As a relationship expert, I'm often asked how to mend a broken relationship. My response is always with a question: Do you take the time to make your wife, girlfriend, mother, daughter, son, etc fell special?

As a dad I enjoy doing things that other dads won't do. For instance, last year I started a new Bentley tradition by taking my daughter to nearby downtown Chicago for a daddy/daughter day out.

Last weekend my daughter, Hannah and I had a special Daddy Daughter Day . Hannah suggested we travel to downtown Chicago and go to the American Girl Doll outpost near Michigan Avenue. She wanted to get a new outfit for her doll with the allowance that she saved up. We had been there before but we were always there under time constraints. Either we were downtown as a family with her younger brother Alan, or we had just spent two hours in a museum and wanted to go home.

I listen to a lot of talk radio while in my car and was not surprised by my fellow Chicagoan's reactions to Brett Favre's retirement: joy, sadness and about time! People were happy and yet sad to see one of the all time greats in the history of sports retire. He beat the Bears more times than I care to remember never gloating and then took it like a man when he lost.

I just saw a great TV segment on a morning news show that had three women talking about how women can come together to help each other fix their problems.

In essence they were talking about what Napoleon Hill called a mastermind. A mastermind according to Hill was used by all the rich men that he interviewed. A mastermind succeeds on the premise that two or more minds coming together are far stronger than the same number of minds working apart.

I really feel like I'm letting the cat out of the bag, like I'm about to reveal too much. Some guys won't be happy with what I'm about to tell you. In fact, some have already told me so! But I feel that not enough is being said about how guys really think.

The more you know about how your guy thinks and the way his mind wants to communicate with you, the better off you'll be.

With so many self-help programs on the market today, how can you tell which one is right for you? Well, there might be some, or none at all, that work at the right time and the right place with the right information.

For instance, you can watch a self-help expert give five minutes of good advice on the Today show in the morning, hear her again during a segment on your favorite drive-time radio show or listen to her book on CD during your morning commute, then read a few chapters of her book before bed at night.

Recently I went to a networking event in suburban Chicago where I met a great couple. The husband was a physician and his wife was a counselor. It was thrilling to talk with them because they were genuinely excited to hear what I had to say. They were interested in what I had to say about the male mind set, communication and relationships.

The funny thing was that by the end of the conversation I was far more interested in what they had to say then telling them about me.

If Barack Obama can run America without his Blackberry why can't you run your life without it?

No longer will he be able to get instant updates on what the Chicago White Sox are doing or what his sister is up to in Hawaii. He won't be able to check in with friends, family or other close confidants. No more Facebook, Yahoo, or Twitter for personal use.