It was a humbling week for this word artist. A couple of years ago I formulated the phrase “High Tech & Human Touch.” Technology was now so large and omnipresent, “high task” had become a downgraded Pluto in the Stress Doc’s cultural-lexical alliterative universe. In fact, a proposed workshop-retreat program title developed with friend and colleague, Liz Gibson, was: Bridging the High Tech & Human Touch Divide. Clearly...

Why should I be sending a streamlined version of my recent essay titled, Generating Virtual Synergy: Turning the Iterative into the Creative? Why the need to rework it? To answer these questions, I must traverse the pragmatic to the psychological. Hopefully such (psycho)-analysis will provide another window into the iterative process.A concrete motivator was an editor of ORATE Speakers Bureau Website saying they are mor...

Prologue: As many of you know, when I write about bullying or trauma in general it comes from my personal well, including several years of childhood bully trauma: stricken by shame, taunted by peers but mostly stalked by my own lurking fear and helplessness, a constant struggle to concentrate, unaware of my smoldering depression, subliminal rage, and omnipresent mask. Then there was the nuclear tension and family secrets...

I'm preparing for a major offsite event with the Command Teams of the 1st Cavalry/Ft. Hood, TX. I've been asked to explore new (for me) conceptual territory -- Generational Diversity. More specifically, the Army wants me to provide some fresh ideas and exercises for "Communicating with the Younger Soldier." To oversimplify matters: how can the predominant generations in authority -- the Traditionals and Boomers -- connect...

One way I know that the economy is still in trouble is by speaking topic requests: a) recently I wrote about an after-dinner presentation on “Letting Go” for a career transition support group; to be tactful, many folks were “in between” jobs and b) two weeks ago I led a program on managing stress for county government employees who, due to budget cuts, have either been notified of a specific future termination date or know...

Over lunch, my agent posed a provocative challenge: “Write an article on chutzpah.” He believes the timing is right. In this difficult economy and uncertain times it’s certainly tempting to withdraw into a shell. But a better strategy might be a contrary one, throwing off the shell and putting yourself out there. One “chutzpah” source involves productively tapping into what I call the “RAGE” in “Out-RAGE-ous.” (And the...

"How can the person displaced or downsized see both the danger and opportunity in career change or disruption? Can we learn, even, to both cry and laugh at this career crisis turning point?"To be able to see the comic in the crisis requires two achievements. First we must embrace Charlie Chaplin's penetrating insight: "A paradoxical thing is that in making comedy the tragic is precisely what arouses the funny...we have t...

Let’s try a mind exercise. You’ve just given a presentation at an important meeting. As the meeting concludes you turn to a colleague (a casual acquaintance) and ask, “How did the presentation go?” And in a decidedly judgmental and unfriendly tone this colleague declares, “Frankly, you fumbled the data. Obviously, you didn’t prepare very well!”Imagine being the presenter. How would you feel receiving such critical feed...

Setting the stage for the dramatic close of my Practice Safe Stress program with the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) School of Dentistry faculty and staff, I declared, "Find something you love to do, that you are truly passionate about. Some will find it at work, others will need to explore outside of work. And I believe you get the most mood elevation and sense of meaning when it's an activity that allows for genuin...

"How can the person displaced or downsized see both the danger and opportunity in career change or disruption? Can we learn, even, to both cry and laugh at this career crisis turning point?"To be able to see the comic in the crisis requires two achievements. First we must embrace Charlie Chaplin's penetrating insight: "A paradoxical thing is that in making comedy the tragic is precisely what arouses the funny...we have to...