We all have a great motivation to changing the way we deal with mean people for if we don’t, we can easily become more like them.

Be more compassionate of their faults.

If your ex is hurting you, first say “It must be awful for him or her to have to hurt the people they love”. 

An employer who makes your life miserable because they lie or are insensitive to your needs or input is a person you should pity at the next sign of bad behavior.  Something like – “What a waste – to hate instead of appreciate“.

Or “That SOB that just cut me off almost killed me, let’s hope his family is not in the situation he put me into”. 

Being compassionate to mean people is not condoning it or allowing any kind of abuse to continue.

Taking a second to rise above is the gift you will give yourself to prevent you from retaliating in a similarly mean way. 

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Yoga and meditation are very effective ways to help some people focus on the now.

For many, staying in the present is difficult to do and often they end up spending too much time dwelling on the past or overly concerned about tomorrow.

If you’re like me, you might find this an effective way to focus on the only thing that can bring you happiness – what is happening now.

Think of the past as an old steel file cabinet, the kind that used to be prevalent before we started keeping files on computers.

It’s good to refer back to files from time to time, but not to keep your head buried in them.  When that happens, close the drawer and return to the present.

Looking ahead is invaluable to making good decisions, but If you’re spending too much time in the future, be conscious of the time you spend looking forward to things that may never happen and return to your life at this very moment.

The past and the future are not your life.  What is happening here and now is the only thing that matters.

Avoid the black hole of the past or the never-never land of the future by always returning to the present.

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Successful entrepreneurs are often not very nice people.

Headstrong.

Unwilling to listen to the input of others.

Human relations that make you want to hate them.

And yet they are often so critical to the success of businesses that they are at least tolerated if not adored.

There are lots of stories about Steve Jobs.

His temper, impetuousness, bad manners, sense of entitlement and even lack of consideration.

He routinely parked in the handicapped spot at Apple and drove his California car without a license plate.

But Apple is the great company it is because they do things well.

Customer service, sales, support.

And Apple employees are among the happiest of modern day corporations.

So how do you earn your next promotion?

Be an expert at effective human relations.

See every person as different and you make the key that unlocks their potential.

Give credit rather than take it.

Listen to the ideas of others.

And most importantly, be authentic – the number one quality we should all work on every day.

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Catherine Steiner-Adair, a Harvard psychologist, interviewed 1,000 children from 4 to 18 years of age and hundreds of teachers and parents for her book about protecting childhood and family relationships in the digital era.

One red flag was children’s ire, sadness and frustration in trying to get their parents away from smartphones, tablets and computers.

You might have thought it would be the other way around – parents complaining about their kids being too digital.

Parents often parcel out screen time to their kid, but they often violate the boundaries that separate work from family.

Put the phone away at dinner – do not answer calls, emails or texts.

Separate from the phone (as hard as that is to do) on a regular basis. 

Charge your phone way off the beaten track to give you and those around you some face time.

Take a one-day holiday from digital activity and give that time to someone you care for.

Your children and loved ones deserve the same addictive focus that your cellphone gets.

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Schedule 10 minutes of worry time every day.

It limits your worry and frees your time for living.

When you feel the urge to worry, hold that thought for your next 10-minute daily worry session.  When that tine comes, worry away – have at it.  At the conclusion return to focusing on the present.  Any future worry thoughts are held for the next day.

Most things we worry about never actually happen.

And the ones that do, don’t happen the way we fear they will.

Why hold our lives hostage to worry when we can schedule 10 minutes of worry time every day to deal with whatever is eating at us.

Mark Twain said, “I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened”.

Try 10 minute worry sessions and see if they don’t help break the unreasonable fear that ruins our happiness.

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If you have kids and watch their behavior, you’ll notice that they have an innate way to focus on what is right.

They don’t try to improve us.

That’s what we try to do to them.

When you are in the company of a loved one don’t try to improve them.  Accept them as they are.  This is the secret to real friendship.

My best friend never criticized me in any way.  And when he had a point to make, he did so by asking a question.

More families, more friendships and more workplace associations are ruined by our need to improve someone else.

If the need to improve is so great, we can start by looking in the mirror.

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Life is tough because it tends to interrupt our well-intentioned plans to be happier.

A few weeks back, my wife and I attended a one-day Mayo Clinic Stress-Free Living seminar in Scottsdale, AZ.

The author and physician Amit Sood dazzled with so many ways to get to a more meaningful, stress-free life that it left one wondering where to begin.

But here is what Dr. Sood said.

If you do only two things to change your life, do these two:

1. Don’t postpone joy.  Our little and big victories, our happy moments are often squandered because we tend to move on to what’s next before we celebrate what has just happened.
2. Live a life of kindness even if others around you are not kind to you.  There are many benefits to the person who is being kind to others.  Most — not all – of the recipients will show kindness in return.

There is time to become an expert at relieving stress and living the life you really want to live, but to begin take these two steps that make all the difference in the world.

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The undisputable fact is that genetics and circumstances have the most to do with our happiness.

Thanks, mom and dad.  And thanks to your boss who is making life miserable.

The good news is that about 40% of happiness is due to intentional activities.

We can fight back or stack the deck in our favor by taking action.

And the number one way to take action and reap the happiness benefit is to increase our practice of being grateful every day.

Research studies also show that gratitude-based happiness also tends to increase the happiness of those around us as well.

There are so many ways to be more grateful.

Start each day by identifying three people for whom you are grateful even before you get up out of bed.

Or just writing a big “thank you” on the receipt for breakfast, lunch or dinner whether the service is great or not.  I like to include the server’s name with that “thank you”.

We take a lot of pills to improve our mood, but small and deliberate acts of gratitude are accountable for 40% of how we feel.

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When we don’t have the time, we lack priorities.

We always have time for the people who are important or the things that must be done.

It’s just a matter of putting our priorities in order and being constantly aware of this process.

The father at dinner with his children who glances at his cellphone even one time is telling his children that hearing them is not a strong priority.

Put the phone away and listen – that sends a positive message.

Lack of time to enjoy your success is failure.

Enjoying the fruits of your labor is a priority you can choose to make.

For people who wonder, “When am I going to have the time to do everything?”, they are guaranteed a stressful life unless they prioritize what is important.

The good news is we don’t need more hours in the day.

Years ago I read a great book that I can recommend to you by Alan Lakein called How To Get Control of Your Time and Your Life.  It was written before the digital age even though it is almost hard to believe that life could have been stressful back then.

In it, he emphasizes constantly asking ourselves if what we’re doing now is a good use of our time.  It’s not just about being efficient.  It’s about being happy.

Because in the end there is nothing worse than doing something well that doesn’t need to be done at all.

And there is nothing more disappointing than wasting a precious day on that which in the end is not going to increase our happiness.

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Modern life is fast moving and egocentric.

TV commercials tell us that companies wishing to do business with us are letting us have it our way. 

Social media by its very nature is egocentric.  We take “selfies” and post them and “like” the pictures posted by our social media “friends”.

Our lives are narrated on Twitter where our next thought becomes part of the thread of our lives.  Following others sometimes gets us caught up in their limited world.

Dale Carnegie used to say to make another person truly like you “talk in terms of the other person’s interests” yet now we find that the “other person” is already talking in terms of their own interests.  The world has changed that much.

Social media is perhaps the greatest invention of the Internet age but it has more potential to be a real tool for friendship.

Parties, events and special occasions are just plain fun and social media makes them even more fun by extension.

To live among the self-absorbed, make a conscious effort to remove yourself from self-absorption.

Spend some of your time talking in terms of the other person’s interests and make sure you’re not monopolizing the conversation whether it is in-person or through social media.

For those willing to deflect attention from themselves will come the reward of being sincerely liked if not loved by others.

In other words, the other person’s self-absorption stops and starts with us.

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