Intentions – A Poem That Came to Me While Cleaning

I don’t know why this came to mind, but it did. I was helping my wife clean our living room, and I was, as I often am, thinking about what I could write here. I was not thinking about my wife, my kids, or my professional colleagues. I was just thinking. (Remember, I am a recovering engineer. I am almost always “thinking.”) I started thinking about how we often misinterpret other people’s meaning, and this little rhyme popped (almost) fully formed into my mind. So, I share... [Read more]

How To Irritate Others With The DISC Model

Here are five sure-fire ways to irritate other people using the DISC model of human behavior: Tell them how they’re feeling or what they’re thinking. Explain to them why they did what they did or said what they said. Decide for them what they will want from a given situation. Analyze them and their behaviors. Help them to be more like you. I could continue with the list, but I’m sure you see the point. Any time we do any of the above using the DISC model, we are using the model... [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]