Tag Archives: listen

#BeNice

Tonight my kids showed me a social media post where someone shared their view on something and someone else disagreed with them by calling them a derogatory word, and sadly this exchange took place between two people who supposedly loved each other. I wrote a blog on this very subject five years ago because I […]

Diversity Is Required To Make A Company Strong, But Unity Is Required To Make A Company Successful.

Diversity seems to be a goal that every company is out to achieve these days. Yet as companies begin to broaden their hiring practices in order to achieve diversity, they often find that in solving one problem they have also opened up an entirely new one – creating unity amongst diversity. As diversity enters into […]

An Opportunity To Mute The Noise Around Us And #HearHim

With all the craziness of the news updates, the rush on the grocery stores, the closures going on, and the updates on the Coronavirus spreading it felt almost impossible to feel a sense of peace…and then Sunday came… Our church had put out a notification last week that our regular Sunday services were not being […]

Stop Defending And Start Listening

In yesterday’s blog I shared points from a Forbes article I’d written years ago on the importance of giving people honest feedback. Today I thought it would be good to share points from a follow-on article I’d written for Forbes on the importance of receiving feedback (The article was titled, If You Want To Improve, […]

Great Advice From The Marriage Experts

Tonight my husband and I were able to go to an event to hear Dr. John Gottman & Julie Gottman, renowned relationship and marriage experts and founders of the Gottman Institute, speak. I first heard about the Gottmans when a couple we are friends with went to a two day marriage retreat in Seattle. They […]

A Disagreement Does Not Equal a Debate

(Dalton Anderson filling in for Amy Rees Anderson who is recovering from a cold because I am a good son:) :  I had a discussion with some friends the other day over an opinion on a movie. We were talking about how we would rate the movie out of 10. One individual thought it deserved […]

Learn From The Wisdom Of Those Who Have Experience

“When you are willing to listen and learn, some of life’s most meaningful teachings come from those who have gone before you. They have walked where you are walking and have experienced many of the things you are experiencing. If you listen and respond to their counsel, they can help guide you toward choices that […]

Sometimes All It Takes Is A Pause From The Normal Routine

Our lives get so entrenched in our daily routines that our minds almost go on autopilot as we do the same things over and over again, not allowing that pause our minds need to open themselves up. During my years as CEO I was always so busy in my normal routine that all I could […]

How To Be Perfectly Miserable vs How To Be Perfectly Happy

How To Be Perfectly Miserable Think about yourself, talk about yourself, Use “I” as often as possible, Mirror yourself continually in the opinion of others, Listen greedily to what people say about you, Expect to be appreciated, Be suspicious, Be jealous and envious, be sensitive to slights, Never forgive a criticism, trust nobody but yourself, […]

“You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out, Kid.”

Awww yes…we have entered the fabulous month of December and the fabulous season of Christmas (and Hanukkah, Ramadan , Kwanza, and all the other fabulous December holidays being celebrated). And as should be done every December, it’s time to whip out that classic movie from 1983, “A Christmas Story” to watch little Ralphie ask Santa […]

The Best Way I Know Of To Help Focus Yourself On What Matters Most

Every six months I get so excited for because there is a semi-annual General Conference that is broadcast on the internet and across the world in many languages, and during this two day conference there are always some of the most motivational and inspirational talks given that I have ever heard. Honestly this conference ends […]

The Head Doesn’t Hear Until The Heart Has Listened

“I have learned that the head does not hear anything until the heart has listened, and that what the heart knows today the head will understand tomorrow.” – Jones Stephens Communication. It sounds like such a simple word but the reality is that communication is one of the most complicated things we do in life. […]

Pull It Together! YOU’VE GOT THIS!

When things in my life go wrong, or get scary, or feel overwhelming I know that there are certain people in my life I can call and they will listen and tell me how sad they are for me and how they can sympathize with my situation and they get sad or frustrated with me. […]

Your Presence Is My Present

When my 21 year-old daughter wants to get my attention she will utter the phrase, “Your presence is my present.” That quote is a very effective way to remind someone to put away the distractions and focus on the moment you are sharing together. Spending quality time with someone gets harder and harder with all […]

What you fill your mind with

“You are the books you read, the films you watch, the music you listen to, the people you meet, the dreams you have, the conversations you engage in. You are what you take from these. You are the sound of the ocean, the breath of fresh air, the brightest light and the darkest corner. You […]

He Said, She Said. The Gender Communication Gap

I gave a keynote speech at a conference today and for part of my speech I went over some of the gender differences in the way we interpret communication in the workplace.  It’s such an interesting topic and there is so much that I discovered over the years as a CEO managing nearly 2,000 men […]

The Power of Empathy and the Comfort of Knowing Someone Understands

Tonight I had the opportunity to speak to a group of students and their parents involved in the YEA! Program which stands for Young Entrepreneurs Academy (www.yeausa.org ) , a non-profit program for students in middle school and high school that teaches kids to generate business ideas, do market research on their ideas, write business […]

A Week To Promote Peace and Positivity

I hope everyone had a fabulous holiday weekend!  Welcome back!! This is a monumental week for the world as the United States undergoes the transition to new leadership. I believe this week can down in history in one of two ways – it can either go down in history as having been a week to […]

How Delta CEO Ed Bastian Just Proved That Delta Airlines Is Awesome (Forbes Article)

Tuesday morning October 18, 2016 at around 2am I posted a blog titled “Companies don’t have to be perfect but they do need to fix it when they screw up!” In that blog I shared the story of a harrowing customer service nightmare I was going through with Delta Airlines. Toward the end of that […]

Diversity Is Required To Make A Company Strong, But Unity Is Required To Make A Company Successful. (Forbes Article)

Diversity seems to be a goal that every company is out to achieve these days. Yet as companies begin to broaden their hiring practices in order to achieve diversity, they often find that in solving one problem they have also opened up an entirely new one – creating unity amongst diversity. As diversity enters into […]

Opportunities come when we actively seek to do good

First, I want to take the quick opportunity to say “Thank You!” to all those who sent birthday wishes my way. I can’t think of a better birthday gift then words of kindness from others and I received that today in spades 🙂 I also want to share with you an amazing birthday gift I received today […]

Learning the Hard Way

The older we get the more we realize how much better life is if we are just willing to learn things the easy way – like by listening to those who have been there and done it and who have the experience to give us advice on avoiding pitfalls we will face. In the early […]

Be In Their Lives Today

“To be in your children’s memories tomorrow, you have to be in their lives today.”   Oh, how I love that quote. And it is such a great reminder for all of us that have the blessing of being a parent. I remember throughout the growing up years of my children when they would ask me […]

Everyone Needs Some “No Phone Time Together” (Our European Adventure)

Over the last two weeks my husband and I and our son Dalton and his wife Alexis and our daughter Ashley all went together on a European Family Adventure! We planned this trip to be our first family trip of just our own family because we wanted our daughter Ashley to get to know her […]

The Core of Intelligence

“The ability to speak does not make you intelligent.”- Master Qui-Gon Jin I remember growing up thinking that all adults were so intelligent. After all, they used really big words and they talked with such confidence on so many topics. But then I grew up and started figuring out that just because someone knew a […]

If I Had My Life To Live Over

IF I HAD MY LIFE TO LIVE OVER  (by Erma Bombeck) I would have talked less and listened more. I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained and the sofa faded. I would have eaten the popcorn in the “good” living room and worried much less about the dirt […]

There are two ways to live your life

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”  -Albert Einstein There is so much truth to that. When we look for miracles in life we can find them everywhere. Some miracles manifest as a mere “coincidence” when […]

If You Really Want Feedback Then Make It Comfortable For Others To Give It (Forbes Article)

The only way any of us can know all of the areas we can improve on is if we are open to feedback from others. As Bill Gates said, “We all need people who will give us feedback. That is how we improve.” But the only way we will get the valuable feedback available from […]

Intuition, Instinct, an Inner Voice – Whatever you want to call it, it’s real!

Some people refer to it as following their intuition. Some refer to it as instinct or following their gut. Some refer to it as an inner voice or the Spirit. I don’t really care what someone calls it, all I know is that it’s real. As you know, Monday of this week was a holiday […]

Take the 14 Day Challenge to Love One Another!

February is upon us! Which means Valentine’s Day is only 14 days away (friendly reminder, especially to all the gentlemen out there who don’t want to end us as one of those men in the hallmark card aisle the night before desperately looking through the last remaining cards in the store). Whether you have a […]