This is a photo of my late wife Deb and my son, David, who is now 32.

A few weeks back I listed and thanked many of the people who have helped Linda and I with getting You’re Amazing to this point. Today I would like to thank two of our newest angels who are helping us with our latest challenges. Cheryl Schuman, who is a long-time friend, is currently making curtains for behind the timeline. We also want to thank the newest member of our team, Shane Brown, who is an incredible professional website designer and a wizard at social media marketing. The next sentence is for Shane – Hey Shane – I actually think I am starting to understand social media marketing!

There are so many people that have helped us, it’s easy to leave someone out and we don’t mean to. So, as we go forward, we will continue listing people who have helped us. We want to thank our counselor and spiritual guide, Marg Garvila. She is a magnificent woman. We also want to thank Denice Martin, of Center of Health, our chiropractor and physical coach. She keeps us in shape. Marg and Denice both cheer us on. Thank you for your incredible support.

This past week we have primarily worked on contacting podcasts and we have been invited to be a guest on two podcasts at this point. On October 25, Hollis Chapman is interviewing me on his show, The Hollis Chapman show. His show is for authors and you really should check it out. You can access his show at https://www.blogtalkradio.com/hollischapmanshow.

The other podcast that I have been invited to be a guest on is called Heroes Like You and the host is Joe Belliston. Heroes Like You is a project aimed to provide motivation, encouragement, and hope, for anyone facing overwhelming challenges, by exploring the lives of extraordinary people, learning how they overcame their trials, and discovering that they are just like you and I. Joe is extremely passionate about suicide prevention. Give this show a chance – it could change your life or the life of someone you love. You can access his show at https://www.heroeslikeyou.com. I haven’t confirmed a date yet for my interview with Joe. We will let you know as soon as we know.

Another landmark that we have achieved is Shane of http://www.zeromorph.com is in the process of creating a landing page for You’re Amazing And I’ll Prove It! where you will be able to enter our contest and win some amazing prizes! We will let you know when it is completed and give you the link.

Now for my story of the week. One of the things life has taught me is how important communication is. To illustrate why this is true, I’ll tell you about a fight that my late wife Deb and I had.

Deb and I were roughly 36 years old. Anyone that knows me knows that I am an extremely passionate person. Well Deb’s passion certainly equaled mine.
I don’t even remember for sure what the fight was about, but I do know finances are the number one reason couples fight. So, more than likely it was over finances.
Well I’m an inventor, as everybody knows, and for this post, the only thing you need to know about an inventor is that he/she takes all the pieces, assembles them in their head and then runs the scenario. I’m telling you right now that the way I assembled those pieces, if we as a couple did not make the correct decision, we were in real trouble. Deb did not like the decision I made and to say she stood her ground is a massive understatement. Well this fight started and escalated for 3 days. It never got physical, but trust me, we were one step away from it.

Finally, I said, this is ridiculous, we’re going to call Jean Ketchel (our counselor) and let’s see if she can solve this disaster. One of the magnificent things about Jean is that she never took sides. Deb and I were so angry with one another that we didn’t even want to be in the same room together. Upon arriving at Jean’s office, I informed her that Deb was going to take the first 15 min, I was going to take the second 15 mins, and I hope for god’s sake you can solve this problem.
After we each had our 15 minutes, we took a seat on opposite sides of the room and Jean sat facing us, but between us. I don’t even remember which person Jean spoke to first. She was sitting in a swivel chair. Like I told you Deb and I were on opposite ends of the room. She turned in her swivel chair and faced Deb. She said, “Deb, Neal sees the situation this way.” Jean then explained in detail how I saw the situation. You could see the stunned look on Deb’s face. She had never considered looking at the situation from the angle I was looking at it from. And from my angle, the only right answer was the way I was going to solve it. Jean then turned to me. She said, “Neal, Deb sees the situation this way.” and then explained in detail how Deb saw it. My jaw hit the ground. Because like Deb I had never thought of the angle she was seeing it from. From her angle the only way to solve the problem was the way she was going to solve it. Well needless to say that fight was instantly over just because we saw the other person’s point of view. Deb and I went on to solve the problem.

That was literally the last fight Deb and I ever had. Oh, we had little skirmishes from time to time, but we never had a major disagreement again. Every time we would start to get aggravated with one another, we would take a step back, take a deep breath, grit our teeth, maybe even pull our hair out a little bit, then we would say – “How do you see it?” Because we were willing to take a moment and not only listen to the other person’s point of view, but actually consider it, we never really fought again.

The point to all of this is, remember my message is “People Are Good”. I know this to be a fact. So, as an inventor the question is – Why are people making different decisions, standing in different positions when the vast majority of us are good and want good for the people around us? The answer that my life has taught me is that it all starts with communication and the willingness to at least consider the other person’s point of view.
If we don’t know where the other person stands and why, there is no chance at solving the challenges life is throwing at us. So, let’s start listening to one another, considering the other person’s position and then get busy working together to solve our problems.
PEOPLE ARE GOOD, PEOPLE ARE REALLY GOOD.

As always we love to hear your comments and stories and if you would like to follow my blog please click on the plus sign in the upper left of the page. See you next week!