One of the trickiest things about personal boundaries for most people is understanding that other people have boundaries too.
I’ve noticed that people really love setting and enforcing their own boundaries, but when someone else’s boundaries conflict with theirs, they go ballistic. They either accuse the other person of trying to manipulate them, or they try to manipulate the other.
Case in point:
Last fall a friend of mine asked me to house-sit for her for a week. She lives about two hours away, a long drive. Her only request was, “No dogs.” …

In Anytown, USA or Anytown, The World, there’s a widget factory that employs 100 people. There’s production, shipping, administrative, sales, all the departments any factory would have. Things are going along as always until one day one of the administrative people gets sick. She’s the girl who orders all the supplies for the supervisors. It’s no big deal because she keeps things well-stocked and no one misses her.
The folks on the production floor hear about her illness and shrug.
“Doesn’t affect me,” they say, going on about their business.
The folks in …

I got an email yesterday from a client I did some work for several years ago. I was surprised to hear from him since after my last job for him he didn’t think he would need my services since he didn’t think he had a need for any more content.
At the time we talked originally I wrote his press release and an ebook. I encouraged him to start a blog. Write about the content in the ebook, I told him. Attract people with your expertise in this field, which …

I’ve been working out at the gym for almost four months now. I’m curling 15 pound dumbbells for 15 repetitions, 3 sets, three times a week. I can maintain a fat-burning heart rate of 145 on the elliptical for one hour. I can peddle 12 miles on a stationary bike in 60 minutes. I can push 120 pounds on the leg sled.
When I started however I couldn’t last 5 minutes at any pace on any piece of cardio machinery. I could only push an empty sled and only …

We train people how we want to be treated. If we train them the wrong way, or train them to do the wrong thing, we can spend a lot of time UNtraining them and then retraining them. It is NOT their fault. It is OURS. People want to please other people (mostly) and they will respond to cues that tell them they’re doing that even if the cue from you ISN’T what you though it was! When your kids learn that they can get more stuff from one parent than …