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Browse every published article connected to William Cottringer, with exact attribution and full-archive search.
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Browse every published article connected to William Cottringer, or search within this exact expert archive.
WE MAKE HELPING TOO COMPLICATEDnBy Bill Cottringe n“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” ~Anne Franknn We tend to make things much more complicated than they need to be. I am not sure why we do this. Maybe out of boredom and ...
Walking to Successnby Bill Cottringe n“Slow down you’re doing fine. You can’t be everything you want to be before your time.” ~Billy Joel. There is too much hype about thriving to success and way too many hits about that “race” on the I-net (only 360 million!). Even the most simple, ...
STAYING AHEAD OF THE PAPERWORK OVERLOAD Byr Bill Cottringer “Keeping up with the information overload is like trying to sip water from a fire hose.” rn~ Anonymous. So you think you are overloaded with paperwork at your job? My very first professional job was a counselor at a maximum security prison in Kentucky back in 1970.
What You Don't Know Can Hurt You Most. byr Bill Cottringer “There is no shame in not knowing; the shame lies in not finding out.” ~ Russian Proverb. What you don't know about a situation is what usually results in not feeling good about things, especially about the gap between where you actually are and where you really want to be. Quite a lot of that goes with the private business or public government worlds and it is urgent to know how to best deal with this predicament.
HELP FOR REALTY REPAIR Rx? BynBill Cottringe n I am currently writing a book called "Reality Repair Rx: Making Things Better," which I feel is very important today given the extent and scope of the problems we are all currently facing (total overload). I recently published “Do What Matters ...
THE REAL ENTRY POINT TO WHOLE-GRAIN HAPPINESS AND SUCCESSnBy Bill Cottringe n“For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don't believe, no proof is possible.” ~Stuart Chase. Several years ago my youngest daughter Abby was given an unusual final exam in her high school ...
The Secret In The Way of The Secretnby Bill Cottringe n I have to admit I am both a fan and a skeptic with all the hype this past year or so about “The Secret.” My “fan” perspective is a feeling one. I feel the fundamental truth of the Law of Attraction and power of positive thinking is ...
CROSS-TRAINING IN THE SELF-GROWTH JOU EY By Bill Cottringe n“There are two ways to get to the finish line quicker—run faster and bring the finish line closer.” ~The author. Today we are all getting headaches from the ever-growing ornery overload, distress from the difficulty of keeping ...
Do You Know Who You Really Are? “Most of the things you think you know may not be so.” ~The author.
Ten Right Attitudes to Have About Love to Get More Byr Bill Cottringer “Love is the gentle touching of two souls without the clamor of their exte al equipment.” ~The Author. Want more love? Consider adopting these ten right attitudes that will help you enjoy more love: 1. Keep Things in Proper Perspective.
A New Year’s Resolution Worth Considering Byr Bill Cottringer Normally, I am not one for making or suggesting good New Year’s resolutions, maybe because I have seen too many short-lived ones dissolving after just a few weeks. However, I am going to make an exception to my own rule this year and make a resolution myself that I intend to keep. And, it might be a template you can use to make your own resolution which will undoubtedly be a lot easier to keep, than promising to lose 50 pounds, cutting out smoking and drinking altogether, or making your first million bucks. Here goes:
YES…THE MORE PLAN B’S AND C’S THE BETTER! BynBill Cottringe n“Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.” ~Henry David Thoreau. This is an interesting quote unless you have read an even more interesting one by Søren Kierkegaard. He maintained that “Life has to be lived ...
What is Love?nby William Cottringer, Ph.D.nnn I have studied the "love phenomenon" personally and professionally for over 40 years now and would like to share a few things I have discovered in my studies. First, it may be that we are being artificial and limiting in trying to describe and ...
POWER COMMUNICATIONnBy William Cottringer “Good communication is when an artist conveys the message of his images to a musician who correctly translates them into the musical notes she plays.” ~The author. Today being a good communicator is not enough. Professional success requires ...
Accidental vs. Intentional Careersr By Bill Cottringer “Our strongest gifts are usually those we are barely aware of possessing. They are a part of our God-given nature, with us from the moment we drew first breath, and we are no more conscious of having them than we are of breathing.” ~Parker J. Palmer.
TIT 4 TAT: The Basic Backdrop of Life. By Bill Cottringer “Reputation is not of enough value to sacrifice character for it.” Miss Clark. All of life, upon due reflection, seems to be a variation of one very basic rule commonly known as—Tit for Tat (literally blow for blow). This a priori “contract” asks for a reasonable exchange and balance to resolve conflicts in three main areas of life: • Conflicts within yourself (self-growth). • Conflicts between you and others (relationship growth). • Conflicts between all of us and life itself (humanity growth).
AN IMPORTANT “YES, BUT...” CAVEAT OF BALANCE BEING AN ASPIRATION POINT BynBill Cottringe nn For much of my life I have faithfully bought into the total virtue of the ‘golden mean’ of balance between extremes being the only way to go. This safe road has generally worked out to my benefit, ...
A Prescription for Resolving Interpersonal Conflicts byr Bill Cottringer “All conflict can be traced back to someone’s feelings getting hurt, don’t you think?” ~Liane Moriarty, Big Little Lies.
FOUR CRUCIBLES OF SUCCESSFUL LEADERSHIP Byr Bill Cottringer "A good objective of leadership is to help those who are doing poorly to do well and to help those who are doing well to do even better." ~Jim Rohn. The four crucibles of successful leadership include: Becoming an expert at managing yourself first, developing proper focus, learning the people principles of managing others and resolving to be a perpetual, insatiable student of work and life. 1. Self-management.
FIVE “HELPING” THINGS WE ALL WANT FOR OURSELVES AND NEED TO LEARN HOW TO GIVE TO OTHERS Byr Bill Cottringer “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.” ~Dr. Seuss I have been involved in the helping business on both ends of giving and receiving for nearly 5 decades now and here is my short list of what counts most in regards to truly effective helping. These five acts are the most important things we all want for ourselves and need to learn how to give others abundantly and effectively, to make a difference: 1.
“He has the right to criticize who has the heart to help.” ~Abraham Lincoln. For as long as I can remember, there has always been a raging war inside me between the terrible twins within—head vs. heart. That is wrong and this is right. This will work out for the best and that won’t. I can ...
The Trouble with Beliefs Byr Bill Cottringer “Man is what he believes. ~ Anton Chekhov.
BEST 10 CUSTOMER SERVICE TIPS IN THE BUSINESSnBy Bill Cottringe n“Good customer service is 90% listening and follow-up and 10% talking.” ~The author. 1. Leave your bad moods, frustrations and other agendas at home or at least put them aside and out of mind and heart when you are engaged with ...
Choosing the Right Side Byr Bill Cottringer An elderly Episcopal priest once gave a simple sermon with a single message that makes too much sense to disregard, even for non-religious people. The message was this: There is one main choice in life and that is which side are you on—the right one or the other one? (Notice the absence of the word “wrong”). Is there a right side of life to be on?
Maintaining More Ups Than Downs Byr Bill Cottringer “Let it rain on some days, let yourself shiver on some cold nights, so when it's Spring you'll know why it was all worth going through.” ~Sanhita Baruah.
The Compromise Imperative Byr Bill Cottringer “I shall argue that strong men, conversely, know when to compromise and that all principles can be compromised to serve a greater principle. ~Andrew Carnegie. Our main thinking paradigm today is still stuck somewhere between a competitive, win-lose mentality model and a cooperative, win-win model. Russell Crowe in the movie “A Beautiful Mind” played the genius John Nash in discovering a primary driving force in economics. He realized the inevitability of this progression from a win-lose mentality to a win-win one.
SUCCESSFUL REALITY REPAIR OF TWO COMMON MENTAL MISTAKESnBy Bill Cottringe n“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.” ~Philip K. Dicknn What life is all about is fixing realities that we don’t like and creating new and better ones we want. We do this because ...
20 Writing Tips for Better Resultsr By Bill Cottringer Excellent writing has never happened by chance. It takes open-mindedness and an insatiable drive to continually learn how to improve what you are trying to say and the hard work that goes along with that challenge. Excellent writing is clear, concise, complete, concrete, correct and compelling—with the right content and style to maximize understanding and impact. Below are some useful tips on producing better writing to help you go from getting good to excellent results:
WINNING PRINCIPLES By William Cottringer, Ph.D. nnn“Winning and success are what you get from doing what you do to get them.” n~The Author.n n I have been an avid student of the psychology of winning/success for four decades now—learning all the knowledge and skills that bring about ...
Reality is Not What it Seems byr Bill Cottringer Every once in a while, I stumble upon a book that helps me reconcile harsh polarities into a bigger, better, and more useful truth, usually emerging from somewhere in-between the given opposite possibilities. Such is the case with the quantum gravity researcher, Carlo Rovelli’s book, in Reality is Not What it Seems.
Success Built On Common Sense Byr Bill Cottringer “Common sense is the simple knack of seeing something the way it is and doing something the way it should be done.” ~Mark Twain. Is it just my imagination or is common sense being bred out of the human gene pool entirely? Some say the magnitude and complexity of today’s problems confronting us requires a super human “higher consciousness” to solve. I disagree and prefer to assign the best potential solution to our problems on to common sense.
PRETZEL MANAGEMENTnBy Bill Cottringe nn“Pretzel Management is when you stop trying to figure out when one thing ends and another starts. You just spread some mustard, take a healthy bite and enjoy it.” ~ The author. I don’t think it’s just me but I sense management is getting ...
MANAGING METAPHORS ABOUT LIVING AND DYING FOR EVERYDAY LIFE Byr Bill Cottringer “Key metaphors help determine what and how we perceive and how we think about our perceptions.” ~M.H. Abrams. Metaphors: Creative communication of words that magically simplify huge, complex realities into smaller, common denominators for easier consumption, ironically exploding into infinite possibilities for application in everyday living.
Today’s Primary Problem: Commonplace Evil Byr Bill Cottringer “The way in which you define something has a lot to do with how much or how little of the thing you have in hand, both quantity and quality.” ~The Author.
A VERY ANNOYING HABIT byr Bill Cottringer “I personally believe we developed language because of our deep inner need to complain.”rn~Jane Wagner.
The Wisdom of Insecurity byr Bill Cottringer “Uncertainty is the only certainty there is and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security.” ~John Allen Paulos.
#1 Success & Happiness Solution: Rubber Band Thinking Byr Bill Cottringer “I wouldn’t give a fig for the simplicity on this side of complexity, but for the simplicity just on the other side of complexity, I would give my life.” ~Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Communicating with Today’s Workforce Byr Bill Cottringer “The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said.” ~Peter F. Drucker.
People That Bother You MostnBy Bill Cottringe nn“Like the herd of animals we are, we sniff warily at the strange one among us.” ~ Loren Eisely Our success quest in life involves the paramount challenge of learning how to get along with other people. However, the reality of people being unique ...
How to Have a Near-Perfect Marriage Or Not. BynBill Cottringe nn“The happiest marriages are 75% right selection and 25% effort; choosing the right person and devoting the rest of the time being the right person.” ~The author, with the right person, being the right person. Let me begin by ...
Little Things Count Most in Getting a JobnBy Bill Cottringer. A long time ago I discovered an extremely useful concept called perturbation point, or just "P" point for short. These are the little critical things you can do to get the biggest results. The following checklist has the little ...
WRONG PERCEPTIONS CAN BE LETHAL By Bill Cottringe n“You are only as wise as others perceive you to be” ~M. Shawn Colenn It would be amusing if it weren’t for the destructiveness that wrong perceptions of people and situations can cause. What is amusing is that we are convinced of the truth ...
“There are always two choices, two paths to take. One is easy and its only reward is that it’s easy.” ~Anonymous chooser. It seems like a lifetime ago that I wrote the book “You Can Have Your Cheese & Eat It Too, with all the clever ways to crack the ancient paradox of you can’t have your cake and eat it too. And every day since, I have grown into a much deeper understanding and appreciation of what the successful resolution of this major challenge actually means and involves.
BE YOUR BEST SELF BY NOT TRYING TO BE A BETTER YOU Byr Bill Cottringer “We discover who we have always been when we stop attempting to become better than who we really are” ~Stephen Levine.
GIVE IN AND WINnBy William Cottringer, Ph.D. “Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels so good.” ~ Unknown author. It was a rainy night in August of 1964 when this naïve 19-year old kid was assigned guard duty at the make-shift rear gate of Tan Son Nhut AB in Saigon, Vietnam. ...
How Do You Get Rid of Negative Thoughts? By Bill Cottringe n“All negativity is an illusion created by the limited mind to protect and defend itself.” ~Ambika Wautersn n By now the power of “The Secret” is commonplace knowledge. Since you attract what you ask for, the real secret is ...
REALITY REPAIR: TIME, SWEAT, TEARS & NO PROMISES OF SOMETHING FOR NOTHING Byr Bill Cottringer “You don't get something for nothing; You can't have freedom for free; You won't get wiser With the sleep still in your eyes No matter what your dreams might be.”rn~Neil Peart. Shame on us all!
Seven Crossroads byr Bill Cottringer “If you come to a fork in the road, take it.” ~Yogi Berra.