There is something in all of us that wants to get our way.

But when the desire to impose your desire on someone else becomes a compulsion, it ruins relationships and damages critical self-esteem.

Bosses do it when they abuse power and force everyone to think as they do. 

Power figures and parents often cross the line between being helpful and hurtful when they must have their way at all costs.

A friend of mine used to half jokingly say that what a wonderful world this would be if we could choose our parents.

For good outcomes in dealing with control freaks, consider this:

1. When someone intimates or states that they know what is best for you, best to not believe it even if you are forced to carry out their will (from an employer, for example).
2. Never let anyone program what gets recorded in that “digital chip” we call our brain.  Even a compliment.  When we allow others to say, “You must do it this way” or worse yet, say hurtful critical things if you resist, then do not let it into your mind.  When getting a compliment, you add it to your mind by using it to reiterate how you already feel about yourself or else risk being co-dependent to the person offering the compliment.
3. Our brains tend to replay criticism rather than positive things, fill your head with positive statements that can be repeated all day.
4. Never try to control a controller.  Be assertive but don’t let them turn you into what you don’t like about them.
5. Say, “I appreciate hearing your thoughts, I’d like to share mine” for those close enough to appreciate your position because sometimes others may not be aware that they are as domineering. 
6. Set boundaries.  Defend them respectfully.  If you get nowhere, refuse to discuss the topic further.
7. Trying to control a controller at work makes life more stressful and will get you fired.  Make suggestions but defer to the boss until you can find other employment.

One more thing.

Sometimes we become the control freaks, but the solution is more readily treated by taking a dose of the following medicine:

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

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Potions and lotions and Botox exist to make us eternally younger but as one of my readers wrote, “Do you have any suggestions for making our world more livable as we age?”

It seems as if we live in a world created for young people, but every generation has said that.

I used to tell my USC music students that they would get so old that they will not like music younger people like.  They were shocked to hear me say that day would come before their 30^th birthday.

So much for chronological aging.

Good health goes a long way but aging really is terminal unless you adopt a more positive attitude.

1. Living in the past relegates us to aging more quickly.  Visit the past for happy recollection not as a retreat from contemporary living.
2. A future with no new ideas, routines or challenges accelerates the aging process.  Think like a teenager, it’s okay.  Force yourself to try new things and no one will care or even notice your numerical age.  You may have to kick yourself to get started but you’ll love the way it makes you feel.
3. Every attempt to live in the present transcends the march of time.
4. Avoid using the word “old”.  And the word “young” is not useful.  Substitute “enthusiastic” instead.
5. Even many doctors stop learning when they get in their productive earning years, the first sign of aging is an unwillingness to commit to learning new things about your profession, life and interests.

Life is not fair.

Babies die, men live until 100 and suffer the ravages of aging for decades until they pass.

In this economy it has been noted that if you lose a job today and you’re older than 50 it may be your last full-time career position.  Depressing?  No.  It means, take a different path instead.

Lots of 20-year olds are old and 70-year olds young.

The best advice for remaining “young”:  never outgrow your zest for enthusiasm.

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We know that when things go bad, dig down and find more gratitude.

But one way to endure rough spots in life is to take an inventory of your strengths.

In a Veterans Affairs psychiatric rehabilitation program, patients were given an opportunity to take a 240-question survey to determine strengths and virtues and receive a printout of their five best strengths. 

The participants reported pride in their discoveries, improved mood and a sense of accomplishment by doing nothing more than reflecting on their strengths and virtues.

And this had a carryover effect in which many veterans referred to their strengths as they continued therapy and planned for their future.

We spend too much time ruminating about what is wrong.

For most of us, making a conscious effort to recall and remember our strengths and virtues can be the best help for getting through tough times.

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I read a fascinating article from the doctors at Harvard Medical School that happiness in part depends on choices but more choices don’t necessarily mean more happiness.

Actually, fewer choices can help you appreciate what you have – the opposite of what many of us think.  After all, today we’re all about options. 

Having fewer choices can also be freeing.

The University of Minnesota conducted a mall survey in 2008 that showed making more shopping choices made people less able to pay attention.  They were tested on simple arithmetic problems and were less able to complete them.

Research from Swarthmore College and Columbia University showed college students who had the most choices for employment made on average 20% more but a year after being hired reported being less happy with their new jobs than classmates who looked for the best options instead of going for volume.

It turns out once again that more is not automatically better.

If you’re like me, you crave the most options, but the research that I am sharing today is making me take a second look.

Action Step:  “To keep the burden of choice from robbing you of pleasure, go on a choice diet.  For choices of no great consequence, limit the amount of time or number of options you’ll consider.  Just say “no” to too many choices” – Harvard Medical School “Positive Psychology”.

If you liked today’s thought, tell a friend and I’ll keep them coming

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I’ve liked myself the best when I have been true to myself.

When I think with my head.

Feel with my heart.

And not the other way around.

When my life is not the “overnight Nielsen ratings” in an attempt to make more friends, curry more favor to ingratiate myself to others, make more money and accrue more power by being someone who I am not.

I start each day in front of the mirror while shaving by being grateful for the people in my life, looking deep into my own eyes to remind myself of who I really am and who I want to be and by dreaming of what my life could be with the day ahead that I am fortunate enough to have.

Sometimes it is difficult to be yourself.  God knows, there are pressures all around to be the employee the boss wants, the partner your spouse wants and the “success” society expects.

Everything we do to be a better person should be directly tied to everything we do to be the fine person we already are.

It takes courage to become the person you really are.  When we make it part of our daily routine, it is not only possible, but probable.

“Do your thing and don’t care if they don’t like it” – Tina Fey

Let’s face it.  People are often funny about saying those three words.

But there is no need to let that stop you from expressing love to a spouse, a friend, a child or a parent. 

Maybe we just don’t do soap opera I love you’s very well.

Not a problem from now on.

The words are nice but the deeds are nicer.

A dinner with a card that says it for you is just as much a winner as the words without dinner.

A USC student told me that most of his friends have credit cards from mom and pop and to him that meant spend anything but don’t ask me to come visit.  So, when it comes to expressing love, actions do speak louder than words.  Money isn’t love.

Consider this as a father Paul Harvey once talked about on his radio show how he slipped a note into the glove compartment of his daughter’s car in case of an accident.  Well, she had that accident and read the note which said something like don’t worry about the car, you are safe and that is all that matters.

And remember, even people where I love you’s freely roll off of their lips have no advantage over the rest of us.

Food is love.

The gift of time is love.

Funny thing.

Sometimes when the action speaks louder than the words, the words find a way of coming out more easily – in that order.

Let’s get lovin’.

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When I was a Dale Carnegie instructor, I once heard a student who, as part of her speaking assignment about a childhood experience, told the class that her father removed all doors from their house including the bathroom.

What a dramatic reminder of the power of shame.

But shame isn’t limited to bizarre situations like removing the doors in a house.  Shame happens every day even in subtle ways.

Sometimes we are the shamers who tell another: “you should be ashamed of yourself” and sometimes we are the recipients of shame.

Marilyn Sorenson, author of Breaking the Chain of Low Self-Esteem says “unlike guilt – which is the feeling of doing something wrong, shame is the feeling of being something wrong”.

There are four effective ways to deal with shame:

1. Accept your faults as long as you can name an equal number of good virtues.  The French poet Jean de La Fontaine said:  “Everyone has the faults which he continually repeats, neither fear nor shame can cure them”.  We are less vulnerable to shame when we feel good about ourselves.
2. Avoid becoming codependent to another person because codependent people rely on others to validate them and they are subject to shameful feelings.
3. No one – like in no one – gets your permission to act in an abusive way.
4. Love in self is the antidote for shame. 

Shame kills self-esteem.

But love of self kills shame.

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The brilliant underground artist Lou Reed who died over the weekend at the age of 71 pleased audiences and performers alike.

But perhaps his best contribution was to remind us that our lives have a certain order – a type of continuity – that should be on our minds throughout our lives.

Reed told Rolling Stone in a 1987 interview that he considered all of his albums as chapters of a book in his life:

“All through this, I’ve always thought that if you thought of all of it as a book then you have the Great American Novel, every record as a chapter … They’re all in chronological order. You take the whole thing, stack it and listen to it in order, there’s my Great American Novel.”

Life with a purpose, not an accident.

The chapters are things that we actively dream, plan and accomplish using our God-given gifts.

You never complete it, nor do you stop writing new chapters until the day you die.

Reed pioneered lyrical honesty and paved the way for punk and alternative rock with his life’s work.

How is your very own Great American Novel shaping up – now is a great time to plan and write the next chapter.

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Look at it like this.

When you start your car, you can’t use your house key.

When you open your office, you can’t gain entrance with your desk key.

What lets you into a safe deposit box doesn’t open your luggage.

But somehow we miss the most valuable tool we could ever use to bring the best out of others – it takes a different key for everyone to unlock their value.

Bosses have one set of rules – but why?  Everyone is not the same.  This doesn’t mean every employee gets to make their own rules, it means not everyone responds the same way to one approach.

Why email memos to “the staff” or “the team” are a waste of time.

And “rules” will increasingly get you no cooperation in a world that hates rules.

The best new management skill is to create a mental key for everyone you deal with – by the way, this works at home as well.  From now on, one key doesn’t fit all. 

The key to unlocking the talents of Megan is not necessarily the same key that unlocks the skills of Josh.  Know this and you will increase your effectiveness as long as you do it.

Be prepared to carry around a mental keychain with all the knowledge you have of dealing for each individual in your life.

The greatest achievers already have this in their DNA. 

We can add it today.

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Thank you is two powerful words.

If you ask people what is eating them, a lack of appreciation is near the top of the list.  In fact, for decades, workplace studies confirm that the number one thing employee’s want in their career is appreciation.

Even above money!

Money often ranks fourth or lower.

Appreciation is free – we humans have the capability of manufacturing as much appreciation as we need every day.  And yet, too frequently we don’t do it.

Everyone knows how to show appreciation – a word, a note, a handshake, a compliment in front of others – the ways are endless.

But first we must make generating constant appreciation a more significant part of our daily routine.

May I share with you what got my attention the very first time I heard it?

Even a seal is thrown a fish for listening to its trainer.

What an image.

What a great way to remember to walk around and hand out the “food” that makes people happy, cooperative and motivated – sincere and honest appreciation.

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