Archives for July 2010

July 30, 2010

Improve People Skills Fast Through Immersion

I’m not generally a big fan of quick fixes and claims of fast improvement, for people skills or any other soft skill. I believe that most of them ignore the natural level of practice and repetition learning requires and they usually over-promise. However, I think there is one smart, effective way to get relatively quick results in developing skills.

Last week, I had a 6-day public speaking training with a very cool group of young participants. The kind of people who definitely had some smart things to say, but hadn’t actually learned how to articulate them with impact in front of an audience. Just the kind of participants I like to work with.

The 6 days of training were an intense learning experience. The participants did speeches almost every day, got and gave feedback, learned public speaking principles and techniques, did exercises and case studies. They got back home each day to research and prepare speeches for the next day, they talked with their friends about public speaking, and they probably dreamed public speaking in their sleep.

By the last day of the training, when they delivered their final celebration speeches, all the participants had made huge leaps in their public speaking skills. They had improved one subset of people skills in 6 days more than most people do in a 1 year.

How did this happen? What we have at work here is what I see as the only effective way to improve people skills or any soft skill fast: experiences of immersion.

Experiences of immersion mean that for a period of a couple of days up to a couple of weeks, you are in a totally different head space. In this period you focus almost constantly on a certain skill and doing the activities which develop it. You eat breath and sleep those activities, you constantly push yourself out of your comfort zone and by the time the period is over, something has visibly changed inside you.

Most self-improvement is done is small, gradual steps. You practice something 30 minutes each day for 6 months and then you see some real progress. With immersion, you practice almost non-stop for 3-5-15 days. There is pretty much nothing for you but that practice in those days. It’s intense learning with intense results.

Before you get too exited and jump into some 1-week bootcamp, I think a small warning is in order: not all skills and not all soft skills develop well though immersion. People skills tend to do so, but on the long run it usually requires a mix between periods of immersion and longer periods of small, daily practice to improve your skills with people in the best way.

This being said, I do encourage you to seek out and get into immersion experiences to improve people skills. Here are some important tips on how to make these experiences happen and make the most out of them:

  1. Save some money. Powerful immersion experiences often involve a training, bootcamp, workshop or adventure of some sort, which will cost you some money. So if you’re interested in one, make sure you put some money aside before you try to get into such an experience.
  2. Take a vacation. Most of us have work, school or families which require us to be there almost on a daily basis. So if you wanna have an immersion experience which will require at least a couple of days, you will probably need to plan and take a small vacation for it. Trust me: it will be one hell of a vacation!
  3. Choose the right people skills. Immersion experiences can be financially, physically and psychologically draining. You can’t afford to do them very often. So when you do, make sure you pick the ones which will improve people skills you find the most relevant: public speaking, conversational skills, confident communication etc.
  4. Don’t loose the momentum. If after an immersion experience you stop practicing, your newly improved skills will usually regress, often at a rapid pace. So keep practicing on a daily basis to reinforce the learning. That initial practice right after the experience is the most valuable one.

In the rushed society we live in, with some many things to do, immersion experiences are a rare thing. And I think this is a pity, since we all want fast growth and this is the only effective way to improve people skills and many others fast. Set the things in place for an immersion, do it, keep the wheels spinning, and you will improve your people skills in a breath taking way.

Image courtesy of Powerhouse Museum

Filed Under: People Skills, Personal Development, Psychology Tagged With: , , , , , 13 Comments
July 26, 2010

Why Family Pressure Is Heavy Pressure and How to Lighten the Load

Even the people I know with really good people skills are often little babies when it comes to handling family pressure on them to think, feel or act in certain ways. They may be able to easily refuse a colleague’s invitation to go bowling, but when mom asks them to visit for dinner, they just can’t say no.

The fact that our families have more influence on us than most other people is not all bad of course, considering they do play a big role in our lives. But this is the first layer. Beyond it, there is a huge ability of many close family members to pressure us into doing things we don’t really want to do and we don’t regard as good for us.

I have seen people get in and out of jobs, colleges, marriages and cities in order to please their families. Close family members often have this way of pushing our emotional buttons and making us comply with them even when it would be saner to nail our heads to the wall.

First of all, it’s important for us to understand why. Looking at this phenomenon in terms of people skills and attitudes, I conclude that there are 2 major factors at play.

  1. Family members know what buttons to push. Having usually spent a lot of time interacting with us, they understand our needs, our vulnerabilities and our emotional buttons. And consciously or not, they use this knowledge to pick the right channels in order to make us conform to their desires, even if those channels involve emotional manipulation and putting pressure on us.
  2. We give family members a lot of meaning. We generally perceive disappointing a family member as something very bad, which will affect us greatly. And because of this, so it does: at an emotional level. We add so much meaning to what our parents, brothers, wives or husbands think and feel about us, that we can’t tolerate emotionally not to please them. 

You can’t really influence the first factor. It’s natural for close family members to know which buttons to push, and it’s pretty much impossible to get them to not use this knowledge in a manipulative way if they do. What you can control is the second factor.

Putting things back into proportions. Talking in practical consequences, it is relevant for us to please our family. It’s not very fun to live with a parent or a wife who thinks you’re an idiot because you got on the wrong career path and who treats you like one.

But at the same time, we blow things out of proportions in this area. A lot of the practical negative consequences of not pleasing our families our simply dramatized in our heads. We delude ourselves into believing it’s intolerable to not make your parent proud, your family happy, when it’s mostly water under the bridge.

We set ourselves up to fail by thinking that the approval family members can give us is a must now, just as it seemed when we were 6. However, we are not 6 anymore, and our options have improved significantly. We have options to distance ourselves from family members who don’t appreciate us and to not tolerate rude treatment from anyone. This is a big part of what having good people skills is all about.

Once you realize the kind of power you really have and the kind of obligations you don’t, things naturally get put into their real proportions. Families become relevant but not essential, family pressure is something you no longer feel, and you are emotionally free to follow your own way in life.

Image courtesy of woodleywonderworks

Filed Under: Attitude, People Skills, Psychology Tagged With: , , , , 8 Comments
July 21, 2010

Learning Resources to Improve People Skills

I’m on a guest post writing spree this month; getting my ideas out there, spreading the word on how to improve people skills. I want to recommend you a couple of articles related to people skills which I wrote and have been published on other blogs in the past few days.

On Sources of Insight: Top 10 lessons in improving communication.

On Rat Race Trap: Why honesty will save your day.

On The Life Thing: How to be wise by the time you’re 30.

On A Different Kind of Work: Getting ahead by not being a cliché.

While you’re on these blogs, I suggest that you also check out the other stuff they have there. I’m sure you’ll find lots of value for your personal development and for improving your skills with people.

Be cool!

Image courtesy of fofurasfelinas

Filed Under: People Skills, Personal Development Tagged With: , , , 8 Comments
July 16, 2010

Is the Road You’re On Really Necessary?

“What do you want?” – I ask my coaching client.

“I want to advance in my field; to reach the top.” – he replies.

“Do you like what you do, in this field?”

“No, but that’s beside the point”.

I listen, I ask more questions, I try to understand him. Turns out he wants to advance in his field because he believes once he gets to a certain place in it he will obtain the recognition of those around him. And getting that recognition will give him a sense of validation, of self worth.

“What if you don’t really need to go through all this process to feel worthy?” – I ask him. “What If you just need to work on your self-esteem and sense of intrinsic worth, which is a more direct and effective road?” He looks at me puzzled.

I find that most people are going on roads which are not really necessary to get what they want. They struggle working jobs they don’t really like, dealing with people they can’t stand, having a vague thought that this is the only way. But they really haven’t thought things through. It is more of an automatic reaction to the world they live in. And if they do think things through, they often discover that their struggle is pretty much unnecessary.

This happens because most of us chase things like money, fame, status, without asking ourselves two very important questions:

  1. Why do I want these things, what is the final destination?
  2. Is there a better way to reach this final destination?

When you ask yourself these questions and take some time to explore your motivations, as well as your options, you often become amazed at how much simpler, less stressful things can be, and how much you may have deluded yourself.

I think that it’s a fundamental trait of the society we live in, the fact that it teaches us to delude ourselves. Schools, families, commercials and public figures try to get us chasing all sort of stuff, thinking that it will make us happy and there is no other option. Look just two feet beyond their common messages, and you will often see something else.

In particular, I think there are a couple of messages we consistently get, either explicitly or implicitly, which are actually myths and tend to put us on roads we don’t really need to take in order to reach our destinations Messages like:

  • You always need to work hard to get what you want;
  • Work is by its nature un-enjoyable and you just have to tolerate it;
  • More money will make you more happy;
  • The respect and validation of other people is the most important thing to strive for;
  • Your health and your needs come second to the needs of others.
  • You can’t really be happy. Grown people live lives of struggle and compromise.

Do any of these messages sound silly to you? That’s because they are. I can’t name one person I know, who guiding herself by these ideas managed to have a rich and fulfilling life, in a sustainable way. Not even one.

I believe that the best thing you can do is to stop every once in a while, look at the road you’re tacking, fully realize where it’s heading and what alternatives you have. Doing this and acting on your realizations, you will set yourself on a path which is significantly different that the path most people are on, and also much, much more rewarding. It is the path of the wise man.

Image courtesy of Stuck in Customs

Filed Under: Attitude, Inspirational, Lifestyle, Success Tagged With: , , 12 Comments
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
July 1, 2010

How Often Should You Check Your Email?

Depending on how you use it, email communication can be a way to interact effectively with people and make your work more efficient, or a major source for decreased productivity, stress and an early ulcer. Unfortunately, for many, it’s the latter.

As a communication coach, I am often asked be people looking to improve their business communication skills: “How many times should I check my work email each day?” Then they look at me with astonishment as I reply that twice every day is usually the optimum in my perspective.

The optimum email checking. First of all, I want to detail this answer:

  • If you have a job which requires a lot of email communication, but also a lot of other activities, checking your email twice each day is optimal.
  • If you have one of those jobs which require just a little email communication, once every day is enough.
  • If you have a job in which all/ the vast majority of your activity is reading and answering emails, checking your email 4-5 times every day may be optimal.

Most white collar workers are in this first category and checking their email twice every day is enough for them. Based on what their job is, very few workers actually need to check it 4-5 times every day.

Productivity down the drain. Despite of this, a lot of people tend to check their email constantly throughout the work day. They either open their Inbox every 30-60 minutes, or they open it every time they get a new email alert on their computer screen.

I cannot emphasize enough how unproductive this is. Checking your email this often means that you constantly interrupt various tasks. You defocus and refocus many times throughout the day, which is very hard and mentally exhausting. Then you get home and start complaining: “Man, my work is stressful! That company is working me like a mule!”

Email terrorism. Many people say they check their email so often because they are expected to give fast answers to the emails they receive. There is pressure on them from internal and external clients for expedient email communication.

But you see, that’s the problem! Email communication, through its nature, is not a fast communication method. Email is text-based, asynchronous, preplanned communication, and it’s supposed to take some time. The vast majority of expectations for fast email communication are unreasonable and the best thing you can do is to not put up with them.

Sure, you might think something terrible will happen if you do this. Trust me: I have seen plenty of people do it and they didn’t get fired, nothing really bad happened, while their skills to get things done and their productivity increased visibly.

My job involves a lot of email communication. But it also involves coaching, meetings, and writing articles on people skills, tasks which would constantly get interrupted if I would check my email 4-5 times every day. I used to do that at one point. Now, I only check it twice: once in the first part of the day, once in the second. And it’s great!

The phone alternative. If some people expect rapid reactions from you, guess what? That’s what phone communication is for. They can call you on the phone when they need a fast answer from you.

Make sure the people you interact with in your professional life understand your email and phone policies, that you only check your email twice every day, that you use your phone for emergencies, and you will see both some effective work and effective communication happening.

Filed Under: Career, People Skills Tagged With: , , , 21 Comments