March 6, 2016

How to Not Be Boring in 4 Simple Steps

As a confidence and communication coach, I work often with people who (accurately or not) believe they are boring when making conversation. This makes it hard for them to find the drive to be more outgoing, and difficult to build a gratifying social life.

If you are such a person and you wanna learn how to not be boring, I wanna share with you 4 tried and tested action steps you can take to accomplish this.

Each step addresses one key aspect of making interesting conversation: mindset, verbal communication, non-verbal communication, and lifestyle. So together they form a powerful solution to visibly improve your conversation style and boost your charisma.

1. Are You Really Boring, Or Is It Just in Your Head?

The first crucial step, which you absolutely mustn’t skip, is to question this idea that you are boring, scrutinize it rationally, and try to determine if indeed it’s true.

You see, of all the people I’ve coached over the last 7+ years who believed they’re boring, getting to know them and their conversation style, for well over half of them I’ve concluded that this belief was just in their head. It was a false, limiting belief; and they came to see that too.

So, statistically, there is at least a 50% chance that you’re not really boring. Think about this, very seriously.

If indeed you discover that the idea you’re boring is mostly a limiting belief, then it’s important to begin disregarding it and change your behavior accordingly. Try to open up, talk to people more and be more social, reminding yourself it’s okay to do so.

More important though is to understand that the limiting belief you’re boring reflects a lack of confidence, and work on fixing this deeper issue. Only by learning to believe in yourself and gaining self-confidence will you be able to fully and permanently eliminate the perception that you are boring.

Now, confidence building is no trivial process. It involves certain steps and actions, which if done correctly, lead to visible progress at a rapid pace. I lack the space here to go deeper into this topic, but I have created a special presentation in which I discuss it in detail.

Go here to watch the presentation and learn my step-by-step process for improving your self-confidence and social confidence, which has been used successfully by hundreds of people before you. And make sure you watch it all the way.

2. Make Specific Statements More Than Generic Ones

BoringNext, let’s consider that you really are sort of boring. One of the top changes you can make to your conversation style in order to fix this is to make more statements that are specific and descriptive.

Boring people usually talk in short and generic statements. They’ll say stuff like: “I went to the beach yesterday. It was nice.” And they’ll stop there. The other person will reply: “Oh, cool!” And that conversation thread will end there.

I much better way to talk about that is to say it like: “I went to the beach yesterday. It was nice. The beach is very spacious, and the sand is so white and soft! I loved to just walk around barefoot and take in the view.”

That’s more specific and a lot more exciting. It’s certain to make the other person pay more attention and wanna chip in.

Specific statements add more details, they paint a vivid picture, and they stimulate the listener. Get used to using them, and your conversations will be a lot more interesting.

3. Add More Passion to Your Speaking Style

The non-verbal part also matters a lot. I frequently find that boring people speak in a low, monotonous voice. Many times they are slouched and they’re looking at their shoes instead of their audience. It ties in with the lack of confidence I mentioned earlier. Unsurprisingly, they frequently get ignored.

If you want people to care about what you say and find it interesting, you gotta seem passionate about it. If you are excited about what you say, others will get excited as well. So put more energy in your voice tone and body language: speak louder, have intonation, hold better eye contact, stand up straight and use gestures.

It may feel unnatural at first, but you’ll get used to it, especially as you’ll notice how others pay more attention to you. Plus, I’m not saying you should become a loud, over the top talker. Just a moderate dose of added energy and passion in your non-verbal communication will do the trick.

4. Make Your Lifestyle More Interesting

I often say that conversation is to a large degree a reflection of your life. The content you talk about pours in from your life. So the more interesting your lifestyle, the more interesting what you can talk about is.

If your life revolves around a dreary job, watching TV, sleeping, eating and daydreaming, it’s not that bad, but it’s clearly not an interesting lifestyle either. It could really use an upgrade.

It doesn’t mean that you need to wrestle alligators every day and attend royal balls every night to be interesting. Small changes and additions to your life can make a big difference in the things you can talk about and how appealing what you say is.

Try taking on new hobbies, reading books, trying new stuff, working on side-projects or getting involved in various communities. All of these are great ways to augment your lifestyle and your conversations.

Being boring is a fixable issue. It’s just a matter of understanding how to not be boring, and applying that know-how. In my coaching, I’ve seen many people make the leap from boring to fascinating. With proper guidance and the readiness to implement it, I’m sure you can as well.

I have more practical conversation and confidence advice for you in my free social success newsletter. I invite you to join it right now, and start receiving it on a regular basis.

Filed Under: Communication Skills, People Skills Tagged With: , , , , 2 Comments
December 30, 2015

3 Simple Rules for Better Friendships

I believe that quality friendships are a very important factor for our life satisfaction. People with good, reliable friends are consistently happier and healthier than those without.

Unfortunately, the topic of friendship is often disregarded in the personal development literature, although many people struggle with making friends and having fulfilling friendships. There is a lot of advice out there on dating and romantic relationships, on networking and business relationships, but not nearly as much on building and maintaining fulfilling friendships.

Well, I wanna do something about that. Today, drawing from my personal experience creating and nurturing a social circle, as well as my years of coaching experience helping others to enrich their social life, I’d like to share with you 3 simple rules for better friendships.

1. Choose Friends Based On Shared Values, Not Just Shared Context

We are very inclined to turn into friends the people we happen to be around a lot of the time. For example: coworkers, or school colleagues, or neighbors we pass by daily. The context brings us physically close to them regularly, and so we try to turn that physical closeness into emotional closeness.

friendshipThe problem is that just because you happen to be colleagues with someone or live next to them, it doesn’t mean you have that much in common in terms of values. And shared values are the one truly major factor that makes friendships deep, lasting and rewarding.

Sure, going to the same class with another person probably reflects a common interest in a certain discipline. But that’s only one, somewhat trivial commonality, so it’s insufficient to make a solid foundation for a highly-rewarding friendship.

This is why one of the best things you can do is to have a rich social life, to actively seek to meet lots of people (besides those that context naturally brings near you) and to pursue friendships above all with people who share similar values with you. It takes more work than just picking what’s around by virtue of context, but it leads to much more rewarding friendships.

2. Don’t Ditch Your Friends When You Find Romance

I see this happen all the time: somebody has a group of good friends they hang out with regularly and have fun, then one day they find themselves a girlfriend/boyfriend, and soon enough they end up completely ignoring their friends and losing touch with them.

Many claim this happens because they don’t have time for their friends anymore. But one can always make time for relationships that matter. The real issue is actually two-folded.

Firstly, folks often believe their romantic partner can take on the role of their friends as well. Usually though, they couldn’t be more wrong. There is a certain type of connection between friends (especially same-gender friends) that you can never replicate in the relationship with your girlfriend or boyfriend. Something vital gets lost in the translation. The truth is that both friendships and romantic relationships have something irreplaceable, so it’s a bad idea to try and absorb one type of relationship into the other.

Secondly, people often assume that the emotional high they get initially from a romantic relationship is gonna last forever. And their friends don’t seem that important when romance makes them feel so good. Again, they are mistaken. That initial high will wear off soon enough, and then they will find a big void in their life. But by then their old friends may no longer be there to fill it.

3. Turn Friendships into Mastermind Groups

Traditionally, friends are seen as people you hang out with, chit-chat with, and have some laughs with. But there is so much more potential to friendships, especially those based on shared values.

People with values similar to you understand you, they likely have know-how or experiences relevant to you, and they wanna see you succeed. So it’s a good idea to leverage your relations with them for growth and achievement. And they can do the same, of course. It’s reciprocal.

You can use your time together not just for light fun and conversation, but also as a way to share your goals and struggles, discuss them, give each other feedback and guidance, encourage and motivate each other, and try to help each other reach your goals. You’ll all benefit a lot from this.

In this form, a friendship has been augmented with the role of a mastermind group. A group of people focused on helping each other be all they can be in life. Thus, the friendship becomes more valuable and, over time, much stronger as well.

If you struggle with making or keeping friends, especially because of a lack of social confidence or social skills, make sure you check out this instructional video where I present my step-by-step formula for building social confidence. Also, join my free social success newsletter, where I’ll share regular and practical social advice with you.

There is a subtle art and science to having quality friendships. Once you’ve mastered it, you’ll very likely see the people you call your friends and the time you spend together as some of the most precious pieces of your life. Good friends and good relationships matter that much.

Filed Under: Lifestyle, Relationships Tagged With: , , Leave a Comment
April 28, 2010

The Simple Guide to Conscious Learning

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Filed Under: Personal Development, Psychology Tagged With: , , , 8 Comments