Love is great when spoken, but greatest when shown. Do little things daily to show your loved ones you care.

Yesterday afternoon I was sitting on a park bench in the early afternoon when an elderly couple pulled their car up under a nearby oak tree. They rolled down the windows and turned up some jazz music on the car stereo. Then the man got out of the car, walked around to the passenger side, opened the door for the woman, took her hand and guided her about ten feet away from the car, and they slow danced to a song under the oak tree. It was such a beautiful moment to witness.

This morning when I opened my laptop to write, the elderly couple immediately came to mind. I spent a few minutes daydreaming about them, wondering how long they had been together and what their best relationship advice would be. And just as I caught my mind wandering even further off, a new email from a reader named Cory popped up in my inbox. The first line of the email was a question: “Any good old-fashioned advice for strengthening our relationships this holiday season?”

The synchronicity of my daydreaming and Cory’s question made me smile. So in honor of that beautiful elderly couple, and in service of Cory’s relationship inquiry, here are some old-fashioned habits we can practice bringing back into our relationships before the end of the year: [Read more…]

“Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.”
— Margaret Mead

Our children grow up so fast. Before we know it they’re out there somewhere in the real world, and we’re left hoping that we’ve done enough to prepare them for everything they’ll encounter. Marc and I talk to course students and coaching clients on a daily basis — mothers and fathers alike — who share these sentiments. They worry about their children. They wonder if they’ve done a good enough job parenting up to this point. And Marc and I can relate too, because oftentimes we feel the same way. We’re concerned about our son Mac’s well-being and education, and we discuss it frequently just like most parents do.

In fact, from what we’ve researched and studied, the well-being and education of their children is more important to most parents than just about anything else — more important than health care, cost of living, public safety, and even their own [Read more…]

“I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations, and you’re not in this world to live up to mine.”
— Bruce Lee

The biggest disappointments in our lives are often the result of misplaced expectations. This is especially true when it comes to our relationships and interactions with others. So don’t lower your standards, but do remember that removing your expectations of others is the best way to avoid being regretfully disappointed by them.

Which means it’s time to…

1. Stop expecting them to agree with you.

You deserve to be happy in your own way. You deserve to [Read more…]

In the end, more than almost anything else, we regret the special relationships we neglected too often.

Family isn’t always blood. They’re the people in your life who appreciate having you in theirs — the ones who encourage you to improve in healthy and exciting ways, and who not only embrace who you are now, but also embrace and embody who you want to be. These people — your real family — are the ones who truly matter.

Here are twenty timeless tips to help you find and foster these special relationships, before it’s too late:

1. Free yourself from negative company.

Spend time with nice people who are smart, driven and open-minded. Relationships should help you, not hurt you. Surround yourself with people who reflect the person you want to be. Choose friends who you are proud to know, people you admire, who love and respect you — people who make your day a little brighter simply by being in it. Life is too short to continuously spend time with people who [Read more…]

You can’t calm the storm. What you can do is calm yourself, and the storm will gradually pass.

Over the past decade, there’s a way of being I’ve gradually been cultivating in myself — I’ve been taming my tendency to get riled up and argue with people when their behavior doesn’t match my expectations.

As human beings we all have an idea in our heads about how things are supposed to be, and sadly this is what often messes us up the most. We get frustrated when things don’t play out the way we expect them to, and when people don’t behave like they’re “supposed” to. We expect our family to act a certain way, our friends to always be kind, and strangers to be less difficult.

And when reality hits us, and everyone seems to be doing the opposite of what we expect them to do, we get triggered — anger, frustration, stress, arguments, tears, etc.

If you can relate in any way at all right now, it’s to to remind yourself [Read more…]