A teenage girl in Abington, PA was crossing the street in a crosswalk near her high school August 23 when she was hit by an SUV in broad daylight.

The driver wasn’t charged because the girl was looking at her phone and engaged in a FaceTime video chat when she was injured and hospitalized in critical condition.

Distracted living is deadly for safety – New York City has an outbreak of walkers who get hit by cars every day when they fail to pay attention crossing streets – but also deadly for relationships.

Face time is time spent in present company not on social media or chat apps.

For every minute spent safely on digital chat, at least the same time should be spent in real time 100% focused on another person.

It has only been ten years since the iPhone was introduced but in that period phones have replaced real relationships with both unrecognized and even deadly results.

A phone is a tool not a life.

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People want to be included in new ideas and decisions.

Even good ideas are not as important to others as the buy in.

Bright ideas become dull when they bypass the buy in process.

Some of the most creative problem solvers are rendered useless without the skills to include others in their ideas.

Encourage others to “hitchhike” on your idea and offer them a sense of ownership.

Show a sense of willingness to listen to the input of others.

Ask “what do you like best” about this solution and take notes.

Present creative ideas with a sense of wonder and humility.

When one person does all the thinking, they lose the powerful cooperation of others.

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You don’t have to check with other people to know what to do.

Just check with yourself.

Other points of view are useful as context in helping make the best decision.

Fear of failure contributes to outsourcing decisions.

Lack of confidence encourages turning your power over to the person closest to you that has the most self-confidence.

It’s right 100% of the time to consider everything and then make your own decision.

Give someone else that power for any reason and the decision will always be second best.

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Never forget the comebacks.

Recording artists, music stars and politicians know that if you’re planning a comeback, the best way to approach it is to recall all the comebacks you’ve already had.

Did you get cut by the varsity baseball team in 11^th grade only to make the team again as a senior?

This is where all the bad stuff comes back to help.

Recovering from illness.

Marrying again.

Finding a job after being fired.

Making money when you were previously fired.

Pushing back the bully.

Out of bad comes good but not only that everyone has a track record of great resilience if we will only think back to the past and use them to motivate us in the present.

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These 6 steps are more inspirational than any fancy pep talk and can be delivered to others or saved for yourself.

1. Begin with praise and sincere appreciation 

2. Acknowledge the problem or challenge in honest and real terms 

3. Provide help as to how to overcome the problem or challenge

4. Remind yourself (or others) that you/they are human and sometimes get discouraged

5. Vow to eliminate negativity 

6. Tie your pep talk into a specific goal personal or group.

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Between 2014 and 2015 the average time spent on apps has increased 117%.

Apps – especially social media apps – are now the great black hole of the Internet.

Once we’re on them, we go deeper and deeper and stay buried in them.

One way to cut the use of apps for yourself and your children, a growing problem for parents today, is to organize your apps to avoid the attention black hole.

1. Make the first 2 screens of your phone, apps that you just go in and out and use as needed (weather, news, Uber, etc.).

2. After that use a folder for social media where Facebook, SnapChat, Twitter, Instagram and others go.  Check these on an appointment basis with time limits or else become a slave to social media that just sucks your attention in deeper and deeper.

3. Then use your phone consciously as a tool not unconsciously for another shot of dopamine.

I must confess that even sharing these things that I have gleaned from young Internet and mobile experts made me uncomfortable especially the part about making an appointment to check social media apps.

But that’s the problem to be honest.

The phone is not the problem but using it for things that entertain and distract us has consequences.

Bite the bullet and take control.

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Just when you think the country is hopelessly divided, something bigger than politics shows up and dumps four feet of rain on millions of people.

Nothing unites more than a tragedy.

People automatically rise to the occasion and help each other above everything else including their own precarious situations.

There are two kinds of problems.

Thing problems and people problems.

The damage from a hurricane is largely a thing problem which can be fixed eventually although there is always an underlying psychological component.

People problems are worse.

The death of a loved one, loss of any kind, hurt and pain.

Out of bad comes good as we have seen in tragedies such as the recent Houston and Gulf states flooding.

When at a loss for words to grasp the evil of it all, remember the first responders.

They are the light that never goes out among humans.

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Imagine spending every morning devoted on how you can make other people your focus.

Listen to them.

Be less judgmental.

Try to offer help.

Make it about them and not you.

Then in the afternoon, spend your time introspectively making sure that you are living the life you want to live and not living someone else’s plan for you.

At night, focus on friends and family.

Greet loved ones every night as if you are just returning from a two-week business trip away from them.

Phone off – and put away.

100% attention to the people closest to you that matter most.

It’s impossible to make positive change by repeating the things that discourage it.

Wake up focused on others.

The middle of the day is for making sure you are living the life you want to live.

The night 100% present with family and or friends.

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How can you motivate someone without giving them a goal?

Threats work in the short term then fall on deaf ears.

Failure to clearly define a goal results in spotty results.

Money is perhaps the worst motivator because while everyone wants more, it is too vague to bring out the best effort over the long term.

The best motivator for others or yourself is to clearly see in your mind’s eye the goal before you.

Not more money, what that money will bring you that makes you work harder. 

Not more prestige, see vividly what is on your business card. 

Not a promotion, but what that promotion will mean if you get it. 

Achievers may make a lot of money but in truth they are motivated by a whole lot more.

What if you thought about your number one and number two goals today, can you see vividly what they will do for your life or just what they will get you?

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Do one thing differently today.

Smile at everyone you come in contact with whether you know them or not.

I promise, it works.

Say nothing, just be the first to smile and ask no more – move on.

Smiling is empowering because for the most part, the positive chance happens within us no matter what response we get.

Forget that smiling people are more engaging and come off friendlier.

That often, a smile is returned.

Sometimes you even enter into conversation but that is not the goal to transform yourself into the smiler-in-chief.

It is to feel the power of positivity every time you glance at another human being emerge from your being.

Also, it works in meetings.

How many times have you attended a meeting when the leader walks in with a sour face?

Dread!

Imagine what a smile would do before the first words are spoken.

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