August 5, 2015

You Don’t Owe This World a Thing

I am psyched about the upcoming Batman vs. Superman movie. I loved the recently released trailer, which I must have seen a dozen times so far.

There is one scene in particular in this trailer that caught my eye. It’s the scene where Martha Kent, Superman’s adoptive Earth mom, tells him: “Be their hero, Clark. Be their angel, be their monument, be anything they need you to be. Or be none of it. You don’t owe this world a thing. You never did.”

To me it’s obvious that many comic book movies are moving in a new direction with the message they’re sending. And, personally, I love this new direction.

Some years ago, comic book movies like Spider-Man used to tell us that “with great power comes great responsibility” and try to instill in us the idea that we have an obligation to use our strengths to help, even save, humanity.

Now the message is shifting towards what I see as a more rational and mature message, which suggests that we are free to do what we want in life. Thus, we should use our strengths to help others if that’s what we want to, but we don’t have an obligation to do that. I’d like to talk about why this idea makes a lot of sense and why it’s useful to live by it.

superman

Our Existential Freedom

This emerging idea in comic book movies that we are free to choose our own path in life can trace its roots in the thinking of prominent philosophers such as Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Camus and Sartre. I have no doubt that film directors Zack Snyder and Christopher Nolan, who are responsible for the current wave of Batman and Superman movies, are drawing some inspiration from these guys.

The ideas of philosophers like Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Camus and Sartre were grouped in a philosophy known as existentialism. The main premise of existentialism is that life is intrinsically meaningless. It has no objective meaning or purpose, and our notions of good and evil are subjective as well.

This lack of objective meaning can be a source of dread, but it’s also highly liberating and empowering. Because it implies that we have no preset obligations in life; that we are free to give our life whatever personal meaning we want and live it in alignment with that meaning.

I find this existential perspective quite accurate. One could even say that “man is condemned to be free”, as Sartre puts it. But it’s not too bad of a sentence, considering how valuable the freedom to live how we want is.

Of course, we are born in society, which brings upon us a set of basic obligations, as part of a basic social contract in the absence of which society would not be able to function properly. But this is a very basic contract, with obligations such as not killing, not stealing, not beating people up. Beyond that, I don’t buy into anything else as a given obligation in life.

Overcoming the Savior Mindset and Living Freely

Many of us have been educated to think otherwise though. Parents, teachers, religious leaders, and many old-school superhero movies have taught us that we have some sort of immense duty towards other people. We have to help them, fix their problems, save them from difficulty, and generally be very nice to them.

I think this idea is simply unsubstantiated. Why do we have the duty to help others? No sensible reason is ever given. Sure, helping others will improve their life, it can also benefit us eventually, and it’s wise in many cases. But that doesn’t mean it’s an outright obligation.

Also, in practice, this idea backfires in horrible ways. As a confidence and communication coach, working frequently with men and women who live feeling they have a strict duty to help others, I witness this all the time.

Such individuals become pathological people pleasers. They always put others first and sacrifice their own needs for them. But they never feel like they’ve done enough for others and they constantly feel the heavy pressure of obligations. Ironically though, they often get very little in return when they need help, and they are often seen as insecure, clingy or needy, which is why they frequently have very few real friends.

One way or another, their bottomless sense of obligation towards others brings them much frustration and disappointment.

Again, this is not to say that helping others doesn’t make practical sense sometimes, because you will get help in return when in need, or that it cannot feel very good at times, even if you get nothing in return. It’s just not an obligation. Martha Kent is right: you don’t owe this world a thing.

If you’re used to thinking and feeling that you owe this world something (maybe, a lot), as well as acting accordingly, it’s gonna take some work to change this mindset. You’re gonna have to dig into your beliefs system and make some crucial changes there. But this is doable, and definitely worth doing.

If you wanna learn how to change your beliefs effectively, free yourself from the burden of a strong sense of obligation and radically improve your social confidence, I suggest you watch this special presentation, where I discuss just that in more detail and share some of my best advice.

Also, join my free social confidence newsletter, where I share regular advice on this topic. The help is out there. You just have to grab it and use it.

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July 12, 2015

Why Anxiety Levels Are On the Rise and What to Do About It

We live in a peculiar society. The level of prosperity we have is higher than ever in recorded history, our degree of freedom and possibilities is also higher than ever, and yet our levels of anxiety are higher than ever as well.

And it’s not just my experience as a confidence coach, which may make me biased considering that I work with anxious people on a regular basis. I’ve seen several important scientific studies that point to such a conclusion.

One interesting study for instance, shows that normal children today experience a level of anxiety that would have been considered pathological in the 1950s. And the study was done several years ago. Things have only gotten worse since.

Since high, recurring anxiety constitutes a serious health issue, I’d like to talk about the 4 factors I believe contribute greatly to this rise in anxiety levels in our society. I’ll also suggest some ways to deal with them, so you can lead a more peaceful and fulfilling existence.

1. Unrealistic Expectations

Nearly everywhere I go, I meet people expecting to live these glamorous, extravagant lives worthy of a best-selling novel, filled with fame, riches, power and adventure. Not just hoping, but expecting; and expecting all of this to come easy.

People get sucked into this dream of having it all and doing it all. And for 99% of them (which probably include me and you too), it’s just not a realistic dream. Not everybody is Bill Gates or Brad Pitt.

I’m all for aiming high, but it’s important to know your limits as well. Because when you don’t, down the path in life you run into heaps of conflicts between expectations and actual results; which is what’s currently happening to lots of folks in their 20s, 30s and 40s. And such conflicts are a major source of anxiety.

So keep your expectations in check and use some common sense when forming them. It will spare you a lot of senseless distress.

2. Negative News in the Media

The media knows that, sadly, people pay a lot more attention to negative news than positive ones. Which is why it bombards us with such news, and now it does so more than ever. And since mass-media news consumption is still a major pastime for most people, it means they’re right in the middle of this onslaught.

Exposed to bad news in large quantities, our minds easily start to over-generalize, and they come to perceive the world we live in is a much more dangerous place than it truly is.

Thus, many folks seem to think that poverty, disease, crime and violence are on the rise, when according to real statistics, they are nearly universally on the decline. And their bad views lead to irrational fears and lots of anxiety.

So, if you wanna make your life much more pleasant and your perspective on things much brighter, cut down your consumption of mainstream news and media to a minimum.

3. Less Focus on Deep Relationships

sleepDeep, fulfilling relationships are a powerful anxiety moderator. People with an abundance of such relationships typically experience significantly less daily anxiety than the rest.

Today though, we seem to be much more focused on money, career and status than on spending quality time with others and building meaningful relationships.

And when we interact with others, it’s often in shallow, restrictive ways, like the use social media websites, which does little in terms of enhancing the emotional connection with others. Posting a couple of pictures on Facebook for your friends to see is nowhere near as fulfilling socially as actually conversing with them face to face.

So it’s important to dedicate your social life a decent amount of time, and to focus on building and maintaining deep relationships.

If you feel you lack the social skills or social confidence to do that successfully, I suggest you check out this free presentation where I’ll teach you how to boost your social confidence, and also join my free social success newsletter. A lack of confidence or social skills needn’t be a permanent obstacle. You can do something about it.

4. The Allure of Quick Fixes

I can definitely see a high propensity for people today to seek quick fixes to their problems, even major ones. I suspect this issue is getting worse, especially when it comes to dealing with anxiety.

People often seek to solve serious anxiety problems with just a few tips and tricks. They look for fast techniques that will effortlessly get rid of all their worries. And many marketers are eager to cater to such desires with false promises and ineffective courses.

When easy tricks for eliminating anxiety don’t work, people often revert to the ultimate quick fix: medication. Anxiety medication usage has been on the rise for decades. But alas, meds often don’t produce improvements either, when they do it’s often short-lived (as the body builds tolerance to them), and they frequently have dangerous side-effects.

You definitely have reasons to trust that you can overcome anxiety issues, including generalized anxiety and social anxiety. But not via quick fixes. The truth is that you need a reliable psychological solution, which you’ll have to put into practice for a few weeks, maybe even a few months. Only thus you’ll genuinely solve your anxiety problems.

Interested in learning such a solution for overcoming social anxiety, which has been used successfully by hundreds of shy and socially anxious individuals I’ve coached personally? Then check out this special presentation I created. You won’t regret it.

Our world isn’t perfect, but it does offer some amazing opportunities. Life today is definitely worth enjoying. So if anxiety issues are preventing you from enjoying it fully, working on taking care of these issues may just be one of the most crucial things you’ll ever do. Take action.

Filed Under: Attitude, Lifestyle Tagged With: , , , , Leave a Comment
June 17, 2015

4 Myths about Conversation and One Crucial Truth

I think many people have some off-track ideas about conversation and how it’s supposed to be done, which sabotage their social interactions and social life.

Based on my social and coaching experience, I’d like to debunk 4 such common conversation myths, then underline an important truth, and hopefully help you gain a better understanding of both yourself and the subtle art of conversation. Let’s start with the 4 myths.

Myth 1: Conversation Means Just Small Talk

Small talk – like chatting about the weather or how good the coffee you’re having is – is a frequently present part of conversation. But that’s not what conversation is all about. Ideally, small talk should only be one component of a conversation.

Small talk is a great way to break the ice with somebody, to ease your way into a conversation. It’s also something that’s good to have sprinkled all throughout a conversation. But a good conversation is not just small talk. On the contrary, it involves discussing meaningful and highly engaging topics at least as much.

It is true that some people tend to just stick to small talk, but they are not the example to follow. These people are generally uncomfortable with deeper conversation because they fear it will expose their shortcomings or turn into some sort of argument. However, the best conversationalists combine small talk with deeper conversation. They’re the right model.

Myth 2: Small Talk Is a Waste of Time

Group of multiracial friends with barbecue and beer bottle enjoying their vacationSo small talk is a part of conversation though. However, simply because it’s about banal topics does not make it worthless.

I find that people who don’t get the point of small talk are typically not seeing one important aspect of conversation. For them a discussion is strictly about learning something or being intellectually stimulated; and small talk does little in that sense.

However, conversation is also a form of social play. When conversation is play, the topic is not very important. It’s the vibe going on between the two or more people discussing that matters. I can talk with someone about cheese nips and have a satisfying conversation. Because the emotional exchange is the important part, not the informational exchange.

If you’re not used to seeing and making conversation as a form of social play, it’s time you begin trying to do so. You’re missing out on an amazing experience if you don’t.

Myth 3: Conversation Means Being Fake

Ammm, no! Sure, some people are mostly fake during conversation, pretending to like things they don’t, to be someone they’re not, in order to please whomever they’re talking to. But not everybody is like that, and again, such folks are not the example to follow.

Because conversation is not about trying to please others. It’s about seeking a mutually rewarding interaction with somebody. And if you can’t have that kind of an interaction with a person, that’s fine too. It’s okay to just drop it.

If you have to be fake for somebody to enjoy your company, it’s usually not worth it for you, so you shouldn’t try to make conversation that way.

I often help my coaching clients develop a more genuine and articulate style of conversation. Throughout this process, they constantly discover how enjoyable it is when you’re being real with others, and how it truly pays off.

Myth 4: People Are Too Stupid To Talk To

I hear a lot of men and women complain about how others are idiots, they have nothing interesting to say, and all they talk about is movies, TV, or celebrity gossip.

I’d definitely love it for more people to have more exciting lives and be more interesting to talk to. But at the same time, I do find lots of smart and fascinating people. In fact my social circle is full of them.

But you have to talk to a lot of people and interact with some of the less interesting people as well to discover who the more interesting ones are. And many times an apparently dim and dull person ends up being quite intelligent and intriguing once you get a chance to truly know them.

So not all people are stupid or boring; and some people being less than what you’d like them to be is not an excuse for avoiding social interaction.

This leads me to my final point, relating to one question:

Why Do Many People Buy Into These 4 Myths?

Why is it that many folks believe this baloney about making conversation?

Part of it has to do with a lack of social experience, which creates a lack of true understanding of conversation, which leaves plenty of room for false ideas to come in. And there are many sources for such ideas out there.

Many people’s ideas about talking to others come from a combination of movies, cheesy self-help articles and guidance from socially awkward friends. And they’re just very off.

There is a deeper aspect to this issue though. Working regularly with people with less than fulfilling social relationships, I often find that they use ideas such as the 4 myths above as excuses to avoid social interaction and justify their paltry social lives.

But the real reason they avoid social interaction is because they find interacting with others nerve-racking. They are shy or socially anxious, and conversing with others is not easy for them. So they avoid it. The 4 myths come afterwards as rationalizations, or backfiring attempts to comfort themselves by making themselves seem superior to others for not being as sociable.

If this is you, it’s crucial for you to understand that, with some proper guidance, you can overcome your social insecurities and you don’t have to let them paralyze you. But you’ve got to take responsibility for your life and stop making excuses for avoiding social situations.

Instead of making excuses, you gotta admit that you wanna have a better social life, and then focus on working to develop the social confidence & skills that will allow you to do it.

And I can help you with that. The first thing I suggest you do is check out this practical presentation, in which I’ll show you my highly-optimized method for developing social confidence, used over the past 5+ years by hundreds of people I’ve coached. You’ll learn a lot from it.

Also, join my free social confidence newsletter for more practical advice from me for improving your confidence and conversation skills.

Truth be told, no loner is genuinely pleased with being a loner. Life isn’t only about socializing, but social relationships are a very important component of life, and a huge predictor of life satisfaction. It’s worth taking care of this aspect of your life.

You can do it! The ball is in your court.

Filed Under: Communication Skills, Inspirational Tagged With: , , , , , Leave a Comment
May 20, 2015

Talk Is Cheap: How to Practice More the Ideas You Believe In

One thing I find exciting about today’s world is that we have more and more access to more and more rational, well-documented and practical ideas, which a lot of us are keenly accepting. We’re going through a veritable second Age of Enlightenment.

However, it’s one thing to believe in a good idea at a conscious level, it’s a totally other thing to live by that idea every day. It’s much harder to practice an idea consistently than it is to agree with it and talk about it. Which is why you’ll often find a big gap between what people claim to believe and what their actual behavior reflects.

Take the case of minimalist living: lots of folks are getting wise to the fact that the relentless pursuit of stuff won’t make them happy, and they give considerable credence to the idea of a low-consumption lifestyle with other priorities than acquiring stuff. Many of them are quite vocal about this too.

I think it’s great that the notion of minimalist living is catching on. Nevertheless, it’s much easier to proclaim you believe in it than it is to live by it. So you’ll often find people who state they believe in a low-consumption life, yet they change their phone every 6 months, their car every 2 years, and they have a wastefully big house, crammed with stuff they rarely use. And many of them fail to see the duplicity in this.

As a coach, I regularly help others practice consistently ideas they believe in and they know can transform their life, to make them a part of the very fabric of their personality. I’d like to show you some ways to do this that have worked very well both for me and my coaching clients.

1. Live More Consciously 

The more you pay conscious attention to your thoughts and your behavior, the easier it is to spot inconsistencies between the ideas you believe in and the way you act. Then you can make deliberate changes to close this gap. This is what I call living consciously.

Most of us rarely live consciously. We mostly live in reaction; we are impulsively driven by obligations such as work or house chores, and by distractions such as television, advertising, fast food, and funny YouTube videos. It will take work to be more mindful of how you live, moment by moment, and take charge of your behavior. But it’s worth it.

practice

2. Carve Out Specific Actions for Yourself 

Often when we discover a good idea, we decide to adopt it, and then we stop there. We think that decision alone will change our behavior and align it with that idea; which rarely happens. In order for your behavior to change, it’s crucial to come up with specific actions to carry out, and then do them regularly.

For example, say you decide it’s a good idea for you to be more social. You can then come up with specific ways to be more social; like going out to social events at least 3 times per week, or talking to at least 3 new people at each social event you go to. These kind of specific, actionable goals turn good ideas into practical behavioral changes.

3. Overcome the Emotional Barriers 

Frequently you may want to implement a certain idea but have problems because of emotional obstacles. Going back to the example above, you may wanna be more social, but you may be afraid of talking to new people or feel anxious in social situations. Such emotions will make it hard to genuinely come out of your shell.

So you’ll have to work on overcoming these insecurities in order to be able to change your behavior. Since this is a broad and important topic, I’m not gonna go into details on it here.

Instead, I’ve created a separate instructional presentation in which I’ll show you with clear explanations how to overcome your anxieties, especially the ones you may have in social settings. I’ve helped literally thousands of people with this issue, I’m sure I can help you too. Go here to watch the presentation.

4. Ask For Feedback 

Other people can often see things about your conduct that you are oblivious to, because they have an external perspective on you. So to better align your behavior with your beliefs, it’s a good idea to tell others about the kind of beliefs you wanna implement in your life, and ask them for honest feedback when they think your behavior is off track.

Pick people you trust to be honest and levelheaded to help you with this, and who genuinely care about you. Sometimes their feedback will be a hard pill to swallow, but it’s just the right medicine.

5. Have Someone Help You Stay Accountable 

It’s always important to hold yourself accountable for your actions. But it’s even better if there is another person to keep your accountable in addition: someone who aids you set personal development goals, someone you report back to on your progress, someone who gives you and extra dose of motivation, focus and guidance to keep going.

A competent coach, counselor or psychologist is probably the best person for such a task. They will have the skills to properly oversee your personal development and help you stay committed to your goals. So if you wanna align your behavior with your beliefs as fast and as much as possible, this is definitely an option to consider.

For more help from me in changing your behavior (especially in social situations) and becoming the person you wanna be, I recommend you join my free social success newsletter.

Ultimately, when you practice what you preach, when you align your actions and your whole being with the ideas you consciously believe in, you are a person of integrity. It’s not only something to feel very proud of, but also a great path towards success and happiness.

Filed Under: Personal Development, Psychology Tagged With: , , , , Leave a Comment
April 26, 2015

What Makes a Good Leader?

As my coaching experience grows and my communication coaching skills improve, I find myself increasingly more working with people in high management positions. The business world is an interesting kind of jungle and the activity of a top manager is quite fascinating to me.

But a person in a top management position is more than a manager. He or she is also a leader. So in my work, the question of what makes a good leader often comes up. I believe there are many traits that make a good leader, but 5 of them are particularly important. Here they are and here’s why they matter so much:

1. Vision

One of the most important roles of a leader is to inspire people. But in order to do this, they need to have a clear vision of what the organization they lead is about, of what exactly and how it seeks to achieve. And this vision must have the power to inspire others.

If you look throughout history at great political, social, religious and business leaders, you’ll frequently discover the presence of such a clear vision in them. Think of the “I have a dream” speech made by Martin Luther King. The ideas conveyed in that speech express the kind of compelling and relevant vision I’m talking about. Whatever field a leader is in, they can have such a vision.

2. Public Speaking Skills

The work of a leader involves a lot of communication, and much of which occurs not one-on-one, but with groups of people. Whether delivering a presentation to a dozen people in an office meeting or speaking to hundreds of people at a conference, a good leader must have good communication skills in general, and great public speaking skills in particular.

Business Talks

Sharp public speaking skills make a brilliant combination with a clear vision, because these skills allow the leader to articulate that vision in a persuasive way.

In their absence, the vision will likely remain just a good idea that few people actually understand or buy into. How it is communicated indeed makes all the difference in the world.

3. Self-Confidence 

As any true leader can attest, being in a leadership position involves a lot of responsibility and pressure. Good leaders work hard, take risks, deal with uncertainty constantly and face unthinkable challenges. Dealing with such situations without losing your sanity takes a lot of emotional strength, and this strength comes from a serious dose of self-confidence.

Good leaders have this solid self-confidence. They trust themselves to make good decisions. At the same time, they can accept that they will make mistakes, because they trust themselves to learn from them and quickly get on the right track. They strongly believe that, one way or another, they will get the job done.

If you wanna learn more about where this kind of powerful self-confidence comes from and how you can develop it, I suggest you check out this special video, in which I’ll show you just that.

4. Empathy 

In big organizations with hundreds or thousands of people, it’s common for a leader at the top of the management structure to lose touch with what’s going on at the bottom of the organization, at the level of the ordinary member or employee, and thus make many faulty decisions, which in time erode the organization.

This is why it’s crucial for a leader to have empathy. Empathy manifests itself in the desire of the leader to stay connected to people at all levels of the organization, and in the ability to understand what these people do and experience. Good leaders know when their people are satisfied or dissatisfied, and they know why. They never lose touch with others and they realize when a change is needed.

5. Integrity 

I define integrity as the alignment between what one thinks, says and does; the alignment between thoughts, words and actions. I believe Integrity is an integral part of what makes a good leader. Good leaders say what they truly think, and they do what they promise.

Because they are honest and they keep their promises, good leaders are trusted and respected by those they lead. People genuinely want to follow them. This makes it much easier for them to have good communication with people, to engage them, and to make things happen. It’s no surprise that integrity is often quoted in the business literature as a key trait of good leaders.

These 5 traits largely represent what I believe makes a good leader. In my experience, few people on the path towards leadership positions have all 5 of them. Fortunately these traits can be developed. They are mostly thinking, emotional and behavioral patterns, which, with practice and the right guidance, can be learned.

So if you wanna be a good leader and you are serious about it, there is nothing to stop you from becoming one. For more help from me in developing the traits of a good leader, I suggest you check out my coaching services and get onboard my free social advice newsletter.

Filed Under: Career, Success Tagged With: , , , 1 Comment
March 27, 2015

How to Be Memorable in 4 Practical Steps

As a species, we human beings are outstandingly social creatures. We crave companionship and connection. We love to be accepted, appreciated and admired by others. But perhaps one of the most fascinating social desires we have is the desire to be memorable.

We want others to remember us, to think about us, and to recognize us immediately when they meet us again. Having a place in their memory makes us feel proud, makes us feel valued, and sometimes it almost makes us feel immortal through their reminiscence of us.

The subject of being memorable often comes up in discussions with my communication coaching clients. I’d like to share with you 4 key pieces of advice on how to be memorable that I often discuss with them.

1. Start with the Way You Dress

I had a period when I used to wear colored hats a lot. Almost everywhere I went, I had a colored hat on my head. That taught me a valuable lesson about clothing: dressing in a unique way can really get you noticed and remembered.

People would constantly comment about my hat. They’d first get curious about it, then they’d get curious about me. After seeing me once, many would recognize me on the spot the next time they saw me due to the hat.

I even learned that some people would talk about me after having met me at some event, but they hadn’t remembered my name, so they would just describe me as “the guy with the colored hat”. The other person would instantly say: “Oh yeah, I know who you’re talking about”.

I’m not suggesting that you should dress in a really outlandish way. But having just one or two interesting and unique items on you can make you a lot more memorable. You’ll easily stand out from your average person, who dresses in a bland and unremarkable way.

2. Say Things Others Don’t Dare To Say

Hanging upside down is funThere are crucial truths that most of us need to hear, but we rarely do. Because others don’t want to upset us, get rejected, or seem impolite.

That’s one of the reasons many companies hire coaches and consultants: to tell key employees what nobody inside the company dares to tell them; to give them honest and complete feedback.

If you tell people what nobody else dares to tell them, you’re guaranteed to be remembered by them. Being very honest is great for becoming memorable.

In order to be so honest though, you need to be able to risk upsetting people. It’s worth taking this risk, but to be able to do so you need a solid dose of social confidence; which few people have. This is why most folks play it safe with others and hide the truth when honesty is risky.

Gaining social confidence is something I’ve coached many people in achieving. Based on my 6+ years of cumulated experience, I’ve created a practical presentation in which I will show you step by step how to gain social confidence fast, so you can be more straightforward with people. If this is something you sometimes struggle with, you’ll find this presentation very useful. So go here and watch it right now.

3. Notice Subtle Details about People

When you can observe and point out something to somebody that few people notice about them, or maybe even they’re not aware of, you’ve hit the jackpot.

You don’t necessarily have to notice something positive, and thus pay them a unique compliment (although you get bonus points for that). The main thing is to notice something subtle and make an insightful comment. For example: “Have you noticed that when I say something you agree with, you tend to start knocking with the tip of your fingers on the table? It’s cool how you do that.”

People love it when others notice subtle things about them. It makes them feel appreciated, and it shows you’re a keen observer, which is a rare quality. That makes noticing subtle details a great path to being memorable. So start paying more attention to others when interacting with them, and help them feel unique. You’ll be handsomely rewarded.

4. Help Others in a Big Way

Helping someone in a big way involves being there for them when they need you the most, and providing them what they need the most at that time. This can be emotional support, financial aid, proper guidance, etc.

It entails going beyond small acts of kindness like getting someone a box of chocolates (which most people can do), and doing something more meaningful for them. You have to exert yourself to help someone in a big way. But that’s exactly what makes it very effective as a way to be remembered.

People rarely forget big gestures done for them. When they look back at years or decades of their life, the persons they remember above all are the ones who contributed to their life in a significant way. You wanna be such a person for a good number of people.

Knowing how to be memorable and being so definitely have their benefits. And it’s not just about getting your ego stroked. When you’re memorable, since people pay a lot more attention to you, you have a special channel wide open to influence them. You have a genuine chance to change the life of other people. That’s the real benefit.

For more social success advice from me, please join my free social confidence newsletter.

Filed Under: Communication Skills, Success Tagged With: , , , , Leave a Comment
March 8, 2015

Why So Serious? 5 Ways to Loosen Up and Enjoy Life More

I’ve always appreciated considerably people who are upbeat, optimistic and generally unperturbed by the hassles of everyday life; people who don’t seem to take anything too seriously and are able to fully enjoy life as it is.

Such people aren’t very common though, and a lot of folks are actually quite far from being that way. I certainly wasn’t that way growing up and in much of my youth. But I admired this laidback life attitude so much that I put a lot of work into developing it and making it my own, which over time I did.

Nowadays, learning to take things less seriously is also something I often help my coaching clients achieve. Drawing from their experience and mine on this journey, I’d like to share with you 5 key insights for loosening up and enjoying life more.

1. Get Some Temporal Perspective

Whenever something pisses you off or stresses you out, it’s good to adopt a wide timeframe and ask yourself how much that thing will matter as time goes by.

How much will it matter one year from now that you said something somebody found rude and they got mad at you? Not much, I’m sure. What difference will it make 5 years from now that you made some banal mistake at work and your results were suboptimal? Almost none, I bet.

The truth is that on a large timescale, very few things truly matter. This is why looking at things in perspective helps you relax and not take minor issues seriously. It weeds out the unimportant from the important and helps you focus on what truly matters, so you don’t pointlessly strain yourself.

2. Look on the Bright Side Too

I know that looking on the bright side seems like a trite piece of advice. But despite this, it’s one of the most relevant pieces of advice for people who take things too seriously.

You see, one major reason why they take things so seriously is because they look at everything that goes wrong, and they lose sight of all that goes well. They see the cup half empty in any area of life, and this makes it hard for them to enjoy themselves.

So in order to relax and have more fun, you wanna consciously practice finding and acknowledging the positive in your life: your qualities, your achievements, your opportunities, the things you do well and the things worth being grateful for. It doesn’t mean to deny the negative; it just means to see the positive as well. Your happiness will improve significantly.

3. Laugh and Make Fun about It

There is something subtly powerful about laughing at a negative event and joking about it. It sort of tells your mind that the event isn’t that bad after all, since you can laugh about it. And once that idea has entered your mind, it will start finding reasons why, indeed, the event isn’t that bad. So you’ll detach emotionally and feel more joyful.

why so serious

People who are optimistic and upbeat do this all the time. Some of them can laugh about anything, and that helps them immensely. I’ve seen people laugh even about the sternest situations, such as having a terminal disease. Because they have this mindset like: “This is what is; I can’t change it, so I might as well enjoy myself while I still can”. And so they do.

We have a lot to learn from such people. If they can joke about a terminal disease, I’m sure we can joke about the casual hassles of daily life.

4. Work on Overcoming the Deeper Attitude Issues

Typically, taking things too seriously is only a symptom of much deeper issues. Often people who take things too seriously are perfectionists and they can’t tolerate imperfection (their own or that of others). Many times they have visible self-image issues, and often they really lack self-confidence.

When having such issues, even a minor failure, flaw or perturbation in your life can seem like a very big deal and have a strong emotional echo, even though at some level you may realize it’s not that big of a deal. The only way you can change this effectively is to address these deeper issues and fix them.

Fixing these deeper issues will take some time and require proper guidance. I don’t have the space here to go into details on how fix them, but I’ve created a special presentation where I explain just that. In it you’ll learn how your confidence and self-image issues arise, and how to overcome them step by step. So go here and make sure you watch it.

5. Have a Rich, Active Life

People with a rich, active life rarely take things too seriously. They’re too busy doing stuff. They don’t have the time or energy to dwell on negative events and worry. In a way, you could say that worrying about minor things is a luxury, afforded by people with too much free time on their hands.

So an effective way to stop taking things too seriously is to fill your life with activities and keep yourself engaged. Learn, get a job, pursue your passions, find new hobbies, do some volunteer work, do something. It will keep your mind too busy to worry, and it has many other perks as well, like making your lifestyle more exciting and making you a more interesting person.

Life is too short to worry about stuff that ultimately doesn’t matter. But that realization is not enough for you to stop worrying. You need to take the proper steps to change your thinking patterns, fix the deeper attitude issues, and learn gradually to enjoy life more. It’s up to you to do this self-improvement work and make the most out of life.

For more help from me in improving your attitude and your life, check out my free social confidence newsletter.

Filed Under: Attitude, Inspirational Tagged With: , , , , 4 Comments
February 12, 2015

3 Love Myths That Really Harm Your Romantic Life

Romantic relationships fascinate me. Most people deem their romantic life as very important to them. At the same time tough, it’s an area that even generally smart and educated people often navigate using irrational, impractical and simplistic ideas. And when that happens, a lot of frustration and disappointment ensue.

I’ve certainly made my fair share of relationship mistakes, and I like to think I’ve learned from them. I also like to think that, in time, I developed a much more realistic, scientific and healthy view of love and relationships.

Looking out how many folks think about romantic relationships (from friends to acquaintances to relatives to coaching clients), I’ve identified 4 major love myths that loads of people operate on. These myths cause them a lot of pain and struggle, and they really got to die. So this is my attempt to debunk them and hopefully send them to their grave.

Myth #1: You Have a Soulmate

This idea states that there is one person in this world (no more, no less) who is a perfect match for you. And when you find each other, you’ll fall madly in love with each other and have the perfect, everlasting relationship.

Sounds like a fairytale when you read the whole proposition? It is. Psychologists, sociologists and biologists have been studying the underpinnings of love for decades, and there is nothing in their discoveries to support the concept of a soulmate.

The truth is to be found in basic statistics: you live in a world with millions of other potential mates. Given the complexity of human beings, some of them will likely be highly incompatible with you, many of them will be somewhat compatible, and several of them will likely be highly compatible with you. It’s a stretch to call these later people soulmates, but they are people you would have an amazing romantic relationship with. And there’s more than one of them.

These are the odds you’ve been dealt in the real world. And these are the odds you wanna consider when you think about finding love.

Believing they have a soulmate just makes people abandon great relationship because they don’t feel “perfect”, as well as become emotionally dependent on their current partner if they think he/she is their soulmate. And if for some reason their “soulmate” breaks up with them, a whole Greek tragedy follows. Having a soulmate is a crude, outdated concept, and it’s high time we drop it.

Myth #2: True Love Lasts Forever

Whenever I hear this statement from somebody, I ask them what they mean by “true love”. The most common answer is that true love means “love that lasts forever”. So they’re essentially saying that “love that lasts forever lasts forever”. Which is saying nothing; it’s a circular statement.

LoveI take a deep breath and I keep going. Eventually I discover that what the other person is trying to convey is the idea that if a love is strong (which is what they call “true love”), than it will never end. They’re basically asserting that the longevity of love can be predicted by its intensity.

Okay, now I understand. But their assertion is not true. In fact one of the key aspects of the psychology of emotions is that the duration of an emotion frequently doesn’t correlate with its strength. A person can get very angry, and 5 minutes later be completely calm. Similarly, someone can fall in love head over heels, and in a few months that love is gone.

I find it interesting that, nowadays, people marry out of love more than ever, yet the divorce rate is higher than ever as well. I’m sure there are many explanations, but one of them is probably the fact that love can be a very volatile feeling. To assume that it will last forever because it’s strong, or even because it’s been strong for a few years, is farfetched.

Believing this myth is bad because it makes people commit to lifetime relationships purely based on love. And that’s a mistake. Because later, if much of that love dissipates, they may find out they have nothing else in common: no commons goals, values, passions or beliefs. There is nothing left to hold them together. That’s how messy breakups or really stale relationships come to be.

Myth #3: Love Will Just Find You One Day

We see this myth exemplified in movies all the time. She walks into a coffee shop, just looking to get her morning coffee, when him, tall, dark and handsome, accidentally bumps into her and spills his vanilla latte all over her.

He starts desperately apologizing and hopelessly trying to clean the latte off her dress, while casually noticing she has really nice eyes. Next thing you know all this has transitioned into in a fun, flirtatious conversation, which then turns into a date, which turns into an epic loving relationship.

It’s a great movie plot. But it rarely happens in real life. They’re just too many unlikely factors that have to come together at the same time for such a situation to actually occur. Honestly, you’re probably more likely to win the lottery than to find love like that.

I know why people believe this myth though: because it’s convenient. It’s much easier to believe that love will just find you one day because you really want it, than to believe that if you want love in your life, you have to be proactive and go find it.

However, that is the truth. If you wanna have love, it’s not enough to just get out of the house. You need to actively expand your social circle and meet new people, deliberately initiate social interactions, and make quality conversation with others. You need to talk with a range of people, go on series of dates, test and explore, until you find someone you connect really well with.

That takes time and work. That requires good social skills and social confidence. And a lot of people find it hard to accept that; especially those who are shy and somewhat unskilled socially. So they prefer to believe a myth.

Nevertheless, believing a myth won’t get you far. You need to look reality in the eye, accept it and choose your action course based on it. It’s the only way to find real love.

If you’re shy, socially anxious or you lack social skills, seek help and work to fix this. Check out my instructional presentation about improving social confidence and join my free social confidence newsletter for more help from me in this area. Address the issue. Don’t delude yourself that love will just find you one day out of the blue.

Romantic relationships can be a very fulfilling part of your life. But you need to look for them, go into them and decide which way to take them based on rational beliefs and mindsets, not on unrealistic assumptions. So let’s put the love myths to rest.

Filed Under: Lifestyle, Relationships Tagged With: , , , , Leave a Comment
January 20, 2015

How to Win an Argument and Do It with Style

My argumentation and persuasion skills were the very first communication skills I ever became interested in developing. This was many years ago, back in high-school, when I decided to join my school’s debate and public speaking club. Looking back, that was one of the best decisions I ever made.

Since then I’ve had a lot of experience in both formal and informal argumentation and debate, and I’ve honed my persuasion skills to the nth degree. I’ve learned a few important lessons concerning how to behave during an argument and how to win an argument, which I wanna share with you. Here they are:

1. Make Sure You’re Standing On Firm Ground

A lot of us have very strong opinions on topics we actually know very little about. We delude ourselves that we have a firm grasp on these topics, and thus our opinions are correct. So we’re quick to jump into an argument with anybody who doesn’t share our opinions, certain that we’ll be able to show them we’re right.

I’ve seen many arguments between a person with weak knowledge on the topic being discussed (but very opinionated nonetheless) and a person who was a near expert on that topic (plus a sharp orator). It’s like seeing a lamb in the slaughterhouse (the lamb being the former person). Just brutal!

This is why it’s key to make sure you are knowledgeable on a subject and your ideas are carefully thought-out before getting into a debate on that subject. This means to be standing on firm ground. Don’t assume you know all and you’re always right. Don’t engage in quarrels on topics you lack a firm grasp on. Arrogance is the biggest weakness during arguments.

2. Learn To Apply Solid Reasoning

The building blocks of persuasion are solid reasoning skills.

In order to be convincing, you need to know how to tie together ideas, facts and evidence in a way that makes them logically lead to the conclusion you wanna prove. You also need to be able to see and expose the flaws in the other person’s logic. This is what solid reasoning enables you to do.

I encourage you to study the field of logic, learn how to build logical arguments and how to identify logical errors. Then employ this knowledge as much as you can, and with practice, you’ll develop fast, reliable reasoning skills. Thus you’ll be able to prove your points and disprove contrary points convincingly.

3. Show Respect towards the Other Person

debateSolid arguments are important, but they are not enough to win an argument. If you don’t treat the person you’re arguing with in a respectful way, it doesn’t matter how strong your case is: you won’t win the argument.

Nobody wants to give into the ideas of somebody who is acting like a jerk. Even if deep down they know you’re right, if they feel disrespected they are likely to resist your arguments simply because they don’t wanna feel that someone who disrespected them won the debate.

Unfortunately, we often tend to become rude during arguments. It’s important to keep this tendency in check. Listen to the other person, try not to interrupt them, agree with them when they are indeed right, don’t give them condescending looks, don’t mock them and don’t insult them. Just because you’re arguing with someone, it doesn’t mean you can’t do it reverently.

4. Always Keep Calm and Composed

Speaking of respect, one of the main reasons why we sometimes end up being rude during an argument is because we get pissed off. And when we do it’s much harder to behave civilly.

Other times we get nervous, which makes it hard to think straight, which makes it hard to reason properly, so there goes our persuasive power in the dispute. That’s why it’s crucial to able to stay calm and composed.

In order to stay calm and composed during an argument, you need to address the root of your anger or anxiety and do some effective emotional management. This is a pretty serious and complex topic, so instead of addressing here, I created a special presentation where I discuss it in more detail.

So I suggest you go here and watch this presentation. In it I describe how negative emotions like anger and social anxiety arise, and how to deal with them in order to be calm and confident, not just during arguments, but in all sorts of social situations.

5. Know When to Cut Your Loses

You can’t win all arguments. In fact there are many arguments you can get into that you have almost zero chances of winning. Not because you don’t have a strong case, but because the other person is too emotionally invested in their own point of view. They desperately need to believe they are right.

There comes a point in these arguments, sometimes a few minutes in, sometimes just a few seconds in, when you can realize that you’re in a dispute you can’t win. Many times we blindly pass that point; because we don’t wanna accept that it’s time to give up.

But if you put your ego aside and you pay attention, you’ll be able to spot that point, and you’ll know when to back out of an argument and cut your losses, because you’re wasting your time going further with it. It’s not easy to do it, but it’s a lot better than the alternative.

If you wanna learn more about dealing with your ego, building persuasive arguments and other related topics, I recommend you join my free social success newsletter, where I share regular advice.

Persuasion is a great skill to have. You’re not gonna win all arguments and convince all people, but it’s wonderful to have some real influence over those around you. It makes you feel like you can truly help people change and make this world a better place.

Filed Under: Communication Skills, Success Tagged With: , , , , Leave a Comment