RW Blog

RW360 produces a weekly blog that provides practical tips on how to apply relational wisdom in a wide variety of settings, including the workplace, marriage and parenting, with relatives and friends, political discussions and when faced with illness or aging.

This blog is typically written from a faith-based worldview, but most of the basic principles readily apply to the relational goals and challenges that all people face in daily life, regardless of worldview.

Many of these posts have been adapted for use in secular settings and in our values-based course, Exploring Relational Wisdom 3.0. These posts are listed below.

If you’d like to see 200+ additional faith-based posts in 50+ additional topic areas, or if you’d like to subscribe to our weekly blog, please click on the button below.

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RW for Families

Exploring Relational Wisdom 3.0 is an interactive online course that both parents and children can use to develop relational skills that enable them to “get upstream of conflict” and enjoy a more a peaceful and productive family life. This training has been promoted...

Preventing a Breach

I learned the hard way how easy it is to breach a dam. When I was fourteen, my dad hired a contractor to enlarge a stock pond on our ranch by building a dam. It was ten feet high and thirty feet thick at its base. As the pond filled, we discovered that the dirt around...

Lincoln’s Relational Wisdom

The current political climate, at both state and national levels, has highlighted the close connection between politics, pride and emotion. In an outward sense, every politician is constantly striving to build credibility, prestige and influence by highlighting his or...

Reagan, Lincoln, RW and You

Study Ronald Reagan and Abraham Lincoln and you'll learn a great deal about how to relate to your spouse, children, friends and co-workers. Both men displayed their exceptional relational skills on the world stage. Lincoln led our country through the Civil War, the...

Three Forms of Cancer … and It’s Still All About Relationship

Your worldview is always operating in the background of daily life. It gives rise to the beliefs and values that guide your attitudes and behavior, which determine the quality of your relationships. This combination of worldview, beliefs and values also determines how...

Serving a Barista

She was working the early shift at a small Starbucks counter in Dulles Airport. The young barista had probably been up since 4 or 5 a.m., and she already looked worn out. After placing my order with the cashier I stood by the counter while the barista finished the...

RW Training Strengthens Both Businesses and Families

Would you like to find an investment that consistently produces a return of $1.50 to $6.85 for every dollar you invest? What if that investment had the additional benefit of making your church, ministry or business run more smoothly and producing more creative, loyal...

Raising Emotionally Stunted Boys

I’ve met with hundreds of couples who were struggling to save their marriages. One of the most common statements wives make in those meetings is, “There’s just no emotional connection between us. He hasn’t got a clue what I’m feeling or thinking.” In all too many...

The Last Human Freedom

“The last of the human freedoms is to choose one’s attitude.” So wrote Viktor Frankl, an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist who survived the Holocaust, living through the deprivation and horrors of both Auschwitz and Dachau. Consider the background for his writing...

Three Values that Improve Every Relationship

I’ve hired many people … and fired only a few. My best co-workers thrived because of three key character values. The disappointing ones struggled because they lacked the very same values. I’ve noticed an identical dynamic in friendships, marriages and ministries, all...

Hidden Figures

Hidden Figures is one of the best movies I’ve seen in years. This superb movie portrays the remarkable character and accomplishments of three brilliant African-American women who played key roles in one of the greatest engineering operations in history: the launch of...

Preparing Children for Life

When Corlette and I were raising and educating our children, we struggled far more with relational challenges than we did with academic content. Put four imperfect people together in the same home and the relational tensions will easily eclipse educational issues. Our...

Reconciled by a Baby Moose

After two fruitless mediation sessions, Dave and Don were still miles apart and more bitter than ever. Best friends since high school, Don had hired Dave to manage his construction crews. Working long hours together, they built a highly successful company. But then a...

Three Ways to Multiply Kindness

This true story from an airline pilot about a fallen soldier's journey home illustrates a the importance of always being alert to opportunities to show kindness to other people. Here is what the pilot wrote. My lead flight attendant came to me and said, "We have a...

The Three P’s of Satisfaction

It’s not often that an attorney loses a lawsuit, along with her two million dollar contingency fee, and yet walks away satisfied. I’ve seen similar satisfaction with employees who didn’t get a promotion. With church members who disagreed with their pastors. And with...

Gracious Eyes

Years ago I completed a particularly sad divorce mediation. The husband had tried for years to meet his wife’s expectations, but she was adept at finding fault with everything he did. Shortly after our final meeting, I read an article in Country Magazine in which M.G....

If Your Enemy Is Hungry …

When I graduated from college, I was hired by a medical R&D company that was developing an advanced kidney dialysis machine. Within one year I was promoted to serve as the project manager. That's when the trouble started. Within 24 hours of my promotion, I...

Falsely Accused

I often warn people that when they start studying relational wisdom, real growth comes through "homework." That’s what happened last week to a young woman I’ll call “Susan” (all names changed), who just shared this story with me. Susan’s boss, Barbara, asked her to...

Lawyer vs Teacher

I'm not a fun person to argue with. When my pride kicks in, I find it all too easy to use my legal training to cross examine others and back them into a corner with leading questions. As you can imagine, Corlette hates it when I go into attorney mode. But God gave her...

If Your Enemy Needs Electricity

Rich, a dear friend of mine, had a horrible conflict with his neighbor, Cynthia. A property line dispute that began with debates in the back yard had evolved into heated arguments. Eventually Cynthia filed a lawsuit. As an attorney and certified conciliator, Rich felt...

Have You Ever Been This Kind?

When was the last time you did something that was so amazingly kind that others will remember your actions the rest of their lives? If it’s been awhile, I encourage you to take two minutes to watch a video clip of some young men who refused to play basketball against...

Manipulative Double Messages

One of the most effective ways to undermine a relationship is to use double-messages to manipulate other people. This all-too-common process was perfectly illustrated in a recent edition of Baby Blues, one of my favorite cartoon strips. Wanda has clearly mastered the...

The Three Faces of Fear

Fear usually triggers one of three reactions: control, anger or withdrawal (the latter two actually being forms of the first). This is a key insight for improving both your self-awareness and your other-awareness: whenever you encounter control, anger, or withdrawal,...

Giving a Kidney Models RW

Before I became a lawyer, I worked as an engineer on a team that designed hemodialysis machines. While talking with patients going through dialysis, I learned how hard it is to live without a kidney. Therefore, when I heard about a taxi driver who gave his kidney to a...

Raising Empathetic Children

My daughter was sitting on the floor in my study crying softly. Megan had been sharing a sad story with me, and her emotions overflowed in tears. Her two-year-old son, Andrew, was playing in his room nearby. When he heard his mother crying, he pulled some tissues from...

Seven Steps to Empathy

Without empathy, it’s hard to have real relationship. The good news is that since each of us has a natural capacity for developing and exercising empathy. Are you practicing this marvelous gift in your life? If not, here is an acrostic that can help you become a more...

Four Ways to Defeat Hijacking

In 1965, two United States Army battalions stumbled into the first large unit battle with regular North Vietnamese soldiers in the la Drang Valley of South Vietnam. Although the U.S. units were surrounded and outnumbered, they eventually prevailed in battle, but...

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