March 18, 2010

People Skills and the Philosophy of Honesty

In my view, you don’t have awesome people skills until you understand honesty and you apply it effectively in your social interactions. Which most people I believe, do not.

Yesterday, I was working with a client on improving one of those key people skills for getting a top job: his interview skills. He was asking me stuff like: What do I answer if they ask me about my career goals? What do I answer if they ask why I left me job? What do I answer if they ask me about my hobbies?

And I was answering: The truth. The truth. Yeah, still the truth. After about 3 questions like these, I started realizing a very common problem: my client was in a limiting mindframe about honesty, and the questions were coming from this mindframe.

Let’s do some theory. I think there are generally two mindframes (or philosophies) you can have about honesty in relating to others.

1. The mindframe that pleasing is the rule. These people believe that what comes out of their mouth must be what the listener wants to hear, must get the listener’s approval and appreciation.

Before saying anything, the people in this mindframe will ask themselves: what will please the other person? Then will say that thing, disregarding the concept of honesty. For them, honesty is only the exception to the rule, and they allow themselves to be honest only in a few cases, with safe people.

2. The mindframe that honesty is the rule. These people believe that integrity is the most important thing and what comes out of their mouth must be in correspondence with the facts.

Before saying anything, the people in this mindframe will ask themselves: what is the truth? Then they will say it, assuming the consequences of their honesty. For them, dishonesty is the exception and there will be very few cases where they will refrain themselves from being honest.

I’m not saying there are people who are liars all the time, and I’m not saying there are people who are honest all the time. I’m not saying lying is all bad, honesty is all good. That would be a bit extreme for my rational nature.

I am saying there are different philosophies in life, which will make you more oriented towards lying as you natural communication style, or towards honesty. And I am saying that the second one is a far better option.

When you live life with the mindframe that honesty is the rule with people, as well as the skills of honest communication, two very important things happen:

  • You don’t complicate and you don’t make social interactions a burden by trying to come up with what the other person wants to here almost every time;
  • You have credibility and you build much stronger relations with others, personal and professional, which are based on trust, respect and authenticity.

From some points of view, honesty with people is risky. Looking at things in perspective, I believe the gains substantially outweigh the loses. This is why, when it comes to people skills, I go for a philosophy of honesty.

Filed Under: Attitude, Inspirational, People Skills Tagged With: , , , 10 Comments
February 19, 2010

You Can’t Handle the Truth

I remember a conversation I had with a female friend who was telling me upset about a comment her boyfriend made related to her appearance:

Her: “He said I have thick thighs. I can believe it!”

Me: “I thought you wanted people to be honest with you. And he’s being honest.”

Her: “Yeah, but c’mon: how can he say that to me? I’m sensible about my appearance!”

Almost every person you ask will say that honesty is one of the top traits she’s looking for in other people: friends, lovers, colleagues or business partners. This is one of those things which are easier said than done. Because when most persons actually meet very honest people and they get a dose of that honesty, their reactions to it commonly suggest something different from their statements.

I believe that in fact, most people are rarely exposed to real honesty about things which they may not take so well. Usually for good reason. Sure, they may say they want honesty about everything, and it might truly be important for them from certain points of view.

But at the same time, a lot of the people they know will not believe this is true, or they will not be willing to risk it. So they will be honest and say the truth to them, only as long as they’re talking about the good or the neutral stuff. When it comes to the negative stuff though, they’ll find ways to avoid the subject, slip out of the conversation, or they’ll just lie and consider they’re tactful, they (yuck!) have people skills.

In my coaching, I will often give a client an honest feedback about a certain shortcoming. For example, I’ll say: “I think you’re listening skills are pretty bad and you could benefit a lot from improving them. You interrupted me almost every time I was talking; you repeatedly asked me questions I’ve already answered and you seem to me to often be in your head when I’m saying something.”

Even though I’ll usually phrase this feedback in a tactful, respectful way, the verbal and nonverbal response the client will give me usually indicates he is blown away by such an honest feedback and he didn’t see it coming. I often get responses like: “I’m not used to being said things like that from people.” What a surprise!

I highly encourage you to notice your emotional and behavioral reactions when someone gives you an honest feedback stating some negative things. Acknowledge your real reactions, not the ones you wish you would have. Then decide to look for very honest people, and to appreciate their honesty, even if sometimes you feel hurt because of it or you get defensive.

If you discover that your external reactions to negative feedback are not the most constructive you could have, work on them as part of improving your people skills. Even if you still hurt on the inside, don’t let this turn into pain for the other person.

Long term, the most important people skills development step you can take in this area is building some emotional toughness. This means you can take a negative feedback without feeling hurt. You can look for the value in the feedback, use it and react in a constructive way towards the feedback giver and his honesty.

I believe that building emotional toughness is one of the key ways you can become able to handle the truth no matter what a person’s truth is, and you can create more honesty and openness in the relations you have.

Filed Under: Attitude, People Skills Tagged With: , , , 18 Comments
February 15, 2010

Get Your Stuff Together Instead of Using Distractions

To a great extent, I’m a hedonist: I believe in doing the things you enjoy, maximizing your pleasure and not compromising pointlessly. At the same time, I notice that a lot of times, doing the things we enjoy is an ineffective way of running from the things which don’t work in our lives, a way of distracting ourselves.

What are distractions? Well, they’re pleasure-giving activities (which is good), used to shift our attentions from thoughts or facts that make us feel pain. Which can be very, very bad. Using distractions is like covering your eyes so you don’t see something you don’t want to see, or sinking your head underwater so you don’t hear something you don’t want to hear.

Very common things like listening to music, dancing, drinking, eating, sex, watching a movie, playing games, taking a vacation, even reading inspirational stuff, are all very pleasurable activities, which can also be used as distractions.

Why can using distractions be bad? Before I answer, I’ll mention the good part: there are specific contexts when using distractions can be a constructive way to handle things. For example, if you recently lost a job you had for many years, or a relationship you had for many years, the initial psychological pain will usually drop naturally, as time passes. So, some distractions can be a good way to not think about the event for a while, and then go back to the event with some distance from it. This way, you will not suffer as much.

But (there is almost always a ‘but’ with me)…  more often than not, distractions are only a way of mentally running from the things you don’t like so you won’t have to deal with them. They work as a quick remedy for the suffering, without fixing the problem. As the real problem is still not addressed, your mind will constantly refocus on it, and you constantly need to fight back using distractions, which is usually either hard or impossible.

There’s more: as you use a distraction more and more, you often build tolerance to it and you need bigger doses to get the same effect. This is one way to create alcohol addicts, eating addicts, sex addicts, and yes, even partying addicts. Needles to say that because all of this, distractions are a poor long-term solutions to suffering.

The effective solution in the long run is to address the things you don’t like and get your stuff together (and I’m using a euphemism here). Practically, there are only 2 ways you can go, both typically involving personal development:

  1. Either you change your external reality, handle that job you’re bored with, that relationship which doesn’t work anymore, that extra weight and so on, or
  2. You change your internal reality, you change your expectations and beliefs, so you learn to accept the external reality and it doesn’t bother you anymore.

I don’t think one way is always best. Sometimes it’s important to take action, sometimes it’s important to let go. You will have to decide on your own which way to get your stuff together works best, depending on the specifics of your situations.

Either way, it starts here: stop and think about the things you enjoy a lot. Maybe so much that you see them as a way to ‘escape’. Could they be distractions? If the answer is yes, then what are you distracting yourself from? As you identify and address the issues in your life and get your stuff together, you become more able to do the things you enjoy independent of the distraction they provide.

Filed Under: Attitude, Inspirational, Psychology Tagged With: , , , , , 11 Comments
February 10, 2010

The Ultimate Tool for Managing Your Emotions

One key area of personal development which I notice a lot of people are interested in is managing emotions. This interest has good reasons, as your emotions influence your options and your options influence your results. Plus, it just feels bad to feel bad.

Managing emotions is also one of those key areas of personal development where a lot of people struggle. They read books and articles, go to trainings, try various methods and techniques, yet most of them don’t seem to be able to get rid of those pesky negative emotions they don’t want in their lives.

I believe that managing your emotions is an often misunderstood part of self-improvement, and this makes place for a lot of emotional mastery tools which provide nothing more than false hope or a short lived relief, often for big sums of money.

The Tool I Recommend

Considering this, I’ve decided to write a piece about the primary tool I employ for managing emotions, both with myself and with my clients, and which is by far the most effective I know: CBT – Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (or Therapies). It represents a systemic approach to managing your emotions through changing thinking and behavioral patterns.

CBT has also been turned into CBC – Cognitive Behavioral Coaching – which is what I actually use in my communication coaching activity, but given the major similarities between the two, I will refer to both using the more commonly known name of CBT, to simplify things.

My intention here is not to describe Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in detail, nor to provide a manual on how to use it. You can find this kind of information in many other places.

My goal is only to show you why I think it’s an excellent tool for managing emotions. This will also make my life easier, as whenever I am asked what tools and why I recommend for dealing with fear, guilt, anxiety, depression, anger and so on, I will simply point people to this article from now on.

My Exploration of Emotional Mastery Tools

Over the years, I have looked into various tools for managing emotions. When I say ‘looked into’, this means I have:

  • Used the tools one by one for myself and looked at the results;
  • Gave them to others for testing or interviewed people who have used them;
  • Searched for scientific research to back them up and analyzed the data.

The tools for managing emotions I have looked into include: NLP, EFT, The Sedona Method, positive affirmations, hypnosis, meditation and subliminal tapes. I have found some of these I mention to be effective in managing emotions to some degree, but none of them capable to be a complete tool for this purpose.

Some tools provide only a short term improvement of the emotional state, with no long term change; some of them work inconsistently, for some people but not for many other people. Some tools support the process of managing emotions but do not provide it themselves; some of them just create a placebo effect. Some tools are pure bullshit.

What actually bothered me is that a lot of these methods are marketed as powerful, miracle solutions to get read of all unwanted emotions and they don’t even live up to 10% of the promise.

What amused me is how some people will use an emotional management method for years, will encourage others to do the same and will think it’s a great method, even if it hasn’t really helped them improve more than marginally. That’s the definition of insanity to me.

In the end, I stopped at CBT. Ironically, it’s one of the first tools I have found, but I abandoned it before truly testing it because it didn’t look… sexy enough. It seemed rather repetitive, analytical and programmatic, and I was attracted by some of the flashier tools out there.

Why CBT?

Now, I can tell you about my positive results in managing emotions using CBT, I can tell you about the consistent positive results my clients who used CBT effectively got, I can tell you about the inner logic of the techniques employed.

But from my perspective, all of these pale by comparison with another argument: the fact that worldwide, there are over 2000 rigorous scientific studies on the techniques and principles of CBT, which prove it to be highly effective. In terms of scientific support, it is light years away from almost any other tool out there for managing your emotions.

I know a lot of other methods claim to be supported by science. Don’t be fooled! Anyone can make claims such as these, quote fake research or create bias research, designed to support a certain conclusion. There is a lot more to getting scientific backup in the area of personal development than meets the eye.

CBT is not a miracle cure. It involves getting used to it. It involves a lot of work for identifying your current thinking patterns and beliefs, seeing what is irrational or non-constructive in them, and changing them gradually through cognitive and behavioral techniques.

It’s based on 3 R’s: reprogramming, repetition and reinforcement. If you stick to these three ways, you will see real progress and change in your habitual emotional reactions.

At the end of the day, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy promises less and offers more than any other tool I know for managing your emotions, which is why I recommend it whole-heartedly.

Filed Under: Attitude, Personal Development, Psychology Tagged With: , , , , 14 Comments
January 26, 2010

Facing Your Fears the Right Way

Facing your fears is one of those ideas in the realm of personal development which is getting so wide spread I think it’s becoming dangerous. Why? Because I believe facing fears can be done in many ways, and some of the more popular ones have more negative consequences than positive ones.

The basic premise of this advice is that by facing your fears and doing what you know is right, not only that you get the desired results, but you also make the fear go away as you get used to the thing you’re afraid of. Sometimes, this truly happens, which is why in principle, getting out of your comfort zone and facing your fears is solid advice.

However, sometimes (more often than a lot of people would like to admit), facing your fears does nothing to lower your anxiety and actually reinforces them. Let’s dig into some human psychology and cognition, to find out why.

Imagine a person who is afraid of public speaking. So she decides as part of improving her people skills, to face this fear head on. So she forces herself to speak in front of 500 top managers, at an important business conference. She thinks this way she’ll get read of her fear once and for all.

She is up on stage, looking at the people and feeling scared like she’s in front of an execution squad. She feels the fear, she sees the audience, she’s thinking to herself: “Damn, I’m scared! This was a bad idea”. What happens in this situation is that mentally, the intense fear and the public speaking situation get linked one with the other, and the fear of public speaking only gets reinforced.

In my coaching activity, I have met a lot of people who go around facing their fears every day like this. And most of the time, they are still afraid of those same things they’re facing for a long time. They’re running around scared half the time. I don’t know about you, but I call this self-torture.

There are better ways to do it. Methods like CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), which I often use in my coaching practice, provide some solid, well documented ways for facing your fears effectively. Here are two essential traits they have:

1. Gradual exposure. You don’t face a stimulus which triggers fear at its highest intensity. You start with a low intensity one, and as you get used to it and your fear decreases significantly, you move on to one of a higher intensity. If for example, you are afraid of public speaking, you start by speaking in front of 10 people who seem friendly.

2. Combining the behavioral with the cognitive. As you face your fears, you also focus on addressing your automatic thinking and your limiting beliefs which fundament these fears. Your combine using the right external tools with using the right internal tools.

If you do it this way, over time, the fears you’re facing will actually drop and eventually disappear. It will take time and practice, but you will see it happen. This means you can start to enjoy the things you dreaded, that you experience more freedom. It’s what I like the most about personal development.

Filed Under: Attitude, Personal Development, Psychology Tagged With: , , , , 25 Comments
January 19, 2010

Being Mysterious Is Overrated

When I was in high school, some people used to say about me that I was mysterious. I kind of liked it. This was the result of me keeping mostly to myself, talking about facts and stuff I read but not talking a lot about myself, not expressing my feelings or my beliefs, especially if they differed from those of other people present.

I was also… shy. Over time, I realized that being mysterious was just the flip side of being shy. And since the negative effects vastly outgrew the appeal of my mystery, I decided to shed it altogether. As part of improving my people skills. Now, looking at the trait of being mysterious in general, I see its benefits as vastly overrated.

For a lot of people, a mysterious person has a sort of charm and it gets them interested. There are some psychological phenomena at work here which fascinate me. Firstly, humans are naturally very curious creatures, interested in the unknown. We are drawn to mystery and we seek to solve it. Secondly, mystery often makes our part if the brain which creates fantasies go wild. We start to imagine all sorts of things about a mysterious person and what she has to hide.

All fine and dandy so far. There is only one problem: the appeal of being mysterious doesn’t last. And this happens for one of two reasons:

  • Either we solve the mystery, we discover the real person, and then the source of the appeal is gone;
  • Or we don’t solve the mystery, but we quickly get used to it and it becomes boring, uninteresting.

Whichever road you take, the result is pretty much the same. Being mysterious ends up in being a blur. This does not mean you should start pouring your heart out in the first 30 seconds of every interaction with a new person. That can be traumatizing. And it doesn’t mean it’s not a good idea to keep some parts of you and your life private, at least to some people.

What it does mean is to not be mysterious as a person, as a whole. It means to be more open and expressive than mysterious. I means being (do I dare to say it?)… authentic.

One interesting thing I discovered is that the correlation between mystery and shyness is very common. Most people who are very mysterious are actually shy. They don’t think they’re good enough to put themselves out there, they think they have bad people skills and they’re afraid of being rejected.

On the other hand, a confident person, who is comfortable in her own skin and trusts her people skills, will usually be very expressive in social interactions. This person will talk about her experiences, her life, her belief and her feelings. Good or bad, conventional or unconventional. Self-expression is a natural thing for human beings. But a lot of us have learned to fight it.

When instead of being mysterious, you are expressive, what you create is not a short lasting appeal and interest in you. What you create is lasting appeal, based on your confidence, and a deeper, more intimate connection with other people. This is what I think we need more of in this world. Not being mysterious, like in a romance novel.

Filed Under: Attitude, People Skills Tagged With: , , 9 Comments
January 8, 2010

Positive Thinking Won’t Help You Now

I’m not a big fan of positive thinking as a tool for self-help. I believe that used in the wrong place, at the wrong time, it can be just as dangerous as negative thinking. I’m rather a fan of what you might call strategic thinking in personal development: focusing on the positive or the negative, depending on what serves you best in the given context.

From my perspective, challenging economic times like the ones most of us are living right now, are just some of those contexts in which seeking help in positive thinking can cause some serious trouble.

In the past months, I have seen people loose a tone of money and bankrupt businesses by looking on the bright side and thinking positively. It can be quite shocking to see such a popular personal development tool have such negative consequences instead of providing the promised help.

Why do things like these happen? Because positive thinking means focusing on the good things and always expecting excellent results. In the face of big challenges, this is the equivalent of ignoring important parts of reality. It’s like blinding yourself while speed driving on a mountain road, during a storm, in a convertible. Why the hell would you wanna do that?

For the people I’m talking about here, positive thinking meant they ignored that the status quo has changed and doing what they did before will no longer get them the same results, or the same results where sometimes no longer possible. They blinded themselves to the fact they needed to adapt in a dramatic way. One man for instance, while being in a plummeting industry, convinced himself he can have the same sales numbers he had last year, if he just… tried harder. He called this “being positive”.

You cannot deny important facts and expect good results. Like it or not, we are in a global economic crisis, people have less money, they are spending less and there is more competition between businesses. No matter how good you are at what you do, this will have consequences over you.

Positive thinking is not a panacea, even if some trainers, coaches, speakers or authors promote it in this manner. It will not help you solve all of your problems and get everything you want, doing what you want, all the time. Being positive is a way of thinking which only has power to help you if you use it the right way.

There is a way of using positive thinking that can help you in challenging times. But it does not involve day-dreaming. It involves these two things:

  1. Realizing that even if some negative things may happen, even if you may not get your way now, it’s not a tragedy.
  2. Realizing that times change and in the long run, you will get your way and you can achieve your bold objectives.

That’s it. It’s strategic, realistic positive thinking. A more effective self improvement tool, that can help you handle the challenges of life both practically and emotionally.

Filed Under: Attitude, Career, Inspirational, Personal Development Tagged With: , , , , 21 Comments
December 15, 2009

The Key to Become Charismatic and What Is CBT

I’m happy to announce that today, not one, but two of my guest articles have been posted: one is “The key to become charismatic” and it’s on Change Your Thoughts, the personal development blog of Steven Aitchison.

You can read it here.

The other is “What is CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy)?” and it’s on A Daring Adventure, the personal development blog of Tim Brownson.

You can read it here.

I was impressed by the quality both Steve and Tim have in their writing, and how they have each developed their unique, powerful communication style. Writing and expressing some of my ideas on their blogs is an important step forward for me.

I think you will find “What is CBT?” to be a short but relevant guide for understanding Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, a personal development tool I use a lot in my work as a communication coach. And I’m willing to bet the ideas in “The key to become charismatic” are going to… hit you.

Enjoy!

Filed Under: Attitude, Psychology Tagged With: , , , 4 Comments
December 8, 2009

How to Avoid the Holiday Madness and Enjoy Yourself

One big clue that we live in a strange world is for me the fact we even have expressions like “holiday madness” and articles like this one. What in the world is that? Aren’t holidays about rest, relaxation, fun? Have I missed some important lesson in school?

Left and right, I hear people talking about the upcoming holidays like they’re talking about a job they hate, about work they accepted by manipulation and actually wanna avoid.

Remember when you were a child? A holiday was simple: less school, more play, which equaled more fun. Then you grow up and something happens (other than the fact you find out Santa does not exist). You start turning a holiday into one big to do list, filled with things you must do, and you must get them right.

Here are just some of these things:

  • I must buy presents for everybody;
  • I must send emails, messages and postcards to everybody;
  • I must decorate the tree and the entire house;
  • I must prepare a big and lovely holiday dinner;
  • I must make sure all the right people are invited;
  • I must do charity and help others;
  • I must make a new year’s resolution.

And as if all of these are not pain provoking enough, you add the ultimate holidays’ expectations:

  • I must make the holidays special for me;
  • I must make the holidays special for the people around me;
  • I must enjoy the holidays;
  • I must make sure the people around me enjoy the holidays.

With all these “musts”, the concept of “holiday madness” is starting to make sense. You create it; in your head. You take holiday traditions and turn them into obligations; you take holiday wishes and turn them into desperate wants. After a holiday like this, you can’t wait to get back to work!

By this point, I’m positive you already have a good understanding of what the primary way to avoid holiday madness is: letting go of the imperative expectations about what you must do and what must happen during the holidays.

It’s a process. Like most personal development journeys, it starts in your head. This one with asking yourself what would happen if you would drop some of these tasks and expectations. What would happen if you stopped buying gifts to everybody? Would they really stop loving you? If they would, do you really want a type of love which is this fragile? What would happen if you skipped on the Christmas tree this year? Is this plant the main source of your potential holiday joy?

Once your shift in thinking is happening, you can start doing a behavior change. Do more of what you like, instead of what you used to think was required, and keep things simple. When you can avoid the holiday madness and actually enjoy yourself, you are going places.

Filed Under: Attitude, Lifestyle Tagged With: , , , , 16 Comments