Well are you? Do you mutter insults under your breath? Keep nagging about a very small mistake that should have been forgotten weeks ago? Do you insult someone when they eat the wrong food, forget something simple, or simply get something wrong? Do you tell them they are useless, stupid, fat, lazy, and never going to amount to anything?
I hope most of you are shaking your heads and wondering what I put in my tea this morning.. but
What if that person is you? Do you treat yourself as well as you treat others? Just for today be kind to yourself, be encouraging and forgiving. Treat yourself like you are your best friend. Just for today, and then tomorrow, and then everyday after that.
I’m always talking about BEing YOU. It’s a rather vague term that’s hard to live up to sometimes. I think I have an advantage. So many people expect me to ‘be me’ that when I’m playing small or holding back I read my emails from people thanking me for leading the way. I can’t afford to not BE ME. It would be hypercritical of me.
Today I read a blog post on a blog that I often visit. It’s written by Lynn Terry who is a super-affiliate marketer and I think I can say, a personal friend. (Lynn, please correct me if I haven’t reached personal friend status yet). I met her at NAMS (the Niche Affiliate Marketing Seminar). Although Affiliate marketing is NOT what I do, by any means, it’s an area that holds a fascination for me. Anyway I digress. Lynn is extremely successful in her field and is very open and has an abundant nature rare in the strange world of internet marketing. Today she wrote a blog post about how much she earns, her income.. and she shows figures. Although it’s the thing that hits you from this post, after all who else talks about what they earn?, she makes it clear that it’s more about other things:
“You’ll rarely ever see me talk dollar figures, or discuss my income. There’s a reason for that. Personally, I feel it’s irrelevant. The amount of money I need to maintain my ideal lifestyle may be completely different than your own goals.”
Lynn spends a great deal of her time these days helping others to be successful. I don’t have an affiliate link to her stuff but do heartily recommend that if you want to learn how to make money in affiliate marketing you start with Lynn Terry.
(When I start my new interview series I will be asking Lynn to take part – Lynn, if you are reading this, be prepared to say yes)
I’ve always been a Jamie Oliver fan – but this is beyond anything I’ve ever seen. If you have kids, or are an auntie, uncle, cousin or anyone else please watch this TED video. Please let it change your life!
A friend sent me this video this week, after we’d had a conversation about a simiar topic. There are a lot of people who will ask you to write, speak, (insert whatever you do here) for free. It’s not wrong to get paid! It’s the number one question I get asked “How do I get paid for speaking” – my first answer “ask”. In this video Harlan Ellison is passionate about his message (some bad language occurs).
Yesterday at the end of my blog post about my belief that ‘you cannot not communicate’ I declared that today I would explain the meaning of communication.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could tell you “when someone says this, it means this.” Then again, we’d all know it all by now.
I think that, when we are looking at the meaning behind communication we have to look at the one person whose communication we can actually control – ourselves.
We do not see the world as it is, we see it as we are. As they say in NLP – the map is not the territory. We all percieve things depending on our mood, our experiences and our expectations.
We recieve millions of bits of communication each day – and the only way our brain can really cope is by filtering the information. We do this by deleting, distorting and generalizing.
We automaticallly delete information that we don’t think is relevant to us or our experiences, we have to do this or we would suffer from information overload very quickly. We distort information instantly by picking something we have heard or felt and immediately adding on our own experiences / memories to presume what it means. This is done without us even being aware. It’s that feeling you get when someone says “Can I talk to you in private for a moment” – nothing to do with that moment, and everything to do with previous experiences and assumptions. Generalization occurs when we take a few experiences and presume they are universal, and apply them to new situations.
We provide filters for every piece of information and so does everyone else. This is why communication can be such a minefield sometimes.
The way to learn to communicate is to learn to recognize your own filters if possible. Understand that sometimes what you hear isn’t what you heard!
How we perceive communication is a choice, albeit mostly unconcious. I wish I had a magic pill, but some of you would think I was talking about something else!
Learn to listen, try not to judge and understand that we can only operate by judging. This make all sound like riddle-talk, I’m trying to make it simple.
Just know, as we all try and communicate effectively, that you have communicated perfectly your whole life to get you exactly where you are now. It’s all about you!
I hear it all the time “We just stopped communicating..” or “our marriage failedd due to lack of communication”. I operate from the premise that ‘you cannot NOT communicate’. What you do, even when you don’t do anything is communication.
When couples no longer share the information that they used to, when they glide past each other in the kitchen without the loving touch that used to be there, that is communicating something LOUD and CLEAR.
When your teenager stays out past curfew, or ‘borrows’ something without ‘rembering’ to ask – that is communicating loud and clear.
When someone, that used to reply to your emails almost instantly, doesn’t bother for weeks… yes, that’s communication.
You CANNOT not communicate.
Tomorrow – what it all means… what the message is behind communication.
On Christmas Eve I’m hosting a blood drive. It’s the first time I have ever done anything like this and I’m leaning how to ask. It’s not very English to ask for things directly – We tend to hint a lot and beat around the bush. We don’t want to offend anyone by putting them in a situation where they feel awkward. So even as a communication coach, I’m wary of asking and exactly how to do it.
A bit of me wants to say: “Give Blood, you have plenty, it doesn’t cost you anything except some time and a bit of put-outwardness. Shall I sign you up?” I want to tug at heartstrings by saying: “It could be your mother, or child that needs this blood.. it will certainly be someones Mum or Dad, someones Son or Daughter”. “I want to tell everyone it’s Christmas – giving is what it’s all about”. I’ve certainly been hinting at that. I’m more comfortable telling them what they get:
A mini-health check
Possibly the coolest blood drive t-shirt ever (designed by Blake Lagneaux).. available until they run out.
Food by Jolie’s Bistro
Draw Prizes (including personal training session, gift from Vivian Alexandra, Event Planning Gift Certificates, Golf gift box.. all sorts of amazing things)
There are also some surprise gifts coming – it’s gonna be fun!
I want to ask people to buy into the dream. To make this the best blood drive ever seen at UBS, Lafayette. I want everyone who comes to feel like they are a hero.. because that’s what they are. To give to a complete stranger. A gift that you will never see them use. A gift that comes when they need it most. That is the best gift of all.
I’m learning to ask, in a very English way. This is important.
So here goes. I need your blood. Sign up here http://tinyurl.com/myblooddrive If you can’t give blood I need a draw prize if you have one. If nothing else, I need you to tell others, get them involved. Call me on 337 255 4283 if you need any more information or need me to pick up a donation.
I’m not really one for ranting. I’m not that good at it and nothing really upsets me enough to want to share it with the world.
Ok… so maybe this isn’t quite a rant.. but I’m putting my foot down and pleading. (Does that work?).
I have been talking about this for a while now.. since I wrote about the wonderful Cynthia LaLuna’s humorous Autoresponder a few posts back. I’m not over it though. Every day at the moment I get vacation autoresponders that just make me want to never email that person again.
I am not a machine. I AM A PERSON. I’m fine with you telling me you are out of the office - you could even tell me who’ll be reading your emails while your gone, or what will be happening to them. In human language. Like you care about me, like I’m a paying client or someone who could potentially be a paying client.
This morning I got a message back from someone who works at a pet store (no names) informing me they were out of the office.. that’s fine! but they added “If this is an emergency please contact ……. ” – What kind of pet shop emergency exists, and why would I be emailing if there was an emergency??
Another person (again no names) that I email on a fairly regular basis has a bounce back message that always tells me how important I am to them, and how my message will be dealt with immediately. Very efficient but do I need to get it EVERY TIME I send you an email – even if it’s just confirming coffee?
Just because we are using a computer to communicate doesn’t mean we are robotic in any way. I want emails that are written by people and are meant to be read by people. I need this to change, and I need it to change now. I would also love to see your examples of bad email responders. I’m hoping you will go and check your own, and give it a makeover. If you are brave enough send me the before and after.
Or this might happen:
“I’m sorry, Aileen is out of the office for the next hour while she bangs her head against a brick wall because you haven’t noticed that she is a real life human being”
The great thing about being a speaker is that everyone is full of advice, the bad thing about being a speaker is that everyone is full of advice.
I have a library of speaking books and they offer a myriad of strange advice, from explaining the exact angle you should hold your hands, showing you the way you can ‘fake’ looking at an audience, and explaining ways to learn your speech ‘by heart’. I disagree with most of the generic advice out there. I definitely disagree with the following:
Imagine your audience naked – how uncomfortable and completely strange it would be to talk to a room full of naked executives. Ugh, I don’t ever want to imagine that (unless of course I’m paid lots of money to speak at a nudist camp). If you must imagine your audience as anything, imagine they are a group of interested people who are there to learn and be inspired. If anyone is comforted by imagining their audience without clothes you may want to consider other career options.
Fake eye contact: I was once shown in depth how you could ‘fake’ making eye contact with your audience, it mainly involved looking at people’s foreheads. If you look at people’s foreheads you aren’t making a connection with them, as a human-being, you aren’t getting feedback on
If they can hear you
If they understand what you are saying
If you are connecting with their needs and desires
If they are cold, hot, bored, lost, in the wrong room etc..
Eye contact works both ways – it makes your audience feel connected and involved and it gives you feedback. The only eye-contact that works is real, genuine eye contact. The only time you don’t get to do this is when you are on stage and have bright lights that mean that you can’t see the audience. In that case you just act ‘as if’ you can see them, keep the contact genuine!
Practice in a mirror. Arghhhh, yes I know Churchill apparently never gave a speech without practicing in a mirror first but your speech isn’t about you – it’s about your audience. It’s not about knowing every word by heart, it’s about speaking from the heart. It’s about connection.
Listen to all the advice you get and disregard all the stuff that you don’t agree with (even all the stuff I tell you)
Speaking isn’t acting – it’s about Being you, and you can break every so-called ‘rule’ if you are just being you. So feel free not to read this article, or read it and then forget every word, except the bit about BEING YOU. That’s all you really need on stage. The audience wants a real person to connect to, and that’s you being you. I know it doesn’t take a whole book to tell you this, and it seems so simple that anyone can do it, but it’s the truth, simple and straight up.
“You were hilarious! I would love to have you back! OKKKKKK!!!!! Thanks.” “You were absolutely awesome. I absolutely loved your talk. Thanks a bunch!” “Thanks so much for doing this for us. We all appreciated it. “Awesome lesson” “Thank you for becoming an important stakeholder in the educational process to train and educate tomorrow’s workforce. I, along with my students thoroughly enjoyed your presentation.” — Kit Becnel (& students), Director, AOIT, Carencro High School
I throughly and enthusiastically recommend:
and yes, these are affiliate links. (I use affiliate links only for products and services I use and approve of)
