Author: Terry Pochert

Rage in the Car The last thing you want to do when someone cuts you off in traffic, doesn’t say thank you or doesn’t hold a door open for you, is to take it personally.  Keep in mind that such behavior is not directed at you, it’s directed at the world.  People who behave like…

Being Nice! A number of years ago, a group of researchers studied 16,000 corporate executives.  They found that the “high achievers” in the group tended to be every bit as concerned with people as they were with profits.  The “medium achievers” were concerned only with performance numbers, while the “low achievers” were obsessed with their…

Mr. Reik is right I came across an interesting quote made by a psychologist named Theodore Reik [2] nearly 50 years ago.  It went, “In order to be happy oneself, it is necessary to make at least one other person happy.”  He went on to say, “The secret to human happiness is not in self-seeking,…

Maya Angelou appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show recently and said, “I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he or she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage and tangled Christmas tree lights.”  Maya is right on the money.  If you can negotiate events like this…

Ross Reck writes: Part of our interpersonal success is tied to saying the right thing at the right time.  But an even larger part of that success is tied to our being able to avoid saying the wrong thing at the tempting moment.  There are times when we so want to tell somebody off or…

Make me feel important! Mary Kay Ash, the founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics, said many times, “Everyone has an invisible sign hanging around his or her neck that says, ‘Make me feel important!’”  What Mary Kay meant was that people have a very strong need to have their worth validated on a regular basis.  She…

Competition Competitive behavior–making yourself look good at the expense of those around you–is poor preparation if you expect to move up in an organization.  While stealing another person’s ideas or taking credit for someone else’s accomplishments may seem to move you along more quickly at the lowest levels of an organization, it won’t take you very…

Earning Respect Ross Reck, “Many people go through life thinking they’re entitled to be respected by those around them and then they whine when they don’t receive it.  What these people fail to understand is that respect is not something you’re entitled to, it’s something that must be earned through action.  And the quickest way to…