All people ever say is: THANK YOU (a celebration of life) and PLEASE (an opportunity to make life more wonderful).

Praise and reward create a system of extrinsic motivations for behavior. Children (and adults) end up taking action in order to receive the praise or rewards.

Regardless of our many differences, we all have the same needs. What differs is the strategy for fulfilling these needs.

I try never to hear what another person thinks of me. I enjoy life a lot more when I spend as little time as possible hearing or thinking about what other people think about me. I go to the needs behind the thoughts. Then I'm in a different world.

When our communication supports compassionate giving and receiving, happiness replaces violence and grieving.

Empathize with silence by listening for the feelings and needs behind it.

To practice NVC, it's critical for me to be able to slow down, take my time, to come from an energy I choose, the one I believe that we were meant to come from, not the one I was programmed into.