May 20, 2010

Night Owl Lifestyle

Are you a ‘night owl’? Do you find it hard to go to sleep early at night and when you get up early in the morning it’s like you’ve been hit by a train? Join the team! Night owls are a minority of the population, but a significant one.

It is commonly believed that the sleeping hours night owls have are the result of bad habits. They’ve gotten used to going to bed late and as a result they also get up late or if they get up early they’re tired. While this is sometimes the case and consciously changing sleeping habits can turn night owls into early birds, it is often not the case.

Some serious research now points out that a lot of the night owls’ sleeping patterns are hardwired. Night owls seem to have certain genetic differences which make their circadian rhythm different than the one most people have (it lasts 27 hours instead of 24). And this rhythm creates their distinct sleeping patterns.

From an evolutionary perspective, night owls are an important adaptation in the human race. Think of these people as the night guardians in the times we lived in tribes, who protected the rest of the tribe members from wild animals while they were asleep.

Consciously changing sleeping habits will often not do very much for a natural night owl. As a natural night owl, I can relate to this a lot. I remember how some years back, I had a 1 year period when I would go to bed early and wake up early almost every day. After 1 entire year of this, I was only marginally used to it and I was still drowsy every morning when I woke up.

The thing is, fighting our genetic hardwiring is best to be done if we have no better alternative. But in the case of our sleeping genes, I believe we do. Society usually tells us that ‘early to bed, early to rise’ is the way to go, without giving us convincing evidence.

So if you’re naturally a night owl, I say this: instead of fighting it, learn to use if in your favor. Create a night owl lifestyle for yourself which helps you makes the best of your genetics. Here are some actions you might wanna consider:

1. Party, party, party! What’s the one awake-activity people do more at night time than at day time? OK, now what’s the other one? It’s partying! If you’re a night owl and you like to have fun (who doesn’t?), use this to go out more, socialize more and party more.

I for example go out at least one or two nights every week salsa dancing. It’s addictively fun and it’s one of the best ways I spend my night time. You have your own tastes in partying. Maybe you like talking, not dancing, pubs instead of clubs. Whatever your formula, make some good use of it.

2. Manage your working hours. If you’re a hardcore night owl, a 9 to 5 job will simply not do it for you. You need to adapt you working hours to your sleeping patterns, at least to a certain degree, since the other way around can often be very hard. The point is to work as much as you need, but to be able to choose when you do it.

I think that for night owls it’s best to have jobs with a flexible program, which also involve activities you can do at any time of the day you find convenient. Like writing, creating or researching on the Internet. Night owls will often do much better as entrepreneurs or if they have a very open-minded employer.

3. Deal with prejudice. Night owls are commonly misunderstood; even by themselves. They will often be seen as lazy, lacking commitment or ambition. Sometimes they will even be seen as having less skills or being less intelligent, which I find amusing considering there is also some research which shows that night owls are on average, smarter than other people.

Anyway, if you wanna have a night owl lifestyle, it’s best that you take this social prejudice into account, and deal with it. Sometimes the best way is to just ignore the sarcastic comments about you coming to work later than everyone else; sometimes the best way is to address them head on. It’s your responsibility to find the best way in each situation.

As you learn to make the best out of your circadian rhythm instead of fighting it, you create for yourself a lifestyle which is allows you to have fun and be productive at the same time, without conforming to superficial social standards. This being said, I’m off to party….

Filed Under: Inspirational, Lifestyle, Success Tagged With: , , 8 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 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 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
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
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
January 13, 2010

Effective Personal Development Starts Here

I recently organized a public speaking training. While talking to the participants about their expectations from this training, one woman told me she was looking for a job and she wanted to learn skills which will help her get a good job. For a moment, I had to ask myself: “Wait! What training is this?” Cause I could only see a thin, anorexic link between public speaking and getting a job.

Did the training help her? Sure. Did it have a great impact on her ability to get a good job? Probably not. Because what she needed for that was mainly to develop interview skills, job hunting skills, networking people skills, skills to sell herself. Not skills to speak in front of an audience (unless she would have panel interviews with 50 interviewers at once).

This example reflects what in my experience is a common scenario for people who are interested in personal development. They usually know they want a better job, better relations, a better life, more money, more happiness, but their awareness stops here. They don’t have a clear and accurate image of the skills or attitudes they need to develop in order to achieve these objectives.

Mark Twain said: “Use the right word, not its second cousin”. Well, it also applies to personal development. We can also say, for instance: “Use the right training, not its second cousin”.

I think a lot of people embark in this process of personal development mostly by doing undocumented guessing about the skills and attitudes they need to develop. As a result, one of two things happens: either they choose to work on skills which in reality are not that relevant for getting what they want, or they define these skills in a very broad, general way, like; “I need to work on my people skills”. Which ones? Cause there are about a dozen of them I can think of right now.

The result is they waste a lot of time, energy and money by using them in the wrong area. They sabotage their personal development and don’t get the results they hoped for. Some people realize this mistake and refocus their personal development; some just give up and become bitter.

There is a very simple and important lesson here: start your personal development with the right foot, by getting a clear understanding of the skills and attitudes which will help you the most if you develop them.

Don’t overestimate how easy this will be. The preparation for personal development can involve just as much work as the personal development itself. Clearly understanding your self-improvement needs means doing some very intelligent detecting work. Here are some of the things you can do:

  • Observe your specific behaviors and results, look for the patterns;
  • Focus inward, on your feelings and automatic thoughts in various situations;
  • Get some quality, 360 degrees feedback;
  • Go to trainings and activities dedicated to improving self-awareness;
  • Study people who have the results you want;
  • Work with a competent coach;
  • Stopping and really thinking about what you have and what you need.

As you do these things, you will be able to define your personal development goals in a more clear and accurate way. As an immediate consequence, this will boost your motivation and at the same time will make you more selective in what you read, the training you go to and so on. In the end, it will make your growth a lot more effective and you’ll see some very impressive results.

Filed Under: Lifestyle, Personal Development Tagged With: , , , , 12 Comments
December 21, 2009

Change Your Life Today, Now, Forever

Apparently, these or some of the expressions which are searched on the Internet quite a lot: “Change your life today”, “Change your life now”, “Change your life forever”. A bunch load of people are not living the lives they want to live, and they’re looking for ways to change that.

And I think that’s great. Unfortunately, for a lot of them, the search process in itself is setup for failure. Because they’re looking for quick fixes; for magic solutions to improve their lives: “Do this twice every day for 7 days and your entire life will turn around.”

In this era when things happen at great speeds, there is a fascination with fast and easy solutions which create big, lasting changes. And this fascination fuels an entire industry trying to provide them. An industry which for the most part, doesn’t even come close to fulfilling the “change your life today, now, forever” promise.

Let’s take a look at two very common examples:

1. Diets. There are hundreds of diets out there, which promise miracle results. Yet what they really provide is a relatively fast weight loss which does not last and is often very unhealthy.

Any person who lost a lot of weight and kept it that way can tell you what the solution that works is: eat less and exercise more, eat right and exercise right. Not just a couple of weeks, but as a constant part of your lifestyle. This way, you will slowly but healthy loose weight and you will keep it off you. It seems to be too hard for most people.

2. Subliminal tapes. There is a multi-million dollar industry of self-help tapes with subliminal messages on them, tapes which promise to change you life, improve your confidence, attract wealth and so on, just by listening to them. Because, we are told, the subliminal messages which you cannot hear consciously go directly to your subconscious mind and create powerful changes.

It certainly sounds great. There is just one problem: it doesn’t work! Every independent study on the effectiveness of subliminal tapes has reached the same conclusion: they are a waste of money. They only sell with the help of powerful and deceptive marketing.

As a general rule, quick fixes do not work to change your life. So why are they so popular? I think is has to do with a couple of things:

  • People are educated into believing that there are special, secret tricks which if you discover, you can use to change your life today, now, forever.
  • People don’t want to put a lot of time and effort into changing their lives, they lack the patience or the will, so they need to believe that quick fixes work.
  • People have a generally shallow understanding of the principles that generate results, especially the connection between effort, persistence and success.

What does work? The effective solutions to change your life generally follow the same one fundamental pattern: they involve continuous personal development. They involve changing the outcome by improving your skills, attitudes, knowledge and behaviors in an active, gradual, constant and strategic way.

Continuous personal development promises to change your life, starting now but not in a moment. And there is one trait it has that quick fixes do not: it really, truly works.

Although the interest in changing one’s life is a wide spread one, the interest in continuous personal development is much narrower. So if you have this interest, and you don’t allow yourself to be tempted by the promise to change your life today, now, forever – my congratulations!

Filed Under: Lifestyle, Personal Development, Psychology Tagged With: , , , , , 10 Comments