Sometimes it’s nice to get out of email and be LIVE for a change — which is exactly what I’ll be doing Wednesday, April 3, and I’m inviting you to join me!

I’ve been scheduled to appear as a guest on Your Life After Trauma with Michele Rosenthal. If your life has gotten to a point where things feel stuck, stalled or just plain wrong it’s time to think about CHANGING DIRECTION! This hour-long weekly program covers a wide spectrum of topics designed to help you turn yourself around and get headed in the right direction. With guests from backgrounds that include self-help, mental health, trauma, motivation and inspiration, author/speaker/coach/survivor Michele Rosenthal interviews experts and everyday people about what it takes to change direction and how you can get the job done.

I’ll be on the show this Wednesday, April 3 at 2:00 p.m. EST, to talk about positivity and my free online speaker event, The Positivity Project: Expanding Global Optimism at work, at life, which is going strong!

You can listen in to the interview via your computer or phone. Just follow this link for info: Changing Direction.

You can also call in with your comments and questions: 347.324-5164

If you miss the show, you can access the free downloadable archive.

I hope you can join us!

p.s. Here is a great story about The Positivity Project, by Mitch Ditkoff, President of Idea Champions, which ran in the Huffington Post. Thought you might enjoy it!

Sincerely,

Alan

p.s. Don’t forget about Those Difficult Talks, my book on how to deal with those tough conversations in business.

The Huffington Post has featured my project, The Positivity Project in a story written by one of our esteemed speakers Mitch Ditkoff!

Click to see the full article:

Get Ready for “March Gladness”

I want to share with you information about an up-coming, life-changing online event, which I am organizing with my colleague and fellow coach, Katherine Poehnert.

If you are looking for ways to be personally happier and more optimistic, while also helping create a global shift in consciousness, then you will want to join The Positivity Project: Expanding Global Optimism — at work, at life … a FREE 8-week online speaker series beginning March 4th.

You will hear nearly 20 amazing thought leaders, including best-selling author, Dr. Rick Hanson (Buddha’s Brain), Howard Martin (The Global Coherence Initiative, HeartMath), former CBS news anchor and positivity expert, Michelle Gielan, Luke Iorio, President and CEO, iPEC Coaching, and Dr. Christine Carter (Raising Happiness), share their wisdom, knowledge and experience, as well as specific, practical ideas to move you from a negative, problem-centered existence to a positive mindset and lifestyle.

These speakers will reveal their wisdom and suggestions in the following key areas:

• The neuroscience behind happiness and positivity
• How to be more positive through loss and grief
• Positive education
• Positivity and the media
• How positivity builds courage and resilience
• Staying positive through illness
• Positive thoughts and the body
• Positive leadership
• Creating a positive corporate culture
• Positive approaches to difficult conversations
• The positive effect of Feminine Principles
• Efforts to develop global coherence and peace
• Positive parenting
• Positivity and personal power

I will be speaking on March 21st on the topic of the positive benefits of conflict and am excited to share the stage with so many like-minded people who share the same vision.

So … if you:

• Feel drained by the negativity around you
• Feel judged for refusing to join in others negative world views
• Sincerely want to know how to be more optimistic
• The Positivity Project will show you how!

I invite you to take this step now, not only for yourself but for a world that is calling for a collective energy shift!

Click here to learn more and receive FREE access to these speakers.

Looking forward to having you on the calls!

P.S. This event will fill up quickly so I encourage you to grab your seat now!!

Did you get my message? Then how come you haven’t responded?

I know, I know, we’re all busy and constantly bombarded by emails, phone calls, and demands of work and family.

That said, are you like me, in that — all these pressures notwithstanding — you try your best to return a call or email in no more than 24 hours? Or at the very least, send a message saying to expect a reply?

Or do you take the approach of either “I’ll get to it when I get to it?” or “It depends on the sender or the subject?”

Maybe it’s my PR training, with its stress on the often critical nature of timely response, that compels me to get back to clients, vendors, friends, relatives and business leads, as quickly as possible. I try hard to do this even when the answer is simply “I don’t know” or “Can we touch base on that next week?”

I realize that many individuals don’t share this value of promptness. And, in fact, even the word “promptness” means different things to different people.

Individuals certainly have the right to choose where they focus their attention, and how they set priorities even if this leads to frustration by their lack of timely responses to my requests, sometimes resulting in my having to adjust my timelines and concept of timeliness accordingly.

How do you decide when and if to return calls, respond to emails, and requests?

How do you reduce your own frustrations when you aren’t getting responses?

Tip: Maybe you should rethink your practice regarding responding to requests, and reshape it along the lines of “do unto others… ”

If you are interested in learning some great time management skills – for you, or for your team, please send me a message or give me a call.

By Alan S. (Always Something) Cohen

Because I’m constantly losing all sorts of items in all sorts of places, my partner, Barry, nicknamed me “Always Something” for my first two initials.

But there’s a positive side to my chronic misplacement’s: through some wonderful combination of divine intervention, code of the cabbies, the unselfish kindness of strangers and good old time-tested karma, most all the items have been returned to me, intact.

Most recently, rushing to get Thanksgiving pies home before their fillings melted, I left my briefcase with a brand new MacBook Pro (with retina display, mind you!)–filled with valuable business and personal information — in a cab! I reported the loss to the Limousine and Taxi Commission at 311, but because I had no receipt from the fateful ride severely dimmed my chances of recovering the computer.

And, as one Facebook friend suggested, I used my iPhone to help track down the missing laptop. The feature supposedly shows the item’s whereabouts on a map. But it was to no avail (probably because the Mac needs to be turned on in order to track it).

With a cloud now hanging over Thanksgiving, I managed to talk myself to sleep, with dreams of lost data and the expense of a replacement Mac.

Still, something remarkable happened. At about 3 a.m. – nearly six hours after the Mac’s disappearance — the driver of the cab in which I’d left my laptop appeared at our apartment house with the machine. Barry, who’d been out walking our dog, on my behalf expressed deep gratitude and offered a generous reward. The cabbie accepted the thanks and, saying it was all part of the job, refused to accept the reward. Barry persisted, and they finally compromised (at $60, instead of the $100 offered). To me, of course, the return of the laptop was priceless.

My experience was far from a fluke. When I put news of my missing laptop on Facebook, with a request for only stories of hope and inspiration, I received a flood of anecdotes about loss and happy recovery. Seems like there are a lot of honest, helpful people out there!

One Facebook respondent said he twice lost an iPhone in a cab, and each time was called by a person who’d found the phone and then returned it. Another time, he left a suitcase in a taxi and didn’t realize it was missing until he was called by the driver (who’d traced the owner from the luggage tag) and got the suitcase back to him. And on yet another occasion, the fellow left his laptop, computer bag and $500 in a deli in Chelsea, right near the front door. When he went back about 15 minutes later, he found everything, all intact.

Another accidentally abandoned a master’s thesis and tapes for it in a cab, and got everything back.

One woman left her iPhone in the back seat pocket on an airplane. Luckily, another passenger, a college student, found it, saw her FindMyPhone message on its screen. He Googled her on Facebook and sent a message to her. After they connected, he was kind enough to send the phone to her by overnight mail. She rightly considers him an “awesome kid.”

Another woman reported that her daughter left her wallet, containing her license, cash and debit card, in a Trader Joe’s shopping cart. When she checked back the next day, it had been turned in by a stranger, with everything in place. “People are pretty great,” the mother commented.

A third woman left a ring on a counter in a public restroom and, three hours later, returned to find and retrieve it.

A baseball fan left his wallet at Yankee Stadium, returned pessimistically with little hope of finding it, especially after police, whom he’d begged to let him re-enter the stadium, laughed sarcastically, “Good luck.” But the fan found it just where he’d left it – not a dollar or credit card missing.

Cheryk Gavazzi of Beverly, Mass., was shopping at a local Marshall’s when she spotted a Vera Bradley purse, CBS Boston reported. Thinking the bag was for sale, she took if off of the shelf and unzipped one of the pockets only to find a ball of cash totaling $11,000.

Gavazzi didn’t think twice about what to do with the money. Rather than pocket the cash, she immediately decided to go to the police.

“I ran to the car, threw it in the front seat and locked my doors, looking for drug dealers following me,” Gavazzi told the Boston Globe. “I’m a nervous wreck looking.”

It turns out the bag wasn’t on sale at Marshall’s at all, instead it was left there by someone for an unclear reason. Soon before Gavazzi returned the bag, its rightful owner filed a police report claiming that her purse had been stolen. The owner, who wanted to remain unidentified, told the authorities that the cash was intended to help build a church in Guatemala and was so grateful to be reunited with the bag that she gave Gavazzi a small reward.

Well-known is the story of the woman who left a briefcase with several hundred thousand dollars worth of diamonds in a cab, all of which the driver returned to her without succumbing to any temptation he might have felt when he saw them.

Some advice, to help insure return of items you may leave behind:

• If you leave your wallet behind in a ballpark, make sure it’s the home field of a team that has recently experienced loss. Fans there are more likely respect someone else’s recent deprivation.
• I’ve always generously tipped cab drivers, without knowing exactly why. But since my experience with the cabbie’s return of my lost laptop, I’m absolutely certain that I knew subconsciously it was an essential element of karma.
• Make sure your belongings have some sort of identification. The only ID in my lost briefcase was a credit card bill – with my home address.
• Pay cabs by credit card to ensure that you have the cab number, or make sure you get a receipt. It makes it much easier to track the cab.
• Remember to call 311 right away to report a missing item to the TLC.
• Password protect your computer so that no one can easily access your personal information.
• Slow down – in the rush of the holiday season, multitasking can lead to losing valuable possessions.
• Keep the faith! The chances are quite good that your lost belongings will be returned.

I rest my case. (and if I lose it, I’m confident it will be returned).

If you have a great story about something lost and returned, or tips to prevent loss of property, feel free to share here – it can help!

One of my favorite new television programs is The New Normal. It’s a sit-com about a couple who fathers a baby with a surrogate, a single mom raising a teenager on her own.

Earlier this week, amidst the background of Hurricane Sandy, I heard NBC’s Brian Williams talking about “the new normal,” as it relates to climate change, and the once every 20 year hurricane cycle, which now seems to be an annual event.

A friend of mine who is in the military mentioned to me that “Living in the New Normal” is also a Military Child Education Coalition program to train adults who work with military children to deal with their own “new normal” – grief, parents who returned wounded or with PTSD and constant separation from patents.

In financial terms the question remains, if and when the recession passes, “What will normal look like?” While no one can say how long the crisis will last, what we find on the other side will not look like the normal of recent years. The new normal will be shaped by a confluence of powerful forces—some arising directly from the financial crisis and some that were at work long before it began more than four years ago.

It has me thinking a great deal about “what’s normal?” – and more importantly, what is the new normal?

One of my Facebook friends suggested that the new normal now means that there may be times when people, due to circumstances beyond their control, simply can’t text. And sometimes they may have to go to a store to stock up on food in anticipation of another hardship.

Maybe the new normal is more an acceptance of the reality that we simply don’t have control over many things at all! And that the only given in life is change.

So, I guess the question I have for you is, “What is your new normal?”

PS: GET OUT AND VOTE TOMORROW!!

You know better … some topics are too delicate for formal conversations. Meeting that new client for lunch? It’s best to heed the old adage and avoid topics concerning sex, sports, and politics. But this is a presidential election year, people are fired up about the candidates, and your conversation partner might not be able to resist.

And there are often consequences for speaking out. One-fifth of people admit to blocking, unfriending or hiding someone on social media over political postings, according to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. The biggest gripes: The offending person posted too often about politics, disagreed with others’ updates, or bothered mutual friends with partisan political postings.

So, if you find yourself heading into a difficult political conversation (or online debate), here are some tips on how to manage the situation:

1. Learn to Identify Transition Clues. Some people are generally interested in learning about political issues. Far more common, unfortunately, is the political wonk looking for an ally, or far more dangerous, a punching bag. Regardless, listen carefully for when a conversation is transitioning to political topics and cut it off at the root. Look beyond the names of the candidates and listen for politically charged policies or media outlets. Example (them): Speaking of surveys, did you see (Hannity’s/Olbermann’s) piece on voting rights last week?
2. Honest, But Don’t Show Your Cards. Make an effort to agree where you do… and then transition to a relevant topic. Be honest and communicate that you would prefer to talk about something immediately relevant and then ask an open ended question, which will force them to change mental gears. At a wedding? Talk about the happy couple. At a business meeting? Talk about your exciting new project. Example (you): I didn’t see it the show, but how about the newlyweds. Don’t they look great?
3. Don’t Take The Bait. Your communication partner may try to insist and rile you. Remember to keep your composure, insist that you would like to discuss a different topic, and keep impartial. Example (them): You’re not one of those crazy (Conservatives/Liberals) are you?
4. Know When to Walk Away. When you can, find a reason to excuse yourself. Tell your conversation partner that you look forward to speaking with them later in the evening. If you are in a situation when you can’t physically walk away, excuse yourself and use the restroom. Example (you): Excuse me, I have to use the restroom, but let’s catch up later.
5. Defriending Is Always an Option. Social media is an entirely different animal in that you control the flow of information. As social networking platforms like Twitter and Facebook have become ubiquitous, it is likely that you will come across commentary that you may find unreasonable and possibly offensive. Remember, that you can often edit which types of posts are visible to you from a contact without removing them from your contact list and possibly creating more controversy. However, that option to “defriend” is always there should you need it.

For many people, the hardest part of the 2012 political debate may be restoring friendships that have been damaged. Knowing if it needs to be said, if it needs to be said by you, and if it needs to be said at this time, can be a great guiding principle in sensitive matters such as these.

*This post first appeared on the PRSA ComPRehension

Part of the draw of the presidential debate is the ensuing conflict. We want to hear how each candidate responds to points of difference, and clarifies their own perspectives.

Yet, on the job, many people feel that conflict is not a desirable state. They are even afraid of it. Well, I beg to differ. I think that it is wonderful when folks are not afraid to engage in passionate dialogue around issues and decisions that are key to personal and organizational success. When people do not hesitate to disagree with, challenge or question one another — all in the spirit of finding the best answers, discovering the truth and making great decisions — some really cool things can happen.

It can increase commitment, engagement and accountability; drive results; and build understanding, trust and rapport. We can disagree and thrive. And here is another reality: when conflict isn’t surfaced and discussed, it can actually undercut situations and relationships in ways that are insidious and harmful.

How we manage conflict is where the rubber hits the road!

But first lets definite it: Conflict is any situation in which your concerns or desires differ from those of another person.

Here’s a little exercise: think of a recent situation in which you experienced conflict, and the outcome was not satisfying. How did you approach the conflict? What might you have done differently?

There are many different styles of handling conflict. They are called conflict modes: competing, collaborating, compromising, accommodating and avoiding. Each of the five modes have their own degree of assertiveness and cooperativeness, and each of us have our own comfort level and experience using the different modes. As a result, there may be times when we overuse one mode and underuse another. Being able to flex these different styles can help us to become more artful in dealing with conflict.

What mode are you most comfortable with? How can you introduce some of the following styles into your interactions?

• Competing: assertive and not cooperative; the goal is to “win.”
• Collaborating: assertive and cooperative; the goal is to find a “win-win.”
• Compromising: in the middle on assertive and cooperative dimensions;to find middle ground.
• Accommodating: cooperative and not assertive; the goal is to “yield.”
• Avoiding: low assertiveness and low cooperativeness; the goal is to “delay.”

Each of the modes have value and benefit. The key is to know when to use which mode, understand the preferred modes of those with whom you interact and flex your style accordingly.

How will you deal with your next conflict, and maybe even embrace it?

SIGN UP for FREE!

It’s no secret that the Myers-Briggs (TM) tool has provided tremendous value for thousands of organizations of all sizes. With the highest level of consistency and reliability of any personality assessment, the Myers-Briggs ™ tool is the world’s most trusted means of providing insight into individual personality type.

Based on the research of the noted psychologist Carl Jung, the tool creates a common language to identify the complexities of an individual’s personality. The tool assesses an individual’s personality across four dimensions: Extraversion or Introversion, Sensing or Intuition, Thinking or Feeling, and Judging or Perceiving. The insight gained from taking the Myers-Briggs (TM) tool has enabled leaders to better understand and improve how they communicate, learn, and develop within teams and has numerous practical applications such as leadership development, career planning, and conflict management.

However, the most important aspect to unlocking value from the Myers-Briggs (TM) tool is having a professionally trained professional administer the tool and debrief your results. I am pleased to announce that, working directly with CPP, the exclusive publisher, I am certified to manage the Myers-Briggs (TM) instrument.

I look forward to the opportunity of utilizing the Myers-Briggs (TM) tool to promote growth, development, and future success with my clients. Please feel free to contact me on more information about the tool and how it can be applied for your benefit.

Contact me to learn more!