Category Archives: Relationships

How to Deal with Disrespectful Civilians

Do You Distinguish Direct from Offensive Communication?

2 minutes to read

Parsha [Passage of Scripture] Nugget [Precious Idea] Bo – Exodus 10:1-13:16

Over the last decade, I’ve noticed a softening in the military. You don’t hear as much shouting. Repetitive “training” has replaced verbal correction. Special Forces still train tough. But regular units’ training has become more like what you see in the civilian world. Frustration has to be expressed gently…

How to Deal with Disrespectful Civilians

The Purpose of Being Offensive

Its more direct style of communication makes military life seems tougher. But the days of offending someone to test his mettle are long gone. Likewise, G-d rarely permits insulting behavior. One of the few cases, in Parshas Bo, has a special purpose:

…on the 10th of this month, they will take for themselves, each man, a lamb or a kid for the household… (Shemos/Exodus 12:3)

Prior to bringing the tenth plague, the Almighty commanded Moses to have each Israelite household prepare a sacrifice. Like all offerings, it had to be free from blemishes for the four days before its slaughter.

Usually, the purchaser of an animal could rely on the seller to examine it. But the owner of this offering, known as the Pesach or paschal lamb, had to tie it to his bed beginning on the 10th day of the Hebrew month of Nissan. Each householder inspected his own animal.

The Egyptians worshipped lambs and kids. So it aroused their curiosity seeing the Israelites tie their gods to a bed. When they asked for a reason, the Jews told them they would sacrifice the animals on the 14th of Nissan. Outrageous declared the Egyptians!

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But because the Almighty protected the Israelites, they couldn’t harm them.

Let G-d Teach the Lessons

You might think G-d wanted to exalt the Israelites by letting them sacrifice Egypt’s gods. In reality, He wanted Egypt to learn they worshipped false gods. If their slaves could slaughter lambs and kids with impunity, these animals had no power.

Simon and Levi killed the hated Shemites. Shechem had raped Dinah. He was liable to harsh punishment. But neither he nor his people denied G-d like Pharaoh did. So a death sentence on all of the people was wrong.

Pinchas killed Cozbi and his mistress for enticing the Israelites to worship the Ba’al. The Almighty rewarded him for sustaining His honor.

Aspects of civilian life may offend you. A civilian may push your buttons. But people don't do this with the intent of denying G-d. There’s no cause for offending them. When the urge to scold them strikes consider: Are you defending the Almighty’s honor or yourself…

How do you keep your cool when civilians do stupid things?

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Every year beginning on Simchas Torah, the cycle of reading the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, ends and begins again. Each Sabbath a portion known as a sedra or parsha is read. It is named after the first significant word or two with which this weekly reading begins.

Do you have a question about the Old Testament? Ask it here and I will answer it in a future Parsha Nugget!

How to Ensure You Connect with Your Spouse

Do You Think Your Marriage has a Communication Problem?

2 minutes to read

Having been away from their spouse for up to a year, most of the sailors coming through WTP recognize the challenge posed by reconnecting. Even with tools like Facetime and Skype, distance develops. Wives and husbands at home take on new roles. Deployers’ lives gain new dimensions. Often they can’t talk about how they came about. Bridging this gap taxes everyone’s patience…

How to Ensure You Connect with Your Spouse

Communication Isn't the Issue

Many of the sailors I work with are having trouble coping with their spouses. They’re not home yet. But some are already locked in a power struggle. An issue has become contentious. Now they’re trying to convince their spouse they’re correct.

Whatever connection they had begins to deteriorate or is lost. They assume communication is the problem. They want advice or tips to better deal with this issue. But in many cases, they’re communicating well.

The real issues are commitment and perception. Having been apart for so long, each spouse feels like an individual rather than half of a marriage. As well, they don’t have the visual clues and shared experiences that support understanding. Such deterioration is inevitable. And because it happens over time, you won't notice the change.

Words get filtered through perceptions. You can say something five different ways. But that may not change how your spouse perceives it. Until you both recalibrate perspectives, understanding will remain elusive.

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Research shows that communication skills do not predict marriage satisfaction. (Think about all the counselors who get divorced.) When reconnecting, start by revitalizing your commitment. Then reset your perceptions.

3 Steps to Reconnecting with Your Spouse

"We-ness” best predicts a satisfying marriage. Couples who view their marriage as a joint endeavor solve issues better. They also enjoy time together more. Use this process for reconnecting:

1. Prepare. Listen to how you refer to you and your spouse. Do say “you and me”? Changing the pronoun to “we” will make a big difference in your reunion.

2. Renew. Commitment forms the foundation of your marriage. With your spouse, plan a tangible way to reaffirm your bond. It needn’t be a second honeymoon or expensive event. Go somewhere special where you can be alone. Send the kids to a friend's house and spend time at home just the two of you. Don’t plan on sex. If the mood’s right it will happen.

3. Rebuild. Talk about each other’s experiences while you were gone. Strive to understand what your spouse has been through. Ask questions about how your spouse felt during an event. There may be things you can't tell your partner. Is it a matter of OPSEC or do they make you feel too vulnerable? Rebuild the touch points of accurate perceptions.

If you follow this process communication should take care of itself.

Before discussing solutions, understand the why behind what your spouse is saying and doing.

Separation makes the heart grow fonder. But it strains commitment and perceptions. Rebuild them and you’ll regain your marriage.

Who can you partner with to train for your transition?

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How to Create Relationships When You Don’t Know How

4 Steps to Creating Solid Professional Connections

2-½ minutes to read

Creating the relationships you need to get the job you want can be difficult. When the military assigns you to a unit everyone understands they need to build a team. So relationships develop as part of the regular workflow. But for the most part, connections have little to do with getting your next billet. In civilian life, most of your success will rest on how depth and strength of your network…

How to Create Relationships When You Don't Know How

The Military Taught You Relationship Skills

Even though you don’t need connections to get a billet, you learned relationship-building skills. They went by a different name. Leadership and team building require understanding how to motivate colleagues to meet the mission.

Civilians think the military orders people around. We know that’s not reality. Most often, we seek to influence each other. And influence comes from trust. Trust comes from mutual understanding and confidence in a person’s motives. In other words, people with whom we have strong relationships influence us.

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Once you figure out how you built mutual trust with a person, you’ll know how to create other relationships.

Reverse Engineer Your Relationships

Have you ever thought about how you created a friendship? At some point, you met someone and hit it off. Over time you came to trust the person. Months or years later you look back and realize you’ve been friends for a long time. You reminisce about the crazy things you did. It seems to have just happened.

But that can't be. If you hadn’t interacted the friendship would never have grown. You talked about things. And you did things that created mutual trust. Probe your memory. What were the landmark events that solidified the relationship? Reverse engineer the process you went through:

1. Examples. Choose a solid relationship and a bumpy one. It’s best to use professional ones. They’re what you want to replicate. But if necessary, social friends or family members will work. Compare and contrast the two as you complete the next three steps.

2. Assess. Think about why the good relationship developed trust and the other one didn’t. Consider communication style, outlook, values, and mutual interests. Do you connect on several of these in the solid relationship and none in the other one?

3.Steps. Identify the critical points at which trust developed in the solid relationship. Did the other one lack similar waypoints? Steps 2 and 3 should give you a clear picture of how you built the good relationship. They should also reveal why the other one is bumpy.

4. Replicate. Can you use what you learned about the solid relationship to improve the bumpy one? Try using it as a test case. Did it improve? Now identify someone you want to make a part of your network. Apply what you’ve learned and assess how well it worked. Since everyone is different, make adjustments as you go.

This process may seem manipulative. But no one is forcing the other person to engage with you. You’re offering them the opportunity to get to know you.

You now understand how to build relationships. But that doesn't mean everyone will take your offer. People have their own agendas. If someone turns you down, move on. Set aside time each day for relationship development. Soon you’ll have the kind of network that will make for a smooth transition to civilian life.

Do you find it difficult to connect with people?

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Do You Have This in Your Marriage?

How to Strive Beyond Solid Communication…

2 minutes to read

Parsha [Passage of Scripture] Nugget [Precious Idea] Eikev – Deuteronomy 7:12-11:25

Have you had this experience? The other day I infuriated my wife. Then before I could apologize she did something amazingly big-hearted. I stood in awe of her. She was still mad at me. But despite her anger, she wanted to make my life easier.

Do You Have This in Your Marriage-

It just didn't make sense to me. When I’m angry with her we have to talk the matter out to clear the air. Sometimes it doesn't take very long. But once in a while, the discussion will go on for hours. Everything you read about good relationships says to work conflict through. That way you can reconnect with your spouse.

How can Melanie, even temporarily, skip that step? And even though she does, wouldn't it be better to resolve the conflict first? Doesn't her overlooking it incentivize me to do other things that might enrage her?

The Nature of True Love

Here's the rub. She’s not trying to make me feel guilty. Her actions are genuinely kind. That’s what makes them so amazing. Sitting here writing this, the times Melanie has described how much she loves me come to mind. As wonderful as they are, when she acts in spite of her anger she SHOWS me the depth of her love.

At times I live the curse of being a rabbi/chaplain/guy people come to to fix their relationships. I default to rational steps. Identify the source of conflict. Use good communication skills. Talk it through. Reach for compromise and resolution. Reconnect.

Except, that’s not how G-d does it. Two verses from Parshas Eikev explain what I mean:

…He fed you the manna that you did not know…” and “Now Israel, what does the Lord your G-d ask of you? Only to be in awe of the Lord your G-d…” (Deuteronomy/Devarim 8:3 and 10:12)

Moses reminded the Children of Israel that the Almighty fed them in the wilderness no matter what they did. Then he reminded them He asked for nothing in return. So, they should revere Him for such generosity.

Bookended by these two verses, Moses recounted the story of the Golden Calf. With subtlety, he showed them the nature of true love. G-d miraculously fed you. You sinned. No impact on your food supply. Such devotion is awesome.

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The Israelites had to deal with their sin. But G-d did want to disconnect for even a nanosecond. So much for the rational process of working a dispute through in order to be able to reconnect.

Put Process in Its Rightful Place

My wife better understands the nature of true love. I don't know if it's intentional or intuitive. But I’m well advised to learn from her example.

It’s worthwhile knowing processes for working through conflict. Disputes left to fester will destroy your marriage. But in the end, they’re tools. The ability to deal with disagreements is an interim goal for your relationship.

Join me in striving to continue to do loving acts before a dispute is resolved. Imagine the quality of your marriage if you succeed only once in a while. Awesome.

How do you decide your response to an ethical challenge?

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Every year beginning on Simchas Torah, the cycle of reading the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, ends and begins again. Each Sabbath a portion known as a sedra or parsha is read. Its name comes from the first significant word or two with which this weekly reading begins.

Do you have a question about the Old Testament? Ask it here and I will answer it in a future Parsha Nugget!

How to Make Sure You’re Satisfied with Your Job

The Secret to Professional Development in the Private Sector…

2 minutes to read

Advancement in the military was a straightforward process. You knew the career markers: schools, qualifications, exams, and key billets. Some jobs had less upward mobility. Usually, that was because they didn’t need more people in the senior ranks. But where opportunity existed, for the most part, you were on equal footing with everyone else. If only the private sector worked the same way.

How to Make Sure You’re Satisfied with Your Job

The Obscure Process of Career Advancement

Compared to the military, civilian organizations have a mysterious path to promotion. Often the criteria for advancing aren’t clear. You may not even know who can promote you. Coming from the military’s up or out atmosphere, it’s frustrating for your future prospects to be so cloudy.

Besides, private sector organizations and the military are competitive in different ways. Your success in the military came from being the best team player. Camaraderie meant your colleagues were genuinely happy when you advanced. Sure, there were backstabbers. But such people were rare.

In civilian life, people tend to focus on one-on-one competition. It’s much more of a zero-sum game. Companies pit their employees one against the other to get a promotion. Even when there’s no monkey business, it stills feels underhanded.

It might not be so bad if it weren’t for one thing.

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Professional advancement has a big impact on job satisfaction. Succeeding means learning to play the game while holding on to your integrity.

Get a Sponsor Not a Mentor

Research from the Center for Talent Innovation uncovered the key. Veterans lack sponsors. Transition specialists encourage you to find a mentor. Some suggest getting several. A sponsor goes beyond a mentor.

A mentor can offer you:

  • A sounding board
  • Advice
  • Perspective
  • Referral to resources

A sponsor goes further by:

  • Coaching your professional development
  • Defending you against naysayers
  • Advocating for you to senior leaders, especially behind closed doors

When they have a sponsor, 23% of male and 19% of female veterans have greater satisfaction with their job progression. They’re less likely to feel management overlooks their skills. This applies especially to soft skills like team building and transparent decision-making.

Also, they’re less likely to get penalized for exhibiting military behavior that’s misinterpreted. What we see as a straightforward approach can strike civilians as abrupt or harsh. A sponsor helps adjust communication style while mitigating any damage done.

My free guide, The Only Five Steps You Need to Take to Get High-Paying Job, explains the importance of relationships. But using them to get a job is just the beginning. You need to keep building new ones.

Look for a sponsor who:

  1. Has solid influence with senior leadership in your company.
  2. Will be direct in giving you feedback and coaching you to improve.
  3. Will advance your career by mitigating the damage done by your mistakes and highlighting your accomplishments.

You don't need to be young to be a protégé. Finding a sponsor is your first step toward success at a company. It also will help build a foundation on which your job satisfaction rests.

Do you have a sponsor at your company?

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