When I was young, I always planned on writing a book... once I figured out what my message was to the world. At long last, I have finally started working on mine. I am writing it with my husband's ex-wife on how to blend families (Bob and Sally have the most successful divorce I know of, and we really are one big, happy, extended family).

Medical device inventor David Phillips, (he received the Inventor of the Year Award in 1986 for the Infrared ear thermometer) said something very interesting to me recently. "Thoughts have great power. So if you have a thought that's not going to lead you to where you want to go, you have to pull it." David called this "pulling weeds." While this is so important, a lot of people find it difficult to just stop thinking about some things.
"Why don't you become a plumber?" is not the career advice I'd ever imagine giving to my children. Yet it's exactly what trend-watcher Arnold Brown, chairman of the trends consulting firm Weiner Edrich Brown, advised when I saw him recently.
I don't usually make dramatic changes in my life, but after reading the cover article of the November 15, 2009 issue of Bottom Line/Personal "Don't Stand in Front of the Microwave: Radiation Dangers from Phones, Plasma TVs and Computers, Too!" -- I've done just that.
I heard from psychologist Barry Lubetkin, Clinical Director and Founder, Institute for Behavior Therapy (www.ifbt.com), about a patient in the financial industry who was utterly crushed at the idea that he would now not be able to make a billion dollars. Let me clarify.



