I took time over the holidays to rest, get organized for the new year, and connect in meaningful ways with family. Having that time, though, opened up space for some unwanted thoughts too. Do you ever allow all your thoughts to flow, even the unwanted ones? Your insecurities, fears, selfish desires, resentments, and uncertainties? The
Several years ago, a friend invited me to join his exercise group. “It will change your life,” he said. The workouts were early in the morning, very painful and I honestly wasn’t sure I had the guts to keep doing them. Around the time I started participating, the group read Jesse Itzler’s book Living With
My life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened. I love that quote by Michel de Montaigne because I used to constantly worry about terrible misfortunes. I had a bad case of the What Ifs. Do you ever suffer from the What Ifs? Do you ruminate on questions like: What if
My last article presented 10 forms of personal reactivity that everyone should carefully manage. Whether it’s anger, anxiety, worry, blame, insecurity or lack of boundaries, emotional triggers disrupt relationship health. While those reactions might be our default responses, awareness helps us interrupt the patterns and make different choices about how we behave, especially in challenging
One summer while away at college, my roommate and I rode our bikes 10 miles through the city of Boston to the ocean. We randomly arrived to see streams of elegantly dressed people moving toward a large pavilion. “What’s happening?” we asked. “John Denver concert!” Wow, we thought. This looked incredible. To see John Denver
I wrote the following in January, 2016. Since then, I’ve exchanged diapers for youth sports. Pandemic restrictions have come and gone but full schedules and high demands remain the reality. Perhaps, like me, you need to re-establish your limits to enjoy greater clarity and connection with others. ***** When I started my day last Sunday,
Thanks to my wife, my kids have better homework habits than I had. They recently told me about how many kids in their class were “freaking out” about an upcoming summative test. “But we,” they explained, “are feeling pretty relaxed about it because we’ve simply been paying attention and grinding out the homework.” I couldn’t
I didn’t use ChatGPT to write this article, unlike my last one. However, I’ve been thinking about ChatGPT “prompt engineers” who make close to $350,000 without any previous professional experience. Essentially, a prompt engineer asks ChatGPT really good questions in order to get really good responses. Call them AI Whisperers. It makes me wonder, do
Recently, after stopping in a hardware store with my sons, one of them pointed out that my accent had shifted. Apparently, without realizing it, I spoke to the man working in the hardware store with a very strong “Minnesota accent.” It was surprising to have this pointed out since I didn’t notice the shift. According
Today I walked my dog around our neighborhood through freezing rain, dirty snow and slushy puddles. Of course, my neighborhood has seen many more pleasant days and many more will come. Knowing that only made me want to escape to one of those days, either past or future. However, I resisted the pull because I’ve
Matt Norman is president of Norman & Associates, which offers Dale Carnegie Training in the North Central US. Dale Carnegie Training is a global organization ...READ MORE