Have you ever wondered why some people seem to keep quarrelling? Do you know of any couples, families or even close friends who have drifted apart of broken up because of a series of quarrels? Take a look around you and look at how many people are fighting, these numbers are on the rise in Singapore, just because they don’t see eye to eye. However, have you for a moment ever wondered why people quarrel? Why people who seem to care so much for each other still seem to be able to love/hate each other? Here’s a simple explanation why. Read on only if you want to find out how not to quarrel with your loved ones again.

Different people have live their lives through the eyes of different lenses. Some of them may be family orientated, others may centre their lives around money, goals, their spouse, church or religion, or even their children. What this means is that people react very differently when faced with a similar problem. This also means that because of the different orientations or different centres in their lives, people tend to end up quarrelling just because the other does not seem to have the same values!

Let’s take an example of a loving couple. They both come to a decision to go to the movies, so the wife takes the initiative to book the tickets. However, later in the day, the husband’s boss tells him that because of the busy season, he has to stay in the office to work overtime. Now, if the husband were career or money orientated, he would probably call his wife up and tells her his situation and at the same time, expect her to understand. However, if he lived his life around his spouse, meaning to say that his wife overruled the job, then he would definitely tell his boss no. Seems like everything sounds great so far! Let’s carry on and see what happens if we put the wife into the picture.

If you put yourself in the shoes of the wife, who happened to be someone who valued having fun over her career, what do you think you’d feel if your husband blew you off at the last moment, especially if the both of you had already been planing this date for awhile now? Likewise if you were a career-minded woman who only constantly thought about making money, what do you think you’d feel if you found out that your husband told his boss no?

While the above scenario seems somewhat mild, it is interesting to note the possibilities if we carried this mindset to more serious matters!

What I hope I’ve managed to do with this simple post is this. Every person leads his life through a different lens. It is rarely possible to expect the other person to fully understand what you want. If you wish to lead a life with as little squabbles as possible, what you need to do is to look out for the other person’s values. This is a common technique in NLP. If you manage to find out his values in life, you will be able to understand him better and ultimately, you will be able to understand why he does certain things!

If you’ve read the papers in Singapore recently, you might have noticed this huge article on personal motivators, NLP trainers and public speakers in Singapore. Some of them command fees of up to $15,000 while others about $2,000. Before I even start to comment on whether or not these people know their stuff, isn’t it interesting to note that even between these ‘great’ speakers, the price range is a whopping $13,000?

How is it some people are able to command such high prices and still conduct sell-out seminars while others are only able to command a much less fee? While the marketing tactics and strategies may play a role in the prices, wouldn’t you also agree that the way the speakers speak also does play a part?

Good speakers have known how to successfully use NLP, neurolinguistic programming, to direct their energy to propel them into super resourceful states. In addition, they also know how to control the states of the audience.

A great technique I’ve found out is varying the speed of your speech. In case you haven’t noticed, people who speak faster and which more expressions in their voices tend to be able to generate large amounts of energy in the room. In addition, through the use of gestures, body language and tonality, speakers have been able to engage the audience more fully!

These trainers rarely are born talents. They usually are very hardworking people who go through intensive training before even achieving a fraction of what they are today. What I hope to put across is this. If you want to be a great speaker, you have to start practising today. Put yourself in situations where you will be forced to speak. Train yourself daily and I guarantee you, one day you will find yourself speaking almost like them.

I’m going to begin this post with a question.

How many of you notice that you get into different moods when you listen to different kinds of music?

For instance, do you realise that when you’re feeling heartbroken and happen to listen to a love song, the feeling of depression just multiplies a 100 fold? Also, when you’re feeling sleepy, you might listen to loud music with strong, heavy beats to get that additional rush?

That is the power of music, the power of sound.

Sound has been used in many different instances to control the mood of an audience. Music is used in movies to swing the audience between states. The classic example of successful use of sound was in the movie ‘Jaws’. Everytime a shark was about to appear, the same music would play and then ‘wham!’ the shark would appear!

Here’s a thought to think about.

You most probably know that different sounds can put you in different states. How do you think you will benefit if you used sound to constantly keep yourself in your most resourceful state?

Let’s do a quick activity to determine the kinds of sounds that will put you in your best state for peak performance!

1) Think of 4 different resourceful states you must have to perform at your peak.
Eg. For me, I have

i)    feeling powerful
ii)    feeling happy
iii)   feeling loved
iv)   feeling motivated

Quick, do step 1 now! Once you have your 4 states, you are ready to move on to step 2.
2) I need you to think of different sounds to represent the 4 different states listed. In other words, what kind of sound do you listen to, to get yourself motivated, to get yourself to feel powerful, etc.
Eg. For me,
i)    people clapping
ii)    listening to the song ‘Be my girl’ by Jet
iii)    listening to the song ‘Have yourself a merry lil christmas’
iv)    having a crowd of 1000 people saying ‘COME ON!!’

Once you’re done with step 2, give yourself a pat on the back! You are halfway through the process!

3) Once you have all the different sounds, you need to know where these sounds originate from. Are they coming from the top? Is it a kind of surround sound? Are the people shouting at you straight in the face?

In short, you can place your sounds in 6 positions. Front, back, left, right, top and/or bottom.

4) The last thing you need to do is imagine all these sounds coming at you - all at once! Then slowly increase the volume until it becomes deafening and then tadaa! You will suddenly find yourself in a super resourceful state with all the drive and motivation.

Let me know what this does for you! OUT!

All of us have only 24 hours a day. While some people seem to be able to accomplish feats in the span of a day, many of us struggle by finding it almost impossible to even starting our tasks.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could find a way to function like the first group of people? Wouldn’t it be great if you could stop procrastinating and start working on things now?

Well, I have great news for you! Met up with a couple of friends last night and they shared with me steps or things I could do to prioritise my time and to start the ball rolling!

Step one : Plan the night before.
Plan, plan, plan, for if you fail to plan, then you are planning to fail. Sounds familiar? While this step sounds trivial and unimportant, I have found that planning and working towards a goal actually serves to provide a source of motivation and energy! You will also find that you will be able to accomplish more in a day because you already know what you want!

Do not fall into the group of people who always ask themselves ‘So what should I do next…’ because by the time you think of something and sit down to actually doing it, a day might have passed!

Step 2 - Prioritise
We all have important things to do in life. To some it might be replying hundreds of emails, to others it might be sitting down and watching that t.v. show and yet to others, it might be spending time with your family. Given that we have so many ‘important’ things to accomplish in life, it is little wonder why many people, myself included, complain about the lack of time!

Therefore, in order to achieve the most out of your time, you have to prioritise! How do you do it? Let’s group our daily activities into 4 main groups.

Group 1 : Create value and urgent
Eg. An assignment or project that is due for submission very soon,
These are the things that create the most value for us (monetary) and are the most urgent hence require the most attention. Failure to produce would result in suicide.

Group 2 : Create value non urgent
Eg. Self improvement, reading books to increase personal value, studying, exercising,
These are the things in life that help increase our value but are not due in the near future. In my opinion, this is the 2nd most important group and more time has to be allocated to this group.
Group 3 : Urgent
Eg. Replying emails, returning smses, returning phone calls,
These are the things that many people mistake for top priority and do them instead of their jobs. As these activities do not create any value, I feel that emphasis on them has to decrease and the time allocated has to be less.

Group 4 : No value and non urgent
Eg. Watching t.v., surfing the internet for fun, playing computer games,
These are the activities that do not add value to our lives and are things I feel we can do without.
In sum, 80% of our time should be devoted to the groups 1 and 2 and 20% of our time to groups 3 and 4. That way, more things will be accomplished and you will feel a greater sense of achievement at the end of the day!

Just for laughs : Can you imagine what it’d feel like if someone came along and asked ’so what did you do today’ and you went ‘I cleared 200 emails!’

See my point?

Step 3 - The most important question of all
Before you begin any assignment, ask yourself this.

‘If I had only half an hour to do this, what would I do?’

This question will help your brain focus and zoom in with laser accuracy on things that are important and need to be accomplished.

Hope you’ve found this post useful. Drop me a comment!

Reading my last entry, I realised I’d better clarify some things before you start to get confused! What do I mean? Last time I mentioned modelling, matching and mirroring, I failed to include when to do so, how to do it and so on. So how exactly do you match and mirror someone?

Everyone has their own unique set of gestures, facial expressions, posture and personal space. Simply put, different people exhibit different patterns of body language!

When you are matching someone’s posture, you have to notice how they stand, how and where they position their arms and feet. Also, notice the angle which they have their head tilted. A head tilted slightly indicates interest, a head slanted down indicates negativity and doubt. Why are you doing this? This is important because similarity breeds rapport. A similar posture allows you to tap and get a rough feel of the other party’s psychological makeup!

The next thing you can mirror is someone’s gestures. Many people are limited to a set of gestures unique to them. Some people may wave their hands wildly when they engage in conversation, others may fidget. Still others may rub their arms or scratch. A word of caution, when you are mirroring or matching someone’s gestures, do it with a tinge of SUBTLETY!!! Do not attempt to fold your arms or scratch your nose at the same time as your client/date! He may get the wrong idea and think that you are poking fun or imitating him!

Also, do pay attention to your client’s/date’s facial expression. Although I have found this to be slightly more challenging, it does reveal so much about a person when you master it! Universal facial expressions include smiling when you’re happy and frowning when you’re sad or dissatisfied. Research and studies have also shown that a person’s eye movement can tell you rather accurately the part of the brain a person is accessing. For instance, when looking upwards, people tend to be thinking in pictures etc.

What a great mouthful of information! And I haven’t even started on personal space yet! If all this seems so foreign and too much for you, fret not! Take this oppotunity to stretch yourself! Allow yourself to grow to be able to read and absorb more! Trust me! Step by step, little by little, all your improvements will add up!

Ready for the last part? Here we go!

Personal space, while many find it trivial, is the distance between you and your contact. Some people may be slightly claustrophobic and will feel uneasy when people stand too near. Others may prefer closeness and even some form of contact! So position yourself at varying distance and see how your client reacts!

I cannot stress the importance of building great rapport, both for working and social purposes.

Out!

Hey there! Welcome back!

The fact that you’re reading this only goes to show that you would like to know how to establishing rapport with anybody instantly!

What is rapport?

Have you ever bumped into someone for the first time and just totally clicked with them? You felt as though you were both running on the same frequency or the same ‘channel’! No lame openings like “so, erm… what do you do for a living…” or small talk about the weather. Instead, you managed to speak openly and freely about just anything under the sun?

At the same time, have you met someone only to detest them at first sight? You felt as though they were ’shifty’, could’nt be trusted and just didnt understand your point. Everything they said and did, every small little gesture, every word they uttered, just seemed to irritate you more and more and more?

That, is the magic of rapport. Observe it, and you will be on your way to success!
So comes the big question at this point. How do you build instantenous rapport - easily?

Traditionally, many books mention things like using the other persons name frequently or others like sincere compliments. While this is great, lets face it, it doesn’t always work! I’m sure you can think of times when the more you heard your name the more pissed you felt, or ’sincere’ compliments from people just felt like apple polishing. So what is the huge secret?

Using principles from NLP, neuro-linguistic programming, building rapport is as simple as ABC!
First of all, you must understand and respect the other party’s attitudes, beliefs and values.

Next, you will have to adopt similar physiology, tonality and language patterns.

In a nutshell, you HAVE to match them! Or even better still, mirror them to make them feel as if they were ’seeing’ themselves, or even talking to themselves! Don’t believe me? Let’s carry out an ‘experiment’, just to show you how people have been applying this concept, on a daily basis, subconsiously!

The next time you’re out waiting for a friend or a bus, notice how people in groups communicate and behave. If you notice, the people in that group actually look as if they were engaged in a dance! Every sentence, hand gesture and movement is complimented smoothly by another! Now do you see the importance of matching?

That’s pretty much it! I will go into the finer details in my next entry! So just be patient!

Watch this space!

P.S. Because I’m transferring my posts from an earlier blog I had, you might have already read this before!

“Whether you say you can or you can’t, you’re right!”
Everything we do is affected by what we say! Whether you’re talking on the phone or to yourself (yes, we do talk to ourselves) what we say will ultimately determine the results that we get!

Imagine being able to get the very best out of life! To achieve excellent results in your studies, to command the highest salary in your career and to be the envy of your friends! Imagine being the Tiger Woods of your industry! Have I got your attention yet?

Words that come out from our mouths speak alot of our values, beliefs and attitude towards life. Unless we can properly optimize our values, beliefs and attitudes, life will be a constant contradiction! Don’t know what I mean? Here’s an example. Many times I’ve come across friends who say that they would like to be rich. They want to be millionaires, period. Then I ask them, at that instant, what they really really want to do in life. Guess what they said? Did they tell me that they were going to find ways and means to get to the million? NO! Majority of them wanted to ‘chill out’ by the beach or just laze around! In fact, many of them were not planning and working towards getting rich!

It’s no wonder why so many of us feel confused and lost in life! Alot of times we act like walking contradictions! Now do you understand the importance of aligning your values?

Enough said. If you’d like to know so much more, and be the person you’ve always wanted to be, check out :

1) Unlimited Power : The New Science Of Personal Achievement
2) How to master your mind and design your destiny - Adam Khoo

Click on the title of the books!

Hope you will be able to find what you want in life!

Out!