Whenever I teach yoga I always leave feeling taller and calmer, standing proud with beautiful posture, thinking only positive thoughts about the world and all of its people. “You must be in a hurry,” I smile at the person cutting me off on my drive home. “Go ahead.” Have you ever wondered, “Hmmm…what if everyone…
DetailsThe thing about social media is, just because you CAN use a tool that is available to you, doesn’t mean you should. So, for everyone who says, you HAVE to be on Facebook, or Instagram is a must! I suggest you first sit back and look at your target audience and your marketing strategies…
DetailsSo a representative from my Alderman’s office called the other night to ask for my vote in her reelection. “Overall I’m satisfied with her work for our ward and plan to vote for her,” I said, “but there is one thing that I just wanted to share that really bothered me. It was a phone…
DetailsMy name is Deanna. Friends from my childhood may still get away with calling me DeeDee, but it really grates when people call me Diana. As a result, or perhaps as a speaker of other languages, I always try to hear someone’s name and pronounce it correctly in their language—or should I say as they…
DetailsFrom William Arthur Ward’s “Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it” to Aesop’s “Gratitude is the sign of noble souls,” it’s no secret that gratitude is a good thing: It feels good to get it, but it also feels good to give it. And, on top of…
Details“If you do something and don’t tell anyone about it” feels like the marketing equivalent of “If a tree falls in the forest, but nobody is around to hear it.” Either way, you don’t really know if it happened. With over 50 million new websites launched each year and 20,000+ new products introduced each month…
DetailsWhen a test doesn’t go as expected, or a homework assignment goes missing, my son sometimes claims “that teacher just hates me.” But as Eleanor Roosevelt said, “You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.” And, while that’s true in general, it’s particularly true in intercultural communications–taking…
DetailsI sent an invitation to a former colleague the other day to invite him to attend an upcoming workshop as my guest. “Hello old friend,” he responded. And, I thought, how nice that he thinks of me so fondly. Until about an hour later when I thought, “Hey, wait a minute, what does he mean…
DetailsSimply speaking louder not working? There are some things that non-native speakers may automatically do when speaking across a language barrier. Turns out, these are good habits to transfer to same language communication. Taking interest in your communication partner, really trying to understand and connect, are always good practices. Here are three tactics to help.…
Details“I’m totally f—ed,” my generally polite father announced as he entered the room, open book in hand. “What!?” we screamed, taken aback. “I’m f—ed,” he repeated. “That means I’ve made a mistake, right?” I should clarify—he said this in Portuguese, and the book in hand was a Portuguese/English phrase book. And, yes, he did make…
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