July 11, 2010

Happiness Really Is in the Little Things

I’m on a train going to visit my parents. Next to me, there is this old lady with an enthusiasm to envy. She’s looking out the window and saying: “Look at all the trees! They’re so green! And look at all the beautiful houses!” I look at her attentively for a moment and I realize she’s probably in her 80’s, but her face is shining with youth, joy and vitality.

Meanwhile, I’m on my laptop, hurrying to answer all my emails before I reach my station, noticing that I’m loosing my Internet connection, thinking to myself “Damn! This isn’t fair! Why is this happening to me! I need to answer my emails!” and getting myself annoyed by the situation.

Then I suddenly realize how silly I am, in the way I think, feel and act right now. And how silly the vast majority of us humans are. Here we are, living in the most evolved society that ever existed, a world which our ancestors 2000 years ago didn’t even dream of, and we’re bitching about things like our Internet providers.

I instantly hear myself thinking: “Fuck this!” A split second later, I close Outlook with a click, deciding to leave my emails for later and I abruptly… relax. I start looking out the window; I notice: the trees are beautiful. Very beautiful! And I don’t even like green. Or so I thought.

How many moments of joy and happiness do we miss out on each day, because we get distracted and pissed off by small problems? How many of them do we miss out on in one month, one year and one lifetime? I don’t even want to make this estimate.

In psychological terms, it is called habituation: the process of getting used with something which exists in our lives all the time or a lot, so it no longer evokes the same emotional response. What it basically means is that our mind no longer interprets that thing as special. It sees it as normal, as a given, it takes it for granted.

This is how we take for granted almost everything in our lives. The personal car, the big plasma TV, the instant communication available with anyone on the planet at anytime, the skills we have as people and the things we can do. Then we start getting really frustrated when for some reason, one of these is no longer available to us. We feel cheated, betrayed, as if life owes us something. Forget silly: this is hilarious!

And so my lesson for the day emerges: if we want to live truly happy lives, we need to stop tacking things for granted. We need to look at even the smallest things in our lives and realize how great, how extraordinary they are. Then we can laugh at almost any modern life problem we have.

When you are able to enjoy the little things in life, not only that you become a lot happier, but you also radiate it. So in social interactions, you exude this positive energy which gets you noticed, impresses people and attracts them to you. This is one interesting way to improve your people skills.

I don’t believe in destiny, but if I would, I’d say that it’s manifesting right now: the old lady got off and now there’s this 8-9 years old kid who just climbed aboard with his mom in her place. He’s full of energy, he’s bouncing left and right and singing “Happy Birthday” like it’s the epiphany of musical creations. He’s so exited about this song!

This must be the second pointer to the same lesson, for reinforcement. I’m looking at the kid and I’m thinking: “I hope school and habituation don’t mess with his head too much”. My station is near; time to close…

Image courtesy of linh.ngan

Filed Under: Attitude, Inspirational, Lifestyle, Psychology Tagged With: , , 16 Comments
July 6, 2010

My Big Revelation about Improving Self-Confidence

My understanding about confidence and how to improve it, especially in relation with people skills, has evolved slowly but surely most of the time. But every once in a while, I had big leaps forward, rooted in personal revelations about self-confidence.

I want to share with you a big revelation I had a couple of years ago, which I think is very relevant for anyone interested to improve their confidence and skills with people. It came to me from some experiences which created a boost in my confidence that took me by surprise.

The Story

I had been going through a period of figuring out what I wanted exactly in life, what was important to me, and then acting on that knowledge. It wasn’t easy, especially the part about acting on it, but I decided that it was a noble cause so I stuck to it as much as I could. Eventually, I reached a point when:

  • I was living healthy lifestyle;
  • I was working in a field in which I was helping people develop;
  • I was only dedicating the amount of time I wanted to my career, when I wanted;
  • I had close friends that I considered to be very cool;
  • I was more honest and straightforward than I had ever been;
  • I was continuously learning and growing;

I didn’t make any of these things happen to improve my confidence. I did it because they seemed normal manifestations of my most important values: health, developing others, balance, friends, honesty and personal development. I wanted to live a life aligned with these values.

But, as I achieved this and I became aware of it fully, I also got this empowering sense of self-respect and self-confidence. People would start telling me that I stand differently, that I walk differently, that something has changed in my attitude. They would ask me if I had won the lottery or something, because they couldn’t understand it. But I did. Understanding what was happening is the big revelation I’m talking about:

Living a life by your own values is a major confidence booster.

The Explanation

When you live the way you want, when you live in harmony with what you think is important, your confidence naturally and visibly improves. You feel proud, you feel you’re life is meaningful and of the highest virtue. But when you don’t, even if you have things others may envy, you feel like a fraud which is just waiting to be discovered.

The bad news is that many people do not live their lives by their own values. In a way, you could say they are not authentic. Having been on both sides, I now realize why this is happening: in order to live by your own values, you need to fight with enemies like: social stigma, inertia, fear of failure or procrastination.

These enemies can put huge pressure on most of us to live the sort of lives that probably are not the kind we want. Faced with this pressure, many people abandon the fight or they never really engage in it in the first place. They prefer to choose the comfort of living their lives in the ways easiest to them.

I find this to be very sad, and I constantly make a point in my articles, communication coaching and trainings about how much you miss out when you don’t live your life by your own values. It’s one hell of a way to sell yourself short!

As you do live your life by your own values and you’re fully aware of this, not only that you improve your self-confidence and from there your people skills, but you get this appealing shine in your eyes.

Those around you will often detect this shine subconsciously and wonder: “What’s up with him/her? Has he/she discovered the secret of eternal life or something?” In a way, you did.

Image courtesy of hcii

Filed Under: Attitude, Inspirational, Personal Development Tagged With: , , , 11 Comments
June 27, 2010

How Confident People Talk

I’m listening to the audio version of Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand. So far, it’s a fascinating book and I have an intuition it only gets better. One thing I like about the characters in Ayn Rand’s novels is how they are constructed in epic proportions. Some of them are pure models of confidence, dedication and rational living.

Here is one piece of dialog in the book I wanted to share. It’s a part of the first discussion between Hank Rearden and Francisco d’Anconia. And I think it’s a great example of how two very confident people talk (especially follow Francisco d’Anconia).

He stood there for a while, leaning on a sense of privacy as if it were a physical support.

“Mr. Rearden,” said a strangely quiet voice beside him, “permit me to introduce myself. My name is d’Anconia.”

Rearden turned, startled; d’Anconia’s manner and voice had a quality he had seldom encountered before: a tone of authentic respect.

“How do you do,” he answered. His voice was brusque and dry; but he had answered.

“I have observed that Mrs. Rearden has been trying to avoid the necessity of presenting me to you, and I can guess the reason. Would you prefer that I leave your house?”

The action of naming an issue instead of evading it, was so unlike the usual behavior of all the men he knew, it was such a sudden, startling relief, that Rearden remained silent for a moment, studying d’Anconia’s face. Francisco had said it very simply, neither as a reproach nor a plea, but in a manner which, strangely, acknowledged Rearden’s dignity and his own.

“No,” said Rearden, “whatever else you guessed, I did not say that.”

“Thank you. In that case, you will allow me to speak to you.”

“Why should you wish to speak to me?”

“My motives cannot interest you at present.”

“Mine is not the sort of conversation that could interest you at all.”

“You are mistaken about one of us, Mr. Rearden, or both. I came to this party solely in order to meet you.”

There had been a faint tone of amusement in Rearden’s voice; now it hardened into a hint of contempt. “You started by playing it straight. Stick to it.”

“I am.”

“What did you want to meet me for? In order to make me lose money?”

Francisco looked straight at him. “Yes – eventually.”

“What is it, this time? A gold mine?”

Francisco shook his head slowly; the conscious deliberation of the movement gave it an air that was almost sadness. “No,” he said, “I don’t want to sell you anything. As a matter of fact, I did not attempt to sell the copper mine to James Taggart, either. He came to me for it. You won’t.”

Rearden chuckled. “If you understand that much, we have at least a sensible basis for conversation. Proceed on that. If you don’t have some fancy investment in mind, what did you want to meet me for?”

“In order to become acquainted with you,”

“That’s not an answer. It’s just another way of saying the same thing.”

“Not quite, Mr. Rearden.”

“Unless you mean – in order to gain my confidence?”

“No. I don’t like people who speak or think in terms of gaining anybody’s confidence. If one’s actions are honest, one does not need the predated confidence of others, only their rational perception. The person who craves a moral blank check of that kind, has dishonest intentions, whether he admits it to himself or not.”

How many people do you know with the skills and confidence to talk like that in real life? I certainly wish I would see more.

Filed Under: Attitude, Inspirational, People Skills Tagged With: , , , 10 Comments
June 21, 2010

Stop Trying to Control Your Emotions!

A lot of people think that I teach others how to control their emotions in order to improve their communication and people skills. I don’t. And let me make it clear right off the bat: I believe that trying to control your emotions is messy, dangerous and ineffective stuff.

Emotions are not meant to be controlled

Emotions are not supposed to be something we have direct and instant power over. That would defeat their purpose. Imagine one of our ancestors in the Stone Age who is attacked by a hungry bear, feels fear and has the impulse to run like hell.

But then, he decides: “Hey, I’m gonna control my fear and try to negotiate with this bear.” And he somehow switches off his fear just like that. You would have a dead caveman in the next 5 seconds, regardless of his people skills (a… bear skills). Our species would be extinct if we could all command emotions like that.

So, what is it that I teach within my attitude-based approach? What is it that you can effectively do about those nasty negative emotions you don’t want? The point is this:

Instead of trying to control your emotions, learn to manage them.

Controlling emotions vs. Managing emotions

Managing your emotions is subtly but meaningfully different than trying to control them. When you try to control your emotions, you do so by rejecting and repressing them. It’s like putting a cap over a pot of boiling water and pretending the water isn’t boiling. I see this as a bad idea for several reasons:

  • It requires a lot of effort and is intrinsically painful;
  • It doesn’t really work; you can only control your emotions to a small degree;
  • The emotions eventually bottle up and they overwhelm you;
  • In the long term, the whole process is stressful and damaging to your health.

Managing your emotions is not about trying to reject them or repress them. It’s not a combative process, it’s a transformational process. To manage your emotions means to:

  • Accept they are there and there’s a positive intention behind them;
  • Understand both the external aspects of your life and the internal aspects of your thinking which create them, amplify them and sustain them;
  • Address these aspects and change them, in order to change your emotional reactions.

When you manage your emotions, they do not change all of a sudden. There are leaps in awareness in this process which can create instant emotional changes, but for the most part, the whole process is gradual. It takes place step by step, as you either change how your life is or how you habitually think about it.

Sometimes, negative emotions are just signals that you’re doing things that are not aligned with your values and an external change is required; sometimes they are signals that your thinking in certain situations is irrational and an internal change is required.

Either way, by managing you are not addressing your emotions head on and you are not fighting them. You are going to the root of your emotions, you are pulling out the weeds and you are planting new seeds. This is why in a very Zen way, managing your emotions makes a lot more sense than trying to control your emotions.

Filed Under: Attitude, Inspirational, Psychology Tagged With: , , , , 13 Comments
June 15, 2010

Why Being Yourself Is Hard and How to Actually Achieve It

‘Be yourself’ has got to be one of the most popular and attractive pieces of advice for people skills development these days. I think I read it or hear it almost every day. It’s one of those things people say instantly when they want to help you embrace your flaws, be more comfortable and more expressive socially.

I believe that actually learning to be authentic is a pretty complex process. In my experience, giving a person advice like ‘be yourself’ will usually do nothing (and I mean nothing) to actually help that person achieve this. It’s a piece of advice in the same category with ‘be confident’ or ‘be positive’, which are just as ineffective.

Why? Because none of these things are something you just do. Most people would really love to just be themselves. But they simply can’t do it like that.

In order to master being yourself, you need to dig dipper, and understand the attitudes and beliefs which allow you to be yourself. Then, you need to work on developing them. As you develop these attitudes and beliefs, you will naturally end up being more authentic. But your focus is not on authenticity most of the time; it’s on building this foundation for it.

In the last years, helping people learn to be more authentic has been one of the most meaningful parts of my work. I firmly believe that being yourself is one of the most powerful people skills to have.

But I don’t teach this by telling my clients: ‘Just be yourself man! What the hell is wrong with you?!’ I help them work on this foundation I’m talking about. What is this foundation? When it comes to being authentic, I think there are some key attitudes one must learn:

  • That it’s OK to be imperfect, to have flaws and make mistakes;
  • That people generally won’t think you’re an idiot and reject you for them;
  • That even if some people do, it really doesn’t matter.

These attitudes are solid gold from my perspective. Once you manage to drill them deep into your habitual ways of thinking, being yourself becomes easy. You can no longer imagine yourself not being yourself, and it seems so silly to be otherwise.

Of course, if you’re not used to thinking and feeling in a way which is aligned with the key attitudes above, it will take some time and practice to master them. Adopting these beliefs and making them a natural part of you can take anywhere from 3 months to 3 years, depending where you are right now.

And this provided you actually use the right personal development tools. Considering that a lot of people use the ineffective ones, and even more don’t go beyond just trying to be themselves directly, what we’ve got in today’s world is a large population striving for authenticity and not getting there.

The good news is that the more people will learn to address people skills like being authentic by going beyond the surface, and the more they will use scientific, well grounded in reality tools for transformation, we will see great things happening.

Filed Under: Attitude, Inspirational, People Skills Tagged With: , , , , 28 Comments
May 20, 2010

Night Owl Lifestyle

Are you a ‘night owl’? Do you find it hard to go to sleep early at night and when you get up early in the morning it’s like you’ve been hit by a train? Join the team! Night owls are a minority of the population, but a significant one.

It is commonly believed that the sleeping hours night owls have are the result of bad habits. They’ve gotten used to going to bed late and as a result they also get up late or if they get up early they’re tired. While this is sometimes the case and consciously changing sleeping habits can turn night owls into early birds, it is often not the case.

Some serious research now points out that a lot of the night owls’ sleeping patterns are hardwired. Night owls seem to have certain genetic differences which make their circadian rhythm different than the one most people have (it lasts 27 hours instead of 24). And this rhythm creates their distinct sleeping patterns.

From an evolutionary perspective, night owls are an important adaptation in the human race. Think of these people as the night guardians in the times we lived in tribes, who protected the rest of the tribe members from wild animals while they were asleep.

Consciously changing sleeping habits will often not do very much for a natural night owl. As a natural night owl, I can relate to this a lot. I remember how some years back, I had a 1 year period when I would go to bed early and wake up early almost every day. After 1 entire year of this, I was only marginally used to it and I was still drowsy every morning when I woke up.

The thing is, fighting our genetic hardwiring is best to be done if we have no better alternative. But in the case of our sleeping genes, I believe we do. Society usually tells us that ‘early to bed, early to rise’ is the way to go, without giving us convincing evidence.

So if you’re naturally a night owl, I say this: instead of fighting it, learn to use if in your favor. Create a night owl lifestyle for yourself which helps you makes the best of your genetics. Here are some actions you might wanna consider:

1. Party, party, party! What’s the one awake-activity people do more at night time than at day time? OK, now what’s the other one? It’s partying! If you’re a night owl and you like to have fun (who doesn’t?), use this to go out more, socialize more and party more.

I for example go out at least one or two nights every week salsa dancing. It’s addictively fun and it’s one of the best ways I spend my night time. You have your own tastes in partying. Maybe you like talking, not dancing, pubs instead of clubs. Whatever your formula, make some good use of it.

2. Manage your working hours. If you’re a hardcore night owl, a 9 to 5 job will simply not do it for you. You need to adapt you working hours to your sleeping patterns, at least to a certain degree, since the other way around can often be very hard. The point is to work as much as you need, but to be able to choose when you do it.

I think that for night owls it’s best to have jobs with a flexible program, which also involve activities you can do at any time of the day you find convenient. Like writing, creating or researching on the Internet. Night owls will often do much better as entrepreneurs or if they have a very open-minded employer.

3. Deal with prejudice. Night owls are commonly misunderstood; even by themselves. They will often be seen as lazy, lacking commitment or ambition. Sometimes they will even be seen as having less skills or being less intelligent, which I find amusing considering there is also some research which shows that night owls are on average, smarter than other people.

Anyway, if you wanna have a night owl lifestyle, it’s best that you take this social prejudice into account, and deal with it. Sometimes the best way is to just ignore the sarcastic comments about you coming to work later than everyone else; sometimes the best way is to address them head on. It’s your responsibility to find the best way in each situation.

As you learn to make the best out of your circadian rhythm instead of fighting it, you create for yourself a lifestyle which is allows you to have fun and be productive at the same time, without conforming to superficial social standards. This being said, I’m off to party….

Filed Under: Inspirational, Lifestyle, Success Tagged With: , , 8 Comments
April 15, 2010

Why Attitude, Not Aptitude, Determines Your Altitude

The more I coach others and the more I grow, the more I’m convinced that attitude tramples aptitude; that in your relationships with people, in your career and in your life, the attitudes you have matter sooo much more than your skills.

A Communication Coaching Story

One of my clients realized at a certain point that when she started to get mad in a conversation with someone else (which was quite often), although she would still speak using tactful words, her voice tonality would change and make her come off as angry and bitter. Obviously, this would make a lot of these discussions go badly.

The thing is, this person had realized this aspect about six months before. Since then, she tried to consciously control her vocal tonality in conversations where in created problems, but she barely managed. Why? Because the change in her voice was automatically triggered by her getting angry, and it was very hard to fight that.

Even if she managed to control her voice for a while, as soon as she would stop paying conscious attention to it, the voice would almost instantly go to the tonality dictated by the anger she was feeling. After six months of this, my client opts for some coaching focused on addressing her anger and changing the attitudes behind her voice tonality.

Why Attitude Tramples Aptitude

For every behavior and for every way of communicating or relating with people, there are skills and also attitudes that make it possible. The skills are the automatic ways of doing things, which create results. They develop by practicing those things, in those ways. The attitudes are the beliefs we have, which generate the way we interpret things in a certain context and the way we react emotionally.

You can teach a person all the best ways to do things. You can teach a person how to communicate assertively, how to speak in public with impact, but if their attitudes in those contexts don’t back them up, they will not be able to consistently practice the behaviors necessary to develop those skills.

Your attitudes determine to a great degree what you are able to do and what you are not, what you are able to practice and what you are not. This is why for example, a lot of people go to trainings and learn all sort of cool ways of relating with other people, but they never develop cool people skills.

It’s funny that I describe what I do as developing communication skills, or improving people skills, because with most of my clients, I spend more time developing the relevant attitudes than the actual skills. I constantly find that when the right attitudes are in place, the skills will develop in a very fast and natural way.

Time to Take the Right Action

Look at the soft skills you want to develop and identify the attitudes that would support developing and maintaining them. How much time and energy do you spend working directly on your skills, and how much directly on your attitudes?

If you invest more in your skills than in your attitudes, I have some news for you:

  1. You’re not the only one; this is what most people do;
  2. Unless you naturally have the right attitudes in place (which is very, very rare), it’s a very good idea to shift gears and invest much more in developing your attitudes.

Work smart! You are wasting your resources working on your skills if the right attitudes are not there. Attitudes make the real difference between champs and chumps.

Filed Under: Attitude, Inspirational, Personal Development, Psychology Tagged With: , , , 44 Comments
April 5, 2010

Men, Women and Personal Development

I recently had my first open training where all the participants were women. This made me realize that in general, my clients who are not sent and paid for by the companies they work for are at least 2/3 women.

My experience here doesn’t seem to be an exception. Other coaches and trainers tell me they have similar experiences. As a general rule, it seems that women invest visibly more in their personal development than men do: training, coaching, books and practice.

Now, I can’t help and wonder: why is this? Do women need more personal development than men? Do men have better people skills, career skills, attitudes which justify them not seeking as much self-growth?

As you probably guessed it, the answer is definitely ‘not’. Men need as much personal development as women do. They just don’t invest in it as much. Talking with people about their views on skills and success, I believe there are a couple causes:

  • Men are less willing to see their flaws and their potential for improvement;
  • Men are less willing to accept that someone else could be competent enough to help them grow;
  • Men are less willing to actually act for their personal development;
  • Men are more confident in their ability to learn on their own.

By the way: I was guilty of all of these at one point or another. The last one might be good or bad, depending on the context and the person. But the first three are definitely trouble. Simply said, they make men in general sabotage their personal development and improve their soft skills at a lower rate than women.

On top of this add the fact that trough our nature, we men are probably one step behind women in our fitness for this modern world we life in. Women are naturally more empathic, intuitive, good at reading body language, and have a wide range of better people skills; men are naturally more aggressive and good at lifting heavy stuff. Great!

Project this phenomena 25 years into the future, and if things evolve in the same way, we’re gonna be living in a world where the average woman is running circles around the average man. She is smarter, more confident, more effective, more successful and has far better people skills than her male counterpart.

The average man will be spinning his head and not understanding what the hell is going on with his life and his career, while a woman will be overtly or subtly running the show. Now that I think about it, a lot of this I already see happening around me. Maybe I just need to meet better men and worse women. Hmm…

Anyway, the good news is that in this hypothetical future, the few men who will be able to match women will be a very interesting and appreciated thing to have around. So, as long as you’re one of them, the future’s very bright.

Filed Under: Inspirational, Personal Development, Success Tagged With: , , , 10 Comments
March 29, 2010

3 Major Myths about Being a Coach

I brand myself as a communication coach. It’s my way of saying I use my understanding of people skills and my skills as a coach to help people improve their communication and from there, get all sorts of cool results.

There are many coaches out there. And there are a hell of a lot more people who want, or at least dream about being coaches. My perception is that people often jump into this field with the same understanding about being a coach that a 10-year old has about being a brain surgeon. I know I certainly had my naivety about this field when I started coaching others careers and people skills.

This is not all caused by lack of available information about coaching. One major cause is the existence in all this information of many widespread myths about being a coach. My goal here is to address 3 of the major ones.

Myth 1: It’s all about love for people.

Love for people is definitely a big part of being a coach. But it’s not all about that. Coaching is also a business and you need to run in like one. This means you care about people, you help them, maybe you even help unconditionally or give more than you get, but at the end of the day, you make sure it’s financially profitable for you as the coach.

I’ve met coaches who believed that if they give all, love all and ask for nothing, they will be successful coaches. They are now working in recruitment, PR, anything but coaching. Because they didn’t make it sustainable for them to be coaches.

Myth 2: It’s all about asking questions.

Asking questions is an excellent way to facilitate solutions and an important tool for coaching. However, that’s not all there is to it.

There are basically 2 types of coaching: directive and non-directive. Non-directive coaching is based a lot on asking questions, but it doesn’t stop there. It also involves effective listening, paraphrasing, inspiring and stimulating your client. Directive coaching involves presenting principle and techniques, point out things the client does not see and giving him specific feedback or advice.

Some coaches have a non-directive approach, some have a directive approach and some have a mixed approach. I’m in this last category: I use whatever works for a particular client, to generate a particular outcome. If you want top results as a coach, you will need to have a quite large toolbox, with plenty of coaching tools you use masterfully.

Myth 3: Becoming a coach is easy.

If we’re talking about taking on the label of coach, sure: that’s easy. But if we’re talking about having the skills to coach people professionally, that’s a very different territory.

Some people and some companies want you to believe that being a coach is the next big thing. All you need is to care about others (which almost anybody thinks he does), get some formal training, coaching and certification (which they usually offer), then you’re off to making money, helping people and saving the world, all of this with a flexible schedule and from the comfort of your own home.

Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. Becoming a good coach involves using the right tools, a lot of practice and the ability to consistently improve from one coaching session to another.

Even more importantly, being a really good coach is about understanding your unique combination of strengths and developing a unique coaching style which leverages those strengths, while at the same time providing top results. And did I mention, having fun with it?

Filed Under: Inspirational, Lifestyle, Success Tagged With: , , , 16 Comments