Conflict Resolution Lessons From A Lifeguard: A Drowning Man Doesn’t Care About You

Communication, conflict resolution, leadership, and parenting can, at times, resemble working as a lifeguard. In all of these situations, you can, like a lifeguard, be in the position of a person approaching someone else when they are under distress because their needs are not being met. Picture a drowning man. He is flailing in the water. He is grasping at everything and everyone within reach. He has little or no visible concern for others. He may, at other times, be a kind, loving, considerate... [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]

Getting What You Want With Gentle Persistence

My brother and I have pretty well mastered the art of getting what we want from the humans we adopted. They’re pretty nice people, but they don’t always understand us immediately. So, we have learned to sit patiently at the back door and look at them until they realize that we want to come in the house. We Got What We Wanted We have found that this approach works much better that making lots of noise and insisting that they let us inside. In fact, when we make too much noise, they generally... [Read more]