April 1, 2011

Are Your ‘Friends’ Holding You Back?

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

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

“This Isn’t You”

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

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

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

Why People Reject the Changes in Others

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Smart Comebacks for Dumb Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

Image courtesy of Brian Auer

Filed Under: Communication Skills, Inspirational, Relationships Tagged With: , , , , , 10 Comments
March 17, 2011

How to Be More Outgoing

If you’re somewhat shy or introverted, then learning how to be more outgoing is one of the smartest self-improvement steps you can make. There is no better way to solidify your social life than by comprehending how to be more outgoing and applying it

In my social confidence coaching practice, I frequently teach people how to be more outgoing and social, and I help them make real life progress in this area. I’ve realized that being social is much more a matter of attitude than aptitude, and that the attitude part needs to be handled above all.

Step 1: Outgoing = Out Going

One potentially illuminating way that I like to look at the word ‘outgoing’ is by dividing the two composing words and making it ‘out going’.

You could take that phrase literally, as in going out of the house more; because many of the individuals who aren’t very outgoing and social spend unordinary amounts of time indoors, alone, and this feeds their shyness.

However, to me it makes more sense to look at it figuratively. Thus, being ‘out going’ means putting your personality out there instead of keeping it hidden, it means expressing yourself fully.

There are multiple things you can do to achieve this. I recommended you start by watching my free presentation on Conversation Confidence. This insightful presentation will reveal to you the real key to gaining confidence and the proven formula for being more outgoing. Go here to check it out.

To assist you understand how to be more outgoing, I will list here some of the most effective ways that I know. These are ways I’ve used myself, and are recurrently used by my coaching clients.

Step 2: Break It Down and Then Put It into Practice

Do you know this joke: How do you eat an elephant? One piece at a time. Well, this concept applies extremely well for becoming more outgoing and sociable.

When you get frustrated with having few fulfilling friendships, it’s temping to just try to burst out and instantly become that super-sociable person you want to be. Unfortunately, human psychology doesn’t work that way. You don’t just change completely at once.

Real, organic change in how sociable you are happens by setting gradual steps for being more outgoing, and taking these steps one by one. For example, you may start by asking more questions in group settings, and when you become comfortable with that, you continue with making more statements in group settings.

In time, step by step, you’ll eventually find yourself becoming a lean, mean, socializing machine. In learning how to be more outgoing and social, it’s crucial to understand that this gradual process is what works best and to stick to it dutifully.

Step 3: Lower The Bar

One trait most shy people have in common is that they set lofty social standards for themselves. They demand of themselves to make a great first impression, to be liked by all, and they think that if it doesn’t happen it’s a tragedy.

Even individuals with very sharp social skills can’t rise up to such idealistic standards. Shy people only torment themselves by imposing this kind of standards on themselves.

For this reason, one of the best things you can do to become more outgoing is to lower the bar. If your standard for success is to get everybody to like you, then you’re bound to be shy. But if your standard is simply to have conversations with new people, then you’re bound to be more sociable.

The vital thing you may need to realize is that you don’t have to demand that much of yourself socially. You’re only human, you will connect well with some people, you won’t connect with others at all, and that’s absolutely OK. Accept it and live your life.

Step 4: Manage Your Self-Talk

I have a (rhetorical) question for you: How does a person set the social bar high for themselves?

The answer is that they do so through their self-talk. They say to themselves in their inner dialog “I must impress this person; they must like me” and other intelligent stuff like that.

Well, people who aren’t very outgoing tend to have many other dysfunctional ways of talking to themselves than the ones that create unrealistic standards. If you analyze their inner dialog, you’ll discover that it’s full of crap.

Thus, in learning how to be more outgoing and social, a very big step is managing your self-talk. This means identifying the stupid, unrealistic or dysfunctional things that you say to yourself and willingly correcting them. I talk in more detail about this in my confidence video presentation.

As you do so in a systematic way, not only that your habitual self-talk changes, but the underlying beliefs change as well. This helps you gain confidence and interact easier with other people.

As you become more outgoing, your people skills get put into practice more and they develop as well. This makes you even more outgoing and you get a positive cycle going, which ends up visibly enriching your social life. And the best part is that in this entire journey, the sky is the limit.

Image courtesy of NicoleAbalde

Filed Under: Attitude, People Skills, Relationships Tagged With: , , , 60 Comments
March 14, 2011

How to Meet People

Make no mistake about it: knowing how to meet people is a skill that will, depending on your case, either save or enrich your social life. Like most of us, you may live in a huge human settlement, but that doesn’t necessarily make meeting new people easy.

The essential benefit of knowing how to meet people effectively is that it gives you a lot more social options. Thus, you don’t have to settle for a crummy bunch of friends or to fool yourself that playing a MMORPG equals having a social life.

Meet People Proactively

Wouldn’t you love having a way to meet new people with barely any effort, from the comfort of your own home, and build fulfilling relationships? Well, I have news for you:

There isn’t any! You’re daydreaming!

The essential trait to master in learning how to meet people effectively is a proactive attitude. It means taking responsibility for your social life and acting in the outside world in order to meet people, instead of waiting for them to act and meet you.

I know that meeting people online is taking ground, and there are specific ways you can meet people successfully online. But that doesn’t mean that overall, it’s an effective method. It’s mostly proof that we’re looking for quick fixes.

Overall, if you want to make friends and enhance your social life, you’ll have to:

  • Get out of the house more;
  • Go to places where there are other folks who are eager to interact socially;
  • Start conversations, be friendly and outgoing;
  • Make conversation with people face to face.

Where to Meet People

Fortunately, there’s a plethora of methods and places to meet new people. Unfortunately, not all of them are that effective.

I’ve tested quite a few of them and my communication coaching clients have tested even more of them. Condensing these experiences, I believe there are at least three ways to meet people that are worth using:

1. Classes and trainings. Whatever it is that you fancy learning, there are probably a lot of people in your vicinity who want to learn it as well: from cooking to photography, from communication skills to playing the harmonica.

Taking a class or going to a training program on a topic that interests you is one of the best ways to meet new people. I personally use this method all the time and many of my best friends I’ve met in various classes and trainings.

2. Sports and physical activities. Every year I see more and more nuts (aaa… people) jogging passed me on the street; and many of them are in pairs. In general, exercising is becoming increasingly popular and it’s taking on an increasingly social form.

So the answer to the question “how to meet people?” might be for you to take on a sport that’s social in nature (translation: it involves more than one person). Think tennis, basketball, hiking, running, dancing, etc. There are organized groups, associations, and local communities in many sports, and they’re usually looking for new members.

3. Volunteer work. This is an excellent way to meet like-minded people who believe in the same causes you do. Most of the people who do volunteer work are not there just to make a contribution, but also to socialize.

Think about the things you would like to volunteer for and start searching for groups or organizations in your area that do those kinds of deeds. Get in touch with them and start getting involved in their events and activities.

Find Out What Works For You

Besides the ways to meet people that tend to work for nearly everyone, there are even more ways that work for particular types of individuals.

Learning how to meet people in church and applying it might be great for you if you’re a highly religious person. Learning how to meet people in bars and clubs might be great for you if you’re not a highly religious person.

What I encourage my coaching clients to do and I encourage you as well is to test it out. Experiment with various methods of meeting new people and be willing to get out of your comfort zone.

Eventually, you’ll find those ways to meet people that best fit your personality and you can focus on them. Learning how to meet people may also require you to make some adjustments to your personality and improve your people skills, but it will be worth it.

What you don’t want to do is act as if what works for others to meet people won’t work for you without giving it a shot, and to settle for a minutely exciting social life.

You live in a world with more possibilities for meeting new people and having great relationships than ever. The only person that could possibly stand in your way is you.

Image courtesy of CraigMarston

Filed Under: Lifestyle, People Skills, Relationships Tagged With: , , 4 Comments
March 9, 2011

Toxic Relationships and Navigating Them

One of my tenets is this: life is too short to waste it dealing with poisonous people and having toxic relationships.

If you believe you may have one or more toxic relationships in your life, then one of the key people skills for you to master is recognizing and managing such relationships.

In my work as a communication coach, I often help my clients navigate through and beyond toxic relationships. I can tell you than acquiring the proper skills and attitudes to do this is not an easy process, but if you share the above tenet with me, you’ll definitely find in worth your while.

Toxic Relationships Signs

Toxic relationships can be present in any area of your life. You may have a toxic relationship with your spouse, your GF/BF, your parents, your boss, a friend, a colleague or a business partner.

Before anything else, you need to be able to look the monster in the eye and name it. In other words, you need to recognize toxic relationships and acknowledge them if they exist in your life. The following are in my view the top five signs of a toxic relationship:

1. Lack of balance. One person gives, the other receives. One person invests, makes sacrifices and compromises for the sake of the relationship, the other person takes, expects and demands compromises.

2. Heavy criticism. Any relationship where at least one partner spends significantly more time criticizing, accusing and putting down the other partner than praising and supporting him or her is a toxic relationship.

3. Emotional manipulation. If in a relationship you often feel pressured to do certain things, if the other person frequently uses shame, guilt, fear or anger as tools to push your buttons and direct your behavior, you’re in a toxic relationship.

4. Persistent anxiety. Your mood while interacting with a person is a good sign of the dynamic that relationship has. If you frequently feel anxious or tense while interacting with a person, or even just thinking about it, the relationship is toxic.

5. Disrupting your growth. Healthy relationships help every area of your life flourish. Toxic relationships do the exact opposite. Toxic relationships in your family life make you unfocused and unproductive at work; toxic relationships in your career make you distant and cranky when at home.

Measure any relationship based on these five signs and you’ll get a pretty good idea about the number of toxic relationships in your life. Once you discover any, the next step is to decide if the best way to go is to try and save them, or to end them.

Ending Toxic Relationships

Now, once they fully realize they’re in a toxic relationship, many people have the instinctual reaction to try and fix it. They think it is the noble and proper thing to do. After all, we get preached to all the time on how relationships require compromises and we should fight for them.

Well, that may sound dignified, but the fact it that it’s often not the best path to take. Here’s one essential thing I came to realize as a communication coach: most of the time, you’re much better off ending toxic relationships than trying to save them.

It may be emotionally hard to do so, but trust me: in terms of costs and benefits, the best thing you can do is in all probability to end it without even thinking twice.

As a strategy for ending toxic relationships, I typically recommend biting the bullet and going all the way. Don’t try to distance yourself gradually from the other person and to play it all safe. It usually won’t work and it will cause you a whole lot of trouble.

Have a serious discussion with the other person and tell them: “Look! This relationship is not working for me. It’s causing me huge distress. I’m ending it”.

The other person will likely try to fight you on your decision and manipulate you into not ending the relationship. Keep in mind that it’s your choice, that you don’t need the other person’s consent to end the relationship, and stick to your decision.

Fixing Toxic Relationships

OK: if you truly believe that a toxic relationship in your life can be fixed and for some practical reason, trying to save it is a good idea, then by all means go ahead and try and fix it.

The essential concept you need to understand if you walk this path is that toxic relationships are co-created. Thus, saving it can only be done if both parts are willing to change. Overall, saving a toxic relationship involves three key steps:

1. An honest and straightforward expression, by both persons involved, of their needs, wants, opinions and frustrations related to their relationship. Honest, open communication is crucial in the healing process.

2. Acknowledging each others rights and responsibilities. If one person refuses to admit the other person’s needs and wants (often different from theirs) and to take them into consideration, there is no saving for the relationship.

3. Working towards a win-win solution. Once both sides of the story have been expressed, heard and accepted, the two parts need to collaborate to find the mutually advantageous solutions, and to rebuild their relationship based on them.

Effectively handling toxic relationships is not a matter of using a few simple tricks and tricks. It’s a matter of gaining confidence and developing key people skills for building healthy relationships. It’s an inside-out journey that begins with you and ends with your relationships.

Image courtesy of CowGummy

Filed Under: People Skills, Psychology, Relationships Tagged With: , , , 6 Comments
February 6, 2011

How to Make Friends

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

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

The Why and What of Making Friends

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

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

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

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

Step 1: Get Into Social Activities

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

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

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

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

Step 2: Get Sociable

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

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

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

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

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

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

Step 3: Generate Future Interactions

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

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

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

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

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

Image courtesy of ohhector

Filed Under: Lifestyle, People Skills, Relationships Tagged With: , , 4 Comments
December 18, 2010

Nice Guy Syndrome

A long time ago (or maybe not so long), it was beyond my understanding how being a nice guy can be a bad thing. I thought that the nicer you were the better results you got: in your relationships, your career and your life as a whole.

Then I learned about the nice guy syndrome and I embarked in one of the most electrifying personal development journeys in my life. If you tend to give a lot more than you get in your relationships with others, it’s a journey you may wanna consider.

What Is the Nice Guy Syndrome?

The nice guy syndrome refers to a behavioral pattern in some men of being very nice to others.

The typical nice guy puts other people’s needs first, always helps others, avoids confrontation, does chivalrous things, and is proud of it. His nice behavior is particularly obvious with women.

The nice guy syndrome has been getting increasingly more attention in the past few years in psychology, as the less than satisfying effects it creates make it start to lose its positive image.

What’s Wrong with Being a Nice Guy?

Quite a lot is wrong with being a nice guy as matter of fact. As a confidence coach, I often work with men who I soon realize have the nice guy syndrome.

As a result of this syndrome, they have mediocre careers compared with how skilled they are and how hard they work, they are in toxic relationships, or they sabotage almost every aspect of their lives. I have seen such effects so often that for me, they became highly predictable.

Nice guy behavior may look good on paper, but in reality it has a pretty ugly face. In order to grasp this, consider that the nice guy syndrome fundamentally means people pleasing behavior. As a consequence:

  • Nice guys come off as needy and insecure;
  • Nice guys are generic and predictable, so it’s hard for them to create a spark;
  • Nice guys end up ignoring their own needs and not taking care of themselves;
  • Nice guys end up not being there for the people who really matter, because they try to please everybody;
  • Nice guys are full of repressed rage and they tend to erupt at the most inappropriate times;
  • Nice guys lie, hide and they try to get what they want in indirect, manipulative ways.

From there, all hell breaks loose.

The Nice Guy Paradigm

The leading authority on this topic is Dr. Robert Glover, a therapist who specializes in working with men with the nice guy syndrome, and author of the best-selling self-help book for men No More Mr. Nice Guy.

According to Dr. Glover, all nice guys operate (consciously or not) on the same basic paradigm:

If I can hide my flaws and become what I think others want me to be then I will be loved, get my needs met, and have a problem-free life.

Of course, this paradigm is unrealistic and ineffective, not to mention a pile of crap.

The point is not to turn into an asshole. Being kind and polite to others has its place. However, nice guys tend to take this too far and they make being nice and getting approval the compass of their social behavior.

Having been both a nice guy and (mostly for research purposes) a jerk, I can tell you that in my experience, none of these are healthy behaviors and there is a path in-between which creates much better results.

Overcoming the Nice Guy Syndrome

As an ex-nice guy and a coach who also works with nice guys (and girls), I came to believe that there are three essential stages in overcoming the nice guy syndrome:

Step 1: Realizing and accepting the fact that being a nice guy may sound noble and some people may compliment you for it but overall, it is not a healthy or productive way of being. The concept is flawed. For many men, this step is the hardest.

Step 2: Creating a deep paradigm shift. Even after you realize being nice does not work, the nice guy paradigm will still exist in your cognitive schemas, from where it influences your automatic thinking and disempowers you. You’ll need to consciously change your thinking and weed it out of there.

Step 3: Being less nice. This step involves changing your behavior, developing key people skills and turning it into a less nice one. Specific actions may include:

  • Expressing yourself more, even when you may upset someone;
  • Asking for what you want and saying ‘no’ to others;
  • Taking more time for yourself and taking care of your own needs;
  • Ending toxic relationships which go nowhere.

The earlier you start, the faster your will enjoy the benefits of being a less nice guy. So take that nice guy smile off your face and go kick some ass!

Image courtesy of micsalac

Filed Under: Attitude, Inspirational, Relationships Tagged With: , , 45 Comments
November 4, 2010

Handling a Stupid Boss

Due to a combination of bad decision making and too much trust in people’s potential, teams and organizations often end up with a stupid boss in charge. It’s not uncommon for them to exist even in reputable corporations, which take pride in the quality of their management.

A stupid boss is a person in a managerial position who does not have the level of intelligence required to do their job well. They have trouble understanding intricate realities, they can’t follow complex logic with more than two variables involved, and they simply don’t get it.

Handling a stupid boos takes, in my view, a special set of people skills. It also requires using intelligence to combat unintelligence. Here are the most important ways to handle a stupid boss.

1. Intimidate them with your intelligence

If you prove a stupid boss that you’re simply smarter than they are, they will often feel a bit threatened and try to sabotage you. However, if you prove them that you’re a lot more intelligent than they are, than they will be really afraid to mess with you. Who knows what you can do to them and their comfortable managerial position?

Do not hesitate to use various opportunities and prove a stupid boss that you are so smart you’re out of their league. Use big words and intricate reasoning when talking with them, and act like this is the standard for you.

2. Do it your way, and then explain yourself using complex logic

The big problem with a stupid boss is that they’ll often make stupid decisions and then ask you to implement them. When this happens, say you’ll do things according to their decision, and then do them according to yours.

When your boss asks you why you’ve disobeyed them, explain yourself using words and logic that are above them. Say something like: “I was backtracking my steps on the CRM process and I realized a divergent approach with this report would emphasize the project’s collateral benefits in terms of ROI.”

Then watch them stare blankly at you. They have no idea what you said, but they don’t want to look stupid either, so they won’t acknowledge this. Vanity is common in stupid people. They’ll probably just say: “Aaa, OK. Well next time, do things like I tell you to”. Agree, then next time repeat the same process.

3. Appeal to their emotions

Since a stupid boss is not able to follow complex logic, it is often best to push their emotional buttons in order to influence their decisions. When you propose them the implementation of a certain project, don’t bother to try and persuade them with arguments.

Instead, tell them something like this: “I went to talk to Tim (your boss’s boss) about this project and he thinks it’s a great idea.” If it’s important for your boss to please Tim, that’s all you’ll need to convince them.

4. Use simple logic, simple words

If you truly feel the need to convince a stupid boss using logic, facts and arguments, then strip them to their bare essentials before using them. It’s a reflection of malleability and good people skills. Imagine you’re talking with a caveman who is not familiar with big words and advanced logic: “This… line; this… circle”.

Simplicity is king when trying to persuade a stupid boss. Try anything above that and you’ll lose them. Then all you’ll hear from them is: “I don’t find your arguments compelling enough” (translation: “I have no clue what you’re talking about”).

Last but not least, keep in mind that no matter how good your people skills for dealing with a stupid boss are, it’s always better to deal with a smart one instead. So if you often find yourself needing to trick your boss using your superior brainpower in order to get your way, maybe it’s time to look for another job.

Image courtesy of Arno & Louise Wildlife

Filed Under: Career, People Skills, Relationships Tagged With: , , 10 Comments
October 21, 2010

Savior Complex Anyone?

Here’s a fairytale gone badly, as it sometimes happens in real life: There was once a little girl who believed that all good things will come to her if she is really nice and always helps other people.

She was always there for her aging parents; she even refused a dream job because it was in another town and she didn’t want to move too far from her parents. She would always help her friends, lend them money, give them advice and get them out of trouble.

Her colleagues at work could always rely on her and she would often get behind on her projects to give them a hand with theirs. She also had this affinity towards guys with serious problems (jobless, alcohol abusing, emotionally imbalanced), the kind of guys that desperately needed help.

After about ten years of doing this, she felt miserably. She wasn’t getting the love, appreciation and recognition she wanted, most people had started taking all her help for granted, her life did not look the way she’d hoped it would.

When I discussed with her in our first communication coaching session, focused on identifying the key social skills to improve, after about 15 minutes of conversation, bells started ringing in my head going: “Savior complex full throttle!”

What Is The Savior Complex?

The savior complex is a psychological construct which makes a person feel the need to save other people. This person has a strong tendency to seek people who desperately need help and to assist them, often sacrificing their own needs for these people.

There are many sides to a savior complex and it has many roots. One of its fundamental roots, in my experience, consists in a limiting belief the savior person has that goes something like this:

“If I always help people in need, I will get their love and approval, and have a happy life.”

This is of course, a nice sounding fairytale.

Houston We Have a Problem

Often, in real life, a savior will have such an unassertive way of helping others that instead of becoming grateful, they get used to it and they expect it. They feel entitled to receive help from this person, simply because they need it and they’ve always got it.

On top of this, always putting other people’s needs first makes a savior not take care of their own needs. So while they may feel happy because they are helping others, at some level, they feel bitter and frustrated at the same time.

Reframing Nobility

Here’s where things get worse: many people with a savior complex I’ve met, although they realize at some point that they have a savior complex and it is not worth it for them, they will not try to combat it.

They’re not masochistic; they have another belief that even if being a savior will not get them the recognition they want and will not make them happy, it is the noble thing to do. They believe they are somehow better than others because they help people all the time without getting anything back.

Do you have any idea how dim-witted this is? There is nothing noble in sacrificing yourself for others while you are starving at a psychological level. If our ancestors would have willingly done so 50.000 years ago, our species would be extinct.

If you think you have a savior complex or at least something close to it, I believe the best thing you can do is to face up to the practical consequences in has in your life. Being a savior is neither noble nor practical.

Learn to give and to ask for what you want, to help and to be helped. This is the healthy way to use your people skills and to interact with others.

Image courtesy of Eneas

Filed Under: Attitude, Psychology, Relationships Tagged With: , , , 33 Comments
October 18, 2010

How to Deal with Controlling People

One variety of human beings we tend to have too many of in our lives (too many as in, more than zero) is controlling people.

Considering the stress they can create, knowing how to deal with controlling people effectively is serious business and it requires a key set of people skills.

Controlling People Explained

Fundamentally, controlling people have a powerful need to control others (doooh!). This need is reinforced by their belief (conscious or subconscious) that they can bend the will of other people to their own and use others to get their way.

Having lots of practice, most controlling people are real masters of pressuring and manipulating others. They often have very good people skills (the bad kind) and may initially come off as very charming.

The basisof beingable to deal with controlling people effectively, from my perspective, is making them understand that they cannot pull your strings. Thus, you are shaking one of their core beliefs and you have the best chances of them backing off.

4 Principles for Dealing with Controlling People

Starting from this basis, there are 4 key people skills principles I encourage you to apply, in order to deal successfully with controlling people:

1. Distinguish pressure from persuasion. When someone presents facts and logical arguments for doing something, while allowing you the freedom to choose, that is persuasion.

When someone uses lying, exaggeration, manipulation, drama and tries to take away your freedom to choose, that is psychological pressure. “If you care about me you’ll help me, nobody cares about me, oh poor little me” is not a persuasive approach, it’s a manipulative one, often used by toxic people.

Practice analyzing how people try to influence you and what methods they use. You will sharpen your skills of distinguishing pleasure from persuasion.

2. Say “No”, “Yes” and “Fuck you”. Firm personal boundaries are often set using firm, strong words. It may not sound polite, but trust me, when you are dealing with controlling people, this is how to get the job done. Honesty and directness in communication have a mesmerizing power to convey confidence and create results.

Practice saying “no” when you don’t really want to do something instead of trying to bail out subtly. Practice saying “yes” when you want to do something other’s don’t want you to do, and learn to tell people off sometimes.

3. Do not submit to pressuring behavior. When they can’t pressure you with words, controlling people will resort to pressuring behavior. The logic of the game is simple: whenever you don’t play by their rules, they withdraw a certain positive behavior or insert a negative one.

Controlling people may stop talking to you, helping you, doing their chores, having sex with you etc., in an attempt to get you to play by their rules. If you submit, you lose. There are only two ways to deal successfully with this kind of behavior: either not reacting, or withdrawing a positive behavior yourself.

4. Do not seek the approval of one person. We all need to be approved and loved by people. It’s a human thing. However, we never, truly, really need the approval of one specific person.

One important attitude lesson I’ve learned is that no one person is irreplaceable in your life. Realize this, let it sink in, and you have the freedom to piss off a controlling person without feeling bad. Thus, they lose their major source of power over you.

Learning how to deal with controlling people usually requires at least some serious self-coaching. In all this process, if you find it hard, keep in mind that you are improving a set of people skills with a positive influence that stretches into many areas of your life.

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

Image courtesy of thorinside

Filed Under: People Skills, Psychology, Relationships Tagged With: , , , 11 Comments