Remember that diplomacy is the art of letting the other party have things your way.

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The head and heart often get mistakenly assigned to the wrong task.

• Think with your head
• Feel with your heart
• Not the reverse

“The heart is forever making the head its fool” — François de la Rochefoucauld.

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Adversity can actually strengthen friendships as George Washington pointed out:

• “True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation”.

• We earn the right to be a friend – friendship is not just a feeling – a good or great feeling – it is much more. 

• I love this definition of a true friend: “Your friend is the man (person) who knows all about you, and still likes you.” (Elbert Hubbard)

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“I must not fear.

Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.

I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.

Only I will remain.”

— Frank Herbert

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Just because people are quiet, doesn’t mean that they don’t have something to say.

And being talkative doesn’t mean you do.

• One of the most advanced and potent human relations skills is to listen to the other side of silence.
• That which is not said, but can be valuable if we listen for it in others.
• Listening to the other side of silence requires a sensitivity for the whole of another person without prejudgment.
• Being seen and heard does not just apply to expressing ourselves, it’s about establishing a healthy line of communication.

“I’ve begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and a dimension all its own.” – Chaim Potok, The Chosen

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My neighbor died suddenly recently – she was 50 years old, a husband, two children – one week away from starting college – it all makes no sense and is hard to comprehend.

• The Dalai Lama reminds us of a saying in Tibetan: “Tragedy should be utilized as a source of strength”. From strength comes acceptance.
• “The shattering of a heart when being broken is the loudest quiet ever” – Carroll Bryant.

• For survivors, help – Keeping a person alive in our memories requires no more than taking the thing we admire most and spending a lifetime living it.

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I had a student tell her classmates that she was more than willing to forgive a friend who hurt her after she got back at her!

• Hey, forgiveness is not for them, it’s for you – By letting go, you are able to avoid becoming the person you don’t like.
• But there are limits – people who abuse are better left out, no need going there.
• Forgiving is not forgetting so by letting go of the anger, you are not disregarding the problem but letting it go.

In the end, all of us have control over the person we want to be and while forgiving sounds magnanimous, it is self-preserving so that we stay on track to be the person we want to be.

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One of my students favorite assignments is when I ask them to write a paper and give themselves a pat on the back.

• It’s easy until this happens – They can easily write what they are proud of doing but can’t resist criticizing themselves before they are done (which is not the assignment).
• Getting rid of the guilt – Just being able to say they did something well seems to come with guilt which is of no benefit to anyone.
• The magic is to own the compliment without detriment and believing it.

Let’s face it we are competent – sometimes awesome – and recognizing that without limits is the lesson we should be teaching ourselves for that which we have earned.

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The greatest baseball player of all time – Ted Williams, the only person to have a season’s batting average of over .400 said a wise thing worth remembering.

“Baseball is the only field of endeavor where a man can succeed three times out of ten and be considered a good performer”.

• Redefine success – That suggests that we might be better off to define what success really is before getting started.
• Not reaching perfect isn’t failure – No one, not even Ted Williams, bats 1.000 and that’s ok – in baseball, a player hitting .250 can be a multi-millionaire with a long career.

Lift the burden off your back and shoot for perfection but judge success by a more realistic standard.

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Sports fans cringe when their teams suddenly stop winning with a passion and losing with apparent abandon.

• Slumps are normal – Everyone goes through them, so why do they get out of hand and give the feeling you’ll never win again – you don’t have to be an athlete to experience this.
• Pressing makes things worse – In sports the bat sticks to your hands, you grip the hockey stick too tight – it’s the opposite of just playing your best.
• The answer – Firing the coach sometimes works in sports to release the pressure but the rest of us can’t fire ourselves so refocusing on how good we are when we are simply ourselves is a way out.
• It’s usually all in our heads – Just like when we’re on a winning streak and everything seems to go our way.  Patience, positive self-talk and times at bat can bring us back to excellence.