Like millions of other people, I’ve been following the Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner story, over the past several months. What we’ve been seeing is a person who’s lived her entire life with a painful secret. She’s been hiding her true nature, even from those closest to her and now, at age 65, she’s finally come out to […]
There’s a lot of bullying going on these days. We find it in schools, in the workplace and on-line. There’s one form of bullying that rarely gets talked about though, and it’s creating a lot of misery. I’m talking about self-bullying. When we grow up, we take in everything we hear from our parents, family […]
I was just watching the video about Sean O’Brien, the #DancingMan, on Yahoo news the other day, and it got me thinking about all the bullying going on these days. Sean’s a great guy, but he’s seen his fair share of bullying. Still, he’s not inclined to be angry or feel sorry for himself. His […]
Everyone wants friendship and love in their life, and we all have our own ideas about how to create great relationships. One of the things that gets in the way of this is our tendency to be too nice. Many of us are convinced that being “nice” is the way to win a friend […]
It’s 2015, and fantastic relationships between men and women are sadly in the minority. I think that the problem comes from common misunderstandings between the sexes. Men and women make a lot of assumptions about each-other; assumptions about the ways that we’re different and about the ways we’re the same. Often, we’re incorrect, and these […]
Another Mother’s Day has come and gone, and it has me reflecting on what it is that makes a mother. In my own life, I’ve been lucky to know many women who’ve been like a mother to me. There was my devoted grandmother, my “Baba,” who was mother to a large extended family; my loving […]
There’s another side to the story of kind vs. nice, and that’s the story of those who are hurtful or disrespectful to the nice person. Who are these people and what’s driving their behaviour? We know what makes someone kind: it’s an outpouring of positive self-regard onto others. What makes someone nice is a need […]
You’ve heard the phrase, “So-and-so is a really nice person,” and probably thought nothing of it. In my work, though, I think a lot about what it means to be “really nice” as I see a major distinction between being nice and being genuinely kind. The way I understand it, kindness emerges from someone who’s […]
A lot of people are attached to the idea of being “nice.” It’s not so easy for these individuals to let go of their need to be nice, or to appreciate how different it is from being kind. This distinction is important, however, because these two ways of being lead to very different outcomes in […]
Do you envy the person who walks into the party glowing with positive self-regard, and who soon finds himself surrounded by fascinated, admiring fellow guests? Do you wish you were the person who takes a leadership role in the workplace and who is often given roles of greater responsibility by the bosses? Do you want […]
