Mentoring comes up in my thoughts and conversation frequently these days. Of course at my age and stage of career that’s part of what happens: I have over thirty-five years of accumulated experience and knowledge and enjoy passing along what I’ve distilled. My past writing on this subject was about how hard it is to [...]

Most of us don’t associate communication with Father’s Day.  But fathers do communicate whether or not they use many words.  Do you really talk to your father?  Does your father really talk to you?  Mine mostly talked at me and wanted me to talk more to him, which meant tell him what he wanted to [...]

I’ve been asked to write a piece on cursing and find it difficult. Cursing occurs for many reasons, and certain words can be used in different contexts and so have different meanings or impact. Cursing is often used as humor to lighten a difficult situation . . . and is often used for insult. Cursing [...]

“Question Authority.” Those were the words on the famous bumper sticker that defined the baby boomer generation—my generation. It was clearly meant to be confrontational and a game changer. The purpose was to get the attention of the ruling generation with a strong message: the status quo will not be tolerated. A powerful slogan infused [...]

Getting a phone call used to be a pretty big deal—and if it was long distance, that was a really big deal. On a long distance call in the 50s and 60s, you found out what you needed to know in a hurry and got off the phone. It was expensive. Local calling was inexpensive [...]

Like so many, I have been critical of the President for not being more aggressive in his rhetoric against those who attack him and his policies. I’ve wondered why he doesn’t hit back. Why does he literally turn to the other cheek? I am one who believes in the importance of thoughtful, civil, honest communication. [...]

A common perception is that women have a positive association to relationship talk and men don’t—that women feel better connected through relationship talk, whereas men are distressed by it and tend to feel criticized. I think this is another myth perpetuated in the popular culture, based on stereotyping and misunderstanding of individual communication styles. I’ve [...]

When communication breaks down, you must try to fix it; but when things go badly, it is very difficult to go back and risk the same breakdown. If you revisit the problem at hand, you must be prepared to do something different. Too often, the revisiting is done by restating what you already said, which [...]

“You mean, you want me to treat you like the man on the street?” That’s a quote from a wife to a husband in a counseling session. Her husband’s reply was, “Well, yes.” Then there was a long silence while this statement settled in with all of us. I spoke next, “What does it mean [...]

Recently I posted a piece titled “Appreciation.” I almost didn’t write it because I thought it might be trite—so obvious that readers would be bored. Well, I’m glad I did write it because it brought more enthusiastic response than any other piece posted this past year. “Appreciation” focused on something simple and fundamental—direct expression of [...]