Last night was my first-ever Toastmasters meeting.
I’ve been hearing about them for years; hearing how they’ll help you present your thoughts more clearly, think on your feet and become more confident socially.
Last week, when I discovered that the local Toastmasters club meets only about a mile from where I live, I knew it was [...]

Do you practice what you preach? Walk the talk? Treat others exactly as you want to be treated? Think deeply before you answer, because it’s easy to get this one very wrong.
I’m not talking about your actions in the shadow of privacy, when no one is watching, although that’s important, too. No, I mean the [...]

No relationship is exclusively one-way. When any two people interact, the influences flow in both directions.
So if there’s someone who consistently irritates you, peeves you, and just generally gets under your skin, know this: you are almost certainly part of your problem.
Guest columnist Peter Vajda returns this time with some very practical suggestions to help [...]

It’s infuriating, right? Somebody makes a promise to you, and then they break it. Or they agree to do something but then blow it off like it doesn’t even matter.
I’m not talking about an occasional can’t-be-helped situation beyond reasonable control, like late air flights, or a wreck tying up traffic. I’m talking about serial agreement [...]

Here’s a story I think you’re going to like.
What do you do when someone you love is sliding rapidly toward death? You want the doctors to take the measures that’ll save their life, but nearly everyone else is convinced it’s hopeless, so they won’t agree to the procedure.
What DO you do?
Just shrug your [...]

You know, business doesn’t have to be a complex, Harvard-B-school kind of thing, all complicated and hard for ordinary mortals to understand.
It CAN be boiled down to some pretty simple stuff.
My paternal grandfather didn’t have a degree in business. In fact, he never got past the fourth grade, but that didn’t stop him from running [...]

Ever lose your temper? Hey, it happens sometimes, you know. We’re all human, right?
But even though it can seem impossible sometimes to rein in your tongue and control the things you say to others (and to yourself), there are those who learn to do it.
Notice I say they LEARN to do it — it’s [...]

When tempers flare, logic, reason and self-control are the first victims. Getting angry is a non-reasoning way to defend your safety, your position or your sense of self worth.A person who gets angry more than most people is demonstrating to the world that they feel uncommonly insecure, weak and inadequate. They think they need to [...]

Anger causes a lot of problems. But the underlying motivation for anger is the urge to break through real or perceived communication blocks.Flaring tempers are a sign that we don’t think we’re getting through to someone else. So anger doesn’t necessarily CAUSE problems, but it is a sure indicator that there ARE problems, and it [...]

You’re standing in a group, talking, and one of the members starts shooting verbal “zingers” at you. Everybody gets a hearty laugh at your expense. Everybody but you.
Light (and not-so-light) insult humor has become almost a national pastime. When you’re the butt of the jokes, you may try to shrug it off as harmless, but [...]