Tag: emotional intelligence
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Mister Rogers is the neighbor we still need

I cried seeing the trailer for Won’t You Be My Neighbor? in the theater a couple of months ago, so I knew I’d be emotional when I saw the documentary. I had no idea what I was in for though. I loved Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood when I was a kid. To say he was my one…
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100+ Acts of Self Kindness

Step two in spreading kindness throughout the world in 2017 is performing one act of self kindness (aka self care) each week. Yesterday we discussed acts of kindness that we can perform for others. Today it’s time to focus on ourselves. Before we get into the list of possible acts of self kindness, let me tell…
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What I know about being a good leader

I’ve been thinking a lot about the qualities of a good leader lately. Maybe I’ve been thinking about this because with last week’s GOP debate, we’re officially into the presidential election season, and our country’s most visible leader is the president. Maybe I’ve been thinking about it because I’ve been interviewing a lot lately. Maybe…
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8 tips for handling adult temper tantrums

Every so often we all lose our tempers. For whatever reason, we’ve had enough of being the bug smashed on the windshield of life and try as we might, we blow up. And every so often, we’re on the receiving end of someone else losing their stuff and exploding uncontrollably. If we’re not careful, when…
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Ask Little Merry Sunshine: Are you always happy or are you too stupid to realize life sucks?

Dear Little Merry Sunshine, I am a regular reader and big fan of your blog. In fact, I’ve been reading since the early days when you were writing on Blogspot. As I’ve read and re-read your posts over the past 7 1/2 years, I’ve noticed one overarching theme: far more often than not, you are…
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This I believe

A little over seven years ago, I did a Crash Davis-like Things I Believe In blog post on the original Little Merry Sunshine blog. To this day, it ranks right up there with my all-time favorite posts. Oh, you’re not familiar with Crash Davis’s monologue from Bull Durham? I won’t judge you (much), but you…
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Respect my coping skills and I’ll respect yours

Since sharing my mammogram and tomorrow’s lumpectomy story six days ago, I’ve been inundated with both public and private messages thanking me for demystifying the process of getting a mammogram. Women have shared their own lumpectomy and mastectomy stories, how they were scared, and how they dealt with their emotions in a variety of ways.…
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Chicagoans React to Ban Bossy
In response to my blog post last week titled “Why I Can’t Lean In to Ban Bossy,” I received an email from a journalism student at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism asking if she could interview me for a class project. To say I was flattered would be a gross understatement. I immediately wrote her…