties want the other to understand them first, they create an unpleasant but stable system driving them both to anger,[…] Keep reading →

School Doing a gratitude exercise recently, writing my undergraduate advisor who helped me figure out how to major in physics starting my second semester junior year. Physics is intense so most of my classmates were younger, having known their major since high school. So academically, I was catching up with classmates from when I chose my major. I just finished the major in my last semester and got into Penn[…] Keep reading →

Here is the video from Sunday’s webinar on How to Make Meaningful Connections, which, as I describe in it and you’ll find if you practice the exercise in it, is about how to develop compassion. The exercise in this webinar teaches some of the most valuable skills you can learn about relationships. Every leader I’ve ever heard talk about compassion describes it as critical, up there with empathy and self-awareness.[…] Keep reading →

I’ve shown this representation of what I call The Worst Problem in the World at many seminars. I wrote about it about five years ago. Now you can see the video. Watch all the way through to see some solutions. Take my course if you want to get beyond it and resolve it in your life, mainly by doing the exercises in it to develop compassion and empathy.

After teaching, coaching, studying, and practicing leadership for twenty years, I announced my online leadership course, “Introducing the most effective leadership course available anywhere.” I’m hosting a series of free webinars on the most actionable, useful, effective, and exciting parts of the course. My webinars will always deliver exclusive, valuable lessons you can use that day and how to build for the long term. Attend my fourth webinar, free, this[…] Keep reading →

Continuing my series of alternative responses to the New York Times column, The Ethicists, looking at the consequences of one’s actions instead of imposing values on others, here is my take on today’s post, “Should I Speak Up for a Pet Pig?” I am in a profession where I often go to people’s houses to work with their children. I have one client whom I like very much and who[…] Keep reading →

I wrote about David Allen’s influence before, in “‘I am a freedom junky’ — David Allen’s inspiring words that simplified my life,” which describes how I implemented his system of getting things done. His words and advice regularly come to mind and help me. They did recently when an email that would have stressed and burdened me had I not known his system. I had his book and a camera[…] Keep reading →

Continuing my series of alternative responses to the New York Times column, The Ethicists, looking at the consequences of one’s actions instead of imposing values on others, here is my take on today’s post, “Is It Selfish for a Gay Couple to Have Kids via Surrogacy?” My husband and I are gay and are exploring the possibility of having children using an egg donor and a surrogate mother. Sometimes when[…] Keep reading →

Continuing my series of alternative responses to the New York Times column, The Ethicists, looking at the consequences of one’s actions instead of imposing values on others, here is my take on today’s post, “Should a Man Have Told His Mother-in-Law That She Was Dying?” My mother-in-law died recently of cancer. She was 88 and had a full and good life. She did not have full-blown dementia, but she had[…] Keep reading →