The most important attribute a marriage can have is respect. If we respect our spouse, we have love for our spouse. If we respect our spouse, we also treat them with self-control, patience, and tolerance. If the respect flows both ways, the marriage is a winner. If one spouse gets upset with the other, chances are good that emotions won’t escalate. One or the other will find a way, through silence, or through playful diversion, or through quiet communication to de-escalate the tension.

My wife and I have been married for 40 years, and we also work together. Those two things are not necessarily conducive to harmony. We make it work because we respect and love each another. When tensions rise in the office or at home, one or the other will extend an invitation to drive to the post office or anywhere else to remove ourselves from the office environment for a while and lessen stress. Sometimes we will just agree to talk about the issue later. If it turns out to be important enough to warrant further discussion, we will discuss it. Often, whatever was raising our hackles a little bit earlier in the day resolves itself. We both respect one another. Consequently, we both work to keep our disagreements under control by not allowing emotions to escalate.

In the difficult economic times in which we are living, relationships can be tested daily. It’s important to communicate about our stressors but it is also important to know when silence is the better course of action, at least temporarily. Cooler heads always prevail.

If tomorrow all the things were gone
I’d worked for all my life,
And I had to start again
with just my children and my wife,
I’d thank my lucky stars
to be living here today,
‘Cause the flag still stands for freedom
and they can’t take that away.

I’m proud to be an American
where at least I know I’m free,
And I won’t forget the men who died
who gave that right to me,
And I gladly stand up next to you
and defend her still today,
‘Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land
God Bless the U.S.A.

Above are lyrics from Lee Greenwood’s song God Bless the USA.

Fifty short years ago life in America was very different. We had three channels on our television, a party line telephone which meant occasionally you would hear another person’s telephone conversation on your phone, we also had telephone operators to whom you gave the number you wanted to call. Games for kids were limited, so our “play” time was spent outdoors. The movie theatre in town played one movie for a period of time. Families did a lot more things together, often just socializing with relatives. There were dances to go to, picnics to cook for, card games on a Friday night, church on Sunday, family dinners together every night . . . simple things. Face-to-face communication was important then, and it enabled our relationships to be close and meaningful.

One of the things I remember with both amazement and disheartenment is how my parents would leave their car on the street unlocked, with the windows open, and on warm summer nights our house would frequently be unlocked and only the screen door closed. We lived in a safe world back then, at least in our little town. I remember walking a mile across town at 15 years old to get from a friend’s house to mine, often late at night.

I don’t know if we’ll ever see that kind of freedom again, but a free America is definitely worth fighting for. As Lee Greenwood’s song reminds us, “I’m proud to be an American where at least I know I’m free, and I won’t forget the men who died who gave that right to me.”

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America! God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

Grand birthright of our sires,
Our altars and our fires
Keep we still pure!
Our starry flag unfurled,
The hope of all the world,
In peace and light impearled,
God hold secure!

Above are the first and last lyrics from the song America, My Country ’tis of Thee, written by Katharine Lee Bates in 1913.

Those words were obviously written by someone possessed of great pride in her country. Now, I haven’t been around for all 233 years of America’s existence but for the 61 that I have experienced most of my fellow citizens have expressed their patriotism freely and often. It’s great to see and is always emotional.

Life goes by so quickly, and we spend so much of it working or arguing or partying or doing nothing, and we rarely take time to appreciate what is around us. Silently, life escapes and with it opportunities to experience what Ms. Bates so beautifully wrote about America pass with it. My message today is that we take time to see our country and spend time with our neighbors around America. Experience valuable assets like our amber waves of grain. Show your children why America is so special and why it deserves to be respected in every way.

All the great ones know the value of consistency. Practice, repetition, and habits are the tools used to build consistent performance. Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyewski claims consistency, in his case consistency of message, as a leadership skill. Diligently practicing each game plan, repeating shooting form and rebounding techniques, and building success habits are methods Coach K uses to consistently teach his coaching philosophy to his team. His quiet message of consistency is displayed in his team’s daily workout regimen. As the team moves from drill to drill, an occasional coach’s whistle signals a change in direction. A focused instruction to help a player improve devolves into a team learning activity.

As leaders in our own companies we communicate our values internally and externally in a variety of ways. Internally we schedule regular staff meetings during which we consistently teach our employees how to express our corporate values. Externally we use our websites, direct mail contact, and personal visits to reinforce our values.

The effectiveness of these leadership practices can be enhanced by the use of sincerely delivered strategic silent messages at the point of service. One of my clients, a litigating attorney, hires expert witnesses to assist him with his cases. The expert witnesses appear at his office brimming with credentials and testimonials attesting to their superiority within their fields of expertise. However, says my client, “I don’t value their credentials very much. These days, anyone can build a resume’.” What is most important to my client is the present. In other words, what can you do right now when you are standing here before me? Performance at the point of service is what counts.

When we perform on behalf of our clients, we can inspire each activity and make it memorable. Inspired performance begins by safeguarding our self-esteem, because we cannot be at our best if we allow someone or something to dampen our spirit. Next, we must protect our person and our family. We protect our person spiritually, physically, and emotionally by devoting study and practice to our God, to our body, and to our mind. Our family, as well as our clients, benefit from our personal growth and development as a result of the better decisions we are able to make with and for them. The ability to consistently inspire our performance follows from a nourished self-esteem and a secure personal and family life.

Techniques to energize your greeting, communicate meaningfully by your strategic and sincere actions, add punch to your writing, and consistently inspire your performance are components of Constant Messaging™. People just entering the workforce, timid individuals who find communicating stressful, and seasoned professionals searching for renewal of idealism of their youth benefit from silent communication techniques.

I was with my 5-year-old granddaughter last evening. Adults in the room were engaged in conversation, and my granddaughter was trying to tell a story. Looking around the room for someone to pay attention to her, to validate her, I watched her face drop as one by one others in the room acknowledged her briefly and turned away, or laughed at what she was saying, or ignored her. Then her eyes met mine and she continued her story while I listened. A child’s self-esteem is developed in the same way Coack K builds consistency in his team’s performance. It’s done through repetition, and it’s often done silently. To learn more about Outfluence programs for you, for your children, or for your company, contact us at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Sometimes you just have to scratch your head when the “big boys” dump on the rest of us. Five of the past eight years I have been a vendor/author at a book fair held at my local community college. The event has grown significantly in that time. The fair is scheduled to take place in a few weeks, and my invitation was not received. So I called to inquire, and I was told that because sponsors of the event wanted more space, vendors were eliminated. I respect that decision. However, not to offer vendors another option, and to simply eliminate us from the mailing list (at least one other long-time vendor shared the same experience)is poor business and bad communication. I had a nice conversation with the person in charge, and she promised to put me back on the list next year. Unfortunately, she appeared to be clueless as to a possible customer relations faux pas. Oh, well. We know that Constant Messaging is . . . constant, right? And we have to be aware of the messages we are sending at all times. Occasionally even the experts make a CMing mistake.

A teenager was riding his bike down a neighborhood street of nicely maintained townhouses when he was attacked and killed by a group of teenaged thugs. It doesn’t matter where this happened, nor does it matter why. You have probably read about a similar tragedy in your community, and you have probably heard the same reasons for why it happened. I was listening to a radio call-in show about the murder that took place in my community. Callers were blaming racism, they were blaming parents, they were blaming gang violence, they were blaming the police for not doing enough. The callers were demanding justice, some wanted revenge, others wanted bad parents punished. On and on. It’s always the same discussion. Enough already, I say.

To me, the solution is relatively simple but its implementation is going to take time and effort. But first, here’s the core of the problem, in my opinion. Our society is unbelievably focused on negative. Look around. The news always leads with a negative story. Print, televison, radio, internet . . . it’s always the same. Television programming is filled with violence. The storylines are aggressive. Adult movies are such in name only. They’re available to anyone and everyone. Advertisements are filled with sexual innuendo, and more. Our kids receive the silent messages inherent, and intended, in all of this and they respond in the only way they can. They mirror the behavior they see because they think it’s “normal.” Adults, who used to know better (and most of whom still know better) ignore the high road and fall into the worst behavior patterns, thus modeling inappropriately for their children and for the children of others. Businesspeople see only money, so they create the negativity and ignore the consequences. It’s easy to appeal to the worst in people because people who are in emotional pain will succumb to the worst simple pleasures. It’s not that hard to figure out, is it? Maybe some of us reading this have been there. This is not a fault-finding article.

Here’s the solution. Start looking for the positive in people. Uplift others by your words and your actions. It doesn’t take much to brighten someone’s day, to make him feel validated, to make him feel proud of himself, to give her encouragement, to help her over a rough spot in her life, to tell a kid he’s on the right track and to keep working hard. Hey, look, we’re always going to have people in this world who don’t get it, who choose to live on the dark side. But we can make it harder for them to find the dark side if we choose to. When I was growing up in the early 1960s I rarely saw the dark side of life. It was there, for sure, but responsible people did not tolerate it. Responsible people did not succumb to the dark side as easily and as quickly as we do today.

I love to listen to people who have been around for a while. They have life experiences that enable them to respond to whatever is happening today. Joe Paterno, the Head Football Coach at Penn State University, is a hero of mine. What the Coach would say to the good people among us who are about to succumb to the dark side of life is this: don’t feel pressured to do what others are doing. Let them feel pressured to follow the good example and the good life you’ve been living.

Coach tells his players what they need to do to avoid the bad side of the media scrutiny that comes with playing big-time college football. I can just hear Coach Paterno in his self-deprecating but all-knowing style say, “Boys, don’t do anything that will embarrass yourself, your team, or your family.” Translated to apply to my life, it is don’t do anything that will embarrass myself, my family, or my business. How does it translate to your life?

In Outfluence we have a 5-minute rule. It goes like this: within 5 minutes of your emotional response to a situation chances are good you will regret your response. You could regret it for the rest of your life. So we encourage our friends to think about the 5-minute rule, let it sink into their being, and hope that when they are in an emotionally charged situation, something will trigger them to remember the 5-minute rule and avoid long-term life regret.

You can change the world by thinking of others before you think of yourself.

I heard my wife tell a friend that she knew that I was different very early in our relationship. I chose not to ask her what she meant by that, but her comment has been rolling around in my brain ever since. The darker side of my self-esteem tells me that she found something strange about me that she has tolerated all these years. The prideful side of my self-esteem tells me that she discovered my brilliance and is so happy!

Who we are is shaped by our environment and by our associations. Think back through your life. Take a look at where you’ve been. Who and what were you exposed to as a child? Were there positive influences in your life? I had an Uncle Joe who was always positive, always smiling, always encouraging, and always gave me opportunities to talk to him when I needed to. He was the one person in my entire family who had reached a level of success in his life. He seemed to know what it took to achieve great things in life, and he had the ability to communicate with me in my early teens in a way that I could understand.

Uncle Joe had a different way of navigating through life. Maybe that’s what my wife found in me. The way I navigate through life is rooted in silent, positive Constant Messaging™. It’s what helped me overcome the negative influences in my early life and has gotten me through the failures in my adult life.

How are you navigating through life?

The last few weeks have been extraordinarily violent in Maryland. We have experienced fathers killing their families before taking their own lives. Today a respected businessperson committed suicide but thankfully spared his family. Every tragedy had financial undertones to it. The financial difficulties our country’s governments and major corporations are suffering through are trickling down - cascading may be a better term - to our small businesses, into our neighborhoods and impacting our families. No one seemingly has been spared. I understand why a man, who has gotten himself into financial or other personal difficulty, would be driven to take his own life. His feelings of shame, and failure, his worry of punishment in the judicial system, and the crushing realization that his career is over must be overwhelming. But why take the lives of the rest of his family? Is he concerned about the pain and humiliation they will suffer if they are left behind to deal with the sins of the father? Is he afraid to travel the journey to the life-after by himself? Or was he so far gone mentally that he simply didn’t know what he was doing? It will require someone much smarter than I am to answer those questions. However, one thing I do know from my own experience with failure is that those closest to you will give you strength and their love will give you hope. The rest of the world and what they say and what they think about you just doesn’t matter. What wears on a person in recovery from failure is the silent messages that are occupying his mind every second of every day. Controlling those silent messages, turning the negative voices into positive thoughts, will lead the way back to a productive life. Some people can do that on their own, with the support of caring family and friends, and other people need professional help. Unfortunately, sometimes the pain overcomes a person so quickly that there is no time to stop the carnage. That’s what happened in Maryland in recent weeks.

Sister Francine liked having me in her fifth grade class so much she decided to invite me back again. Revisiting her decision with the perspective 50 years of living brings, I see the wisdom of her action. Too often in today’s education system, students are pushed from grade to grade whether they deserve to be or not. Sister Francine held me responsible for not doing my school work. She accepted the challenge of having me in her class for another year because she knew that it was the right thing to do for me. As I connect the dots of my life, I realize that had Sister not held me back I would not have met my future wife nor would I have been exposed to the gentleman from Texas who encouraged me to study court reporting, nor would I have learned to be responsible for my own actions. Failing the fifth grade was devastating at the time but I soon discovered that failure isn’t a life-ending event. I made new friends who accepted me. I was able to leave old issues behind. I had a fresh start. That early lesson served me well and made it possible for me to accept and learn from later failures in my life. I discovered that failure is just another name for learning.

In writing about “practical wisdom” Dr. Barry Schwartz
argues that rules often fail us, incentives often backfire,
and practical, everyday wisdom will help
rebuild our world. 20 basic Outfluence behaviors provide
practical wisdom. Here’s number seven:

Anybody can cause a problem. Usually the problem is
rooted in a family issue, a social issue, or an employment
issue. Help to solve a problem for someone. Put your
focus on someone else’s problems and yours will
soon vanish.

ACTION TIP: Have you worked with a friend who
needed your help? Your problems become a little less
overwhelming after helping someone else. It helps to
view your life from the perspective of someone else’s
problems. Every day try to put your problems in
perspective and observe how your life changes when you
concentrate on helping others.

EXERCISE: There are people waiting for you to come
into their lives and offer them your thoughtful and sincere
help. As difficult as it may be, because of your own
troubles, turn your attention to someone else’s needs.
You will receive much more than you will give in
the experience.

Next time we’ll learn the Outfluence of inspiring performance.

See you then!