Hi…I am Eileen Kaplan…A bilateral Cancer Thriver…Bilateral Mastectomy in 2005. Keynote Speaker for Cancer, Awareness and Advocate for Women’s Health. I am also an author and humorist, my book “Laughter Is The Breast Medicine’” is doing fabulous. I am the agent for my book. Keynoted this year for Dana Farber Cancer Institute, The Am. Cancer Soc., Eastern CT Health Network, Manchester Mem. Hospital, St. Francis Hospital and a guest presenter at Joan Lunden’s Summer Camp for Women, Camp Reveille. My website is http://www.laughteristhebreastmendicine.com.
A few suggestions for Sunday: How to deal with Adult Bullies; dealing with adversity in the face of Breast Cancer with humor and positive thinking;and learning how to cope with an elderly parent who is going through the stages of Dementia.(Tough). I am looking forward to lively conversation and lots of fun…and also looking forward to meeting all of you as well. Eileen

Hi there,

I’m Lon Seidman. I’ve run a number of political campaigns (including Joe Courtney’s 2006 win), serve as chair of my local Board of Education, and now building a media business.

I like the adult bully topic. We were actually building a school bullying policy last night and talked about how often kids are learning their behavior from adults.. We are also dealing with dementia in my family. Very difficult.

On a more macro level, I’ve found that differentiating problems the universe brings your way into two top level categories can prove very helpful: 1. Physcis and 2. Human-created. Ultimately the physics-based problems are more difficult to solve but the ones created by people are always manageable.

90% of the time problems we deal with are caused by people. It’s best to break the problem down into component parts and solve each of those barriers along the way. Taking a more granular approach to an issue that at first seems insurmountable is a great confidence booster. You’ll find that other problems simply evaporate when a minor root cause is identified and addressed.. It also lends itself to a collective approach, where a team of people can productively approach these components with a common shared goal.

Ultimately there’s no replacement for good preparation. I am a big believer in the GTD approach to personal organization. It’s made me immensely more productive by getting deadline anxieties out of my brain so I can focus on making decisions.

Wow…I have to be smart for this one – I think there is an undercurrant of bemusement and wonder over the drip drip drip of physics freakouts coming from the Hadron Supercollider at Cern – no one is talking about it during the Giants game, but the growing sense of how incredibly wee our place is and how we realize the more we know the less less less we understand… That truth is in our lives daily as manifest in the instant universe of knowledge we now all can hold in our hand – my don fact checked me over the phone when Zi noted that sltho half of Americans enter college, about 20% get degrees (grateful I was correct) – we begin to understand that wisdom is not the command of facts as it often was in grammar school

wisdom is becoming more and more elusive – and our politicians are Exhibit A in the manipulation of facts to simulate wisdom to gain instant favor and positive regard while not having thought much thru or often have the creative intelligence to synthesize intelligence from factoids.

I would love to talk on how everyone with a disease or a loved one with a diagnosis immediately pops on google and gets factoids without perspective ( we touched on that once but did not take it to another level) and how out culture has always wanted to defer responsibility for decisions to other than ourselves – doctors in ads said cigarreytes “soothed” our throats and many smoked – despite the fact you were putting smoke ( SMOKE) in our lungs – many believed the Nstional Association of Homebuilders or the National Board of Realtors when they said housing values could never go down when it had, repeatedly, over the lady century in etwrn upward surges -

forgive early morning fat finger Iphone typos but THANKYOu for coming on the show and making me think!

All very issues for this early in the AM. Dealing with other people–who may try to bully you is one thing. Dealing with problems thrust into your life–like “the big C” is quite another. Having gone through both, the philosophical part of me wants to say that it is all one big learning experience. The pragmatic part of me tells me to pause, take a deep breath and somehow take baby steps in order to cope (or not) with these issues. Live, learn and try to laugh–discuss and dissect some more on Sunday!

…and I typed before reading everything – I also like Cindy’s idea.

Cindy has hit on something. Life’s little problems have a way of cascading into major issues.

Bosses who are bullies.
Being laid off.
Adult children who cannot find work.
Major illness.
Aging parents who need our care.

My older son was recently bullied…actually he was mugged. He was calling home on his iPhone while waiting for the bus. Three guys walked up and forcefully took his phone from him and started to taunt him. I suppose the three could see and sense that they had the upper hand. They took advantage of his vulnerability. Ultimately, they did not physically harm Matt. I’m very thankful for that. He was starting to to talk about how he should have done somethings differently. I talked with Matt about how this was in no way his fault. He was a victim of circumstance. The three muggers represent outside forces that we have little control over. We can only deal with the situation as it arises. I wanted him to know I was thankful he was okay and that is all that really matters. Deb and I were both there for him.

(An incidental note. The muggers did not keep the iPhone. They threw it to the ground and ran it over with their car. The phone was smashed.)

We can cope if we do not try to take on life’s problems alone.

Kim

Hey everyone…Jud here… not alot of time right now.God bless Duo. Let ME know who is gettin bullied and I’ll… More times than not, those that bully are just scared little ones deep down They’;re just coming from a place of FEAR. And those that “travel in packs” are most afraid !

Coping with the holidays and the importance of ATTITUDE on everything is key…How we “view ” something affects our whole outlook and attitude. Sometimes we have to change the way we “look” at something !!! That’s the ticket…

So Jud – are there any topics YOU feel like adding to the show?