Archives for April 2011

April 27, 2011

Are You Invisible?

Do your work colleagues barely notice you when you enter the office? Does your boss hardly know your name? Do the people you hang out with have no clue what you’ve been doing lately? Do persons of the opposite sex pretty much ignore you?

Chances are that you’re socially invisible.

I am continually amazed by the importance of making yourself noticed, both in your career and your social life. It’s often not a complete method in itself to get what you want, but it is always the first crucial step.

If others don’t even notice you, they’re also not going to remember you, want to get to know you, build a connection with you or pay attention to what you have to say. When you’re invisible, you have no visible impact and you suffer the consequences.

In my coaching, I frequently work with ‘invisible’ people and help them learn to stand out more.  If you’re an invisible person, there are three action steps I advise you to focus on.

1. Dress to Stand Out, Not to Fit In

The majority of people dress to fit in. They wear commonplace clothes in boring colors; they have generic and predictable attire. Thus, they fit in so well that you pass by hundreds of them on the street every day and you barely notice a few.

You want to do the opposite: Instead of wearing what everybody else is wearing, be original. Instead of wearing dull colors, add color to your wardrobe and accessorize with style (even as a guy). Don’t go all outrageous, but do make sure you stand out.

Dressing in a way that expresses you and gets you noticed is not only a sign of fashion style but more importantly, a sign of confidence. Most people are too afraid to attract attention by dressing with personality. Well, you want to get comfortable with attracting attention.

2. Stop Avoiding Conflicts

Most invisible people are inclined to be harmonizers. They are scared of conflicts and upsetting others; so when the possibility of a conflict arises, they’ll do whatever it takes to prevent or suppress that conflict.

They’ll hide their opinions, wants and feelings. They’ll make pointless compromises and sacrifice their needs for the sake of always getting along. And since they never rock the boat, they don’t get noticed and don’t get their needs met.

Here’s what’s essential to realize: conflicts are not all bad. Often, the journey towards a positive change involves conflict; things need to get worse before they can get better. So embrace the constructive potential of conflict and assertively put yourself out there, even if you generate conflicts.

3. Talk More about Yourself

Listening is certainly one of the valuable people skills to have; and there is plenty of praise in the self-growth and business literature for it. But guess what? So is talking and expressing yourself.

I find that sharing yourself, your experiences and your ideas is frequently the ignored half of career and social success. I’ve also noticed countless times that we don’t connect emotionally with persons we barely know anything about, and this makes being talkative essential.

If you’re invisible, chances are that you’re the kind of person who keeps to themselves and tries to give others room to talk. Unfortunately, this is an excellent way to get people either using you, or ignoring you.

In this case, it’s time to get more outgoing. Share yourself more, talk about your experiences, tell stories, express your thoughts on various subjects and get used to being the center of attention, at least some of the time. It will do wonders for you.

Ultimately, I see getting yourself noticed as a matter of confidence. The individuals who believe in what they have to offer authentically put themselves out there, get noticed and get ahead. It is this kind of a mindset that you want to take in.

Image courtesy of timfotography.com

Filed Under: Career, Inspirational, Lifestyle Tagged With: , , 9 Comments
April 21, 2011

Guys, It’s Time to Seduce with Style

If you’re a guy and you want more social and dating success, there are a lot of personal tweaks you can make to achieve this. Interestingly enough, I find that enhancing your look, which is a relatively accessible change to make, is an often ignored one.

I’m not talking about your looks here; I’m talking about your look; about the way you use your looks and project your personality through clothes, accessories and body-language.

Over the past few weeks, whenever I would talk with another guy about men’s fashion and building a personal look, I would find myself keenly recommending the same one ebook. So, I decided to review it here.

The ebook is called Seduce with Style. It’s the best information product I know for men who want to develop a personal look that boosts their social life and their success with women.

You can get the full details about the ebook here.

Also, check out this free SWS chapter about the 8 most common style mistakes to avoid.

Why Style Matters

Do you need to dress well and have style in order to be an attractive guy? In my perspective, absolutely not. Does it help? You’ve better believe it.

In fact, I think learning to dress with style as a guy is such a good move that if you’re looking to improve your social and dating life, this is what you should start with.

Optimizing your look as a guy involves significantly less effort than other personal changes and you’ll instantly see positive results: people (read girls) looking at you more, smiling more, flirting with you more etc.

Girls typically react to a guy’s look much more than to his looks. Often without even realizing it, they rate guys based on their look and what it sub-communicates. Then they often justify how we they react to a guy by invoking other, ‘less superficial’ factors.

I ignored the power of a stylish personal look for the most part of my life. I didn’t understand look, I only understood looks. But when I did start paying attention to the clothes I wore and to developing a personal style, I was floored by the positive impact.

Eventually, I realized there is a deeper, more subtle meaning to clothing and style, and that your look goes beyond your looks.

My Review of Seduce With Style

AlphaWolf, the author of Seduce with Style, is an Attraction Style Coach. I had an awesome conversation with him this week about the ebook, men, women, seduction and life, and I was impressed by his pragmatic thinking and his passion for what he does.

The ebook he wrote is not your average what-to-wear and how-to-tie-a-tie book for men. It digs into the underlying principles of men’s style and sexual communication, in order to teach men how to develop a seductive and expressive style.

As a guy, you’ll find in Seduce with Style practical advice on choosing and matching clothing pieces, adapting clothes to your constitution, choosing colors, layering clothes and accessorizing.

You will also find a powerful approach to your look as a way of communicating certain characteristics and seducing. One of my favorite sections of the book is the one about the 8 Style Attraction Switches and how to integrate them into your look.

Bottom line: if you’re a guy and you want to become more seductive, definitely take a look at your look. And if you do so, definitely get your copy of Seduce with Style in order to enhance your look.

Check out Seduce with Style here.

When you dress well and you know it, the challenges in your social life don’t disappear overnight, but they do become much easier to surpass.

Image courtesy of glitterygin20

Filed Under: Lifestyle, News, Success Tagged With: , , , , , , 3 Comments
April 17, 2011

How to Impress a Girl

One of the most popular questions among guys is: How to impress a girl?” The desire for men to be successful with the opposite sex is undeniable. Frequently, it is much stronger than the desire to make money, advance their career or live a healthy life.

Considering this, I want to give you my perspective as a communication coach and as a guy on how to impress a girl. I don’t think this inquiry has a simple and straightforward response, but there are some key points that you want to take in and focus on primarily.

If you’re expecting ideas for romantic gifts or cute compliments to impress a girl, this is not it. First of all, because I believe such methods are short-lived, and secondly because any other guy out there who’s not retarded can easily do the exact same things.

I’m going to take a broader and deeper approach on the topic of how to impress a girl. So, buckle up.

How to Impress a Girl Is the Wrong Question

In my perspective, if you’re wondering how to impress a girl, you’ve gone astray. A much better question to ask is the subtly different question “how to impress girls?” I firmly believe the best way to impress a girl is to develop an attractive personality and communication style that girls react to in general.

If you’re focusing just on finding ways to astonish one particular girl, this will probably get you to start obsessing about her, to act desperate and needy around her, and to become a chameleon in order to create a positive impression on her. Of course initially, it may just seem like you’re being nice.

On the other hand, if you learn to impress girls in general, this creates a shift in your attitude. You have more options, become more self-assured and interestingly enough, this is what has the best chances of wooing that particular girl you like.

Dress for Seduction Success

Yes, you look does matter. However, notice I said your “look”, not your “looks”. Your look goes beyond your body and face constitution (your looks). It entails the way you project yourself visually, through clothing and accessories.

While you can only change your looks to some extent, your look is completely under your control. And creating an appealing look for yourself, although it’s not a necessity, will definitely help you a lot in impressing girls.

Here are the main things I believe you want to know and apply in terms of personal fashion:

  • How to choose high quality clothes (not the same as expensive), that fit you really well;
  • How to match clothes in terms of colors, fabric and style and how to add the proper accessories;
  • How to express your personality and stand out in a seductive way, using the way you dress.

Lead

One of the most attractive male traits is leading. This trait is the raw manifestation of masculine confidence and power. In the process of learning how to impress a girl or more, this is a chapter you simply cannot skip.

Now, leading in this context doesn’t mean being the CEO of an international corporation or the president of the United States (although I’m positive that would be of assistance). It means the strong inclination to lead in the interactions with a girl.

Leading is a behavior, not a status. Leading in interactions with a girl involves making decisions quickly, taking the initiative and being firm but gentle. It means saying “Let’s go out for drinks this weekend” instead of “Amm… would you like to… I don’t know… go out sometimes, or something?”

Know Psychology

Myself and many of my close male friends have a huge passion for psychology. So I can’t pass on the opportunity to talk about knowing psychology, because I’ve seen this trait at work numerous times and I think it’s an incredible trait to have as a guy.

Girls simply adore applied psychology. They are fascinated by this topic. Whenever you give a girl the opportunity to learn something interesting about human psychology, to understand herself or others better, she’ll be blown way.

I really encourage you to make the next book you read a book on human psychology; something that’s very practical and preferably not too scholastic. Especially if you’re a guy who spends most of his time reading about Java programming or nuclear physics, this can change your conversations with girls significantly.

There are many other ways to impress a girl. I just pointed out the ones I believe create the foundation of a naturally attractive and impressive guy.

In the end, effectively learning how to impress girls is not done by accumulating tips, tricks, lines and gimmicks to use. It is done by developing your people skills, your confidence and your personality in a seductive direction.

Image courtesy of sebastien.b

Filed Under: Lifestyle, People Skills, Success Tagged With: , , , 20 Comments
April 11, 2011

‘I Have No Friends’ Help

Some of the people I work with as a social confidence coach have a decent social life and they’re just looking to enhance it, while some will tell me right off the bat: “I have no friends and barely any social life. I need help.”

When you’re in the ‘I have no friends’ category, you’re in a deeper hole than most people and there is a lot more work to be done in order to lift yourself out of it. However, don’t presume that this makes it harder. Rather, it simply makes it longer.

Why Do I Have No Friends?

If the number of friends in your social circle is zero, you are probably wondering: “Why do I have no friends?” This is a key question to answer. One thing I’ve noticed is a recurring set of characteristics that people with no friends share.

If you’re in the “I have no friends’ category, one or more of the following explanations are probably valid for you:

1. Shyness. Almost every individual with zero friends that I’ve coached or met struggled with shyness or social anxiety. This made them uneasy about meeting new people and expressing themselves authentically, which makes friends making almost impossible.

2. Poor conversation skills. It’s also common for individuals who have no friends to lack certain conversation skills. This is usually shyness related. They often have a hard time keeping a conversation going and moving it beyond fluff. Thus, it’s difficult for them to create a connection with others.

3. Being too nice. Contrary to popular belief, being a very nice person who always listens to others and never says a rude word doesn’t make you the popular person everyone respects. In fact, you come off as needy and desperate; not the kind of person one wants to be close friends with.

4. Having a one-dimensional life. Often, people who have no friends whatsoever not only lack a social life, but they have a one-dimensional life altogether. They may only focus on study or on work, so they find it nearly impossible to carry a meaningful conversation on any other topic.

Now that we know what the roots of the problem are, let’s take a look at the solution.

Focus Primarily On Social Confidence

As a person with the “I have no friends. What to do?” dilemma, the single most important step you can take is to overcome your shyness and boost your social confidence.

Commit to making this transformation, as it will have the most resonating impact, in your social life and beyond it. With more social confidence, it’s easier to get involved in social activities, meet people, make conversation, develop and edge and be yourself.

The process of boosting social confidence basically involves two forms of actions:

1. Getting out of your comfort zone. Interestingly enough, you typically don’t gain confidence first and go meet people second; you go meet people despite lacking in confidence and this helps you develop it. Your internal reality follows your external one.

2. Changing your self-image. I’m willing to bet that if you have no friends, you have a pretty screwed up view of yourself. Thus it’s important to improve your self image and self esteem directly, by changing the way you habitually think about yourself.

If you want to learn how to skyrocket your social confidence in just a few weeks, check out this presentation, where I’ll show you my proven method for building social confidence.

Tune-Up Your Conversation Skills

As you regularly push yourself out of your comfort zone and become more outgoing, this creates more opportunities to practice your conversation and people skills. You’re accumulating social experience and you’re training your social muscle. And just like any other muscle, the more you train it the more it grows.

In addition to this, if you want to accelerate your progress, learn and apply specific principles and techniques for improving your conversation and people skills. For example: learn to read body-language better, learn to communicate expressively or to lead a conversation smoothly in any direction.

Get a Life, Not Just a Social Life

Last but not least, keep in mind that the people who find it the easiest to make friends commonly have a rich live overall. They travel, read, meet lots of people, have hobbies and try new things on a regular basis.

When you live this kind of a life, making conversation, being interesting and connecting with others happens effortlessly. On the other hand, when all you can talk about are a rather repetitive job and a tedious TV watching experience, that’s not a lot to go on.

So don’t wonder “Why do I have no friends?” and dwell on this question too much. Instead, get out there, get a life in general and your social life in particular will flourish organically.

I’ve seen people achieve incredible progress in making friends and improving their social life. The overall blueprint is laid out for you. Put it into practice, learn to calibrate the fine details and keep at it. You’ll see some stupefying results.

Image courtesy of Bert Kaufmann

Filed Under: Attitude, Inspirational, People Skills Tagged With: , , , 42 Comments
April 6, 2011

How to Survive a Crappy Job Until You Find a Better One

A crappy job is no joking matter. Unfortunately, a plethora of people are spending more than one third of their time every week, month and year, working in such a job.

I’m not talking here about a job that’s just boring or unfulfilling. I’m talking about an entire work environment that’s psychologically debilitating. Think manipulative management, lack of ethics and sabotage of your advancement.

The logical and obvious step when you’re in a crummy job is to look for a better one (hopefully, a lot better) and to get out of there as soon as possible. You want to kill your job before it kills you.

Now, the practical challenge is that finding even a decent job, especially in some fields, can take 3 to 6 months and sometimes longer. So before killing your job, if you rely on it financially, you may need to tolerate it for a while.

As I often coach people in this kind of a situation, I want to share with you three of the most effective strategies I know for surviving a crappy job until you find a better one.

1. Reduce the Contact with Your Job As Much As You Can

Until you find a new and better job, you want to dedicate the least amount of time possible to your current one. Take plenty of days off, try to frequently get to work late and leave work early. This serves a triple role:

  1. It reduces your contact with a toxic work environment;
  2. It gives you time to relax, distress and recharge your batteries;
  3. It gives you more time to invest in looking for another job.

I’m a believer in integrity, but when you’re dealing with a crummy job and toxic relationships in the workplace, it is guerrilla warfare. Anything goes. So, use just about any tactic available to diminish the contact with you job.

This is a good time to catch every known type of flu out there, plus a couple of unknown types. It’s a good time to generally feel sick very often. On many occasions, you may not even have to fake it that much.

2. Set up Compensation Mechanisms

If your work causes you distress, exhaustion and lack of fulfillment, then you don’t want any other area of your life to add to this. On the contrary: in order to keep your mental and emotional balance, you want to compensate in your time away from work.

The period when you’re dealing with an almost intolerable job is a very good one to:

  • Develop nurturing relationships and use them for support;
  • Get involved in plenty of fun and relaxing activities (go to a spa, play some paintball, get plenty of sleep);
  • Do meaningful things in whatever free time you have (volunteer for a cause you believe in).

A particularly good idea during such a period is to eliminate as much as you can of the outside work responsibilities than can be stressful. Try to either dump them altogether or delegate them to somebody else.

Case in point: I’ve seen married people who in a period of real torment at work told their caring spouse about their work problems and asked them to take on more of the household responsibilities for a while, until they’ll be in a better job. If the spouse does care, they can help tremendously.

3. Stop Taking Work So Seriously

It’s crucial to realize the following point: when you’re set on leaving a job and will do so in a few months tops, apart from your short term check, the stake is pretty much gone. Being a good employee is no longer required. If you don’t, what is your employer going to do? Fire you?

First off, even if they do fire you, it will take months before your insolence accumulates, becomes evident and the decision to fire you is made. By that time, chances are you will already have another job offer.

Second of all, you’d be surprised how much shit you can get away with. I’ve met many people who are total assholes at work and they haven’t even come close to losing their job. They may get criticized by their boss or peers every now and then, but that’s pretty much it.

Fundamentally, surviving a crappy job is about strategy and attitude. Equipped with these two tools, you can deal with any job, for a while. And when you accept a new job, you’ve better not make the same mistakes again.

Image courtesy of Stepan Mazurov

Filed Under: Career, Lifestyle, Relationships Tagged With: , , , , , 3 Comments
April 1, 2011

Are Your ‘Friends’ Holding You Back?

A few years ago, I was learning to be more spontaneous in social interactions and practicing saying whatever popped into my mind without thinking twice. I ended up saying a lot of witty and creative stuff, combined with even more goofy and retarded stuff.

I remember that during that period, there was one condescending comment I would get once in while from some of my friends and other people who knew me. Or at least they thought they knew me.

“This Isn’t You”

That comment was like a subtle sting: “This isn’t you”, those people would say.

I was puzzled by the remark. What did they expect? I was getting out of my comfort zone and trying new ways of behaving socially in order to sharpen my people skills. Of course I was acting somewhat out of character!

I later started to notice that some of my communication coaching clients were getting the exact same comment from some of their friends during their conscious growth process. Often it was phrased in the exact same words, like some sort of popular slogan.

Why People Reject the Changes in Others

Let’s take a look at the psychology behind this occurrence. What you’ll learn may surprise you.

I think that most of the time, the people who make this kind of a remark, especially your friends, are not ill intentioned. It’s just that they are not used to people consciously changing and it’s something that goes beyond their comprehension.

You see, the average Joe or Jane out there barely changes anymore in terms of personality after the age of 18. If they do change, it’s not a voluntary change; it’s the involuntary results of an external change in their life: new job, promotion, marriage, breakup, business failure, etc.

They are used with adult people having a fixed and predictable personality. So when a person in their social circle voluntarily behaves in a new and unpredicted way, this can actually be anxiety producing for them. They don’t understand what’s going on because they don’t understand conscious growth, so they reject it.

There is another common explanation, and this one has less to do with ignorance. It has more to do with self-interest or envy.

It’s important to realize that for some individuals, your change is not in their interest. The friend who brags all the time doesn’t want you to start teasing them for being such an attention-seeker. The colleague who is less competent than you doesn’t want you to become more self-assured and advance your career, while their career is stalling.

The fact is that most people, as kind and noble as they like to seem, are actually quite egocentric. This is not necessarily bad for them, but it can be for you. On top of that add all the envious people out there, and it all makes sense.

Smart Comebacks for Dumb Comments

I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to not take comments like the one I’m talking about too seriously. From my perspective, the best thing you can do is to just let them slide.

Occasionally, you may want to have a short comeback to that kind of a comment, but make sure you don’t get into a debate. Here are some smartass comebacks to the remark “this isn’t you”, for your inspiration:

  • “Me is a very slippery concept right now.”
  • “That’s because I have multiple personality disorder.”
  • “Really? Well, who the hell is it then?”
  • “You’ve noticed” (my favorite, a James Bond line).

Whatever you do, don’t let such remarks from friends or other people in your life make you feel bad and give up on your self-improvement. If you know why you’re behaving differently and you believe it’s the right thing for you, that’s good enough.

In the long run, if the people you call your friends are constantly opposing your growth through their attitudes, whether it’s due to ignorance, self-interest or envy, it’s time to consider applying your people skills in changing your social circle.

If personal development is important for you, then you want the kind of persons in your life that value it as well, not the kind that don’t even know the concept.

Image courtesy of Brian Auer

Filed Under: Communication Skills, Inspirational, Relationships Tagged With: , , , , , 10 Comments