Was it ever a wonder that so many people separated by war, keeping their love alive by sending love letters by snail mail, ended up getting married? There is nothing quite so exciting than to see the return address written on the envelope from someone you love, and you can’t wait to find a private moment to read your letter. Emails are nice but they will never replace the handwritten letters. There is just something so personal about a letter …
Have you ever watched someone who is always busy but doesn’t seem to accomplish anything? It’s one of the most amazing and dizzying sights to behold. Whenever I see someone who runs around like a chicken without a head, and yes, chickens can run around without a head for a very short period of time, I always think of the song, “Busy Doing Nothing.” I can still hear Vaughn Monroe singing, “We’re busy doing nothing,/ Working the whole day through./ …
Disappointment depends on your expectations. I try to match my expectations of a client with his or her potential, but sometimes, when I see a great deal of potential, and the client doesn’t try to do anything with it, it’s disappointing. I’ve always maintained that if someone has the potential to do anything, I can bring it out of them. I can’t put the aptitude into them, but I can bring it out of them so, it’s disappointing when the …
Many years ago, I watched a demonstration of one of the leading tent revival preachers of his day show his audience how they get people to open their wallets to give large donations. He said that, contrary to popular belief, it isn’t so much the words they use as in the cadence of the words. He walked up and down the aisle, addressing all five-hundred people in the studio audience, and pointed out the cadence that he was using to …
Many years ago, one of my clients told me that she was married to a narcissist and she was divorcing him. At the time, people were still using the term to describe someone who was overly fascinated with his own physical beauty and it was based on one of the many myths of Narcissus, who saw his reflection in a pool of water and fell in love with himself. As far back as I can remember, narcissism was considered to …
I don’t know why some people are so proud of their ability to multitask. Most of us do it for mundane things without even realizing that we’re doing it. Ask any mother who has to drive a carload of squabbling children to school if she considers settling their arguments while driving, the same thing as multitasking, and she will probably look at you as if you’re one sandwich short of a picnic. In her view, it’s one and the same …
I keep hearing about high school and college students sinking into depression after they graduate. They go from studying feverishly for exams (at least they used to study feverishly for exams) to having nothing to take its place. If they graduate in June, they often have a whole summer of feeling disenfranchised, and many of them become too depressed to work up enough enthusiasm to do anything constructive. In retrospect, I was probably lucky that my graduations were all midyear …
Nowadays, if you want to sell a product or sell your services, you will notice that nearly all the sites have a Comments section and you are asked to rate it. But do they really want your honest feedback? I don’t have an eBay account but my client does and, from time to time I ask her to buy something for me that’s advertised on their site and then I send her my check as soon as I receive it. …
There was a story in the news about a man who was convicted of robbery, kidnapping, and burglary charges in connection with two violent robberies when he was twenty. No one was killed but he was sent to prison to serve back-to-back sentences, for a total of ninety-eight years. He was released on parole in 2008, due to a clerical error, after serving just eight years. After he was released, he set about rebuilding his life. He started selling coupon …
Men and women enter the dating scene so differently. Men seem to want to nail down a relationship very quickly. He pursues the woman relentlessly, and then, when he is sure that she’s hooked, he withdraws. She might hear him say things like, “We need to take a break . . . We’re going too fast . . . I need space . . . We need to date other people for a while,” etc. And with words like that, …