- How will I measure "success" in my life?
- What character traits will I model to others?
- How will I build strong relationships and work effectively with others?
- What role does faith play in my life?
- How will I persevere through life's inevitable hardships?
- How do I become a masterful decision maker, goal setter, and time manager?
- How will I succeed in college academics?
- How will I select and thrive in my career?
- How will I know he or she is "the one" and prepare for a lasting marriage?
- How will I achieve my financial goals and manage my money?
- How will I measure "success" in my life?
- What character traits will I model to others?
- How will I build strong relationships and work effectively with others?
- What role does faith play in my life?
- How will I persevere through life's inevitable hardships?
- How do I become a masterful decision maker, goal setter, and time manager?
- How will I succeed in college academics?
- How will I select and thrive in my career?
- How will I know he or she is "the one" and prepare for a lasting marriage?
- How will I achieve my financial goals and manage my money?
Equipping Young Adults for Real World Success
ADDRESSING THE NEEDDennis Trittin founded LifeSmart Publishing to help address the life skills deficit hindering today’s younger generation. Observation and research suggests this looming crisis is rooted in several cultural and institutional forces:
1. increasing fragmentation of family life
2. immature or absent parenting
3. schools viewing character/life skills as the domain of parents and therefore focusing primarily on traditional subject matter; parents incorrectly assume schools are fully covering key life subjects (e.g., finance)
4. inadequate youth employment opportunities
5. harmful cultural messages from the media and entertainment industries
The end result is that our society is producing a generation of young adults largely unprepared to negotiate life, develop and maintain healthy life-long relationships, demonstrate honorable and effective leadership, build stable households, and succeed in a--- Read More
Become a Masterful Communicator: Part Four
3/1/2021 6:32:09 PM
Written Communication: Issues and Fixes “I didn’t mean it like that!” ~ Everyone All of us, at one time or another, have had the big written communication fail. Sometimes we’re the “messor,” and other times, we’re the “messee.” My earliest recollection was in seventh grade when I received a note from someone that said, “(so and so) told me to tell you she wants to break up with you.” Now, what exactly was I suppose--- Read More
Become a Masterful Communicator: Part Three
3/1/2021 6:28:42 PM
Oral Communication Essentials “Two monologues do not make a dialogue.” ~ Jeff Daly In this, the third segment of our five-part series on mastering communication, I’ll tackle what sometimes seems like a lost art—oral communication. Our growing dependence on technology in our communications has come at cost, it would seem, to our verbal communications based on observation, pervasive complaints, and employer concerns. It needn’t be this way. A--- Read More
Become a Masterful Communicator: Part Two
2/22/2021 8:32:05 PM
Making a Winning First Impression “A stunning first impression was not the same thing as love at first sight. But surely it was an invitation to consider the matter.” ~ Lois McMaster Bujold One of life’s greatest adventures is what becomes of the people we meet for the first time. Every relationship has its beginning, but we don’t know what will come of it at the time. Who knows, it might be a future spouse, BFF, boss, reference, mother (or father) in law, c--- Read More
Making a Winning First Impression
2/16/2021 1:43:39 PM
“A stunning first impression was not the same thing as love at first sight. But surely it was an invitation to consider the matter.” ~ Lois McMaster Bujold One of life’s greatest adventures is what becomes of the people we meet for the first time. Every relationship has its beginning, but we don’t know what will come of it at the time. Who knows, it might be a future spouse, BFF, boss, reference, mother (or father) in law, client, or--- Read More
Becoming a Masterful Communicator: Part One
2/16/2021 1:07:04 PM
“The art of communication is the language of leadership.” ~ James Humes With the benefit of 66 years of hindsight, I can safely say, “We’ve come a long way, baby,” to borrow a line from a Loretta Lynn song. Surely, we can all agree we’re not there yet, but our world has seen progress on a number of fronts during my lifetime. At the same time, I think we’ve regressed in some ways. While those of us in the “older --- Read More
How "Two Buckets" Can Help You Thrive in Chaotic (and Normal) Times
1/31/2021 1:05:43 PM
In these challenging times, all of us at LifeSmart are concerned for your well-being and are working overtime to find ways we can support you, your families, and your schools with encouragement, wisdom, perspective, and helpful strategies. Given the soaring levels of anxiety we are witnessing, this message is important. I have no doubt that there are people in your life who can benefit. Our desire is that it makes you, and the children you guide, more peaceful, hopeful, healthy, and productive, --- Read More
20 Ways to a Happier New Year
1/17/2021 10:13:21 PM
With the dawn of a new (hopefully much better) year, we’re inundated with lists of the 10 best this or the five best that. I don’t know about you, but the problem I have with many of their ideas is they’re often vague or difficult to sustain over the course of the year. Despite our best intentions, we try them, and then eventually peter out. Nonetheless, we’d like to share our recipe for a happier new year, 2021 style, with some creative ideas that might just stick. Afte--- Read More
An Open Letter to Yourself to Read This Time Next Year
12/8/2020 11:09:20 PM
No matter how you slice it, 2020 year has been a really hard year for all of us. For parents, it may have looked like trying to juggle working from home and handling kids’ remote schooling at the same time. For teachers, it probably looked like figuring out how to teach kids over a computer screen (spoiler alert: it’s not designed to work that way!). Many of us may have lost loved ones and haven’t been able to properly celebrate their lives, or are mourning the loss of time spe--- Read More
Finding Gratitude in all Circumstances
11/24/2020 7:08:09 PM
I am thankful for my five little neighbor girls, who among other things, throw wet leaves at me. ~ Dennis Trittin It’s Thanksgiving Week, and that means our usual blog on the topic of gratitude. In normal years, this marks the beginning of the holiday season with tremendous anticipation, but this year has a heaviness to it, doesn’t it? We’ve been enduring one “Kaboom” after another, and, let’s face it, we’re having to work a little harder at be--- Read More
Our Tips for Raising Younger Leaders
11/13/2020 4:48:29 PM
If you’re a parent, caregiver, educator, or mentor of elementary-aged kiddos, this one’s for you! Earlier this year, I was invited to speak at a Moms program that focuses on the K-5 stage of parenting. Given that most of our parenting talks focus on the teen and young adult years, this was a fun extension of our mission of training up leaders. After all, it’s never too early to start building those skills that will serve a lifetime! It’ll come as no surprise that my --- Read More
7 Great Books for Your Parenting Toolkit
10/26/2020 2:31:20 PM
As co-authors of two parenting books (Parenting for the Launch: Raising Teens to Succeed in the Real World and Wings Not Strings: Parenting Strategies to Let Go with Confidence), we greatly enjoy (and benefit from) the writings and perspectives of our peers. We especially appreciate books that discuss the state of children and young adults and those offering practical parenting tips to add to our quiver. Truth be told, writing parenting books is a convicting experience because n--- Read More
