Doing What Works

Having a difficult conversation doesn’t guarantee a solution to your problem, but you can put it in the win column if it relieves some pressure. We’ll deconstruct three different kinds of difficult conversations in this edition of Doing What Works in hopes your next one goes a little easier.

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Is it a problem or a situation?

“Constant chatter is an attempt at control.” That’s from Dick Bolles.

“People are afraid that silence will make them sound stupid,” Taylor Mali says, “So they fill it with something that’s guaranteed to make them sound stupid.”

Your devices are like the air you breathe. It’s easy to take them for granted. Until something goes wrong! We’ll be your tech support in this edition of Doing What Works.

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There’s a TV show about tech! The IT Crowd.

A Casio watch won’t get you a hotel room.

The Serenity Prayer might help you weather the latest technical problems.

As a cub reporter for a small radio station, I wanted to interview Bobby Knight when he was head coach of the Indiana Hoosiers. He not only agreed, but changed my idea of what’s possible. Katie drew me out about the experience in this edition of Doing What Works.

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A Season on the Brink chronicles the 1985-86 season of the Hoosiers.

Vince Staten, Maureen’s favorite professor, says you can make things happen with a good letter.

The waiting is the hardest part!

Recess is supposedly a show for kids that Katie promises grownups will enjoy, too.

Harvey Mackay suggests you not say no for the other guy.

“You must ask for what you really want.” That’s from the Rumi poem, “A Great Wagon.”

The Career Clinic: Eight Simple Rules for Finding Work You Love has interviews with humorist Dave Barry and the late editor of Cosmopolitan, Helen Gurley Brown.

Katie’s face is her canvas. In this edition of Doing What Works she talks about how it started, why she isn’t a makeup artist by trade, and how it gives her practice accepting compliments. Even before she added rhinestones to the mix, Katie’s look has been a playground for increasing self-confidence.

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Katie’s makeup is a study in positive externality.

Come on. We dare you. Get through a conversation -- heck, get through a paragraph of conversation -- without using an idiom. In this edition of Doing What Works you’ll not only learn the origin of some of your most-fallen-back-on expressions but might just be inspired to up your game (oops!) conversationally.

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An idiom is a phrase you can’t decipher the meaning of from its individual words, and if overused becomes a cliché.

Here are some idioms and their meanings.

Here are some more idioms and their meanings.

Helen Gurley Brown wrote a book of advice for writers.

Name drop alert! Darrell and Katie and I were in the audience of the 2010 National Poetry Slam where Shane Hawley delivered this masterpiece.

“I bury hatchets but I keep maps of where I put ’em” is from Taylor Swift. (You didn’t think we could get through a show without quoting her, did you?)

The same routine can keep you from having to make the same decisions, but the same routine can also mean you’re in a rut. The examples we cite in this edition of Doing What Works might make you laugh in recognition as you clutter bust your daily grind.

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Dr. Nick Morgan advises public speakers to invite people in the audience to move to the front: “The energy in the room will change.”

Have you heard the one about the motivational speaker Jack Canfield and the yellow notebook?

Jerry Seinfeld says older men dress in the style of the last good year of their lives.

“We’ll figure it out” is our family motto. That’s one reason Katie and I consider ourselves adaptable, because we take that motto so much to heart. In this edition of Doing What Works we hope to inspire a belief that the best is yet to be.

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Have you heard of wu wei?

The harder you work, the luckier you get.

Mel Robbins suggests you ask yourself, “What if it all works out?”

Former marathon champion Dick Beardsley says he still wishes for a different outcome to the 1982 Boston Marathon when he sees video from that race.

“When you pick a lost cause, you really commit” is from Robots.

The big city. The bike. The journal and the tablet. These are a few of Katie’s favorite things, and in this edition of Doing What Works she so eloquently describes why she loves them I couldn’t help but be inspired. I think you will be, too!

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In Good Company inspired Katie’s desire to go to college in New York City.

New York City’s Summer Streets inspired Katie to start biking.

Like Katie, Tim Urban draws stick figures.

The Far Side’s Gary Larson started drawing comics again when he got a digital tablet.

Things that hold other things, and a store that sells them. A store that sells those things but also groceries! Tiny things. And drawing people out about all the things. You can learn a lot about what you value by examining what you love, the way Katie helped me do in this edition of Doing What Works.

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Marie Kondo suggests you keep only what’s beautiful or useful.

The Container Store is my favorite!

Sarah Susanka is a fan of better, not bigger, spaces.

Barbara Sher said horses run because they love it, and suggested you do things for the same reason.

I felt really bad when Aaron Rodgers tore his Achilles tendon four plays into the 2023 season, and then I felt bad about that. It isn’t as if I know him personally, after all. That was the week Katie pulled further ahead of me in our Wordle competition than she had in months, and I took the setback with all the composure of a five-year-old. We’ll tell you what’s going on in this edition of Doing What Works.

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Testosterone levels rise in fans of winning teams.

Have you seen the video of a little kid imitating his father while they’re watching a football game?

What does Taylor Swift have in common with the NFL? Her economic impact is not inconsequential, that’s what!

Do you behave as if everything is a miracle, or nothing is?

Enthusiasm is a form of social courage.