Why The Health Care Reform Debate Makes Me Sick

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post titled Why You Shouldn’t Take Conflict Resolution Lessons From Politicians. In that post, I listed a number of things common to the political process that are terrible examples of how to behave when you are really trying to solve a problem or resolve a conflict. As I look at the health care reform debate, I see a number of these behaviors in the way the discussion(s) is (are) proceeding. And, frankly, it makes me sick. I am not a doctor, pharmacist, attorney,... [Read more]

Victim or Victor – You Decide

Whose fault is it when you lose? Whose credit is it when you win? In this time of Olympic competition, I wonder about these sorts of questions. Evan Lysacek beats Yevgeny Plushenko by playing the scoring system to its fullest, and he wins. Then Plushenko plays the victim. In my opinion, he lost – end of story. Maybe Plushenko is more daring. Maybe he is the better physical skater. Maybe the scoring system should reward the quad more highly than it does. Maybe the system should be changed to... [Read more]

Decision Making 101 – Check Your Emotions Before You Decide

In a recent article in the Harvard Business Review, Dan Ariely, the author of Predictably Irrational, writes about the impact of our short-term emotions on our long-term decision making. In summary, his research found that we tend to make poor decisions when we have recently experienced a negative emotion. That makes some intuitive sense related to the short-term impact on our decision making. Surprisingly, he also found that we tend to repeat those bad decisions when we are faced with them again... [Read more]

Using Detours To Get Where You Want to Go

There are times in both personal and professional situations where apparent road blocks get in the way of achieving your desired goals. Earlier in my life, these road blocks discouraged me. Now, I just see them as detours, and I have learned to learn from the detours. I learned to use them to get where I want to go. In the picture above, the desired goal is somewhere on 9th Street. At the moment, the normal or shortest path down 9th Street is closed. That does not mean that we should change our... [Read more]

Learn From Bubble Wrap – Reinvent Yourself For Greater Success

This week marks the 50th anniversary of an iconic American product – Bubble Wrap. It is slightly older than me, so it has been around my whole life. I have only known the product as a protective wrap for packaging. Interestingly enough, packaging was not its originally intended application. The inventors first thought that it could be used as a wall covering. When the wall covering idea didn’t pan out, they shifted gears and founded the company that made Bubble Wrap famous – Sealed... [Read more]

Why I Don’t Want to Be a Tolerant Person

Last week, I attended Shadow Day at my daughter’s school. On Shadow Day, parents attend classes with their children. As I sat in her American Literature class listening to a discussion of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic The Scarlet Letter, her teacher questioned the virtue of tolerance. In his brief comment on the topic, he referenced a talk he once heard by Elie Wiesel. Elie Wiesel survived the concentration camps and Jewish persecution of World War II. On the day that my daughter’s... [Read more]