Archives for February 2011

February 25, 2011

How You Fuck Yourself Emotionally

This week I’m somewhere up in the mountains, delivering a communication and public speaking training. I can see snow and skiers out the window; it’s a pretty epic scenery.

Today was speech delivery day. Each participant to the training delivered a speech and received feedback on it, from myself and from some of the other participants. It’s been another reminder for me of how our fears are self-generated and most of them are based on pure crap.

Almost every participant had a lot of anxiety before and during their speeches; the kind of anxiety you would expect somebody to have in front of an execution squad. Discussing with the participants and finding out the way they think, it wasn’t hard to figure their fear out.

Two Faulty Ways of Thinking

First of all, almost every participant was convinced that they will have a terrible speech, and they will make total fools of themselves. Despite these expectations, all speeches were actually above average and many of them were quite good. Several participants couldn’t believe this even after receiving numerous positive feedbacks.

Secondly, many of the participants had hideous interpretations of feedback on their speeches that pointed out areas to improve. Emotionally, it was like a blow to the stomach for them. One person almost started crying during the feedback process, despite the fact it emphasized a lot more strong points than weak ones.

A Million Scenarios, the Same Two Problems

These two faulty ways of thinking are only particular and slightly stronger manifestations of two broader thinking and attitude patterns. These two patterns can be found in the psychology of numerous people.

1. A negatively distorted self-image. There are tons of individuals who see themselves as less able speakers, less skilled professionals or less attractive persons than they really are. Their self-image simply doesn’t keep up with their competencies, which leads to low self esteem and low confidence.

2. Perfectionist expectations of oneself. There are also tons of individuals who believe they need to be perfect, to have no flaws, and they can’t accept themselves otherwise. Thus, any emphasis on personal flaws or discovery of personal flaws is a real drama for them.

When you ask of yourself to be perfect but you see yourself as a loser, you create a huge mental gap. Thus, you fuck yourself up emotionally. And from there, you destroy most chances you have of a prosperous and fulfilling life.

Cognitive-behavioral therapists have been saying for a few decades now that for the most part, we make ourselves feel like crap through erroneous ways of thinking. Well, my training experience this week is just another concrete demonstration of this.

The Takeaway

This is a good moment to reflect upon your self-views and self-expectations. Are they pragmatic and anchored in reality? Do they help you make progress in your personal and professional life, or do they harm your life?

If the later is closer to the truth than the former, it’s time to seriously consider changing your attitudes and your thinking. And I mean REAAAAALLY consider it.

I often say that improvements in your people skills and your attitudes are the most relevant ones you can make. The more you support your emotional life through your thinking instead of screwing it, the better you will be.

Image courtesy of dpup

Filed Under: Attitude, Inspirational Tagged With: , , , , 15 Comments
February 22, 2011

Extra Golden Nuggets and One Free Ebook

Some exciting things have happened this week (and it’s only Tuesday), two of which I think you’ll find particularly interesting.

The Facebook Page

The first thing is that I have launched the People Skills Decoded Facebook Page. It’s not an alignment with a fad, it’s something I seriously reflected upon and I decided to create the page as a complement to this blog.

Here’s the thing: I write on People Skills Decoded one or two posts each week, posts that I load with valuable insights, concepts, methods and stories.

However, I discover ideas worth sharing every single day.

At the same time, I don’t want to develop every one of these ideas into blog posts. This is where the Facebook Page comes in, as a great way to share golden nuggets, spread the knowledge and stimulate open dialog.

More specifically, I will use this people skills page to share:

  • Articles that I write for other blogs and websites;
  • Books and articles that I’m reading and I recommend;
  • Pieces of precious knowledge from what I’m reading;
  • Insights and ideas I have on various self-growth topics;
  • News about my latest projects and experiences.

I recommend you to LIKE and get on the People Skills Decoded Facebook Page right now and if you find value in it, to let your friends know about it as well.

The Free Life Philosophies Ebook

The second big thing that happened this week is that my friend Joe Wilner, who is a life coach and writes the blog Shake off the Grind, has released a very cool ebook.

The ebook is called The Great Life Philosophies: 12 Bloggers Advice on Significant and Successful Living. The concept of this ebook is smart and simple: it puts together for your convenience 12 inspiring life philosophies from 12 bloggers, including yours truly.

The Great Life Philosophies ebook is FREE and available for instant download. So I encourage you to download it and read it.

In particular, check out my chapter in the book called Making Happiness Pursue You. Ever since I saw the movie “The Pursuit of Happiness” I knew it will inspire me to write an essay or something. Well, this is it.

That’s all for now; have a kick-ass week and I’ll talk to you soon.

Image courtesy of bogenfreund

Filed Under: Inspirational, Lifestyle, News Tagged With: , , , , Leave a Comment
February 15, 2011

What Makes a Good Manager?

Make no mistake about it: effective management is a challenge. There are many managers, but there are few good managers. I believe the foundation of becoming a good manager is, first of all, understanding what makes a good manager.

In my communication coaching work, I often help managers identify and develop key management skills. In my experience, most managers only have a vague and inaccurate idea of what makes a good manager and in what direction to take their growth.

I’ll often hear statements from managers such as: “I need to improve my communication skills”. Well, there are a lot of communication skills. Which ones specifically? This is the kind of question you can answer much better by knowing yourself and comprehending what makes a good manager.

The 6 Qualities of a Good Manager

I have pinpointed six skills that I consider essential for any person who manages people and projects. Interestingly enough, five of them are people skills. Here are the six essential skills, listed and explained:

1.  Clear Communication

As a manager, it’s crucial to aid make the flow of information clear and effective. This can be done by having a clear-cut style of communication, by using accurate words to express facts and ideas, and also assisting the people you work with to do the same.

If as a manager, you say to a member of your team “I want that sales report soon” when what you want to say is “I want that sales report tomorrow by 12PM”, you’re in trouble. A clear communication style defines good management at its roots.

2. Assertive Communication

This is one of my favorite communication skills, and for good reason: I see it as the fundamental communication skill for both managers and employees.

Assertive communication is the ability to express your thoughts, ideas, wants and emotions in a straightforward, non-hesitant way, while also being tactful and respectful of the other person.

Communicating assertively often starts with mastering the previous skill, but it goes way beyond this. It means creating a win-win blend in the communication with a wide range of individuals, which is very powerful and, unfortunately, very rare.

3. Creating a Connection

Business may ultimately be about results, but it is still an exchange between individuals and it has a very human component. Thus, an important part of what makes a good manager is their ability to connect with others, to build rapport and trust.

Good managers know how to be authentic, open and friendly with other people, especially their subordinates. They demonstrate interest in others and they can make interpersonal interactions informal and relaxed. Thus, others find it highly enjoyable to work with them or for them.

4. Integrity

This is a part of building a connection and trust that’s so important I felt the need to describe it separately. Integrity is the alignment between thoughts, words and actions. A manager with a lot of integrity is the one who says what they think and does what they say they’ll do.

As a result, the subordinated employees know they can count on their manager and it’s easy for them to trust their manager. Team transparency, constructive attitudes and performance naturally arise from there. And if you’re wondering why such conditions are so rare in many organizations, it is because high integrity is also rare.

5. Motivational Skills

No, I’m not talking about doing Tony Robbins style speeches in front of the team, although they may have their place and their worth. I’m talking about the more subtle managerial ability to understand people’s motivations and properly respond to them.

A manager with this quality is able to match the motivations and strengths with the tasks and compensations for each one of their employees. Considering the uniqueness of each employee and the structural complexity an organization can have, this is quite the skill to master.

6. Decision Making Skills

I see a big part of the manager’s role as putting together a puzzle. The pieces of the puzzle are people, tasks, goals and data. Assembling them means creating strategies, distributing tasks, supervising their execution and providing feedback.

All of these managerial activities involve a lot of decision making, and it is first-rate decision making skills that lead to the best decisions. A good manager needs to think rationally, analyze variables effectively and strategize with skill. Otherwise, when the puzzle is finished, there will still be unused pieces.

Taking into account all the qualities described above, I’m sure you realize that what makes a good manager is serious stuff. Good management is no child’s play. For this reason more than anything else, I think it’s best for managers to never get too cocky about their skills and to continually invest in their self-growth.

PS: I now blog and share advice over here. Connect with me.

Image courtesy of MyTudut

Filed Under: Career, People Skills, Success Tagged With: , , , 7 Comments
February 10, 2011

Low Self Esteem

Low self esteem seems to be one of the most devastating psychological conditions alive. Millions of people struggle with low self esteem, as it sabotages their people skills, their social lives, their careers and almost every other area of their existence.

Overcoming low self esteem can be done successfully. I’m going to touch on this subject shortly, but first I want to help you get a better understanding of what self esteem is and what causes its altitude. I believe it is only armed with such knowledge that you can take effective action.

What Is Self Esteem?

Psychologists define self-esteem as a person’s overall evaluation of his or her own person and the resulting feelings towards his or her person.

Therefore, as one can deduce, low self esteem means a low evaluation of one’s own person and the associated negative feelings towards oneself.

If that doesn’t tell you much, don’t worry; it doesn’t tell anybody. The art is in the details of self esteem. One such essential detail relates to the sources and forms of self esteem.

Conditional Self Esteem

For many years, the dominating view in psychology was that as a personal evaluation, self esteem is dependent on a person’s competence, effectiveness and likeability. The subsequent consequences of this view were simple:

  • If you are a seasoned and competent professional, then you have high self esteem. If you are just a novice, then you have low self esteem.
  • If you achieve success and performance in what you do, then you have high self esteem. If you fail, then you have low self esteem.
  • If other people praise you and they like you, then you have high self esteem. If they criticize you and reject you, then you have low self esteem.

Self esteem is thus a slave to the external and internal conditions of our lives. The more we improve these conditions, the better we can see ourselves and feel about ourselves.

There is however an alternative view on self-esteem emerging in psychology in the last years, a view I am in consent with as a coach with a background in psychology. According to this view, what I have described above is just one side of self esteem, meaning conditional self esteem.

But, there is also another side: the unconditional one.

Unconditional Self Esteem

This is the real crown jewel. Unconditional self esteem is not dependent upon anything. You may change, your life may change, but it is not affected by any of this.

Unconditional self esteem is not based on your achievements, your skills or how other people see you. It comes from realizing and embracing your intrinsic value as a human being.

When you comprehend that your worth stretches beyond what you do, what you own, what you are capable of, and how others see you, than you have unconditional self esteem.

I believe confidently that this is a much more powerful form of self esteem to have. It’s an inner force and drive that you can always count on, no matter the stupid things that you sometimes do as a human or that sometimes happen in your life.

It’s like your very own 500HP car that never runs out of gas.

Low Self Esteem Redefined

Now, with this new understanding, let’s look at what is low self esteem again.

Through the conditional perspective, low self esteem means an evaluation of your own overall competence, effectiveness and likeability as being poor. Here’s the key point: conditional low self esteem is not all bad.

Many people horribly underestimate themselves and thus, they end up with low self esteem that damages their lives. This is bad. However, a very good but unrealistic image of yourself is also bad practically, as it leads to poor decisions and childish choices.

In addition, there is some solid research today that points out how people with high conditional self esteem are often narcissistic and antisocial in their behavior. Not the kind of folks you want at your Christmas table.

Low unconditional self esteem on the other hand is always bad. It is a reflection of your inability to see your inner worth.

When your unconditional self esteem is high though, it means you see your inner worth with clarity. A lot of scientific research links this to more success, to better health and in combination with good people skills, to better relationships.

Overcoming Low Self Esteem

All this discussion has also been a huge overture to a few key points I want to make on overcoming low self esteem:

1. Before anything else, think carefully if your low self esteem is based on a faulty self image or not. It may be just a sign that you’re not growing or that you’re selling yourself short.

2. If you conclude that your low self esteem is indeed based on a faulty self image, then you overcome it by becoming more aware of your strengths, your successes and the people who like you (the conditional side) or your intrinsic value (the unconditional side).

3. Changing a false self-image can only be done effectively by gradually changing your automatic thinking about yourself. This is what you want to focus on. When the way you talk to yourself habitually improves, your self esteem improves with it.

In whatever ways you handle low self esteem, do not ignore the unconditional side of it. Competence and performance are all good, but they do not define you. There is a deep bright light inside of you and it shines unconditionally.

Image courtesy of vernhart

Filed Under: Attitude, Inspirational, Personal Development Tagged With: , , 5 Comments
February 6, 2011

How to Make Friends

I am a firm advocate of a rich social life, in terms of quantity and quality. I believe that knowing how to make friends is one of the most important people skills one can master.

Most of the people I know who are truly happy with their lives nourish it with meaningful relationships and social interactions. These have more contribution to their happiness than just about any other external factor, money, fame and power included.

The Why and What of Making Friends

Taking your understanding of how to make friends to the next level is something I believe will benefit you no matter who you are and in what life context. However, it will interest you particularly if:

  • You have recently moved to a new town or country where you don’t know anybody and you’re starting your social life fresh;
  • You don’t have a lot of friends, maybe you’re somewhat shy, and you want to meet new people and make more friends;
  • You’ve realized that the friends you have right now are not the kind of people you really resonate with and want to shift your social circle;
  • You already have great friends but you want to keep improving your social life and turn it into a gem.

In my work as a communication coach, I often help clients to overcome shyness, enhance their people skills, learn how to make friends and effectively put this knowledge into practice.

In time, I have developed a 3-step system for making friends that I am proud to say, provides reliable results. As long as you apply it, you focus on constantly growing your people skills and you stick to it, you will see your social life thrive.

Step 1: Get Into Social Activities

Many persons ask me how they can meet new people in order to make friends. There is one way I always recommend for its elegance and effectiveness: social activities.

Basically, social activities are things you do along with other people or in the same group with other people. They get you interacting with others or they create a context where interacting with others can happen relatively easily and smoothly.

From martial arts to social dancing, from cooking classes to personal development trainings, these are all examples of social activities. Since in such activities you train with a partner, you share experience with others and so on, this means many social interactions will naturally happen.

When choosing social activities, keep in mind to pick the kind that you believe you may actually enjoy. It doesn’t make a lot of sense taking up team jogging when you can’t even stand breaking a sweat. Using your head in making social decisions and in learning how to make friends will get you a lot further than randomly filling your social calendar.

Step 2: Get Sociable

Social activities will certainly create the social context you need to successfully interact with others, but it will not get you friends on its own. Your next step is to take social initiative.

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This means deliberately interacting with people in abundance during social activities and employing such activities for social bonding. You want to model the social behaviors of very sociable people, behaviors such as:

  • Using almost any reason to talk with other people in a social activity;
  • Talking about themselves and revealing themselves to others;
  • Being authentically curious and asking others questions;
  • Escalating from small talk and making conversations more meaningful;
  • Having a fun, positive and social vibe;
  • Not taking things too seriously.

If you’re not used to behaving like this it will be a stretch for you; and stretching socially is one of the probably the key things you need to do at this point to make friends and enrich your social life.

Being sociable is in fact both an attitude and a skill. So if you want to master it and learn how to make friends successfully, you will probably have to work at both ends: gain social confidence and initiative and at the same time improve your conversation skills.

By the way: I have a special video presentation for you in which I reveal the 3-step solution for gaining social confidence, which you’ll simply love. Go here to watch it right now.

Step 3: Generate Future Interactions

When two or more people interact frequently and they get along well, if they are socially confident, they no longer let the context give them occasions to interact, they generate such occasions on their own.

You can invite another person out for a coffee, to have lunch together, to go for a drink and so on. A recent coaching client of mine decided to throw small, daytime house parties at her place in order to further interact with people she had met at various hobbies. She found this kind of a social event to work incredibly well for her.

Where you invite other people is not the most important element; actually having this initiative is. As such interactions take place, provided they go well, this is when the bond gets stronger and friendships truly emerge.

This is the general blueprint you can use to learn how to make friends and improve your social life. As you put it into practice and focus on continuously improving your people skills, I can assure you that the outcomes in your social life will be very good.

Even more, as your social life will improve, you will also see many other areas of your life blossom. Rich meaningful relationships with others can have such an amazing effect.

Image courtesy of ohhector

Filed Under: Lifestyle, People Skills, Relationships Tagged With: , , 4 Comments
February 1, 2011

Top 10 Conversation Topics

Recommending people conversation topics is tricky. Personally, tuning my people skills, I have learned to talk about anything and everything. I can do this now, not because I know a lot of stuff (which I don’t), but because I can relate with people on any subject.

Simultaneously, I am aware that particularly when you’re talking with a person you’ve just met it’s good to understand what the interesting conversation topics that go well with most people are. Thus, you can start a conversation on a common ground and build rapport fast.

With this in mind, I am giving you ten fine researched conversation topics I believe work fabulously in most conversations. So you can confidently pick from them in your social interactions and then adapt the conversation topics as you learn more about the other person.

Before I list these topics though, I want to add one thing: knowing the right topics doesn’t do much for you if you lack conversation confidence. Knowledge without attitude is useless. This is why I have created for you a free presentation in which I reveal the secrets to conversation confidence. Go here to watch it.

1. Human Psychology

We love the subject of human nature and nurture. We want to understand ourselves better and to understand others better. To some people, this is almost like having a superpower.

Talking about how we are, how our mind works, why we do what we do and anchoring this in real life is always interesting. Furthermore, if you know some fascinating psychological theories, you’re sure to woo anybody.

2. Traveling

Nowadays, traveling is highly accessible and it is the favorite pastime of many people. Almost every person out there with a decent income does some long distance traveling every year and has a lot of stories to tell.

For this reason, I find that it’s very easy to get other people talking about their traveling experiences and to relate with them. Plus, I have filled most of my traveling agenda based on recommendations from others. So I killed two birds with one stone.

3. Books

From what I can tell, almost everybody with a level of education above high-school reads books, at least once in a while. Sure, people may have different tastes in what they read, but the subject of books in itself is very big and juicy.

Also, keep in mind the alternative sources for reading material such as newspapers, magazines, journals, websites and the increasingly popular… blogs.

4. Movies

Books may have their limits as an interest, but I’m positive that everybody who doesn’t live in a monastery watches movies. In my perspective, this is one of the richest conversation topics out there.

The caveat is that a discussion about movies can quickly get boring, so you want to be careful and elegant with it. You most certainty don’t want to abuse this topic.

5. Women/ Men

I often say that men’s favorite conversation topic is women, and women’s favorite topic is men. You might as well exploit this. I have rarely seen two men connect as easy as when they are having a discussion about the ‘prey’ (and I’m not talking about wild deer).

Even if you’re talking with a person of the opposite sex, talking about either men or women (pick one at a time) can be very engaging. We generally love to get the perspective of the opposite sex on this subject.

6. Hobbies

There is a wide range of hobbies people may have, from polo, to yoga, to pottery. I frequently like to ask others about their hobbies. Even if we may not have a lot of hobbies in common, they present a good opportunity to get to know the other person and perhaps discover a new, exciting hobby for myself.

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Preferably, avoid talking with a workaholic about their hobbies, as they will politely (or not) explain you how they work 70 hours each week. Speaking of workaholics…

7. Career

There is a huge difference between a job and a career. A job is what you do at one point or another for money. A career is a journey of learning, adding value and receiving value that stretches over most of your lifetime.

You don’t want to narrowly focus a conversation on “What do you do for a living?” You want to also explore career plans, career challenges or the journey so far.

8. Bars, clubs, pubs and coffee shops

One of my favorite conversation questions is: “Where do you go out?” Some people prefer places where they can dance, some where they can eat and others where they can just hangout or use their people skills to socialize.

Nevertheless, most persons do like to go out of their cave and explore their immediate surroundings. Conversation topics involving their experiences in this area are definitely a good idea.

9. Food

There is this subtle attraction most of us humans have towards food: making it, seeing it, acquiring it and eating it. It’s not just a subject for housewives and chefs.

Subtle conversations on the art of cooking or the art of eating, sharing small details about the kinds of foods you like and how you eat them, these create a bond between people.

10. Events

If you live in a relatively big city (and chances are that you do), there’s a lot going on in it every day of the week: conferences, celebrations, marches, strikes, accidents, alien invasions and so on.

Such events create one of the best conversation topics for some quality small talk at the beginning of a conversation: they’re easy to bring into discussion, somewhat interesting and they’re happening somewhere near you.

These are ten conversation topics I use quite a lot and I find well suited for almost any conversation. They’re a good tool to engage people, make interactions enjoyable, build relationships and reveal your charismatic personality.

However, they are only the second layer in making conversation. Check out my instructional presentation on conversation confidence to learn how to put a solid foundation.

What are the conversation topics that work best for you?

Image courtesy of Bethan

Filed Under: Communication Skills, People Skills Tagged With: , , 10 Comments