Tag Archives: Confidence

The Magic of Conversation

I had a friend once who was telling about his brother in law. His brother in law was the kind of guy that didn’t really talk much, but you had this feeling that there was something really deep inside. Like when you were to look at this person, you were to get this feeling that there is something really special here. He never seemed to get upset. Anyways, he said that there was this problem he was having at work. He had noticed a problem on the production line where he worked, and it seemed that he was the only person to notice this. And he was kind of afraid to tell his boss, because she had a reputation for being kind of strict and by the book. He was really afraid to approach her, and start a conversation with her.

I had another friend that was a really good salesman. He worked for some really interesting modeling agency. His job was to go out and walk up to any girl he saw that he thought qualified as a model. He said at first that it was really nerve racking. He thought that he would receive a lot of rejection, approaching attractive women all. He had this imagination that they might misunderstand his motives, and not realize that he was offering them an opportunity rather than taking advantage of them. I loaned him a book of mine that I’d read on the subject.

Which is interesting when you think about it. Everywhere you go; there are all kinds of people walking around. All with different histories, backgrounds, and stories about what they see around them. Some of them can be really interesting, and some can even be fascination. It’s awe-inspiring when you look around you and when you see this person, you can imagine the treasure that is inside them. A friend and I were talking once about this subject. When the topic of being able to approach new people came up, he merely stated what he thought was the obvious. There is treasure! And when you think about it, how many ways can you imagine discovering treasure inside others, and sharing it with them? Imagine how you can make them feel incredibly happy. And the cool thing is they probably won’t even know what’s going on, so they’ll probably think this new happiness is coming from you.

After my friend read the book I loaned him, he was able to go out and approach many women every day. A large percentage said they weren’t interested, but even the ones that said “no thank you,” were polite to him, and thanked him, anyways. Even on days when he went out and didn’t get any contact information for his company to follow up on, he still was able to feel a boost to the ego, just for the experience.

So when he finally approached his boss to tell her about the problem on the production line, she was amazed at his perception. She was so happy, that he got a promotion, and at their semi-annual meeting, she gave him additional thanks in front of all his coworkers, because he’d saved the company so much money. Amazing things happen when you use your ability to communicate.

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Make A Choice – The World is Yours

So there I was hiking with my friend. We had been doing switchbacks for several hours, and were both very tired. We got to a point in the trail where we had two options. One was to veer up the left, where we would have to traverse over several large boulders. If we went up to the left, we would get to our destination in about an hour. If we followed the regular trail, we would get to our destination in about three or four. Normally, something like this would be a no brainer, as one hour, especially after hiking switchbacks all day, is much better than hiking three hours. The only problem is that the “shortcut” up to the left was over several large boulders. We decided to give it a go. After about half an hour, I realized I might be in way over my head. My friend was already about half a kilometer up ahead of me, almost out of earshot. I was getting really nervous and anxious, as every third or fourth boulder was wobbling when I stepped on it. I was afraid if I slipped, I might bust an ankle. I didn’t know what to do.

I had a friend once that was an electrical engineer at a very large company. They hired him for his engineering skills. He was well regarded as an electrical genius, as he was responsible for ironing out the bugs in the machines that they were developing. They were in a meeting, getting ready for the big boss to come from the east coast. They had to decide, as one of their major projects was behind schedule. There was one of two ways they could go. They were fairly divided on what to do, and nobody really wanted to make a choice for fear of repercussions from the big cheese.

Its’ interesting what happens when you make a decision. When you make a strong choice, and you are congruent about it, people will almost always follow your decision without question. It almost seems as if people would rather follow somebody who makes a decision that they disagree with rather than choose on their own. Great leaders throughout history have always said the secret of their leadership is the realization that people want a strong and congruent leader who will stick to his decision regardless of what it is.

So my friend was able to see the clear solution. He raised his hand, and offered it to the management at the meeting. They were impressed, and accepted his idea. When the boss came, and approved of the idea, naturally my friend got all the credit. His ability to make a decision and take responsibility for it launched his career up into management, with more responsibility, more exposure, and of course, more money.

And when I finally decided to go around, it was as if a giant weight was lifted off my shoulders. Even though I arrived at our campsite a full four hours after my friend, I had a great time hiking alone. It was something that I’ve never really done before. Hiking alone, out in the Sierra mountains, with only the beauty of nature around us. All because I was able to make a simple choice.

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Speak Your Mind – And Achieve Your Desires

I was waiting downtown in the hospital recently. It wasn’t the emergency section of the hospital, it was the place where people needed to see a doctor for things that weren’t life threatening. I was holding a number, one of those numbers that you grab like when you go to the post office. There was a big electronic board up and it showed the numbers changing as people went into the office. The peculiar thing was that the numbers weren’t really changing according to how many people went into the room where the doctor was. It didn’t take me long to figure out that people were just crowding their way in, instead of patiently waiting for their numbers to be called. I wanted to speak up, but for some reason I didn’t. Maybe because I was sick, or maybe because I was new in town and didn’t really know anybody there.

It reminded me once when I was in first grade. I used to be really shy. Once I had to go to the bathroom really bad. Back in first grade, you were always supposed to do what the teachers said. It wasn’t recess, so I was afraid I’d get in trouble if I asked to go to the bathroom. So I sat there with my hand on my crotch, I don’t even know if I knew when recess came. I was just a kid, I hadn’t realized that the most general rule in life yet.

It’s interesting when you look at some kids. They just scream out whenever they want something. They haven’t learned to be shy when asking for what they want. i was studying a book on persuasion, and it said the most natural persuaders and manipulators there are little kids. They scream and people ten times their own size scramble to take care of them. It’s like if you are a little kid, you when you want something, you just ask for it. You don’t wait for permission. When you are hungry, you scream for food. When you want something, you don’t rest until you get it. And when you are a kid, the only rule in life is keep screaming until you get what you want.

Finally the teacher saw me and told me to go to the bathroom. When I came back, she told me that it’s ok to ask for things that you want, it’s ok to ask somebody in authority to let you do something. Because if you wait until they notice you need something, it might be too late. I thought that was a particularly nice lesson for a first grade teacher to teach a little kid.

So finally I stood, and walked over to the door. I noticed the people sitting next to the door, and I asked them in a fairly loud voice if there was some kind of line, or do you just push your way in. And maybe it was because I was a little impatient, but I said it loud enough so that most people heard me. And after I said it, I noticed that people started looking at their own numbers and obeying the rules. As it turns out, the nurse that was supposed to be taking care of the number system had a last minute emergency, and wasn’t able to come in until later. I’m glad I spoke up when I did, I might have been waiting there all day.

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How to Insult the Buddha

One of the things that most people strive for in life, yet never achieve is that sense of being in a place where you are completely independent of the opinions and ideas of others. No matter how rock solid your self confidence and self esteem is, we seem to always be vulnerable to some stray comment from somebody whom we don’t’ even expect has that kind of power over you.

I’m sure you’ve had that experience. You are going through your life, cruising right alone. Everything is pretty good, not perfect, but pretty good. Then out of the blue somebody makes a comment. Not a mean comment, not really. They’re not a person who has any power over your life, they aren’t your boss or a decision maker, but yet, somehow that comment slips in and wriggles through your confidence self defense and festers. And the more you think about it, the more it festers and causes you to remember other incidents that are similar, creating similar emotional responses.

What’s the answer? Remove yourself completely from society? Stare straight ahead with your thickest skin and refuse to allow anyone’s comments to affect you one way or the other? That is the default defense for many, but it doesn’t allow you to let in all the comments and things people say to you that can help you feel really good.

A good way around this is to develop a state of uninsultability. No matter what you say, you can accept the good things and reject the bad things. It’s like you have a pre conscious defense shield that can acting as a sorting mechanisms for incoming information. True information that makes you feel good is let in completely. True information that doesn’t make you feel so good is split into it’s logical, data components, which are accepted for you to decide what action to take, and the emotionally charged component which is summarily rejected. Information coming in that is not true is rejected altogether.

This can be difficult to maintain, but it is possible. The secret lies in choosing to evaluate any incoming informational stimulus before your automatic emotional response has a chance to react. The more you choose to consciously practice this on a regular basis, the more space you will create between the initial external event, and the emotional reaction. Your goal in this is to insert a quick but effective moment of rational choice between the external event and the corresponding emotional response.

Most people walk around through life as biological automatons. Reacting without thinking, seemingly at the mercy of the events and opinions of others. It doesn’t have to be that way. You can choose to live your life differently. With choice, with control with power. There is an old Buddhist story I’m reminded of.

The Buddha, and two of his young disciples were walking along the river. Suddenly a distraught man jumped out, who had apparently heard the Buddha’s last sermon, and began hurling insult after insult at him. His disciples were shocked, while the Buddha stood and only smiled. Afterwards, they asked him,

“Master, aren’t you hurt by his mean insults?”

to which the Buddha replied:

“If somebody gives you a present, and you refuse to accept it, who does it belong to?”

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Increase Confidence and Shed Shyness

I had a friend that used to be really, really shy. Like he wasn’t even able to make eye contact with other people. Not even for a split second. I don’t know if you’ve ever known a friend like that, but it kind of makes it hard to plan to do things. People that are incredibly shy find it difficult to relax over a few beers.  His girlfriend always shared with me how difficult it was when she had work parties,where it was kind of expected to bring your significant other.

I’ve seen a couple of funny youtube videos where people are at Christmas parties, and they are recorded saying things about their boss that they will likely later regret. But they are pretty funny. The thing about those parties, is that you have to behave kind of differently. It’s like you are in a party atmosphere, complete with food, alcohol, and music, but you still have to behave like you are at work. It’s almost as if you are supposed to pretend to have fun. Pretending can be good sometimes, but many people have said that the biggest trouble with telling lie is keeping everything straight.

This book I was reading on evolution was talking about the reason peoples brains became so big. This guy in the book was quoting this other guy who did a bunch of research at this university, along with a team of anthropologists. He said that one of the driving forces in the development of the human brain was the ability to not only detect deception in other people, but to deceive others and ourselves as well. Because you can’t very well catch others in deception of you don’t know hot to imagine what it would be like to be in the other persons shoes who is doing the deceiving. It is all somehow tied into the importance of knowing your place in the social structure. Of course there is no evidence for any of this, but it’s is an interesting theory nonetheless. It’s funny when think about things that you are only beginning to understand. It’s like you have an idea of what is going, but until you play different scenarios in your mind, you really can’t start to appreciate the complexity that is under all human life.

There was this one youtube video, where a girl that was apparently really drunk started telling her boss off. She said some pretty mean things. And her boss was standing right behind her. She turned around at the end of her tirade, and he said something like “I want to see you in my office first thing on Monday.” But it turned out to be a joke. Everybody was in on it, and it was all staged. Except the drunk part. I’m pretty sure that part was real.

And my friend eventually overcame his shyness with his girlfriend, because she finally coaxed him into attending a few assertiveness workshops together. Not only did he shed his shyness, and develop a really outgoing personality, but their relationship really improved. They’ve been married for six years, I think, with at least a couple of kids last I checked. And a large part of his job involves public speaking, so he really did develop strong confidence, which is always good.

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Overcome Shyness Through Friendly Conversation

I ran into a friend the other day on the train. I didn’t notice her at first, because she looked different. You know when you see somebody you are pretty sure that you know, but it takes a few moments for you to remember exactly where you know them from? This was one of those times. She was sitting directly across from me, and was reading some book. It didn’t look like a novel, rather it looked like some kind of trade paperback or something. It was actually her that recognized me, as I was craning my neck around to try and see the title she was reading.

She said my name, and could tell by my expression that I couldn’t remember exactly who she was. I think it is fascinating that women are much better at this kind of thing that men are. I played a game once with a group of people called ‘liars.’ People got into groups of three, and then decided amongst themselves which one would tell a true story, and which would tell a lie. There was always one liar and two truth tellers. The game was to keep asking questions until you could catch the liar in a lie. The women are almost always better at this than men.

I read an interesting book once that I think explained it. It said that this was a leftover trait of our hunter/gatherer past. Men would generally go out and look for things to kill (hunt) and women would stay home at the caves, and take care of the kids and collect fruit and stuff (gather.) And this book was saying that women were able to develop a skill that allowed them to really be able to read peoples emotions a lot better than men. I guess this is a lot easier when you can understand your own emotions. And since women are much better at this than men, they are better at being able to read facial expressions much better.

And as it turns out, my friend was reading the classic book “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie. She said that she was enrolled in a public speaking class through her company, and the book was required reading. She said that she decided to read this book a long time ago, and did, but since she forgot a lot of the important stuff, she made the decision to read this again. She told me that when you find something that is of value, it’s important to read this over and over to make sure you can squeeze every useful thing out of it.

And it turns out that is why I didn’t recognize her. She used to be a really shy person. When she walked, she never really was ever able to make eye contact with people, and usually had her shoulders slumped. You had to get to know her before she was comfortable in expressing herself. It was only then that you could discover what a great person she was. Now she is really enthusiastic about public speaking. She says that when you don’t express your true self to others, you really are doing yourself and others a disservice. Because when you can really feel comfortable to be able to express yourself without any fear or anxiety, people can have a chance to get to know you for who you really are. Which is likely a pretty cool person when you think of all the good stuff you’ve done in your life.

Come to think of it, she’s always been a pretty supportive person. And now she’s happy that she doesn’t have to wade through her shyness to let people discover her. Kind of cool when you think about it.

Unfortunately, she was getting off at the next stop, and I had a few stops to go. But it was good that I saw her. We’ll have to get together sometime in the future.

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Develop Powerful Appreciation

There is a scene in the incredible movie Taxi Driver where the main character is holding his hand above the open fire of his stove, in order to strengthen himself, or perhaps to prove to himself how tough he is. The power of this scene is that the character, who is completely psycho, holds his hand above the stove without flinching. Stone faced. The reason this is such a powerful scene is the audience can’t help but to imagine how incredibly painful that must feel.

Psychological experts know that the only two fears humans are born with are heights and loud noises. The rest we have to learn. How long do you think it took you to realize that fire was dangerous? A second? Less? Have you ever drank too much of a certain liquor (for me it was Tequila) and then later just couldn’t even stand the smell of it? How long do you think it took your brain to learn that liquor is poison, and you should stay away from it? (Or at least too much of it.) Probably not very long.  How long did it take to learn that speaking in public could be a dangerous thing? Probably not very long. Probably all it took was once in second or third grade when you spoke out in class and the results weren’t quite what you expected.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you’re one of the lucky ones that can feel really comfortable whenever you stand up and speak persuasively with confidence and charisma as if you were Cicero speaking to the Roman Senate. If you are that confident, I’ll be sure to vote for you when you run for congress. The rest of us will have to continue hiding behind our 3×5 cards. 

The reason we learn so fast to be afraid of things is naturally because it is matter of safety.  If you’ve read the article on memory, you know that pain, or potential pain is one of the key elements of forming a strong neural connection.

But what about learning skills that are enhancing? How cool would it be if we were able to learn new habits as quickly as we learned our fears?  What if we could unlearn false fears, and replace them with feelings of safety as easily as we learned real, physical fears?

In order to do that, we need to charge our neural pathways with the same strong emotions that we charged them when we learned it was dangerous to stick our fingers in a light socket. (It only took me once to learn that was a bad idea.)

Let’s take exercise as an example. You get up in the morning. Look at the clock. Ugh. It’s cold outside. If you didn’t get out of bed and go for a walk like you were hoping to, you’d get an extra hour of sleep. You could always starting walking tomorrow, right? But if it didn’t have to be that way? What if you could train your brain to automatically feel motivated when your alarm went off? What if the idea of going for a walk made you feel as good as the prospect of polishing off a bucket of ice cream?

The emotion to use when training your brain for good habits is appreciation. We humans like to worry. Whenever something good happens, some of us have a voice in the back of our heads saying “I don’t know, this might not last very long.” I’m sure that’s happened to you at least once, right? The key to increasing appreciating for something, is to quiet those voices that silently nag you. And the way to do that is through simple practice. The more you focus on your appreciation, for anything, the more it grows. It’s just like exercise for your brain. It doesn’t take long. Take a deep breath, and really feel appreciation for the air as it comes in your lungs. Feel appreciationthat you can use the internet to read email from your friends, read cool articles, and learn fascinating stuff.  Feel appreciation for anything. The more you practice this, the more you will naturally notice that it gets easier and easier. 

Experiment with this for the next week. Pick a color. Lets say red. Everytime you see the color red, appreciate something. Anything. Only for a few moments. The more you practice, the stronger it gets. And when you develop the natural ability to feel appreciation, you will realize something amazing. I’ll leave to you to find out exactly what that amazing discovery is.

You can relax, and feel comfortable, because I’ll be posting many more articles on exactly how to use your new versatile skills of appreciation in the near future.

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Develop Powerful Listening Skills

Have you ever been talking to somebody and had a feeling that they just ‘got you?’ Like somehow you felt like this person really understood you, like this person was really concerned for your best interests? Like somehow this person was able to see who you really are? That made you feel pretty good, right? Of course it did. That was because this person, either on purpose or because they were simply a natural, was practicing great listening skills. How would you like to be that person, and make others feel really good whenever they are around you? Well, listening is easy if you know how to do it. Which you are about to. Ready?

Step One.  The most important part is to listen not only with your ears, but with your eyes, your mouth and your whole face. You want the other person to be able to see you respond to them as they speak. Professional speakers will gladly tell you how important feedback is.

Step Two. Make sure to face the speaker with an open posture, and to maintain good eye contact. You want to be looking into their eyes about eighty percent of the time. This lets them know that you find them interesting.

Step Three. As they are speaking, form a picture in your mind of what they are saying. This can help you to naturally get involved in the conversation.

Step Four.  If you find that they are voicing an opinion that you happen to disagree with, instead of thinking of arguments against it, try to find common ground, or at least try to see things from their point of view.

Step Five. Ask good questions. If you’ve read my article on open ended questions, you already know how to do this. If you haven’t, I recommend that you check it out. It can make the conversation flow and you can be the star of the party.

These quick techniques will not only immediately boost your charisma, but they will also give you great social confidence, because everyone loves somebody like you that knows how to listen.

Please be sure to check back often, as I will be updating this site frequently. And please feel free to share this with others, because everybody can benefit when you increase your skills, right?

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Five Easy Steps to Powerfully Abundant Confidence

How would you like to be able to walk right up to somebody HOT, somebody that you used to think was out of your league, and easily and spontaneously start up a witty conversation that will have your friends bursting with envy?

How would like to powerfully and authoritatively speak up in a group whose conversation has taken a wrong turn and needs your gentle yet firm correction?

How would YOU like to be the one that your friends push to the front of the group and say “You go talk to him, YOU’RE the confident one!”

Ah but there’s a slight problem, isn’t there? Or rather I should say, wasn’t there? Because you’ve read this far, you can slowly begin to understand that all those imaginary things that have been stubbornly standing between your desires and their natural and powerful expression can quietly fade off into the distance.

And I can show you how to tap into your power in five easy steps. Ready?

Step One:  Start slow. That’s right. Push yourself just a small bit. Push isn’t even the right word. Let your truth just peek out, only a little bit. Each time you step over the line, just a little beyond what used to be your limit, is clearly a strong and substantial victory. One millisecond of eye contact with somebody you think is attractive is plenty.

Step Two: Celebrate your accomplishments. This is crucial. After each victory, find a quiet place and remember it. Visualize it. Re-live it. Thank yourself. Really feel good for what you’ve done. Replay it a few times, telling yourself that you did a good job. The brain likes it when you talk to yourself nice like that. Because it starts to figure out ways to get more good feelings.

Step Three: Only give yourself permission to be able to decide what’s appropriate for you. Don’t accept other’s judgements, or what you might believe to be their judgements. Their opinions belong to them. Let them keep them. If they can give you good feedback that will help you grow and change, great. Otherwise, thanks, but no thanks.

Step Four: Accept that other people’s responses also belong to them. If they do something that you weren’t expecting, or you wish had been better, accept it.  Give the gift of allowing them to be and express themselves just you are starting to learn to master.

Step Five: Be kind to others before they even think to ask. Your confidence and ability to truly and deeply appreciate yourself will automatically skyrocket as you begin to see people as opportunites to create happiness wherever you go.

Once you start to practice these on a daily basis, your confidence, attitude, and postive energy will unquestionably increase. And one of the wonderful side effects of this is that you will notice people around you look at you and talk with you differently, and even total strangers will come up to you and try to think of ways to start a conversation with you.

 

Please feel free not only to come back often, but to link this site as well. And because sharing is the best way to show you care, you might want to tell others about this site.

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How to get Automatic Agreement in Any Situation

How would you like to easily and effortlessly create instant agreement  with anybody, anywhere, anytime? What happens when you imagine being able to walk up to a complete stranger and get them to say “yes.. yes.. yes..” and hang on your every word? If you are in sales, think of the power of increasing your person to persons sales skills, your telephone sales skills, and you presentation skills.  Is this something you’d like to learn? Is this something you’d like to be able to use at will to quickly and naturally increase your income, and not only make friends easily, but to truly develop lasting relationships?

Well it’s simple to learn, easy to remember, and so natural to use, that when you are able to take this skill that you’ve likely already been using, and use it consciously, you will be amazed at how incredibly effective it is.

Sales professionals of all kinds, door to door, negotiators, telephone sales, refer to this as the “Yes set.” Linguistically, it is commonly called “Tag Questions.”  This is how they work. After you make a statement, they invite the person you are speaking with to almost automatically, without even thinking, agree with you.

Here’s how to make them. Take any statement. Let’s try “It’s raining.”  The first part is “It’s,” which is a contraction of “It is.”  All you do is reverse it, by making it negative. “It is” becomes “It is not”. Then you change the statement, “It is not,” into a question. “Is it not?” And there you have it. Then, when you add it on to your statement, it becomes “It’s raining, is it not?” or “It’s raining, isn’t it?”

Let’s look at some more examples.

Today is sunny, isn’t it?

It sure was cold yesterday, wasn’t it?

You like spaghetti, don’t you? (The ‘do’, in ‘you do like spaghetti’ is usually left out, but you can use it anyways.)

They sure are cute, aren’t they?

This sure is a great blog, isn’t it?

You sure are going to tell are your friends about this site, aren’t you?

Be sure when you say the “question” part, your voice goes down, like you are making a statement. You don’t want to sound unsure of youself, do you?

So, how do you use this? Whenever you want somebody to automatically say “yes.”

You like it when people say yes to you, don’t you? And you can already think of many ways that you can start to use this technique every day, can’t you? And if you imagine now, what it will be like when you develop the confidence that naturally comes from getting quick and easy agreement from people, you really do realize how much easier it will be to make life fun, don’t you?

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