“You are home,” Kevin said quietly.

It was the night before our scheduled visit to the vet to put down Shasta, my beloved dog of 14 years. As I sat in our newly-rented dream apartment, all I wanted to do was go back to my parent’s house.

In the past three months my dad had a stroke, I suffered a miscarriage, my assistant Val -whom I adore- told me she is leaving, and now this.

There’s a reason people live with their parents until they’re 40. We had lived with mine for seven months in an effort to save money to move downtown, something we’ve dreamed of doing for years. Now, however, I didn’t want any part of it. I had fallen into a deep depression after my miscarriage in May and it was safe there. Someone else would make dinner if I wasn’t up to it. I could crawl into bed, pull the covers over my head and not worry about bills, work or other adult concerns. I wanted to go back to mom and dad’s. I wanted my dog.

We had been struggling with whether to take her to the new place. At 14, she was declining. She had debilitating arthritis for years, and it got to where she would need help getting up off the floor and often fell when walking. “But she’s fine!” I would wail. “She’s not fine, we’re pumping her full of meds,” Kevin replied. I pointed to my dad who was sitting at the counter as we debated. “We’re pumping him full of meds too! What, should we put him down?”

I knew I had to let her go.

I can barely count on one hand the people who have known me since I was 24 years old. Shasta saw me through a major depression, a divorce, a miscarriage and so much more. She was the one constant in my life- always waiting for me when I arrived home, never angry when I accidentally stepped on her tail getting out of bed in the morning, always up for a car ride. She had a snout that inexplicably smelled like maple syrup and a smile that could charm the perm off a poodle. I’ve owned three dogs in my life, and Shasta was just…special.

The morning of the appointment I woke up and finally admitted that I’ve been stagnating for the past several months.  Ever since the miscarriage, Kevin and I had been circling each other, afraid to get too close again. We would both pour our love into Shasta and withhold it from each other. In all honesty, I was afraid that we wouldn’t be able to take care of each other if we were on our own again. Somewhere along the way I’d lost myself and we’d almost lost each other. It was time to let Shasta go, but it was also time to get back into the game of life.

I couldn’t stand to watch her last moments so Kevin took her to the vet. He gave her a pig’s ear, and cried all the way to the vet as she hung her head out of the window, panting happily. She was taken to a room that had a metal examining table covered with a fluffy blanket. Kevin held her as they secured the IV, petted her and whispered that we loved her, and she slipped quietly away.

Later, as we drove downtown, I saw families with strollers and couples walking their dogs. “Great!” I quipped, “now seeing babies AND dogs is going to send me over the edge. It can’t get any worse.”

“You could see a baby walking a dog,” Kevin replied.

I laughed for the first time in a long time. And I started to focus on what’s ahead. I meet with a publisher next month. A new group dynamics training is in the works. I’m even optimistic about a new admin, as much as I hate to lose Val. I’m seeing a naturopath who assures me I won’t have any trouble getting pregnant again.

So last night, after looking through pictures of Shasta and bawling my head off, I poured myself a glass of wine, sat on my balcony, and enjoyed the amazing view of downtown. I turned to Kevin and said, “I’m glad we’re here.”

And I’m glad we are.

Big mistake.

She barely made eye contact, and, when I asked if I could walk with her on the break, she was fairly unsuccessful at concealing her eye roll.

Am I that annoying? I wondered. Did I offend her somehow? I couldn’t figure it out. Until I got home and emailed my friend Rachel to tell her about my day, and, being the genius that she is (or perhaps I’m just dense) she said, “Perhaps you were too direct.”

Of course. Too direct! Sometimes I wonder why I even get paid to teach people this stuff. I had ignored the cardinal rule of attracting a cat- thou must be indirect.

Our Cats and Dogs workshop is based on the analogy of household pets. Dog behavior is highly accommodating, whereas cat behavior is….not. Dogs come when they’re called. Cats….well, unless you sound like a can opener, the cat ain’t coming. And lest anyone accuse me of pigeonholing people: no one IS cat or dog. It depends on the situation, who we’re with, what we’re trying to accomplish, or all of the above. But we all have a resting place, a group of behaviors that feel most natural to us.

Dogs operate from a relationship paradigm. If you want to have a relationship with someone who operates from their dog, just be nice. Cats operate from an issue paradigm, and are not attracted by “nice” people. They like to be intrigued or teased. Think of a real cat. It is only interested in something that’s hard to get- a bouncing ball on the end of the rope, or the catnip on top of the fridge. A cat is attracted to the challenge, not the item itself.

I had been too direct. So the next morning I went in and ignored the hell out of her. I sat at a different table. I never made eye contact. I wasn’t rude, I just didn’t seek her out. On the morning break as we walked in groups, she and her walking partner approached, and as we passed she waved. Progress. By the end of the afternoon she approached me, sat down and said, “So. How ARE you?”

I had to laugh as I emailed Rachel that night to report back that she had been right. I often tell the participants of our workshops to give themselves grace as they learn these skills. Now I had to give myself grace. The quest for nonverbal intelligence is never over, we have to work at it every day.

Even us “experts.”

Receiving the news, my first thought was: my dad doesn’t have strokes. This is the same man who, after watching me complete a marathon, said, “that doesn’t look so hard” and started training at the age of 65, having never run before. He went on to complete not one, but three marathons. He is always working on something -installing new flooring in his living room, re-tiling the fireplace, fixing the roof- this wasn’t a man who had health problems, much less strokes.

Except that he did. And so I cancelled a keynote, immediately got on a plane and flew to his bedside.

My dad, -my superman, really- was now lying in a hospital bed, his face contorted and paralyzed, his speech and motor skills impaired. As I watched him struggle to put on his eyeglasses, or speak, or do any of the things that a few days before had come so naturally, I felt incredibly helpless. My sister and I took turns crying in the bathroom so he wouldn’t see our grief.

Because there isn’t a lot to do while sitting in a hospital room, I watched the nurses interact with my dad. Most were terrific, a few were ok, and luckily we didn’t have any who were horrible. The best nurses, though, were those who were able to blend their position and their person.

We all want nurses who know what they’re doing, since they administer the majority of care to our loved ones. And yet we also want them to be warm and encouraging. When you’re in a hospital you are incredibly vulnerable- nurses who maintain the dignity of the patient and treat them like people instead of invalids make all the difference in the world. Our trust in the nurses comes from their ability to demonstrate their competence, or position, while at the same time demonstrating their concern, or person.

This balance of position and person is just as important to all of us as it is to those in the nursing profession. There are times when it is appropriate to come from our position -when our credibility must be demonstrated- and other times it is more appropriate to come from our person -when we need to show we care. Charismatic people are a blend of both, and bring out what’s appropriate depending on the needs of the situation.

My dad made a speedy recovery -so speedy in fact, that he is already home, walking up and down the stairs, lifting weights, joking around. He can do everything he did before, albeit a little slower, and we like to tease him that when he talks he sounds a little drunk. When I asked if he ever asks “why me?” he said, “Sure. But then I think, why not me? It happens.”

Thank goodness that when it does, there are nurses like those who attended my dad.

*A big thank you to the nurses and therapists at Presbyterian Intercommunity Hospital in Whittier, CA.

We only got dinner.

We ended up leaving early, and once we got down the elevator, through the lobby, and outside, we turned to each other and screamed.

Literally. We screamed.

Now, perhaps that sounds like an overreaction -and I’m the first to admit that I am prone to over-reacting- but I can’t help it. Bad presenting is like bad sex. If you’re bad at it, then for heaven’s sake, stop making others suffer and figure out how to do it better.

But good presenting is hard to do, you whine. It’s not fair to be so harsh, you whimper. Please. Just because I do this for a living doesn’t mean I don’t sympathize with how nerve-wracking public speaking is for most people. But if you’ve been given the immense privilege, yes, privilege, of the undivided attention of a group, you have a responsibility to get it right.

Here are three presentation tips to assist you in the future.

1) Know your audience. Don’t tell stories that don’t have anything to do with their lives. Know what matters to them. Know the culture. And by culture I don’t just mean how and where people were raised -although that can be important- I mean the behaviors and beliefs that are central to that particular audience. Is it a group of executives? Entrepreneurs? Salespeople? Culture matters. Know it before you get there.

2) Know yourself. Most presenters don’t have the first clue about how they appear to others, especially when on the spot. Know what your particular nervous tic is, what your preferred space-filler is (um, ok, etc.), how you gesture, etc. If you aren’t aware of what you’re doing wrong, then you’ll never be able to change it.

3) Know your stuff. It goes without saying that you should know your content before standing in front of a group, but in addition, if you don’t know how to gesture, use visuals, deal with objections, modulate your voice, or a host of other things good presenters know how to do, then get some training.

To have the undivided attention of anyone these days, much less a group of people, is rare. When you’re given the opportunity, take it seriously. Otherwise, I may fork myself in the eye-ball. Believe me, I’ve been tempted to do so in the past.

Funny how it sometimes takes a two-year old to identify what’s really important.

It’s the same question we ask participants in our Don’t Shoot the Messenger workshop. Giving bad news is a difficult thing to do, because we inadvertently become associated in the mind of the listener with the news. So not only are we giving bad news, we become the bad guy. And as horrible as it feels to deliver a negative message, the situation only gets worse when the person receiving it goes on the attack.

When an interaction becomes volatile, we tend to hold our breath, and frantically think of what we can say to defend ourselves. We somehow get the crazy idea that we’ll be able to talk our way out of the mess we’ve unwittingly created.

It reminds me of brainstorming ideas for our company tagline. My husband said, “What about this? Keep talking, let’s see where that gets you.” I laughed at the time, but it’s actually quite apt. Oftentimes we think, “if I just keep talking I can talk my way out of this.” And yet talking often makes things worse.

What we fail to realize is that when we get upset our breathing becomes very shallow -many of us actually hold our breath. This cuts off oxygen to the brain, and instead of being responsive, we become reactive. The longer we continue to breathe high (shallow), the more upset we become.

When someone gets angry or upset, the first thing -the ONLY thing- to ask yourself is, “how am I breathing?” Because if you’re breathing low (deep), two things will happen. One, you’ll be able think more clearly and choose an appropriate response, because your brain will receive the oxygen it desperately needs to function in a conflict situation. Two, the very act of breathing will force the other person to also breathe. People take their breathing cues from us. It’s like yawning- when you see someone do it, you have an irresistible urge to do it yourself. You almost can’t help yourself.

So the next time you find yourself under attack, stop, check in with your breathing, and take a deep breath. You’ll find the interaction will go much smoother when you can answer “yes” to the question, “are you breathing?”

How you use your voice affects how receptive people are to your message. People are more in-tune with a person’s voice than any other nonverbal. There are two basic voice patterns: credible, where the voice curls down at the ends of statements, and approachable, where the voice curls up at the ends of statements. Most people tend to use one or the other, but all effective people use both.

And yet sometimes when we attempt one voice pattern or another, things go wrong. For example, a person with a naturally credible voice pattern will try and use an approachable voice pattern and just end up sounding goofy. And someone with a naturally approachable voice pattern will attempt to use a credible one and end up sounding angry or impatient.

So what’s really happening? It comes down to breathing. Oftentimes my husband will object to something I’ve said and I’ll retort, “What? What did I say?” He’ll answer, “It’s not what you said, it’s your tone.” When we pair voice pattern and breathing we get tone. I can attempt to hide behind my words, but my nonverbals give me away.

There are two basic breathing types. Breathing high -where you hold your breath and take tiny gulps of air- and breathing low -where you inhale deeply and exhale all of the air out. When we pair high breathing with credible voice pattern we get an angry, impatient tone. When we pair high breathing with approachable voice pattern we get the goofy, ditzy tone.

So how does this impact your career? All nonverbally intelligent people employ both voice patterns. But unless you’re breathing well, you won’t communicate what you really mean to say. So make sure to pair low breathing with a credible voice pattern if you want to sound definitive and knowledgeable. Likewise, pair an approachable voice pattern with low breathing to sound friendly and open.

And the next time your significant other accuses you of using that tone you can smile and thank him or her for reminding you to check in with your breathing.

Next time: How breathing makes a difference in the delivery of negative information.

And then I laughed because if anyone needs to be reminded to exhale it’s me. My life is like one big inhale: I just keep taking things in and in and in, bearing down, gritting my teeth, thinking things like, “if it’s to be it’s up to me!” (Seriously. It takes everything I have to stop myself from having it engraved on a coffee mug.)

My chiropractor was doing some deep tissue work on me the other day and asked if the pain level was ok. I replied, “I’m fine, I can take it.” He said, “I don’t want you to ‘take it,’ I want you to let it go.” I exhaled and realized I’d been holding my breath. I thought, hmmm…I’m not so good at letting things go. I tend to view life as a big ocean of activity. I hold my breath, dive in, and rarely come up for air.

But I’m learning to let go. My business coach gave me an assignment last week: create a yes/no list. Work I would say yes to and work I would turn down. I had to clarify that I heard her right. Turn down work? Are you serious? “Have you written the book yet?” she asked.

Ok fine, I get it. I can’t do everything.

The process of breathing can teach us a lot about the process of letting go. As we inhale, oxygen is brought into the lungs where red blood cells are waiting, full of old carbon dioxide that the body’s cells have made. As they accept the oxygen, they release the carbon dioxide and it’s expelled back out into the environment.

That powerful exchange is a great metaphor for a balanced life. To get the good stuff you’ve got to let go of the bad stuff. If you don’t, you’ll literally suffocate to death. So Breathe, Breathe, Breathe, but don’t forget to Exhale.

Next Week: How breathing can make a powerful difference in your career

I’m not a good traveler in general; I get irritable and cranky with the long lines and delays, and since I’ve usually had to get up at some horrific time like 4 a.m. the lack of sleep doesn’t help. Nor does the lack of healthy food. Or good reading material. Basically, having to travel for work lacks a lot of things.

What it doesn’t lack is interesting experiences.

Like last month when I travelled to Dallas. I stepped off the plane and headed to the nearest restroom and entered a stall. There, floating in the toilet was a crisp -well I wouldn’t say crisp exactly- twenty dollar bill.

The toilet was, um, material-free, so-to-speak, meaning there was nothing, um, else in there, but ewww. I didn’t feel right about flushing it, but may I again say, ewww?

I stood there pondering what to do for a few minutes. I eventually decided to fish it out, figuring the minute I did people with TV cameras were going to jump out and tell me I was part of a reality TV show. They had probably been hiding in the next stall before I walked in, carefully planning this entire scenario.

“We’ve secretly put a $20 bill in the toilet. Let’s see what happens…”

Later Kevin and I discussed whether we would have fished it out had there been something, um, in the toilet, to which he said he’d go in regardless, to which I replied, “I don’t think I can be married to you anymore.”

……………………………………………………………………

Other interesting experiences include arriving in Southern California while it was raining. Yes, raining. This, if you haven’t heard, is a VERY BIG DEAL.

Being from Portland I didn’t quite get what the problem was until I got in my rental car and realized everyone was driving like there was ice on the road instead of….water.

I arrived at the location of the training, and was met with shocked exclamations of, “I can’t believe you made it!” They had been wondering if they should cancel. Because of rain. I was sure I had misunderstood something so I asked what the big deal was. “It’s RAINING!” they exclaimed as they ran from the room.

So the next time I sit in the Long Beach airport -which can only be described as a string of sad little dilapidated mobile homes- and watch my fellow travelers descend upon the bar like a pack of refugees fighting to grab supplies that have just been dropped overhead from a plane, I’ll curse my plight because travel sucks.

But at least it’s always interesting.

I don’t mean in the traditional sense. Of course, like everyone, I’d like more, and on occasion I worry that I don’t have enough. No, my money issues revolve around my work. Namely, what to charge, and lately, whether to accept speaking engagements that don’t pay.

One of the primary reasons I hired my business coach was to help me set pricing. Hands down, pricing is one of the hardest things to navigate, at least for me, in terms of running my own business. I obsess -literally- in every session, phone call and email about pricing issues, which I’m guessing is why she continues to point out that I “have a thing” around money.

Hmph.

For a long time I didn’t understand what she meant. In my defense, I don’t feel I have an issue with money, per say, it’s that I fear making the wrong decision. If I speak for free, then that feels unfair to the groups that pay. If I don’t speak for free, I might lose the client. (Or at least, the future clients that are practically guaranteed by the person requesting the engagement.)

It’s become a real problem as of late, since, with my rising visibility, we are getting bombarded with requests to speak for free. Val and I have discussed this at length, how, it makes sense on one hand- speaking in front of people continues to raise my profile- but on the other, it devalues what I do. Unlike a coach or author who speaks for free to bring in coaching business or sell books, my primary source of income is from speaking engagements. And rarely, if ever, do we see the promised clients after speaking for free. “Free begets free,” Val likes to say, and I agree. At least I think I do.

Instead of recommending I see a counselor, -which I’m sure is her next suggestion- my business coach asked me to call a successful speaker friend of hers and ask for advice. “You might be interested in her perspective,” she said.

I called, having no idea what to expect. I thought perhaps she would tell me taking free gigs was a great way to grow my business, or that there was a way to utilize free speaking so that it led to paying clients. I explained the reason for my call, saying that I struggled with how to balance the free speaking requests with my need to make a living.

“I don’t speak for free,” was her response. “Ever?” I asked, somewhat confused. “Ever,” she said. She then asked, “do you want to do this for a living?” I meekly said, “yes,” thinking, I already do this for a living, lady. “Then don’t speak for free,” she said, adding, “ok Bonnie?” and hung up.

As I sat there, phone in hand, wondering how the heck she confused my name for Bonnie, I realized why my coach had me call. It wasn’t to stop me from accepting free speaking engagements. I highly value her advice- one word from her and the matter would have been closed. Instead, she hoped I’d see there was no “right” answer. I can take free speaking gigs or I can turn them down. But doing things out of fear just creates more confusion because the matter is never really resolved. There’s always something new to be afraid of. Which is why I keep obsessing. Good business decisions don’t come from a place of fear.

So I talked it over with Val. And we decided that I don’t speak for free. For a variety of reasons. And that doesn’t mean we won’t someday change our mind or that people who do speak for free are in the wrong. But as we carefully instituted our new policy this week, you’ll never guess what happened. People decided that, well, they might be able to pay after all. Choosing to do something in the absence of fear translated into confidence which, turns out, is something people are attracted to and want to pay for.

Many of us are still recovering from the holidays- the overspending, the overeating:

The time with family.

Don’t get me wrong, spending time with family can be great, but it can also be a pain in the neck. Especially with in-laws.

My friend and I were talking about in-law relationships recently when she asked, “Why are they so hard? What’s the deal with in-laws?”

It really comes down to permission.

I don’t mean the act of asking permission. I define permission as how receptive someone is to you or your message. The more receptive they are, the more permission you have, and vice versa.

The problem with in-law relationships is that in-laws often feel that they have more permission than they really do. Meaning, they feel we are more receptive to their influence than we actually are.

When you think about it it makes sense as to why: when we first meet our future spouses we are overly polite and bend over backwards to get our future in-laws to like us. Which means we let the small annoyances go and overlook the nosiness of our future mother-in-law or the pushiness of our future father-in-law and just figure it’s more important that everybody get along.

Which is fine until we actually get married and the little things we overlooked become big things. But because we overlooked them in the first place we’ve now sent the message that asking when we’re going to have children already or suggesting we have the Smiths over for dinner because, well, didn’t they have you over last month, and it is important you reciprocate- is just fine with us. Except that it’s not.

As I was working on writing this post I asked my husband Kevin for an example of in-law permission, figuring since we are temporarily living with my parents, he’d have plenty of examples.

“Your mom’s brutal honesty,” he said without even pausing to think. “She didn’t have permission with me to be so honest.” This is the woman who, when I said we were thinking about having children, said, “aren’t you too old to have kids?” Ouch. (In her defense she said it out of concern, not to be mean.) She’s equally honest with Kevin, not understanding that when he asks how she likes a meal he prepared (he’s a professional chef) a simple, “It’s great, thanks!” is appropriate. His feelings have been hurt more than once.

“What changed?” I asked, knowing that it bothers him much less than it used to. “Well,” he said, “I now know your mom a lot better and know that’s just her way. It’s also comforting to know that if I want the truth I can go to her and be sure to get it. There’s no bull with your mom, and I like that.” Which is the beauty about my mom. What you see is what you get, which, when you think about it, is so rare in today’s world.

The Permission Principle states: “The amount of permission we have is directly related to the strength and quality of our relationships.” When my mom and Kevin were first getting to know each other she didn’t have permission to be brutally honest. But as their relationship grew, so did the permission.

Lack of permission (read: boundary crossing) is detrimental to relationships, sure. But if we realize that the forced “instant intimacy” between the in-laws and the new spouse contributes to the false sense of permission, we might think about giving our in-laws a little more grace.

Now that the holidays are over and they’ve gone back home that is.