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This Week in the World
Watch My Life Lessons
interview
Last week I gave an interview about my contribution to the
latest of the Chicken Soup Series, Life Lessons for Loving the
Way You Live on my local Fox News station. You can watch the
interview here.
(Scroll down.)
The interviewer liked the way my story in the book, Some
Boats
Need to Be Rocked, connects the lessons we learn in childhood
with how we act as adults. Other stories do too - Suze Orne
tells a fabulous story about how she learned that money is worth
more than life itself when her father walked into a burning
building to rescue...the cash register.
Author Jennifer Hawthorne is running an Amazon promotion today - here's the link to get the book on Amazon. Thanks for your support.
Need SpeakStrong Wristband Input -
contest
I am planning to create SpeakStrong wristbands. I'd like to put
my say what you mean, mean what you say without being mean when
you say it motto on the back, but I only have room for 25
characters.
What do you suggest I put on the back? The first person to post the phrase I select gets five free bands. Post your ideas here.
Last week's don't miss new articles:
Take the time to say it right: the folly of gotta-go communication
Dump and run, drive-by delegation and reckless relating.
Reasonableness is your best revenge
To escalate or not to escalate? You have more options than you think.
Body shop founder tribute raises
compelling SpeakStrong questions
Anita Roddick, who founded The Body Shop in 1976, passed away
last month. Democracy Now aired a moving and eye-opening
interview with Roddick where she spoke about the discomforting
ability of her audience members to respond with "polite
indifference" to her specific examples of abuses of their own
corporations. She talks about the split where "you
intellectually know that this is wrong, but that knowledge
cannot move you to action, does not polish your human spirit to
such outrage that you promise yourself you would never do these
things, never be part of this." Read her interview here.
PowerPhrase: How to be an assertive woman without inviting the "B" label
I closed a casual email chat with a highly successful friend by
mentioning I was writing about how to be an assertive woman
without inviting the “B” label. He didn’t think
it was difficult.
He said,
-
Simple: hang out with enlightened men.
It’s true! Who knew! And when a woman stops trying to
convert
the unenlightened masses, she discovers that there actually
are
plenty of men who are perfectly happy to let the women
around
them be strong - even when it’s inconvenient for the men.
Poison Phrase of the Week
Consider the alternative
Susan and Ian were a new couple. In a tender moment, Susan said,
“My heart is beating.” Ian replied,
- Well, consider the alternative.
Susan made a heart/feeling remark. Ian responded with a
head/thinking remark. By taking Susan’s comment literally,
responding intellectually and being clever instead of tender,
Ian destroyed the feeling of the moment.
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Read the in-depth description of: |
No question this week
Do you have a communication question? Then Ask Meryl.
 |
There's lots of information about how to communicate |
Reader Success Story
Poetry power opens the heart in conflict
After reading your poem, I wrote a poem for my boyfriend. We
had
an argument, and I wanted to set a good tone for our
conversation.
The discussion went great. Exceptional. Can’t believe how thinking
before speaking and using PowerPhrases helped everything go very
smooth.
Being apart for a couple of days really did help and talking
about how
to fix the problem instead of blaming helped us focus on
finding
solutions to the problems. I read him the poem out loud making
sure
he heard it the way I felt it. He did. He loved it and kept the
copy I had
in my hands. He couldn’t believe that I wrote him a poem.
Overall,
things are working out and from now on I have learned to think
what
to say without using poison phrases and fixing the problems
instead
of blaming. Once again, thank you Meryl.
Reader Comments on Previous Newsletters
Blog comments:
Silent treatment from the boss
Now I'm angry ***Blog post of the week - Thanks Cynthia
|
Issue
290
October 23, 2007 |
SpeakStrong Award
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Ask Meryl
We will respond with our best suggestions. We may publish your question and response anonymously unless you request that we only respond privately. We appreciate your feedback on our response. If we publish your question, be sure to check Meryl's Blog for further suggestions from our readers.
SpeakStrong Definition
To express yourself both powerfully &
effectively;
to say what you mean,
mean what you say,
without being mean
when you say it.