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
March 18, 2010

People Skills and the Philosophy of Honesty

In my view, you don’t have awesome people skills until you understand honesty and you apply it effectively in your social interactions. Which most people I believe, do not.

Yesterday, I was working with a client on improving one of those key people skills for getting a top job: his interview skills. He was asking me stuff like: What do I answer if they ask me about my career goals? What do I answer if they ask why I left me job? What do I answer if they ask me about my hobbies?

And I was answering: The truth. The truth. Yeah, still the truth. After about 3 questions like these, I started realizing a very common problem: my client was in a limiting mindframe about honesty, and the questions were coming from this mindframe.

Let’s do some theory. I think there are generally two mindframes (or philosophies) you can have about honesty in relating to others.

1. The mindframe that pleasing is the rule. These people believe that what comes out of their mouth must be what the listener wants to hear, must get the listener’s approval and appreciation.

Before saying anything, the people in this mindframe will ask themselves: what will please the other person? Then will say that thing, disregarding the concept of honesty. For them, honesty is only the exception to the rule, and they allow themselves to be honest only in a few cases, with safe people.

2. The mindframe that honesty is the rule. These people believe that integrity is the most important thing and what comes out of their mouth must be in correspondence with the facts.

Before saying anything, the people in this mindframe will ask themselves: what is the truth? Then they will say it, assuming the consequences of their honesty. For them, dishonesty is the exception and there will be very few cases where they will refrain themselves from being honest.

I’m not saying there are people who are liars all the time, and I’m not saying there are people who are honest all the time. I’m not saying lying is all bad, honesty is all good. That would be a bit extreme for my rational nature.

I am saying there are different philosophies in life, which will make you more oriented towards lying as you natural communication style, or towards honesty. And I am saying that the second one is a far better option.

When you live life with the mindframe that honesty is the rule with people, as well as the skills of honest communication, two very important things happen:

  • You don’t complicate and you don’t make social interactions a burden by trying to come up with what the other person wants to here almost every time;
  • You have credibility and you build much stronger relations with others, personal and professional, which are based on trust, respect and authenticity.

From some points of view, honesty with people is risky. Looking at things in perspective, I believe the gains substantially outweigh the loses. This is why, when it comes to people skills, I go for a philosophy of honesty.

Filed Under: Attitude, Inspirational, People Skills Tagged With: , , , 10 Comments
March 15, 2010

The Smart Things to Do For Charity

In the realm of people skills, it seems to me that to do things for charity is generally a much appreciated set of behaviors. This gets me thinking about whether charity activities are truly that good by themselves, or it depends on how exactly you do them.

Some friends of mine recently got involved in some volunteer work, planting trees as part of an ecological project. I respect the intention a lot, but I started wondering about this kind of work in relation with myself: Is this the best thing for me to do for charity? Is using a shovel the best I have to offer?

Let’s look at some of the popular things to do for charity: planting trees, collecting garbage, handing-out flyers, building stuff and feeding people. They all involve a lot of hand work and a blue-collar type set of skills.

Now let’s look at the profile and skills of people who do things for charity: they are often smart, responsible, well educated, and financially stable. They have professional, white-collar type skills like accounting, sales, management, HR, training, PR etc.

Do you see an incompatibility here? These friends of mine I’m talking about, they have some very good professional and people skills. But they do not involve digging, moving heavy stuff or working in the cold. Yet, like a lot of people who do things for charity, they opt for this kind of stuff, instead of something which is connected with their skills.

Why? This, from my perspective, is impractical. If the point of charity activities is to help others as much as you can, then it makes sense to choose things to do for charity which you’re very good at. The smart way to do charity involves these steps:

  • Know your top strengths and skills, know how you can provide the most value;
  • Identify charity activities which make use of these strengths and skills;
  • Do those as charity instead of following the pack.

I know that a lot of times, skilled people end up volunteering in work that doesn’t mach their skills because they believe these are the kind of things which charity is about. But this is a false presumption. You can do charity and help other in a lot of ways.

Think of rock stars that don’t do charity by planting trees, but by doing charity concerts and using their top skills: singing, entertaining. And they raise a tone of money. Think of people who just give money for charity and they spend their time working in something they’re good at, making those money.

My version of doing things for charity is that every once in a while I coach, train or speak for free at different events, for various organizations, on topics gravitating around people skills. This is what I know best. But I don’t go out there moving sacks of cement from one place to another, which a 14-year old could do better than me.

In the area of people skills, doing things for charity is truly a mastered skilled if you do it in the right way, the efficient way. Then, you’re truly helping the people in need to a great degree, instead of just doing stuff so you can feel good about yourself. This is for me, what charity is all about.

Filed Under: Inspirational, Lifestyle, People Skills Tagged With: , , , 19 Comments
March 11, 2010

I Have People Skills!

At a recent training covering certain people skills, one participant kept asking why we’re talking about various stuff, because he’s an experienced manager who knows all this stuff and has good people skills.

Later in the training, this participant was involved in a role-play where we observed his people skills, especially those related to conflict management. The manager not only broke almost every rule for effective conflict management in the book, but even some which aren’t even in the book and now should be taken into account.

It didn’t surprise me, considering that in my work as a communication coach, I find it common for people with bad people skills to believe they have good people skills. When it comes to this area, it’s easy is to have huge blind spots, the size of the dark spots on the moon.

This particular experience though, reminded me of a scene in Office Space, a dead-on satire on the corporate life and one of my favorite movies. Here it is:

I constantly encourage people to put aside their presumptions about their skills and look at the facts as objectively as they can. Since our mind can fabricate our self-image to a great deal, by looking at the facts they will often discover unexpected things.

The line in the movie scene which names the title of this article gets me laughing every time: “I have people skills!“

Filed Under: Inspirational, People Skills Tagged With: , , 2 Comments
February 15, 2010

Get Your Stuff Together Instead of Using Distractions

To a great extent, I’m a hedonist: I believe in doing the things you enjoy, maximizing your pleasure and not compromising pointlessly. At the same time, I notice that a lot of times, doing the things we enjoy is an ineffective way of running from the things which don’t work in our lives, a way of distracting ourselves.

What are distractions? Well, they’re pleasure-giving activities (which is good), used to shift our attentions from thoughts or facts that make us feel pain. Which can be very, very bad. Using distractions is like covering your eyes so you don’t see something you don’t want to see, or sinking your head underwater so you don’t hear something you don’t want to hear.

Very common things like listening to music, dancing, drinking, eating, sex, watching a movie, playing games, taking a vacation, even reading inspirational stuff, are all very pleasurable activities, which can also be used as distractions.

Why can using distractions be bad? Before I answer, I’ll mention the good part: there are specific contexts when using distractions can be a constructive way to handle things. For example, if you recently lost a job you had for many years, or a relationship you had for many years, the initial psychological pain will usually drop naturally, as time passes. So, some distractions can be a good way to not think about the event for a while, and then go back to the event with some distance from it. This way, you will not suffer as much.

But (there is almost always a ‘but’ with me)…  more often than not, distractions are only a way of mentally running from the things you don’t like so you won’t have to deal with them. They work as a quick remedy for the suffering, without fixing the problem. As the real problem is still not addressed, your mind will constantly refocus on it, and you constantly need to fight back using distractions, which is usually either hard or impossible.

There’s more: as you use a distraction more and more, you often build tolerance to it and you need bigger doses to get the same effect. This is one way to create alcohol addicts, eating addicts, sex addicts, and yes, even partying addicts. Needles to say that because all of this, distractions are a poor long-term solutions to suffering.

The effective solution in the long run is to address the things you don’t like and get your stuff together (and I’m using a euphemism here). Practically, there are only 2 ways you can go, both typically involving personal development:

  1. Either you change your external reality, handle that job you’re bored with, that relationship which doesn’t work anymore, that extra weight and so on, or
  2. You change your internal reality, you change your expectations and beliefs, so you learn to accept the external reality and it doesn’t bother you anymore.

I don’t think one way is always best. Sometimes it’s important to take action, sometimes it’s important to let go. You will have to decide on your own which way to get your stuff together works best, depending on the specifics of your situations.

Either way, it starts here: stop and think about the things you enjoy a lot. Maybe so much that you see them as a way to ‘escape’. Could they be distractions? If the answer is yes, then what are you distracting yourself from? As you identify and address the issues in your life and get your stuff together, you become more able to do the things you enjoy independent of the distraction they provide.

Filed Under: Attitude, Inspirational, Psychology Tagged With: , , , , , 11 Comments
January 31, 2010

The Law of Attraction vs. Science

I like to think that people are becoming more intelligent in their approach to personal development, getting a better, deeper, more realistic understanding on human psychology and life. Then I see the exploding popularity of ideas such as the Law of Attraction, and it makes me wonder.

In case you’re not familiar with it, the Law of Attraction is a concept promoted by New Thought writers, widely spread through the release in 2006 of a film called “The Secret”, followed by a book with the same name. It states that you attract in your life what you think about, not just through motivation, but also through other means. In other words: thoughts become things.

So if you think about what you want and really focus on it, you will make it manifest in your life. On the other hand, if you think about what you don’t want, what you’re running way from, like a lot of people do, you will attract more of that in your life.

I think that if the formulation of this so called ‘law’ of attraction would have stopped at the first part, saying that your thoughts affect your motivation and thus your results, it would have been just fine. And this is something I can agree with whole-heartedly. What you think about has a great influence over your emotions, which has a great influence over your behaviors, which has a great influence over your results.

But nooooo, the Law of Attraction takes one giant leap further by stating that your thoughts directly alter the very fabric of reality. Thoughts are sending out magnetic signals which rearrange the reality and attract what you’re thinking about back to you. The supporters of the Law of Attraction say it is science and it is supported by what is now known in the field of quantum physics.

Well, let’s look at what science truly has to say about this and more specifically, let’s look at this through the thorough eyes of the Scientific American, one of the most credible science magazines:

The brain does produce electrical activity from the ion currents flowing among neurons during synaptic transmission, and in accordance with Maxwell’s equations any electric current produces a magnetic field. But as neuroscientist Russell A. Poldrack of the University of California, Los Angeles, explained to me, these fields are minuscule and can be measured only by using an extremely sensitive superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) in a room heavily shielded against outside magnetic sources. Plus, remember the inverse square law: the intensity of an energy wave radiating from a source is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from that source. An object twice as far away from the source of energy as another object of the same size receives only one-fourth the energy that the closer object receives. The brain’s magnetic field of 10x15 tesla quickly dissipates from the skull and is promptly swamped by other magnetic sources, not to mention the earth’s magnetic field of 10x5 tesla, which overpowers it by 10 orders of magnitude!

In other words, as much as you would like to think, you’re thoughts are not powerful enough to directly change reality. If you want change, you actually have to get your butt off the couch and do something about it.

It doesn’t stop here. Supporters of the Law of Attraction also state that your thoughts can have radical influences over your own body. Here is one quote relating to this from the book called “The Secret”, by Rhonda Byrne:

The most common thought that people hold, and I held it too, is that food was responsible for my weight gain. That is a belief that does not serve you, and in my mind now it is complete balderdash! Food is not responsible for putting on weight. It is your thought that food is responsible for putting on weight that actually has food put on weight. Remember, thoughts are primary cause of everything, and the rest is effects from those thoughts. Think perfect thoughts and the result must be perfect weight.

Are you fucking kidding me? Any person with some decent knowledge of human physiology and psychology can tell you that it doesn’t work that way. This idea borderlines on insane: even if you can consciously influence some activities in your body through your thinking, you can’t directly control the process of gaining weight this way, just like you can’t directly control some of the muscles in your face.

I find it amusing that the Law of Attraction is even labeled as a law. Because when I think of a law, I think of something which has been tested and confirmed through serious scientific research, using scientific methods. In this case, it simply does not apply. The Law of Attraction is over-simplified and pumped-up personal development, made out to sound like science.

Nevertheless,  a lot of folks buy into it. I sometimes meet people who are eager to improve their lives with just one big self-improvement idea, and they talk to me about the realism of the law of attraction like it’s plain as day: “It’s been proven! Haven you seen ‘The Secret?” I did. But when I want stand-up comedy, I still prefer George Carlin.

Focusing on your goals is an important piece of the puzzle called getting the life you want; but it is still just one piece. Effective planning, action, perseverance and adaptation are also important pieces. Take these into account as well in your personal development, and then you’re talking.

Filed Under: Inspirational, Personal Development, Psychology, Success Tagged With: , , , 49 Comments
January 8, 2010

Positive Thinking Won’t Help You Now

I’m not a big fan of positive thinking as a tool for self-help. I believe that used in the wrong place, at the wrong time, it can be just as dangerous as negative thinking. I’m rather a fan of what you might call strategic thinking in personal development: focusing on the positive or the negative, depending on what serves you best in the given context.

From my perspective, challenging economic times like the ones most of us are living right now, are just some of those contexts in which seeking help in positive thinking can cause some serious trouble.

In the past months, I have seen people loose a tone of money and bankrupt businesses by looking on the bright side and thinking positively. It can be quite shocking to see such a popular personal development tool have such negative consequences instead of providing the promised help.

Why do things like these happen? Because positive thinking means focusing on the good things and always expecting excellent results. In the face of big challenges, this is the equivalent of ignoring important parts of reality. It’s like blinding yourself while speed driving on a mountain road, during a storm, in a convertible. Why the hell would you wanna do that?

For the people I’m talking about here, positive thinking meant they ignored that the status quo has changed and doing what they did before will no longer get them the same results, or the same results where sometimes no longer possible. They blinded themselves to the fact they needed to adapt in a dramatic way. One man for instance, while being in a plummeting industry, convinced himself he can have the same sales numbers he had last year, if he just… tried harder. He called this “being positive”.

You cannot deny important facts and expect good results. Like it or not, we are in a global economic crisis, people have less money, they are spending less and there is more competition between businesses. No matter how good you are at what you do, this will have consequences over you.

Positive thinking is not a panacea, even if some trainers, coaches, speakers or authors promote it in this manner. It will not help you solve all of your problems and get everything you want, doing what you want, all the time. Being positive is a way of thinking which only has power to help you if you use it the right way.

There is a way of using positive thinking that can help you in challenging times. But it does not involve day-dreaming. It involves these two things:

  1. Realizing that even if some negative things may happen, even if you may not get your way now, it’s not a tragedy.
  2. Realizing that times change and in the long run, you will get your way and you can achieve your bold objectives.

That’s it. It’s strategic, realistic positive thinking. A more effective self improvement tool, that can help you handle the challenges of life both practically and emotionally.

Filed Under: Attitude, Career, Inspirational, Personal Development Tagged With: , , , , 21 Comments
December 2, 2009

Personal Development Ideas I Can Do Without

I am going to hit the next person who gives one of the following ideas as personal development advice (this is bad, considering I’m an otherwise peaceful person):

  • Just be more confident;
  • Just be yourself;
  • Just be more positive;
  • Just be calmer.

Just, just, just. It just doesn’t work that way! There is a tone of self-improvement advice out there starting with the word “just” and then suggesting some pretty dramatic personal change, as if it’s simple as going to the supermarket.

With most of these ideas, we are addressing something which is more than just a behavior. We are addressing an attitude. Being confident is not just a way you act, talk and look. It’s a habitual way of thinking and reacting emotionally to various life situations, which is ingrained in your personality. To use some big and resonating words, it’s a complex psychological structure.

What does it take to change such psychological structures? Over time, I came to believe there is no magic pill. What works is consciously, gradually and systemically replacing old thinking patterns with new thinking patterns, old associations with new associations and thus, old emotions with new emotions. Plus, using the right tools and methods to do it. Then, you can act confident cause you can are confident.

The fact these personal development ideas do not work isn’t half as bad as the treatment some of the people who talk about them will give you. I’m starting to call them personal development assholes. They have at least one of two traits:

  1. They naturally have these ways of being they give advice on. So for them, “just be confident” seems like solid advice. Because already having the right internal setup, they can do it just like that.
  2. They have a superficial understanding of how human learning happens and the qualities self-improvement ideas require to be applied effectively.

When you try to put their advice into practice but you don’t seem to be able and you don’t get results, they just start accusing you using advanced personal development jargon: of not wanting it bad enough, of having secondary gains or of lacking willpower. So now, you don’t improve and you also feel guilty about it.

Trust me: when for example, every time you go to a party you feel miserable because you’re too shy to talk to anyone and have some fun, you want nothing more on the planet than to “just be more confident”. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. I’m sure a lot of the people giving this advice mean well, but they often do more harm than good.

The answer is not out there. It’s within. Personal development ideas that work take into account not just the external, but also the internal, to create deep and lasting self growth.

Filed Under: Attitude, Inspirational, Personal Development Tagged With: , , , 33 Comments
November 8, 2009

Personal Development Readers vs. Personal Development Doers

How many people would you say are into personal development? Very few, right? Keep on reading, and you may realize they’re really fewer than you think.

I say this because I think true personal development means a lot of doing, while a lot of the people in this segment are mostly just into reading/ listening/ viewing: books, blogs, articles, DVD’s, trainings & courses, you name it.

The way I see it, personal development is not essentially about acquiring new information, but about developing new skills and attitudes. However, developing skills and attitudes requires practice. I mean a whooole lot of practice! Massive, organized, ferocious and persistent action.

Most people I know who get into the reading part, considering how much they actually need to practice to turn the knowledge into skills and attitudes, just the most valuable knowledge, they barely scratch the surface.

They read a good book, find some very valuable and practical ideas, at best they start applying them for a few days, and then they move on to the next book, seeking some new “inspiration”. They are the “readers”.

I used to do exactly this; until I discovered I was just being a personal development literature enjoyer. Some people read love novels, I read “As a man thinketh” and the likes. I still enjoy the reading part a lot, but I’m very aware that this is not what real self-improvement is mainly about, so I also focus a lot on practicing what I read; on being a “doer”.

Besides the obvious difference in applying the theory between the readers and the doers, there are 3 more important differences I notice very often, which I think go hand in hand with this one:

  • Doers focus on selecting, remembering and organizing the most valuable personal development ideas from what they read, they put them into their growth plan.
  • Doers use strategies for doing, they set practice goals and daily practice tasks, they keep track of progress and find ways to keep themselves motivated.
  • Doers sometimes consciously cut down their reading, as they understand that new information can often interfere with their practicing and defocus them from their goals. Rather, they sometimes re-read the stuff they’re already applying, to keep themselves going.

The result is the actual growing process as a person. I think you can often separate the doers from the readers because the doers are the ones you see after 2-3 years and they seem strikingly changed, improved: maybe they’re more confident, happier, more expressive, more charming or simply… richer. I don’t know about you, but I for one have the pleasure of knowing only about a hand full of people such as these.

So, after finishing this article, are you gonna take a deep breath and move on to the next one, or are you gonna get up from that chair of yours? What do you usually do? Are you a personal development reader or a personal development doer?

Filed Under: Inspirational, Personal Development Tagged With: , , , 33 Comments