It’s not the number, it’s the reason they are considered friends.

The share of Americans reporting 10 or more close friendships decreased from 1990 to 2024, while the number reporting no friendships increased from 1 to 17 percent according to Gallup.

Why am I friends with that person – what joy do we share, what interests?

How did they earn being a friend – was it a social media add or something more significant?

In work we tend to keep in touch with people who may be friends or just acquaintances so the key is to be able to state specifically why a person is a valued friend of yours.

This bumps them up to the forefront of our busy lives and helps us cherish the relationship.

If you liked this pass it on to others.

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People play the lottery expecting to win – they’re so optimistic that they bet money on it.

The odds are always against them, but never mind.

It’s difficult to bet on ourselves when we often harbor thoughts of not succeeding.

Looked at another way:  Betting on you is more of a sure-thing than buying lottery tickets.

The payoff is greater when we expect ourselves to succeed with the same optimism we believe we’re going to hit the lottery.

And it’s cheaper.

If you can believe your longshot odds every time you buy a ticket, you can believe in yourself every time you need confidence.

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“I’m so swamped” and similar complaints is turning out to be a cry for help according to new research from the University of Georgia business school.

Talking about how busy we are tends to backfire – I do it and I hear it a lot from contemporaries and my young college students so this study caught my attention as a good Daystarter.

It has a “spillover” effect – it fosters burnout in those around us.

Today I am thinking rather than saying how stressed or busy I feel, prioritize life instead.

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The average American wastes 2½ hours a day dreamscrolling – searching for dream purchases or things they fantasize about owning one day.

That’s 873 hours a year – more than a full month of their life out of touch with reality online.

And in a recent OnePoll survey, of those daydreamers one in five say they spend between three and four hours a day multitasking while working.

There’s dreamscrolling and then there is doing research for a planned purchase – often two different things.

One of the biggest issues today is loneliness – the kind that is self-inflicted on digital devices.

Being mindful of the amount of time wasted in a non-productive way is a first step in putting the time to better use.

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One of my students came up to me after class and shared that he felt lonely and removed from others socially because everyone is so engaged with their phones and social media.

Here’s what I told him:  Take small steps, break out of your private pattern, engage others.

Specifics:  Take a front seat in the classroom, be among the first to raise your hand and volunteer to respond, talk to someone on the way in or out of the room and when walking outside, look at someone else and smile at them.  Simple.  Small steps.

By the end of the semester, he said he was feeling more confident and enjoying being able to be first to engage others who seemed very appreciative.

Everything we need to make us happy and less isolated is already within waiting inside us to be awakened.

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Forgiving doesn’t mean forgetting.

It doesn’t always mean reconciliation.

You’re not doing it for the other person.

Forgiving is necessary for all healing starting with you.

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Program consultant Mike Joseph once told me that his secret to choosing the best new format when re-doing a radio station was to look for the “hole” in the market.

The thing that competitors may have missed or ignored – and when you look closely enough there it is right in your face.

In life our better decisions would be the ones where we ask – what am I missing?

What’s the obvious choice that I may not be able to see at first.

Today, become more aware of hidden choices that may, after all, be right in front of us and then pursue them with vigor.

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A team doesn’t have to like being coached or being pushed.

Player-friendly coaches get fired just as often as hard driving ones.

The ones that last the longest, win the most, hit the highs are the ones who are fair.

Being fair doesn’t mean being overly understanding or friendly.

Fair to the team member and how to help them get the most from their talent.

Fair to you, the manager of many different people with one goal.

If you thought I was talking about only sports, don’t forget fairness is the quality that helps coach team members at work, too.

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Warren Buffett says successful people have one two-letter word in common.

No.

No is like yes for people who take on too much, have weak boundaries and who get lost in other people’s work.

Buffett goes further.

He says no to almost everything.

No is a good way to start being nicer to yourself and people who care about you will appreciate hearing it.

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You can’t control your employer, but you can control the type of employee you are.

You can’t control the family, but you have a lot of influence on the kind of family member you are.

You can’t control your friends in person or on social media, but you have the room to be the kind of friend you want to be.

Stephen Covey’s Circle of Influence is based on the idea that focusing on the things that an individual can control, rather than worrying about the things they cannot, leads to greater productivity, success, and happiness.

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