L3

With $50 in his pocket, Dustin Hoffman headed to New York, hoping to find work as an actor. Inexperienced and unknown, Hoffman struggled to find employment. Acting gigs were not paying his bills, so he worked an assortment of odd jobs to stay afloat, including typing for the Yellow Pages, stringing together Hawaiian leis, and checking coats at a local theater. Undaunted by...

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In this entire series, we’ve been looking at various values that one ought to possess in order to build strong lasting relationships with people. Now, we must remember that just by practicing these values may not help in building strong relationships with everyone. But it will help us understand and connect with others better and as a result understand ourselves. What’s important is...

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A relationship is like a bridge that connects two people to each other. A bridge cannot exist if the points are not strong in themselves. All the previous 23 values we’ve been looking at how to build strong relationships with others. This post and the next is how we build ourselves. Building ourselves helps us in building strong relationships with others. “For many...

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French journalist and politician Emile de Girardin once said on the power of words: Well chosen words have stopped armies, changed defeat into victory, & saved empires. A few years ago, we got together with a few couples and were sharing on the power of words. Almost all of us could remember the strong hurtful words that were spoken either by our teachers,...

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Director Frank Darabont of the film, “The Green Mile” talks about how Academy Award winner Tom Hanks helped Michael Duncan to achieve his best-  “Fifteen, twenty years from now what I will remember about filming the Green Mile;  it was one thing and I will never forget this: As we were shooting, the camera is on Michael Duncan first, I realized I was...

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John Steinbeck  once said, “Try to understand men. If you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and almost always leads to love.”  How do you feel when you are misunderstood? Few things are more difficult to live with than being misunderstood. Sometimes it’s downright unbearable. We carry feelings of loneliness, frustration,...

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In his book ‘Winning with People’, Dr. John C. Maxwell describes relationships and trust beautifully: “Relationships can also be described as being like a painting. Trust is like the frame that surrounds it and holds it together. It provides a context in which to view the work of art. Trust defines its boundaries. Trust secures it to the wall so that it can...

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Aidan Chambers writes, “Everyone wants more than anything to be allowed into someone else's most secret self. Everyone wants to allow someone into their most secret self. Everyone feels so alone inside that their deepest wish is for someone to know their secret being, because then they are alone no longer. Don't we all long for this?” In any close relationship, there is...

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In her book, For Women Only, Shaunti Feldhahn writes, “While it may be totally foreign to most of us, the male need for respect and affirmation—especially from his woman—is so hard wired and so critical that most men would rather feel unloved than disrespected or inadequate.” The survey indicated that if they had to choose one of the following two situations, 74 percent...

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The divorce rates in our country are on the increase. The numbers are alarming. People are leaving their marriages because they feel they can no longer cope with their partners. While this remains a sensitive topic in relationships, it still is something which needs to be addressed. Among all the A-Z that I've written on relationships thus far, this one we should look...

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A little boy once in a department store was standing at the end of an escalator. He kept watching the railing as it went around. A salesman came and asked, “Son, are you lost?” And he said, “No, I’m just waiting for my chewing gum to come back.” What comes to your mind when you hear the word, ‘wait’? Not many like to...

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