Acknowledging others takes so little effort and requires no special skills and yet it is a powerful way to win friends and inspire interaction.

So why don’t we do it?

We’re turned inward looking down at phones and navigating the black hole of social media where it is easy to get lost and miss the world around us.

Ways to acknowledge people:

• Smile without doing anything else
• Pay a compliment
• Show a courtesy (“please, go first”, “you’ve been waiting, step ahead of me”)
• Put your phone away and start a conversation
• Offer to help

People want no more than to be acknowledged.

And if you thought I was referring only to strangers (above), go through the bulleted points again and see how they can apply to friends, family members and associates.

To be a powerful person, engage in the skill of recognizing them in real time.

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The average white-collar worker spends a whopping 6 hours a day on email according to an Adobe workplace survey.

And that’s without counting other distractions – just straight email time.

Focus is the skill you want to excel in the workplace and outperform others.  The person who can eliminate attention leaks is likely to be the most employable.

Ways to cut off attention leaks:

• Turn off notifications – You’ll just keep going with distractions if you see them pop up all the time on devices.
• Too much information hurts – We become overcome with too much information and anything additional tends to slip away from our brains – a good reason not to keep bombarding yourself with information of all kinds while trying to work.
• Multitasking is an attention leak – More useful is to prioritize the 20% of what you have to do which will bring you 80% of your productivity.  Do less to accomplish more and plug the attention leaks.
• Limit focused time – Pick a time period – say an hour – when you can focus on your work, plug attention leaks and minimize the flow of too much information.  Then take a break.
• Don’t think – When I face a problem, I try to erase everything and keep the mind blank and sure enough the answer rises to the top effortlessly.

Attention can be cultivated but without exercise, it becomes inefficient and non-productive.

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They talk endlessly about themselves almost as if you don’t exist.

When you do talk, they lose focus.

They emphasize with themselves not others.

1. Cut off the oxygen.  Your attention is their oxygen.
2. If they don’t ask about you, why continue to feed their self-absorption.
3. They get no pass even if they are family members.  Even being in the same room or same chat with a person who makes it all about them is you encouraging them to continue.
4. Reward people who focus on you by asking them questions about them or as it used to be called “a conversation”.

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If you win all the time, you are likely to head for a losing streak.

And that’s okay because winners are people who take their failures and turn them into the art of succeeding.

You’ve seen a sports team that gets so far ahead in the score that they become lax allowing their competitor to catch up – scare them or beat them.

People who seem to be born with all the breaks who when finally hit with adversity don’t know how to handle it.

Winning is more fun but losing is the rehearsal for another victory.

It helps introduce you to the people around you and to the adversity you’re facing.

Hope for the best.

But when faced with the worst know that out of bad always come good.

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1. “Best” List — Make a list of the things that you are the best at.   Only your top traits.
2. Work in Progress — Compile a list of things that erode your confidence because they are things you are not feeling good about.
3. Review success constantly — Create a “notes” file on your phone to record daily accomplishments and victories that you have.  Scroll through that list often.  Latest accomplishment on top.
4. Permanent accomplishments — The things no one can ever take away from you – getting into the college of your choice, winning a promotion (even if you wind up leaving the job later), things that other people can never know because they are so personal like overcoming an addiction (even if you regress at a later date).  Permanent accomplishments should never be forgotten because you earned them and they count towards your self-esteem.

People who lack confidence have no shortage of successes.  They just focus on failure too much.

Getting your confidence from the words of others is transient.

Recognizing the things you do well and the improvements you make on the things you could do better is permanent.

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The best use of social media is to limit your involvement with it.

Tristan Harris, the former Google code writer and now advocate for people to reign in the “black hole” of social media, says it’s a time waster that draws you further and further away from focusing on the present.

• Relegate social media to the 2^nd page of your phone screen – And store it in a folder.  That way the next time you use Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat or other networks, you have to specifically go open it up.  Having it on the first screen and easily available is too much temptation.
• Set a timer – Five minutes can easily become 25 minutes because of the addicting nature of following, liking and spying.  Set an alarm for social media time.
• Match social media time with real time – If you spend 20 minutes on Facebook, spend a comparable 20 minutes face-to-face or talking on the phone to a real breathing human being.
• Invest the “saved” time in friends – Controlling social media use will result in extra time that can be spent with family, friends or loved ones who are all around you.

Harris, the code writer, reminds us that Google and other purveyors of social networking have one goal — getting users to spend more time on social media so they can serve more ads.

A good reminder when looking for the courage to cut back and return to the present.

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Thanksgiving is such a simple holiday that is often packed with emotional upheaval from families that come together and are forced to confront hard feelings and raw pent up emotions.

Retailers are beginning to rename Thanksgiving “Thanksgifting” and encouraging customers to start early and “thank yourself”.

The gift that is most appropriate for that one day is gratitude.

Some recipes for success:

• Keep the focus on gratitude and when someone uncovers sore points in the family dynamic, just be thankful that you have a family.  Many people do not.
• Thank the host.  Fewer people each year prepare a feast and if you’re fortunate enough to be invited to one, start dinner with a toast to the preparer.
• Remember those who are no longer present.  Say their names, say a line or two about why you miss them.
• Family doesn’t have to be perfect — few are.  Even if you cannot get along with a family member, keep returning to gratitude.  The homeless do not have the luxury of enjoying the warmth of a meal with family no matter if someone in the family tries to ruin it.

The gift to give yourself is gratitude and there are many ways to remind yourself of it on Thanksgiving Day.

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New research suggests that as the brain gets hooked on cellphone technology, the mind weakens.

• We check our phones 80 times a day — According to stats that Apple keeps.
• That’s 30,000 times a year! – Far more than anything humans do so it is no surprise that the smartphone usages directly affects intelligence.
• Phones shape our thoughts when we’re not using them – As the brain grows dependent on technology, the intellect becomes weaker.
• Even one ring or a vibrate starts a path of distraction that makes it hard to focus.  This delays reasoning and performance.  Just one ring – even when we don’t look at the phone – starts this process.
• Blood pressure and pulse quickens – Just hearing a ring or vibrate sound and we are unable to respond according to a study of iPhone users.
• The argument for hiding your phone – A study of undergrads at The University of California San Diego shows test takers did worse when their phones were within view and students who left their phones in a different room did best.  As the phones proximity increased, brainpower decreased. 

The dumbing down didn’t just apply to intellect.

Social skills and relationships are adversely affected because they are a reminder of all the people we can connect with electronically and it distracts.

Smart move:  reign in smartphone use for its many benefits and take seriously its disadvantages that over time can be very concerning.

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There are more tools than ever to deal with workplace stress – expanded child care, family friendly benefits like gyms and flexible hours and yet workers are more stressed than ever.

Polls show over 50% of Millennials think anxiety is the major issue that they face and there is evidence that stress is not limited to any one generation.

• Separate work and personal – Digital devices allow workers to remain connected all the time.  That’s a big part of the problem.  Separate business from personal even if it means owning two separate phones.
• Cut social media – Again, because we have our world at our fingertips, we tend to live impulsively – responding to texts just because we got them or emails to keep our inbox clean or (and this is a big one) constantly check social media which is the number one place to look to cut stress.
• Turn off the phone – Yes, off like in powered down.  If you’re unwilling to turn your phone off then no matter how you rationalize it, you’re too connected and that connection invites more stress.

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The other day I saw a school bus stop in front of a house as a parent was driving out the driveway to avoid getting stuck behind the bus stopping and starting.

What they forgot to do is talk to the child even for a second, give and get a hug or open the window to ask how their day was.

What could have been more important?

Stress, anxiety, living on a schedule that never seems to end all contributes to more stress and anxiety.

The real losers are the people who love them.

Apple made us the phone, but we have to make it a tool that fits our life – not the other way around.

Employers give benefits that enable employees to work more collaboratively but that doesn’t mean it promotes real human interaction.

Let’s write some new rules:

• People before stressors – If a schedule is so tight that it causes anxiety and rushing around, choose people in your life over more angst.
• People before phones – Nothing commands more attention than a phone in hand that rings or vibrates.  Imagine how people feel when a phone steals the attention of others.
• Multitasking is a relationship killer – It doesn’t matter if it can be done well.  Multitasking requires some degree of distraction in order to accomplish your many goals.  And it causes more anxiety because studies have shown that people who multitask simply continue to add more things to do as they get proficient in checking things off their to do list.

Rethink multitasking even if you’re good at it.

Few people can multitask and interact at the same time.

All you need to do is imagine the look of these kids’ faces when this parent took off to accomplish another goal when the real priorities were standing right in front of them — on the sidewalk.

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