May 9, 2010

Why Less Is More in Personal Development

I was reading earlier today a presentation of a one-day communication skills training, and browsing over the content. This training covers everything from non-verbal communication, to conflict management, to business communication, to presenting with impact. All in just one, single day!

There was a point a long time ago when I used to do the same. I thought that if I could get everything in there, in as little time as possible, I would deliver a very valuable training. I would also approach my personal development the same way. I would read and browse like a maniac through 5 or 10 books on people skills, then I would decide to practice it…all.

I was naïve, impatient, and had a fragile understanding of human learning. Looking at this way of doing personal development now, whether it’s people skills, confidence, productivity or anything else, it really amuses me.

Here’s the point: people don’t learn that way. A human being is not a computer on which you can install every piece software you’ll ever need in 24 hours, and get it over with. It’s rather like a computer with a 2 Mb software install limit for each day. So it will take you about 3 years just to install the basic operating system (aham… Windows?).

Trying to absorb a lot of information, on various areas of a big topic, in a short amount of time, and then to practice it all is a highly ineffective attempt some people make at developing real skills. It doesn’t work for a couple of reasons:

  • You try to cover a lot of concepts and ideas, you only get a superficial understanding of each one;
  • You overcharge your memory and you forget that vast majority of the theory you learn;
  • You instantly get de-motivated when you think about starting to practice, because you have so much to practice;
  • You end up practicing a bit of everything, which doesn’t make anything truly stick and leads nowhere.

The only way reading a lot without applying can make practical sense is if you’re in a phase where you just want to expose yourself to as many ideas as possible on a certain topic, so you can then choose on which to focus on. But the way I see it, this isn’t personal development, it’s just a preparatory, exploratory phase. Don’t expect to grow your skills from this.

The effective way to develop real skills and attitudes is to focus on the key ideas which have the most value for you, explore them in more detail, hammer them into your head and practice them consistently. And you do this one by one with each key idea, instead of all at once.

When I do coaching and trainings on people skills, I follow this exact principle. Some of my clients are initially surprised by the small number of ideas I cover, but as they move to applying them, they quickly understand why I have this approach. And have you noticed that I also usually write in the same manner?

There is more to effective personal development than meets the eye. We all want to improve fast, to absorb as much information as possible in as little time as possible, and then to watch our skills grow by themselves out of this process.

But this is not how self-growth happens. It’s a gradual process, which relies mostly on chunking things down, action, and persistence. This is why in personal development, less is more.

Filed Under: Personal Development, Psychology Tagged With: , , , 14 Comments
May 4, 2010

VIP Lifestyle – Get Your Free Ebook

Ladies and gents,

I am thrilled to present…

VIP Lifestyle: A People-System for Creating Your Ultimate Lifestyle. This short ebook is a practical guide at the intersection of lifestyle design (one of my biggest passions) and people skills (my area of expertise).

I’ve worked like crazy for a couple of weeks, conceptualizing, writing and editing to make this ebook as powerful as possible, while still keeping it an easy read.

In VIP Lifestyle, I’ll share with you some of the most valuable lesson I’ve learned about using the way you communicate and relate with others to create a rich, exciting and fulfilling life for yourself. These are lessons drawn from my personal experiences, as well as my experiences working as a communication coach.

The topic of lifestyle design is booming in popularity. However, you don’t hear or read a lot about people skills in relation with creating an extraordinary lifestyle. People skills are often ignored or treated superficially, tacking a backseat to topics such as productivity or financial planning.

After 8 years of helping people improve their people skills, I firmly believe that in this complex social system we live, people skills play a huge role in creating an exceptional lifestyle for yourself. They can make or break your lifestyle.

In VIP Lifestyle, you will discover:

  • Why and what people skills are an essential ingredient for creating your ultimate lifestyle;
  • How to communicate better and get the results you want;
  • How to promote yourself, your ideas and your services effectively;
  • How to build quality relationships with others and have a rich social life;
  • How to effectively take your learning one step further than reading this book.

The key concepts explored include: personal boundaries, confidence in communication, persuasion, being sociable and networking.

Here is the really good news…

I’ve decided to make this ebook (value $12.95) available for free. Yes, for FREE.

All you have to do is subscribe to this blog.

After subscribing, every article you will receive from People Skills Decoded will contain a download link at the bottom, which will take you to VIP Lifestyle.

You will need Adobe Reader to open the ebook, and to save a copy on your computer. If you’re already subscribed to my blog, have no fear: you too will be able to download VIP Lifestyle for free with every article you receive.

This is high value content that I’m basically giving away for free. I’m sure a lot of people will benefit from reading it and using it. Please help me spread the word.

Filed Under: Lifestyle, People Skills Tagged With: , , , 16 Comments
April 28, 2010

The Simple Guide to Conscious Learning

When you are able to learn effectively, you pretty much have living the life you want in your pocket. Oddly enough, very few people are good conscious learners. Some may know a lot of stuff, but when it comes to actually developing, their learning gets stuck.

There is one thing I found out about a long time ago, which helped me a lot in improving the way I learn and make more, faster progress. It is also something I constantly talk about in my training and coaching programs.

This thing is a simple, powerful model of human learning and personal development. According to the model, our competencies develop in 4 stages:

  1. Unconscious Incompetence – you don’t know, and you don’t know that you don’t know. This is the stage when you are not aware of your flaws or specific areas where you can improve.
  2. Conscious Incompetence – you still don’t know, but at least you know that you don’t know. This is the stage when you’ve realized your flaws or specific areas where you can improve.
  3. Conscious Competence – you know, as long as you practice consciously. This is the stage when you have discovered how to improve, the specific changes you need to make, and you practice them consciously.
  4. Unconscious Competence – you know, without even thinking about it. This is the stage when you have practiced something so much that it became automatic and you now do it naturally.

Of course, once you reach the last stage in one area and you have a new skill, there are other areas where you are at the first stage and where you can evolve through the 4 stages. So this is not really a learning cycle, it’s more of a learning spiral which can go on your entire life.

What effective learning means is moving from one stage to another. Effective learning is conscious, step by step learning. And it’s about skills, attitudes, not knowledge, which is just an intermediary step in the process.

If you look at human learning through this model, you can realize that all human failure in learning is triggered by certain personal or process flaws which make us get stuck at one of the first 3 stages:

  • People who get stuck in stage 1 don’t even think about where they can improve, are not very self-aware or they are too proud to see their flaws.
  • People who get stuck in stage 2 know what they can improve but don’t decide to do anything about it, they try to figure everything our by themselves or they use the wrong ideas and methods to improve.
  • People who get stuck in stage 3 don’t act sufficiently and consistently enough, they don’t plan their practice, they get distracted and they procrastinate.

Look at this model of learning and think about the stages where you tend to get stuck. We all tend to have at least one which is our sticking point. Becoming more aware of this and working on perfecting your learning process is one of the best ways you can use you time and energy.

When you are able to learn effectively, you pretty much have living the life you want in your pocket. Oddly enough, very few people are good conscious learners. Some may know a lot of stuff, but when it comes to actually developing, their learning gets stuck.

There is one thing I found out about a long time ago, which helped me a lot in improving the way I learn and make more, faster progress. It is also something I constantly talk about in my training and coaching programs.

This thing is a simple, powerful model of human learning and personal development. According to the model, our competencies develop in 4 stages:

  1. Unconscious Incompetence – you don’t know, and you don’t know that you don’t know. This is the stage when you are not aware of your flaws or specific areas where you can improve.

  1. Conscious Incompetence – you still don’t know, but at least you know that you don’t know. This is the stage when you’ve realized your flaws or specific areas where you can improve.

  1. Conscious Competence – you know, as long as you practice consciously. This is the stage when you have discovered how to improve, the specific changes you need to make, and you practice them consciously.

  1. Unconscious Competence – you know, without even thinking about it. This is the stage when you have practiced something so much that it became automatic and you now do it naturally.

Of course, once you reach the last stage in one area and you have a new skill, there are other areas where you are at the first stage and where you can evolve through the 4 stages. So this is not really a learning cycle, it’s more of a learning spiral which can go on your entire life.

What effective learning means is moving from one stage to another. Effective learning is conscious, step by step learning. And it’s about skills, attitudes, not knowledge, which is just an intermediary step in the process.

If you look at human learning through this model, you can realize that all human failure in learning is triggered by certain personal or process flaws which make us get stuck at one of the first 3 stages:

  • People who get stuck in stage 1 don’t even think about where they can improve, are not very self-aware or they are too proud to see their flaws.

  • People who get stuck in stage 2 know what they can improve but don’t decide to do anything about it, they try to figure everything our by themselves or they use the wrong ideas and methods to improve.

  • People who get stuck in stage 3 don’t act sufficiently and consistently enough, they don’t plan their practice, they get distracted and they procrastinate.

Look at this model of learning and think about the stages where you tend to get stuck. We all tend to have at least one which is our sticking point. Becoming more aware of this and working on perfecting your learning process is one of the best ways you can use you time and energy.

Filed Under: Personal Development, Psychology Tagged With: , , , 8 Comments
April 21, 2010

How to Rise Above Family Pressure and Live the Life You Want

The family: a traditional source for love, advice, kind words, emotional support and apple pie. Also, quite often, a real pain in the ass when it comes to living the life you want. Let’s face it: you probably owe your family a lot, but at the same time, there are at least one or two big ways you feel it’s sabotaging your dreams.

I know in my family, I constantly felt pressure, especially from my dad, to live a certain way. The more I found out what I really wanted, the more I discovered it was not that way, and the pressure grew. Until at one point, I decided to move out of the family house completely, set some firm boundaries in the relationship with my parents and live exactly how I wanted.

My dad is still not very happy with how I spend my time, what I eat, the fact I have my own business instead of a regular job. Despite that, we now get along pretty well, and at the same time I don’t succumb to family pressure. This is how I do it and what I also teach others.

Most of the time, close family members like your parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters have positive intentions in trying to push you in a certain direction. They mean well, they do it out of love. But, this doesn’t mean they also do the right thing for you. I think there are 2 major problems with how families often guide their children.

  1. They try to keep them in the safe zone. They don’t want them to do anything risky or unconventional. They encourage them to choose the career filed in which you can find the biggest salaries, and you can get a job even if you’re half retarded, ignoring what the children really want, can and like to do.
  2. They spread out-of-date wisdom. Because our society has changed so much in the last decade, it’s very probable that older family members like parents in their 50’s or 60’s have understandings of things which no longer applies. Yet they continue to believe in them firmly, and to guide their children using these understandings.

The results you get is a lot of family pressure directing you in the wrong direction. And this doesn’t apply just to teenagers, who are still kind of immature and financially dependent on their parents. Most mature, experienced and financially independent adults I know also get this kind of pressure from their families, and they often give in to it.

Family pressure can be a powerful, hard to ignore factor for most people, applied with incredible skills. The good news is there is way to effectively deal with family pressure and live the life you want. Here are the main things which can help you:

  • Put some distance between you and the rest. If you’re living in the same house with your parents or grandparents (which in today’s world is common even for married people) and you see them every day, it’s hard not to succumb to their pressure. Make moving out at priority, save the money it takes and do it.
  • Realize you don’t need to please your family. There is this false belief that because you family is, well… your family, you must get along perfectly with every family member. You don’t. It’s a myth. There’s nothing wrong with upsetting dad once in a while or not living up to mom’s dream for you to be a doctor.
  • Learn to communicate assertively. Assertive communication is one the most valuable people skills you can have. It allows you to express yourself in a clear, direct way, but from a position of respect for others, and it’s a great way to deal with all the criticizing and negative comments you can get from family members which are not happy with your actions.

But these points are really only a frame to set for rising above family pressure. The most important thing is action. This is YOUR life, not your parents’ life. And while they’re not to be completely ignored, it’s only naturally to live the way YOU want.

Filed Under: Attitude, Lifestyle, People Skills Tagged With: , , , , , , 28 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 9, 2010

How Having a Life Can Improve Your People Skills

People skills have an interesting dynamic, because in order to improve them, you sometimes need to dig in other areas, improve there, and then you will see your people skills go up as well. And if you only work on them directly, you will often just create a superficial result.

One such area is having a life. Every person I know who has not just good, but awesome people skills, also has a very reach and meaningful life. These people travel a lot, read a lot, meet all kinds of people, and try all sorts of hobbies. Not only does this give them a certain confidence and charisma, but it also eases their social interactions with others.

If you think about it, your life and your person are what you put on the table when you’re talking with someone. They create content and context for your social interactions. If your life is very repetitive and uninteresting, if you as a person are shallow and conventional, it’s like putting a bag of peanuts on the table and asking the other person if she wants to dine with you. Not very appealing for her.

One particular effect I value which having a life has on your social interactions is this: having a life allows you to relate to almost anything the other person says or does. This can be one of those key people skills, as it’s helps you greatly to break the ice, build rapport and make quality conversation with others.

Here’s on example of not relating effectively to what someone says:

You: “So, what did you do this weekend?”

Her: “I went to a tango festival. I’m taking tango lessons you know.”

You: “Aha, really? “

Here’s the same example with a twist:

You: “So, what did you do this weekend?”

Her: “I went to a tango festival. I’m taking tango lessons you know.”

You: “I have a friend who dragged me to a couple of tango lessons once. It was actually a lot more fun than I expected. I liked the fact I started learning how to be a good lead. I think that’s important. “

See the difference? In the second case, you are actually relating to what the person is saying, connecting your experience with hers. But in order to do that, you need to have taken tango lessons, known someone who has, or at least talked about it with someone who was into tango.

There is a huge link between having a life and having the skills to relate. Yet, people who live rich, meaningful lives are rare. Even if we live in a world where we have a ton of options, my experience is that most people have pretty dull and repetitive lives.

This being said, here are some starters towards enriching your life:

  • Consider activities you have never done before and try them out;
  • Make sure you vary your activities and don’t stop at just one or two;
  • Include some sports, and some social or group activities in your agenda;
  • Save money to afford some of the more expensive activities you can try.

When you have tried just about anything or you know just about anything, I believe you are in a place where you can make great friends, build great business relationships and influence people with ease. Having a life is one of the most important ways you can use to improve your people skills.

Filed Under: Lifestyle, People Skills Tagged With: , , , , 22 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
March 23, 2010

Discovering What You Have to Offer

If there is one category of people I know which struggle with their confidence, happiness and people skills, it’s those who don’t really believe they have anything valuable to offer. You have never seen a sadder look on someone’s face!

As a result of this core belief, the people in this category often believe a couple of other disempowering things as well:

  • That they are not employable and can’t find a job;
  • That they are not likeable and can’t find friends;
  • That they are not attractive and can’t find a partner;
  • That they are not useful and can’t contribute to the world.

With thoughts like these in your head, your future will not look very bright. The good news is there are ways out of this mindframe. In helping my clients improve their confidence and their people skills by handling this, there are 3 things which provide great results:

1. Identifying talents. I don’t care if you spent all your life eating popcorn and watching reruns of Seinfeld, you still have talents. Because talents (in my definition) are not dependent on your conscious efforts. They are your natural abilities. They usually develop in childhood, as part of simply living your life, or you are born with them.

We all have talents. Do you know yours? If not, then this is what’s very important for you to discover. Maybe you’re analytical, organized, creative, empathic, a clear communicator, a high energy person, good with numbers, attentive with details, a good singer. These can all be talents, things you naturally have to offer.

2. Identifying hidden skills. Most of us are not very good at understanding what our skills are because we think of a skill as something we develop in formal way, and we get a diploma to certify it. This is rarely the case. Most skills are learned in a more informal way, by simply doing stuff.

Consider the person who allays organizes huge parties for her friends, all their vacations and travelling. This person probably developed very good event organizing skills this way. She is one step away from the money-making business skill of events organizing. And probably, she is not even aware of it.

3. Starting from where you are. OK: even if you don’t really have a lot to offer, what does that mean? Nothing. It’s just where you are right now. You have a lot of space to work on your personal development and get some valuable skills under your belt.

So do not whine, do not feel bad, look at this simply as your starting point and evolve. Take a class, read a book, practice, get feedback, adapt, practice some more. As you learn various stuff, as you grow as a person and as a professional, you start to believe more and more that you have to offer a lot of value in this world.

But for most people, this third point is not the core problem. They have a lot of skills, a lot to offer. They just don’t know it. It’s a self-knowledge and self image thing rather than a real lack of value they can bring. This is why the most important step is a change of perception.

Filed Under: Career, Inspirational, Lifestyle Tagged With: , , 6 Comments