Not by controlling them.

That never works.

The hardest thing is to let go of all the issues that are making us unhappy.  Humans don’t want to give up control without a fight.  We would rather get our way or try to convince another person that it is in their best interests to change.

Except it never works.

A sure way to be unhappy is to try and change someone.

So the secret is to learn to cultivate an outlook that lets you throw off the things that you feel as if you would like to control.

Your partner is not listening to you and you feel ignored.  Try as you may, you will probably never change this.  All you will do is make yourself unhappy.  Spend money on therapy.  The answer:  change the way you look at this and see if you can find another way he or she exhibits another way for you to be recognized and validated.

Your boss always has to be right.  Good luck taking on this project because your boss is likely to go right on assuming they are right and everyone else is wrong which will make you very unhappy.  Your time and focus would be better spent not looking to your boss for this type of approval.  Give it to yourself for a job well done.

The best way to gain control is to give up control.

The alternative is to be forever unhappy.

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Visiting the past is a good thing.

It helps us understand the present.

But looking back is like looking in your rearview mirror too much while you’re driving – we’re more likely to make bad decisions when we don’t keep our eyes on the road ahead.

Accepting what has happened in the past is the most important reason to revisit it.

Learn from what has taken place.

Deal with the appropriate issues and move on.

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I once met the famous U2 spy pilot Francis Gary Powers whose jet was shot down during the cold war by the Soviet Union.

He was working for the same company I was working for – the great Buckley Broadcasting.

At a cocktail party at the Buckley rep firm in New York, I will never forget what he told me.

In short, it was to never fly in anything but a fixed wing aircraft because unlike a helicopter, you could always have a chance to bring it down and land safely.

Powers was a traffic reporter for Buckley’s LA area station at the time.

So you can imagine my reaction when I heard that Francis Gary Powers subsequently took a job with flying a helicopter for an LA TV news operation.

And how shocked I was to eventually hear he died in a helicopter crash – the very thing he feared and warned me to avoid.

Our instincts are usually always right.

What’s wrong is that we are often out of touch with them.

As Agatha Christie put it, “Instinct is a marvelous thing. It can neither be explained nor ignored.”

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The author Viktor Frankl who was incarcerated in a prison camp during World War II was a psychiatrist who concluded that suffering is pain that has no meaning.

Frankl said at the moment suffering finds meaning, it ceases to be suffering.

If we are suffering, we need to search for meaning in that suffering.

Child birth is suffering without the meaning that it brings a beautiful new life into the world. 

Chemotherapy is often suffering for cancer patients until they discover that this therapy may extend their lives or at the very least give them hope that a cure can be found.

A painful divorce or breakup of a relationship is unbearable unless and until the aggrieved parties can accept the loss and see a better future someday with someone else. 

Suffering is a part of life but what makes it bearable is hope.

The hope that this suffering will bring us something better.

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There are 86 million Millennials between the ages of 18-35 and they our co-workers and even our bosses.

As a college professor, I watched how Millennials interacted with each other to observe the maximum results.

These interactions give clues as to how to relate to this wonderful, kind generation that has grown up on instant gratification and social justice.

Do not confront.  Look for consensus.

Teams, the popular management trend at the moment, are not such a good fit for Millennial workers unless they get to choose the teams and make up the rules. 

It’s about them, not you.  This may be hard to swallow but Millennials are as self-absorbed as Baby Boomers can be authoritative.

They are the same as every other generation when it comes to praise, giving and receiving appreciation, fair play, equal opportunity.  If you have these same characteristics, be yourself.

Be authentic.  Millennials don’t care about age; they care about whether the people they work with are real.  Remember, they fell in love with Bernie Sanders, a 74-year old self-proclaimed socialist because they perceived him as being authentic.

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Never in the history of civilization have there been more anti-depressant pills prescribed for dealing with depression.

Still, depression keeps increasing as a modern day malady of life.

Sometimes medication and therapy work, then meds are changed or therapy refocused.  It can be a life commitment to battle the blues.

No matter what the approach, one thing seems to work when applied frequently.

That is conjuring up and expressing gratitude not only for the big obvious things in life but more importantly, the little things.

When we are focused on gratitude, we are less focused on what makes us unhappy.

Today, we can choose to find the good in people, in our situation and in ourselves as a non-medicinal form of banishing the blues.

And the extra benefit is that once these patterns of found gratitude are repeated over and over, they change the brainwaves that affect our moods.

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Talk about them – not you.

Their interests.

Their input.

It’s not necessary to weigh in with your own reaction to something they are saying as much as it is important to draw them out and let your ears do the work.

Over the ages and continuing today in our connected technological generation, the number one way to get others to like you, is to not talk about “you”.

Talk about them.

And then a miraculous thing almost always happens.

At some point, the other person leans forward and asks about you.

Proving again that you had them at “you”.

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Let’s be honest.

The world is real and although there are a lot of genuinely nice people in it, we also run into backstabbers, the worst and most hurtful kind of person in our lives.

We best a backstabber by …

Building good relationships with those around you.  A backstabber cannot succeed when you have an army of supporters who like and respect you. 

Avoid sentences with “you” which can put backstabbers on the defensive or worse yet the offensive.  Instead start with, “I’m hearing false rumors about me”.

Document the backstabbing.  If trying to talk to the backstabber fails, take it to your supervisor rather than let it threaten your career.

Backstabbing is a form of bullying.  Even if it hurts you, stand up to it.  A bully doesn’t like to be pushed back and they often pick a new victim based on how vulnerable they are. 

Be careful of the person you share weaknesses with because some people can’t wait to use them against you.

“Don’t worry about backstabbers, they’re the people who tried their hardest finding faults in your life instead of fixing the faults in theirs”.

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• People who sap our confidence often don’t have the accomplishments we have so focus on your existing strengths when others make you feel weak.

• Repeat often today “There is only one of me in the world” and be proud of it.

• Steve Jobs was forced out of his own company but later returned to Apple to gain fame and fortune. Starting today, see every so-called “failure” as a step toward success. This is the single most important thing to me in gaining and maintaining self-confidence.

• Anyone can be confident when things go their way but people who can learn from misfortune can be confident in good times and bad.

• Ted Williams was the greatest hitter in baseball, hitting just over .400 one season – a remarkable feat. I think about this often. Not the over .400 part. The 60% percent of the time that the greatest hitter ever failed.

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Think of trust like this.

Studies of 100 ship sinking’s that killed 100 or more people over the last 100 years shows who gets off the sinking ship first.

The crew.

The captain.

The men.

The women.

And believe it or not the children are left to fend for themselves.

When we book a cruise, how often do we ask if there are enough lifeboats to save everyone?  We trust that there are just as we trust that others will help us off a sinking ship.

The human condition is such that we save ourselves first and while there are a few exceptions, it is only a few.

We have no right depending on others for trust if we don’t first trust ourselves.

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