Personal Development

Self-Discipline

Template User — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 10:07:41 PST

The Five Pillars of Self-Discipline

The five pillars of self-discipline are: Acceptance, Willpower, Hard Work, Industry, and Persistence. If you take the first letter of each word, you get the acronym �??A WHIP�?? �?? a convenient way to remember them, since many people associate self-discipline with whipping themselves into shape.Each day of the series, I�??ll explore one of these pillars, explaining why it�??s important and how to develop it. But first a general overview�?�.

What Is Self-Discipline?

Self-discipline is the ability to get yourself to take action regardless of your emotional state.Imagine what you could accomplish if you could simply get yourself to follow through on your best intentions no matter what. Picture yourself saying to your body, �??You�??re overweight. Lose 20 pounds.�?? Without self-discipline that intention won�??t become manifest. But with sufficient self-discipline, it�??s a done deal. The pinnacle of self-discipline is when you reach the point that when you make a conscious decision, it�??s virtually guaranteed you�??ll follow through on it.Self-discipline is one of many personal development tools available to you. Of course it is not a panacea. Nevertheless, the problems which self-discipline can solve are important, and while there are other ways to solve these problems, self-discipline absolutely shreds them. Self-discipline can empower you to overcome any addiction or lose any amount of weight. It can wipe out procrastination, disorder, and ignorance. Within the domain of problems it can solve, self-discipline is simply unmatched. Moreover, it becomes a powerful teammate when combined with other tools like passion, goal-setting, and planning.

Building Self-Discipline

My philosophy of how to build self-discipline is best explained by an analogy. Self-discipline is like a muscle. The more you train it, the stronger you become. The less you train it, the weaker you become.Just as everyone has different muscular strength, we all possess different levels of self-discipline. Everyone has some �?? if you can hold your breath a few seconds, you have some self-discipline. But not everyone has developed their discipline to the same degree.Just as it takes muscle to build muscle, it takes self-discipline to build self-discipline.The way to build self-discipline is analogous to using progressive weight training to build muscle. This means lifting weights that are close to your limit. Note that when you weight train, you lift weights that are within your ability to lift. You push your muscles until they fail, and then you rest.Similarly, the basic method to build self-discipline is to tackle challenges that you can successfully accomplish but which are near your limit. This doesn�??t mean trying something and failing at it every day, nor does it mean staying within your comfort zone. You will gain no strength trying to lift a weight that you cannot budge, nor will you gain strength lifting weights that are too light for you. You must start with weights/challenges that are within your current ability to lift but which are near your limit.
Progressive training means that once you succeed, you increase the challenge. If you keep working out with the same weights, you won�??t get any stronger. Similarly, if you fail to challenge yourself in life, you won�??t gain any more self-discipline.Just as most people have very weak muscles compared to how strong they could become with training, most people are very weak in their level of self-discipline.It�??s a mistake to try to push yourself too hard when trying to build self-discipline. If you try to transform your entire life overnight by setting dozens of new goals for yourself and expecting yourself to follow through consistently starting the very next day, you�??re almost certain to fail. This is like a person going to the gym for the first time ever and packing 300 pounds on the bench press. You will only look silly.If you can only lift 10 lbs, you can only lift 10 lbs. There�??s no shame in starting where you are. I recall when I began working with a personal trainer several years ago, on my first attempt at doing a barbell shoulder press, I could only lift a 7-lb bar with no weight on it. My shoulders were very weak because I�??d never trained them. But within a few months I was up to 60 lbs.Similarly, if you�??re very undisciplined right now, you can still use what little discipline you have to build more. The more disciplined you become, the easier life gets. Challenges that were once impossible for you will eventually seem like child�??s play. As you get stronger, the same weights will seem lighter and lighter.Don�??t compare yourself to other people. It won�??t help. You�??ll only find what you expect to find. If you think you�??re weak, everyone else will seem stronger. If you think you�??re strong, everyone else will seem weaker. There�??s no point in doing this. Simply look at where you are now, and aim to get better as you go forward.Let�??s consider an example.Suppose you want to develop the ability to do 8 solid hours of work each day, since you know it will make a real difference in your career. I was listening to an audio program this morning that quoted a study saying the average office worker spends 37% of their time in idle socializing, not to mention other vices that chew up more than 50% of work time with unproductive non-work. So there�??s plenty of room for improvement.Perhaps you try to work a solid 8-hour day without succumbing to distractions, and you can only do it once. The next day you fail utterly. That�??s OK. You did one rep of 8 hours. Two is too much for you. So cut back a bit. What duration would allow you to successfully do 5 reps (i.e. a whole week)? Could you work with concentration for one hour a day, five days in a row? If you can�??t do that, cut back to 30 minutes or whatever you can do. If you succeed (or if you feel that would be too easy), then increase the challenge (i.e. the resistance).Once you�??ve mastered a week at one level, take it up a notch the next week. And continue with this progressive training until you�??ve reached your goal.While analogies like this are never perfect, I�??ve gotten a lot of mileage out of this one. By raising the bar just a little each week, you stay within your capabilities and grow stronger over time. But when doing weight training, the actual work you do doesn�??t mean anything. There�??s no intrinsic benefit in lifting a weight up and down �?? the benefit comes from the muscle growth. However, when building self-discipline, you also get the benefit of the work you�??ve done along the way, so that�??s even better. It�??s great when your training produces something of value AND makes you stronger.Throughout this week we�??ll dive more deeply into the five pillars of self-discipline. If you have any questions on the subject of self-discipline (either specific or general) that you�??d like to see addressed, feel free to post them as comments, and I do my best to incorporate them along the way.

The first of the five pillars of self-discipline is acceptance. Acceptance means that you perceive reality accurately and consciously acknowledge what you perceive.This may sound simple and obvious, but in practice it�??s extremely difficult. If you experience chronic difficulties in a particular area of your life, there�??s a strong chance that the root of the problem is a failure to accept reality as it is.Why is acceptance a pillar of self-discipline? The most basic mistake people make with respect to self-discipline is a failure to accurately perceive and accept their present situation. If you�??re going to succeed at weight training, the first step is to figure out what weights you can already lift. How strong are you right now? Until you figure out where you stand right now, you cannot adopt a sensible training program.If you haven�??t consciously acknowledged where you stand right now in terms of your level of self-discipline, it�??s highly unlikely that you�??re going to improve at all in this area. Imagine a would-be bodybuilder who has no idea how much weight s/he can lift and arbitrarily adopts a training routine. It�??s virtually certain that the chosen weights will be either too heavy or too light. If the weights are too heavy, the trainee won�??t be able to lift them at all and thus will experience no muscle growth. And if the weights are too light, the trainee will lift them easily but won�??t build any muscle in doing so.Similarly, if you want to increase your self-discipline, you must know where you stand right now. How strong is your discipline at this moment? Which challenges are easy for you, and which are virtually impossible for you?Here�??s a list of challenges to get you thinking about where you stand right now (in no particular order):

Do you shower/bathe every day?
Do you get up at the same time every morning? Including weekends?
Are you overweight?
Do you have any addictions (caffeine, nicotine, sugar, etc.) you�??d like to break but haven�??t?
Is your email inbox empty right now?
Is your office neat and well organized?
Is your home neat and well organized?
How much time do you waste in a typical day? On a weekend?
If you make a promise to someone, what�??s the percentage chance you�??ll keep it?
If you make a promise to yourself, what�??s the percentage chance you�??ll keep it?
Could you fast for one day?
How well organized is your computer�??s hard drive?
How often do you exercise?
What�??s the greatest physical challenge you�??ve ever faced, and how long ago was it?
How many hours of focused work do you complete in a typical workday?
How many items on your to do list are older than 90 days?
Do you have clear, written goals?
Do you have written plans to achieve them?
If you lost your job, how much time would you spend each day looking for a new one, and how long would you maintain that level of effort?
How much TV do you currently watch?
Could you give up TV for 30 days?
How do you look right now?
What does your appearance say about your level of discipline (clothes, grooming, etc)?Do you primarily select foods to eat based on health considerations or on taste/satiety?
When was the last time you consciously adopted a positive new habit? Discontinued a bad habit?Are you in debt?
Do you consider this debt an investment or a mistake?
Did you decide in advance to be reading this blog right now, or did it just happen?
Can you tell me what you�??ll be doing tomorrow? Next weekend?On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your overall level of self-discipline?
What more could you accomplish if you could answer that last question with a 9 or 10?

Just as there are different muscle groups which you train with different exercises, there are different areas of self-discipline: disciplined sleep, disciplined diet, disciplined work habits, disciplined communication, etc. It takes different exercises to build discipline in each area.My advice is to identify an area where your discipline is weakest, assess where you stand right now, acknowledge and accept your starting point, and design a training program for yourself to improve in this area. Start out with some easy exercises you know you can do, and gradually progress to greater challenges.Progressive training works with self-discipline just as it does with building muscle. For example, if you can barely get out of bed at 10am, are you likely to succeed at waking up at 5am every morning? Probably not. But could you master getting up at 9:45am? Very likely. And once you�??ve done that, could you progress to 9:30 or 9:15? Sure. When I started getting up at 5am consistently, I had already done it several times for a few days in a row, and my normal wake-up time was 6-6:30am, so that next step was challenging but achievable for me partly because I was already within range of it.Without acceptance you get either ignorance or denial. With ignorance you simply don�??t know how disciplined you are �?? you�??ve probably never even thought about it. You don�??t know that you don�??t know. You�??ll only have a fuzzy notion of what you can and can�??t do. You�??ll experience some easy successes and some dismal failures, but you�??re more likely to blame the task or blame yourself instead of simply acknowledging that the �??weight�?? was too heavy for you and that you need to become stronger.When you�??re in a state of denial about your level of discipline, you�??re locked into a false view of reality. You�??re either overly pessimistic or optimistic about your capabilities. And like the trainee who doesn�??t know his/her own strength, you won�??t get much better because it�??s unlikely you�??ll be able to hit the proper training zone by accident. On the pessimistic side, you�??ll only pick up easy weights and avoid the heavy ones which you could actually lift and which would make you stronger. And on the optimistic side, you�??ll keep trying to lift weights that are too heavy for you and failing, and afterwards you may either beat yourself up or resolve to try harder, neither of which will make you stronger.I have personally reaped tremendous benefits from pursuing the path of self-discipline. When I was 20 years old, I lived in a small studio apartment, and my sleep hours were something like 4am to 1pm. My diet included lots of fast food and junk food. I didn�??t exercise except for sometimes taking long walks. Getting the mail seemed like a significant accomplishment each day, and the highlight of my day was hanging out with friends. At the end of a month, I couldn�??t really think of many salient events that occurred during the month. I had no job, no car, no income, no goals, no plans, and no real future. All I felt I had was a lot of problems that weren�??t getting any better. I had no sense that I could control my path through life. I would simply wait for things to happen and then react to them.But eventually I faced the reality that trying to wait out my life wasn�??t working. If I was going to get anywhere, I was going to have to do something about it. And initially this meant tackling a lot of difficult challenges, but I overcame them and grew a lot stronger in a short period of time.Fast forward fourteen years, and it�??s like night and day. I get up at 5am each morning. I exercise six days a week. I eat a purely vegan diet with lots of fresh vegetables. My home office is well organized. My physical inbox and my email inbox are both empty. I�??m married with two kids and live in a nice house. A binder sits on my desk with my written goals and detailed plans to achieve them, and several of my 2005 goals have already been accomplished. I�??ve never been more clear about what I wanted, and I�??m doing what I love. I know I�??m making a difference.None of this just happened. It was intentional. And it certainly didn�??t happen overnight. It took a lot of years of hard work. It�??s still hard work, but I�??ve become a lot stronger such that things that would have been insurmountable for me at age 20 are easy today, which means I can tackle bigger challenges and therefore achieve even better results. If I had tried to do everything I�??m doing now when I was 20, I would have failed utterly. 20-year old Steve wouldn�??t have been able to handle it, not even for one day. But for 34-year old Steve, it�??s easy. And what�??s really exciting for me is to think of what 48-year old Steve will be able to accomplish�?� relative to my life path of course, not anyone else�??s.I AM telling you this to impress you, not with me but with yourself. I want you to be impressed by what you can accomplish over the next 5-10 years if you progressively build your self-discipline. It will not be easy, but it will be worth it. The first step is to openly accept where you are right now, whether you feel good about it or not. Surrender yourself to what you have to work with �?? maybe it isn�??t fair, but it is what it is. And you won�??t get any stronger until you accept where you are right now.

The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will.
- Vince Lombardi

Willpower �?? such a dirty word these days. How many commercials have you seen that attempt to position their products as a substitute for willpower? They begin by telling you that willpower doesn�??t work and then attempt to sell you something �??fast and easy�?? like a diet pill or some wacky exercise equipment. Often they�??ll even guarantee impossible results in a dramatically short period of time �?? that�??s a safe bet because people who lack willpower probably won�??t take the time to return these useless products.But guess what�?� willpower does work. But in order to take full advantage of it, you must learn what it can and cannot do. People who say willpower doesn�??t work are trying to use it in a way that�??s beyond its capabilities.

What Is Willpower?

Willpower is your ability to set a course of action and say, �??Engage!�??Willpower provides an intensely powerful yet temporary boost. Think of it as a one-shot thruster. It burns out quickly, but if directed intelligently, it can provide the burst you need to overcome inertia and create momentum.Willpower is the spearhead of self-discipline. To use a World War II analogy, willpower would be D-Day, the Normandy Invasion. It was the gigantic battle that turned the tide of the war and got things moving in a new direction, even though it took another year to reach VE Day (Victory in Europe). To make that kind of effort every day of the war would have been impossible.Willpower is a concentration of force. You gather up all your energy and make a massive thrust forward. You attack your problems strategically at their weakest points until they crack, allowing you enough room to maneuver deeper into their territory and finish them off.
The application of willpower includes the following steps:
Choose your objective
Create a plan of attack
Execute the plan

With willpower you may take your time implementing steps 1 and 2, but when you get to step 3, you�??ve got to hit it hard and fast.Don�??t try to tackle your problems and challenges in such a way that a high level of willpower is required every day. Willpower is unsustainable. If you attempt to use it for too long, you�??ll burn out. It requires a level of energy that you can maintain only for a short period of time�?� in most cases the fuel is spent within a matter of days.

Use Willpower to Create Self-Sustaining Momentum

So if willpower can only be used in short, powerful bursts, then what�??s the best way to apply it? How do you keep from slipping back into old patterns once the temporary willpower blast is over?The best way to use willpower is to establish a beachhead, such that further progress can be made with far less effort than is required of the initial thrust. Remember D-Day �?? once the Allies had established a beachhead, the road ahead was much easier for them. It was still challenging to be sure, especially with the close quarters fighting among hedge rows in France before the Rhino Tanks began plowing through them, but it was a lot easier than trying to maintain the focus, energy, and coordination of a full scale beach invasion every single day for another year.So the proper use of willpower is to establish that beachhead �?? to permanently change the territory itself such that it�??s easier to continue moving on. Use willpower to reduce the ongoing need for such a high level of sustained force.

An Example

Let�??s put all of the above together into a concrete example.Suppose your objective is to lose 20 pounds. You attempt to go on a diet. It takes willpower, and you do OK with it the first week. But within a few weeks you�??ve fallen back into old habits and gained all the weight back. You try again with different diets, but the result is still the same. You can�??t sustain momentum for long enough to reach your goal weight.That�??s to be expected though because willpower is temporary. It�??s for sprints, not marathons. Willpower requires conscious focus, and conscious focus is very draining �?? it cannot be maintained for long. Something will eventually distract you.Here�??s how to tackle that same goal with the proper application of willpower. You accept that you can only apply a short burst of willpower�?� maybe a few days at best. After that it�??s gone. So you�??d better use that willpower to alter the territory around you in such a way that maintaining momentum won�??t be as hard as building it in the first place. You need to use your willpower to establish a beachhead on the shores of your goal.So you sit down and make a plan. This doesn�??t require much energy, and you can spread the work out over many days.You identify all the various targets you�??ll need to strike if you want to have a chance of success. First, all the junk food needs to leave your kitchen, including anything you have a tendency to overeat, and you need to replace it with foods that will help you lose weight, like fruits and veggies. Secondly, you know you�??ll be tempted to get fast food if you come home hungry and don�??t have anything ready to eat, so you decide to pre-cook a week�??s worth of food in advance each weekend. That way you always have something in the refrigerator. You set aside a block of several hours each weekend to buy groceries and cook all your food for the week. Plus you get a decent cookbook of healthy recipes. You learn about Weight Watchers, and find out where the closest one is to you, so you can go to the first meeting and sign-up. Setup a weight chart and post it on your bathroom wall. Get a decent scale that can measure weight and body fat %. Make a list of sample meals (5 breakfasts, 5 lunches, and 5 dinners), and post it on your refrigerator. And so on�?�. At this point all of this goes into the written plan.Then you execute �?? hard and fast. You can probably implement the whole plan in one day. Attend your first Weight Watchers meeting and get all the materials. Purge the unhealthy food from the kitchen. Buy the new groceries, the new cookbook, and the new scale. Post the weight chart and the sample meals list. Select recipes and cook a batch of food for the week. Whew!By the end of the day, you�??ve used your willpower not to diet directly but to establish the conditions that will make your diet easier to follow. When you wake up the next morning, you�??ll find your environment dramatically changed in accordance with your plan. Your fridge will be stocked with plenty of pre-cooked healthy food for you to eat. There won�??t be any junkie problem foods in your home. You�??ll be a member of Weight Watchers and will have weekly meetings to attend. You�??ll have a regular block of time set aside for grocery shopping and food prep. It will still require some discipline to follow your diet, but you�??ve already changed things so much that it won�??t be nearly as difficult as it would be without these changes.Don�??t use willpower to attack your biggest problem directly. Use willpower to attack the environmental and social obstacles that perpetuate the problem. Establish a beachhead first, and then fortify your position. Habit puts action on autopilot, such that very little willpower is required for ongoing progress, allowing you to practically coast towards your goal.

The big secret in life is that there is no big secret. Whatever your goal, you can get there if you�??re willing to work.
- Oprah Winfrey

Hard work �?? yet another dirty word.

Hard Work Defined

My definition of hard work is that which challenges you.
And why is challenge important? Why not just do what�??s easiest?
Most people will do what�??s easiest and avoid hard work �?? and that�??s precisely why you should do the opposite. The superficial opportunities of life will be attacked by hordes of people seeking what�??s easy. The much tougher challenges will usually see a lot less competition and a lot more opportunity.
There�??s an African gold mine two miles deep. It cost tens of millions of dollars to construct, but it�??s one of the most lucrative gold mines ever. These miners tackled a very challenging problem with a lot of hard work, but ultimately it�??s paying off.
I remember when I was developing the PC game Dweep in 1999, I spent four months full-time working to create a design doc that was only five pages long. It was a logic puzzle game, and I found it extremely challenging to get the design just right. After the design was done, everything else took only two more months �?? programming, artwork, music, sound effects, writing the installer, and launching the game.
I spent all this time intentionally working on design because at the time, I believed this was where I could get the competitive edge I needed. I knew I couldn�??t compete on the basis of the game�??s technical attributes. Before I started on the game, I surveyed the competition and found a lot of games that I considered �??low hanging fruit.�?? Most of the market was flooded with clones of older games, the kind of stuff that�??s easiest to make. And most of my early games were short on design as well, mostly aim-and-shoot arcade games.
It was much, much harder to design an original game with unique gameplay. But it paid off handsomely. Dweep won the Shareware Industry Award in 2000, and an improved version of the game (Dweep Gold) won that same award the following year. As a result of the success of that game, I was interviewed by a reporter for the New York Times, and my interview along with a nice photo appeared in the June 13, 2001 edition (business section). First released on June 1, 1999, Dweep is now beginning its 7th year of sales. It can�??t compete with today�??s technology. It couldn�??t compete on technology when it was first released. But it still competes well on design with the best of the other competitors in its field. I discovered there are a lot of players who prefer a well-designed game with dated graphics than a shallow light show with the latest technology. The long-term success of this game brought home the lesson that hard work does pay.
There�??s no way Dweep would have been able to hold out this long if I had taken the easy way out during the design phase. I dug for gold two miles deep, so it was much harder for anyone else to unseat the game from its position in the market. In order to do that, they�??d have to outdig me, and very few people are willing to do that because creative game design is excruciatingly difficult. Everyone says they have a cool game idea, but to actually turn it into something workable, fun, and innovative is very hard work. When I look at other games that are successful over a period of 5+ years, I consistently see a willingness to take on hard work that others aren�??t willing to tackle. And yet today the market is even more overcrowded with cloned drivel than when I started.
Strong challenge is commonly connected with strong results. Sure you can get lucky every once in a while and find an easy path to success. But will you be able to maintain that success, or is it just a fluke? Will you be able to repeat it? Once other people learn how you did it, will you find yourself overloaded with competition?
When you discipline yourself to do what is hard, you gain access to a realm of results that are denied everyone else. The willingness to do what is difficult is like having a key to a special private treasure room.
The nice thing about hard work is that it�??s universal. It doesn�??t matter what industry you�??re in �?? hard work can be used to achieve positive long-term results regardless of the specifics.
I�??m using this same philosophy in building this personal development business. I do a lot of things that are hard. I try to address topics that other people don�??t and bypass the low hanging fruit. I strive to explore topics deeply and search for the gold. I do lots of reading and research. I write lengthy articles and give my best ideas away for free, so I�??m constantly forced to better my best. I launched this business in October of last year and have been working on it full time for essentially no pay.
Meanwhile I�??m working hard in Toastmasters to build my speaking skills (my one-year anniversary was June 2nd). I belong to two different clubs and attend 6-7 meetings per month. I became a club officer about a month after joining, and I was just elected to a second officer position. I�??ve given many speeches, all of them for free. I�??ve competed in every speech contest since I�??ve joined. If I had put all this time into my games business, I�??d have a lot more money right now. It�??s a lot of hard work, and I�??ve probably got at least another year of training before I�??m ready to go pro. But I�??m willing to pay the price whatever it takes. I�??m not going to take the easy path to a shallow position where I will only come crashing back down again. I won�??t get up on a stage and spout a bunch of fluffy self-help sound bites that still garner applause and a paycheck but which don�??t ultimately help anyone. If it takes years, it takes years.
I�??m taking the same approach to writing my book. It�??s a lot of hard work. But I want this to be the kind of book that people will still be reading 10 years from now. Writing a book like this is at least 10x harder than the kinds of books I see dominating the psychology section of bookstores today. But most of those books will be off the shelves in a year, and few people will even remember them.
Hard work pays off. When someone tells you otherwise, beware the sales pitch for something �??fast and easy�?? that�??s about to come next. The greater your capacity for hard work, the more rewards fall within your grasp. The deeper you can dig, the more treasure you can potentially find.
Being healthy is hard work. Finding and maintaining a successful relationship is hard work. Raising kids is hard work. Getting organized is hard work. Setting goals, making plans to achieve them, and staying on track is hard work. Even being happy is hard work (true happiness that comes from high self-esteem, not the fake kind that comes from denial and escapism).
Hard work goes hand-in-hand with acceptance. One of the things you must accept are those areas of your life that won�??t succumb to anything less than hard work. Perhaps you�??ve had no luck finding a fulfilling relationship. Maybe the only way it�??s going to happen is if you accept you�??re going to have to do what you�??ve been avoiding. Perhaps you want to lose weight. Maybe it�??s time to accept that the path to your goal requires disciplined diet and exercise (both hard work). Perhaps you want to increase your income. Maybe you should accept that the only way it will happen is with a lot of hard work.
Your life will reach a whole new level when you stop avoiding and fearing hard work and simply surrender to it. Make it your ally instead of your enemy. It�??s a potent tool to have on your side.

Industry is working hard. In contrast to hard work, being industrious doesn�??t necessarily mean doing work that�??s challenging or difficult. It simply means putting in the time. You can be industrious doing easy work or hard work.
Imagine you have a baby. You�??ll spend a lot of time changing diapers. But that isn�??t really hard work �?? it�??s just a matter of doing it over and over many times each day.
In life there are many tasks that aren�??t necessarily difficult, but they collectively require a significant time investment. If you don�??t discipline yourself to stay on top of them, they can make a big mess of your life. Just think of all the little things you need to do: shopping, cooking, cleaning, laundry, taxes, paying bills, home maintenance, childcare, etc. And this is just for home �?? if you include work the list grows even longer. These things may not reach your A-list for importance, but they still need to be done.
Self-discipline requires that you develop the capacity to put in the time where it�??s needed. A lot of messes are created when we refuse to put in the time to do what needs to be done �?? and to do it correctly. Such messes range from a messy desk or cluttered email inbox all the way down to an Enron or Worldcom. Big mess or small mess �?? take your pick. Either way a significant contributing factor is the refusal to do what needs to be done.
Sometimes it�??s clear what needs to be done. Sometimes it isn�??t clear at all. But ignoring the mess won�??t help no matter what. If you don�??t know what needs to be done, the first step is to figure it out. This may require you to seek out information and educate yourself. In order to launch this blog last year, I had to figure out how to do it. I took time to educate myself by reading other blogs and evaluating various blogging tools. It wasn�??t difficult for me, but it required a significant time investment.
Sometimes we allow little annoyances to linger a bit too long. In January my wife and I bought a new house. But it was only last weekend we finally unpacked the last box. We did most of the unpacking in the first few weeks after the move, but a couple boxes were shoved into a corner, and neither one of us wanted to unpack them. Why? We didn�??t know where to put the stuff they contained. It seemed simplest to just ignore the problem and hope the boxes would magically unpack themselves. Finally we got them unpacked last weekend and took care of a few other home repairs that had been on the back burner as well.
It wasn�??t difficult or costly to do these things. It was simply a matter of time to get them done. It didn�??t require much skill or brainpower. All we had to do was just accept that they needed to be done, take a few minutes to figure out how to do them, and then do them.

Put in the Time

There are many problems in life where the solution is largely a brainless time investment. If your email inbox is overloaded, this is not a challenging problem. Believe me �?? there are bigger challenges in life than handling old correspondence. I guarantee you have the brainpower to handle it. Getting your email inbox to empty is purely a matter of time. Maybe it will take you several hours to do it. If it�??s worth several hours to get it done, then put in the time. Maybe enjoy some relaxing music as you do. Otherwise just hit Ctrl-A followed by Delete, and be done with it.
How many problems do you have on your to do list right now that can be solved with the simple application of industry? Sometimes you don�??t need to be particularly creative or clever about it �?? a brute force solution will do. But it�??s easy to get stuck in a pattern of wishing that a brute force solution wasn�??t necessary. It�??s tedious. It�??s boring. It�??s not that important anyway. And yet it still needs to be done.
By all means if you can find a way to avoid a time-consuming solution and find a faster or better way to bypass or eliminate the problem, take advantage of it. Delegate it, delete it �?? do whatever you can to remove the time burden. But if you know it�??s something that won�??t get done except via your personal time investment, like the ornery boxes in my home that refused to self-unpack, then just accept it and get it off your plate. Don�??t complain. Don�??t whine. Just do it.

Develop Your Personal Productivity

Disciplining yourself to be industrious allows you to squeeze more value out of your time. Time is a constant, but your personal productivity is not. Some people will use the hours of their day far more efficiently than others. It�??s amazing that people will spend extra money to buy a faster computer or a fuel efficient car, but they�??ll barely pay any attention to their personal capacity. Your personal productivity will do a lot more for you than a computer or a car in the long run. Give an industrious programmer a 10-year old computer, and s/he�??ll get much more done with it over the course of a year than a lazy programmer with state of the art technology.
Despite all the technology and gadgets we have available that can potentially make us more efficient, your personal productivity is still your greatest bottleneck. Don�??t look to technology to make you more productive. If you don�??t consider yourself productive without technology, you won�??t be productive with it �?? it will only serve to mask your bad habits. But if you�??re already industrious without technology, it can help you become even more so. Think of technology as a force multiplier �?? it multiplies what you already are.
If you want to make better use of your time, I recommend you begin with the approach in this article:Triple Your Personal Productivity
The basic idea behind the article is to first measure your current level of productivity (the article explains how to do this via time logging), measure your current �??efficiency ratio,�?? and then gradually ramp it up.
I first wrote that article in 2000, and I�??ve continually come back to this method again and again, at least once every six months. It makes me consciously aware of exactly how I use my time. I last applied it a few months ago, tracking my time usage over a period of several days, and I was surprised to find that there was little room for improvement. It took me five years since writing that article to reach this point, but I finally feel I�??m using my time efficiently. I still have unproductive days now and then, but they�??re the exception. Most of the time I look back on my days and think, �??I really got a lot done today. It would be hard to have done it any better.�??
Five years ago I knew what I needed to do. It took me that long to build the strength and discipline to be able to do it on a consistent basis. THIS WAS NOT EASY!
When you pursue the path of developing your personal productivity, it may cause you some days of hair-pulling and teeth-gnashing, but it does eventually pay off. I think many people are attracted to the idea of becoming more productive out of basic common sense. It doesn�??t take much brainpower to figure out that if you use your time more efficiently, you�??ll complete more tasks, and therefore you�??ll accumulate results faster. Personal productivity allows you to create enough space in your life to do all the things you feel you should be doing: eat healthy, exercise, work hard, deepen relationships, have a wonderful social life, and make a difference. Otherwise, something has to give. Without a high level of personal productivity, you�??ll likely have to give up something that�??s important to you. You have conflicts between health and work, work and family, family and friends. Industry can give you the ability to enjoy all of these things, so you don�??t have to choose work over family or vice versa. You can have both.
Of course industry is only one tool among many. It will allow you to complete your work efficiently, but it won�??t tell you what work to do in the first place. Industry is a low level tool. Working hard doesn�??t necessarily mean working smart. But this weakness of industry doesn�??t remove its powerful place in your personal development toolbox. Once you�??ve decided on a course of action and see your plans laid out in front of you, nothing can do the job as well as industry. In the long run your results will come from your actions, and industry is all about action.

Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan �??Press On�?? has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
- Calvin Coolidge

Persistence is the fifth and final pillar of self-discipline.

What Is Persistence?

Persistence is the ability to maintain action regardless of your feelings. You press on even when you feel like quitting.
When you work on any big goal, your motivation will wax and wane like waves hitting the shore. Sometimes you�??ll feel motivated; sometimes you won�??t. But it�??s not your motivation that will produce results �?? it�??s your action. Persistence allows you to keep taking action even when you don�??t feel motivated to do so, and therefore you keep accumulating results.
Persistence will ultimately provide its own motivation. If you simply keep taking action, you�??ll eventually get results, and results can be very motivating. For example, you may become a lot more enthusiastic about dieting and exercising once you�??ve lost those first 10 pounds and feel your clothes fitting more loosely.

When to Give Up

Should you always persist and never give up? Certainly not. Sometimes giving up is clearly the best option.
Have you ever heard of a company called Traf-O-Data? What about Microsoft? Both companies were started by Bill Gates and Paul Allen. Traf-O-Data was the first company they started, back in 1972. You can read the story of Traf-O-Data here. Gates and Allen ran it for several years before throwing in the towel. They gave up. Of course they did a little better with Microsoft.
If they hadn�??t given up on Traf-O-Data, then we wouldn�??t have such rich collections of Microsoft and Bill Gates jokes today.
So how do you know when to press on vs. when to give up?
Is your plan still correct? If not, update the plan. Is your goal still correct? If not, update or abandon your goal. There�??s no honor in clinging to a goal that no longer inspires you. Persistence is not stubbornness.
This was a particularly difficult lesson for me to learn. I had always believed one should never give up, that once you set a goal, you should hang on to the bitter end. The captain goes down with the ship and all that. If I ever failed to finish a project I started, I�??d feel very guilty about it.
Eventually I figured out that this is just nonsense.
If you�??re growing at all as a human being, then you�??re going to be a different person each year than you were the previous year. And if you consciously pursue personal development, then the changes will often be dramatic and rapid. You can�??t guarantee that the goals you set today will still be ones you�??ll want to achieve a year from now.
My first business was Dexterity Software. I started it in 1994, fresh out of college. But after running it for more than a decade, I was ready for something new. I still run Dexterity on the side, but it�??s not my full-time focus anymore. It takes me only about an hour or two a week to maintain it, partly because I designed it to be as automated as possible and to provide me with a passive income. It was successful to the extent I wanted it to be. I could have continued to grow it much larger, but I knew I didn�??t want to spend the rest of my life making computer games. Creating my own game company was my dream at age 22, and after publishing a couple dozen games, I feel I accomplished that goal. 22-year old Steve is very satisfied. But today I have different dreams.
Did I give up on Dexterity? You could say that, but it would be more accurate to say that I was infected by a new vision of something that was far more important to me. Had I stubbornly persisted with Dexterity, this site would never have existed. I�??d be working on a new game instead of my first book.
In order to make room for new goals, we have to delete or complete old ones. And sometimes new goals are so compelling and inspiring that there�??s no time to complete old ones �?? they have to be abandoned half-finished. I�??ve always found it uncomfortable to do this, but I know it�??s necessary. The hard part is consciously deciding to delete an old project, knowing it will never be finished. I have a file full of game ideas and some prototypes for new games that will never see the light of day. Consciously deciding that those projects have to be abandoned was really hard for me. It took me a long time to come to grips with it. But it was necessary for my own growth to be able to do this.
I still had to solve the problem of setting goals that might become obsolete in a year due to my own personal growth. How did I solve this problem? I cheated. I figured out the only way I could set long-term goals that would stick would be if they were aligned with my own process of growth. The pursuit of personal growth has long been a stable constant for me, even though it�??s paradoxically in flux at the same time. So instead of trying to set fixed goals as I did with my games business, I began setting broader more dynamic goals that were aligned with my own growth. This new business allows me to pursue my personal growth full-out and to share what I learn with others. So growth itself is the goal, both for myself and others. This creates a symbiotic relationship, whereby helping others feeds back into my own growth, which in turn generates new ideas for helping others. Anyone who�??s been reading this site since last year has probably seen that effect in action.
The direct and conscious pursuit of personal growth is the only type of mission that would work for me. If I made it my mission to master real estate investing, for example, I�??d probably become bored with it after a few years. Since I want to keep growing indefinitely, I have to maintain a certain level of challenge and keep raising the bar ever higher. I can�??t let things get too dull and risk falling into a pattern of complacency.
The value of persistence comes not from stubbornly clinging to the past. It comes from a vision of the future that�??s so compelling you would give almost anything to make it real. The vision I have of my future now is far greater than the one I had for Dexterity. To be able to help people grow and to solve their most difficult problems is far more inspiring to me than entertaining people. These values started oozing out of me as I ran Dexterity because I favored logic puzzle games that challenged people to think, often passing up the opportunity to publish games I felt would make money but which wouldn�??t provide much real value to people.
Persistence of action comes from persistence of vision. When you�??re super-clear about what you want in such a way that your vision doesn�??t change much, you�??ll be consistent in your actions. And that consistency of action will produce consistency of results.
Can you identify a part of your life where you�??ve demonstrated a pattern of long-term persistence? I think if you can identify such an area, it may provide a clue to your mission �?? something you can work towards where passion and self-discipline function synergistically.

Copyright by Steve Pavlina

Understanding Human Relationships

Template User — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 11:01:05 PDT

The relationships we have with other people are projections of the relationships we have within ourselves. Our external relationships and our internal relationships are in fact the same relationships. They only seem different because we look at them through different lenses.

Let�??s consider why this is true. Where do all your relationships exist? They exist in your thoughts. Your relationship with another person is whatever you imagine it to be. Whether you love someone or hate someone, you�??re right. Now the other person may have a completely different relationship to you, but understand that your representation of what someone else thinks of you is also part of your thoughts. So your relationship with someone includes what you think of that person and what you believe s/he thinks of you. You can complicate it further by imagining what the other person thinks you think of him/her, but ultimately those internal representations are all you have.

Even if your relationships exist in some objective reality independent of your thoughts, you never have access to the objective viewpoint. You�??re always viewing your relationships through the lens of your own consciousness. The closest you can get to being objective is to imagine being objective, but that is in no way the same thing as true objectivity. That�??s because the act of observation requires a conscious observer, which is subjective by its very nature.

At first it might seem troublesome that you can never hope to gain a truly accurate, 100% objective understanding of your relationships. You can never escape the subjective lens of your own consciousness. That would be like trying to find the color blue with a red lens permanently taped over your eyes. That doesn�??t stop people from trying, but such attempts are in vain. If you fall into the trap of trying to think of your relationships as objective entities that are external to you, you�??ll be using an inescapably inaccurate model of reality. Consequently, the likely outcome is that you�??ll frustrate yourself to no end when it comes to human relationships. You�??ll make relating to other people a lot harder than it needs to be. Intuitively you may know something is off in your approach to relationships, but you�??ll remain stuck until you realize that every relationship you have with another person is really a relationship that exists entirely within yourself.

Fortunately, once you embrace the subjective nature of relationships, you�??ll have a much easier time relating to people. It�??s easier to get where you want to go when you have an accurate map. The subjective view of relationships implies that you can change or improve your relationships with others by working on the internal relationships within yourself. Furthermore, you can improve your internal relationships, such as your self-esteem, by working on your relationships with others. Ultimately it�??s all the same thing.

Here�??s a basic example of how this works.

When I first met Erin, I quickly noticed she had an aversion towards orderliness. Having a messy room was a habit since childhood, and being organized was a concept forever alien to her. In Erin�??s filing cabinet, I once found a file labeled �??Stuff I Don�??t Need.�?? Chew on that for a while.

On the other hand, I grew up in a house that was always �?? and I do mean always �?? neat and tidy. Even as a child, I took pride in keeping my room clean and well organized. So it probably comes as no surprise that I often push Erin to be neater and more organized.

If we try to look at this situation �??objectively,�?? you might suggest solutions like me working on becoming more tolerant of disorder, Erin working on being neater, or a mixture of both. Or you might conclude we�??re incompatible in this area and that we should try to find ways to reduce the level of conflict. Basically the solution will be some kind of compromise that seeks to mitigate the symptoms, but the core issue remains unresolved.

Let�??s see what the subjective lens has to say now. This model says that my relationship with Erin is purely within my own consciousness. So my conflict with Erin is just the projection of an internal conflict. Supposedly my desire for Erin to be neater and more organized means that I really want to improve in this area myself. Is that true? Yes, I have to admit that it is. When I criticize Erin for not being neat enough, I�??m voicing my own desire to become even more organized.

This is an entirely different definition of the problem, one that suggests a new solution. In this case the solution is for me to work on improving my own standards for neatness and order. That�??s a very different solution than what we get with the objective model. To implement this solution, Erin needn�??t even be involved.

From the standpoint of the objective model, this subjective solution seems rather foolish. If anything it will only backfire. Wouldn�??t my working on becoming neater just increase the conflict between me and Erin?

Now here�??s the really fascinating part. When I actually tried the subjective solution by going to work on myself, Erin suddenly began taking a keen interest in becoming more organized herself. She bought new home office furniture and assigned new homes to objects that were previously cluttering her workspace. She hired a cleaning service to clean the house and did more decluttering before they came over. She bought new bedroom furniture for our children. She did a lot of purging and donated many old items to charity. She began looking for a housekeeper and wrote up a list of cleaning tasks to be outsourced. And I really wasn�??t pushing her to do this. If anything she started pushing me a bit.

Somehow when I worked on myself (recognizing that this is an internal issue, not an external one), Erin came along for the ride. I�??ve tested this pattern in other ways, and it continues to play out. My �??external�?? relationships keep changing to keep pace with my internal relationships. I�??ve seen this effect with other people too, but it�??s been most obvious with Erin and my kids, since they�??re the people I spend the most time with. It�??s rather spooky at times how strong and immediate the effect is. However, the subjective model suggests that this is exactly how reality works, so I�??m glad to have a paradigm that fits the results.

I encourage you to experiment to see how your external relationships reflect your internal ones. Try this simple exercise: Make a list of all the things that bother you about other people. Now re-read that list as if it applies to you. If you�??re honest you�??ll have to admit that all of your complaints about others are really complaints about yourself. For example, if you dislike George Bush because you think he�??s a poor leader, could this be because your own leadership skills are sub par? Then go to work on your own leadership skills, or work on becoming more accepting of your current skill level, and notice how George Bush suddenly seems to be making dramatic improvements in this area.

It can be hard to admit that your complaints about others are really complaints about yourself, but the upside is that your relationship issues reveal where you still need to grow. Consequently, a fantastic way to accelerate your personal growth is to build relationships with others. The more you interact with others, the more you learn about yourself.

I believe the true value of human relationships is that they serve as pointers to unconditional love. According to the subjective model, when you forgive, accept, and love all parts of yourself, you will forgive, accept, and love all other human beings as they are. The more you improve your internal relationships between your thoughts, beliefs, and intentions, the more loving and harmonious your human relationships will become. Hold unconditional love in your consciousness, and you�??ll see it reflected in your reality.

The Smile Myth

Template User — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 11:00:37 PDT

A great smile is important to your success in life. You can't argue with that. And if you want to improve your customer service in business, a great strategy is to tell all your front line people to smile! Well, maybe not.

Here's the catch. Not all smiles are created equal. Genuine smiles and fake smiles don't have the same power and impact. And secondly, genuine smiles are not produced by executive decree. To believe otherwise is to believe a myth. Unless you hired Mona Lisa, getting magical smiles is not so easy.

Without even knowing it, our "fake" detector is always turned on. We unconsciously read body language, facial signals, giving us an impression whether a smile is genuine or plastic.

Have you ever met someone and felt that you had been thrown a fake smile? A car salesman? A mortician? A politician? Someone at a singles bar? Your in-laws? Actually, you could list almost any group as occasionally guilty of less-than-genuine smiles.

Journalist Chandler Phillips, in preparing for his article titled Confessions of a Car Salesman (www.Edmunds.com), went undercover by working at two new car dealerships in the Los Angeles area. He recalls greeting his first customer: "I don't think I'll ever forget the look on their faces...I saw the fear." But wait a minute. I'm sure he greeted them with a cheerful Hello. And you can be certain he sported a flashy smile. What happened?

Having a customer warm up to a sales person or front-line greeter is so much more complicated than a smile. More complicated than just a genuine or fake smile. And a good, trusting relationship doesn't happen at the snap of a finger or the flash or a smile. A solid relationship is complex and it takes time. Let's examine some of the considerations and factors that help us understand promoting good customer service, good first impressions, and good relationships.

First, you can't mandate smiles for you subordinates. I love the story about teaching pigs to sing. It turns out to be an impossible task. "It frustrates the farmer and irritates the pigs." And you can bet that the farmer can't sing any better than the pigs in the first place.

I was scheduled for an interview with the manager of a major Las Vegas casino. I knew that one of his goals was to have a casino floor staff with a reputation for their shining smiles. Before I met him for the interview, someone took me aside: "Don't be caught off guard if he never smiles during the interview!" And you know what? Not once did he smile during the entire ten-minute interview.

Later that month I took a friend to visit the casino. We walked thru the rows of slot machines to the pit of table games (blackjack, craps, roulette). My friend looked around and said, "Geez, where's the funeral!" Nobody was smiling. I mean NOBODY. The dealers weren't smiling. The floor supervisors weren't smiling. We weren't smiling.

You can't create smiles by demanding them. If that were possible, you'd be drowning in a sea of fake smiles. If you think that ordering smiles for your subordinates is a good strategy...go buy a case of wax lips.

Other factors leading to misguided smile strategies are: Sometimes our behavior gets in our way. Sometimes our thinking trips us up.

A common fallacy of human behavior is to dislike in others what we dislike about ourselves. A sarcastic person likely has little tolerance for other sarcastic people. A pushy person probably does not like to be pushed around by others. A person who never smiles is likely to be bugged by people who don't smile! Hence we have the grim-faced casino manager who wants to be surrounded by smiling faces. As the street-wise would say, "Ain't gonna happen!"

On the flip-side, another fallacy of human behavior is to think that everyone is just like us. Or, closer to the truth, that everyone SHOULD be like us. If we have a great natural smile we feel like others should also beam a celebrity smile. But people are NOT like us. Due to culture, family upbringing, peer group, genetics, medications, emotional states, bad teeth, and more�?�people are inclined or not inclined to smile. They are who they are. It's just the way it is.

Another fallacy is "what you see is what you get!" Not necessarily so. Interpreting human nature is more complex that just observing someone's smile. Just because a person isn't smiling doesn't mean he's unhappy. It doesn't mean she hates her job. It doesn't mean he dislikes working with customers. It doesn't mean that customers don't like her. Although a smiling worker is terrific, there is a good chance that the more serious-looking worker connects better with the customer than the worker with the mandatory, plastic smile. Excellence at work is so much more complicated than the issue of To-Smile-or-Not-To-Smile.

And sometimes "what you see isn't what you get" because our reading of smiles is an art and not a science. When we see a smile, many times the impression of whether it's real or fake is correct, but sometimes it's wrong. Here's a fun survey to test your ability to detect a genuine smile from one that is fake. The interesting thing about this test is that the twenty sample smiles are presented to you on video, not still photos. The best I could do was label 60% of the smiles correctly. Take the test at www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/smiles.

So don't be wearing blinders and think that the smile is head-and-shoulders above all else in the creation of good customer relationships. It's just one piece of a much more complicated success formula. When observing your front line staff:
Do they talk to the customers with genuine interest?
Do they make the customers feel important?
Do they make friendly eye contact?
Do they go out of their way to help customers?
Do they answer questions in a friendly manner?
Do they pick up a piece of litter as they pass by?
Do they put something back in its proper place, even if it's not their job?
Do they refuse to tolerate fraud and abuse?
Do they love their job?
Do they appreciate the positive things about the workplace?
Do they compliment their fellow employees?
Do their fellow employees like them?
Don't fall into the trap of focusing solely or primarily on smiles as the magic bullet. If your employees have none of the qualities listed above working for you, a fake smile pasted on their faces will have no impact. None. Zero.

Of course the right way to get smiles on your front line staff is to lead by example. It starts with the people at the top smiling. You want to change someone else? You do it by changing yourself first. You want people to smile? Start by working on yourself. Make a better world by making a better you. Create a workplace that gives people a reason to smile. It starts with you.

For ideas on improving your smile, see the Smile Power article at: www.humorpower.com/smile_power.html.

The bottom-line lessons: First, watch for false assumptions, thinking and behavior on your part. And second, create a better you. Be a better person. Be a better supervisor. Be a better co-worker. Create a better workplace for your employees. Give others a REASON to smile. And then, when they love their job, the smiles and great customer service will come. Automatically.

Copyright 2006 by John Kinde

Winning Your Speech At The Starting Line

Template User — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 11:00:03 PDT

A speech should begin with a powerful opening which connects you to the audience. About a month ago, I had the amazing experience of attending the AC Delco National Drag Racing Championship in Las Vegas. To my surprise, what I learned at the drag strip can be applied to giving a humorous speech.

A drag race is where two cars race one-quarter mile (404m) from a standing start. And if you've never been there, it would be hard for you to imagine the amazing power and the blinding speed you would see as two top-fuel dragsters streak down the quarter-mile strip.

To begin with, let me describe a race that you might find believable. There is a class of cars called Pro-Stock. They look and sound something like a really hot car that you could imagine as being legal to drive on city streets. When drag racing, they can hit about 200 mph (322 kph) in the quarter-mile. Now if you were to race against a Pro-Stock car and you were driving in MY car, a Honda Civic, you would lose by a long shot. In fact, even if you were given a running start and passed the starting line at 100 mph where your competitor was waiting, you would still lose the race as the Pro-Stock car would accelerate from a dead stop and pass you before you reached the quarter mile mark.

Now let me share the amazing, pounding power of a top-fuel dragster.

Imagine, instead of getting into my Honda, you are getting into the driver's seat of a Pro-Stock vehicle. Your challenge is to race a top-fuel dragster. And they're going to give you a running start. When you pass the starting line where the top-fuel dragster is standing still, you are already going 200 mph. In spite of this huge head start, when you reach the quarter-mile finish line you would find yourself the loser as the dragster would have already passed you going more than 135 mph FASTER than you. Yes, that's going faster than 335 mph (540 kph). The record is a quarter mile, reaching that speed from a standing start, in under 4.5 seconds!

To put that power into perspective, here are some facts: A top-fuel dragster burns a blend of nitromethane and alcohol. A quarter-mile run consumes 16 gallons and costs $4000 if nothing blows up. The fuel consumption is not measured in miles-per-gallon; the consumption rate is 84 feet per gallon. According to a web site I found in my research, the dragster burns fuel at the same rate as a fully loaded 747 jumbo jet. Except that all that power is placed in a 2100 pound vehicle carrying only one person. You get the picture. The power and speed is simply incredible.

It would be easy to think that winning was all about speed. Surprisingly, that's not the case.

An amazing thing I discovered at the drag races was that the fastest speed doesn't always win the race. A dragster reaching 325 mph could lose to one doing 310. The fact is, if the slower car departed the starting line quicker, the faster car would never have the chance to catch up. In fact, most races are won at the starting line. A good start and the reaction time of the driver and is the key.

And so it is with a speaker giving a humorous speech. Get off to a slow start and you will have a tough time recovering lost ground; spinning your wheels trying to come from behind. Let me give you some examples of slow starts as a speaker:
You don't bring a well-written introduction for the person who will be introducing you. As a result you get a bad or weak introduction.

You start a speech with some slightly-off-color humor and lose your audience.

You open a speech saying "I'm delighted to be with you in Reno this morning." And you forgot that you are, in fact, speaking in Las Vegas.

In your opening remarks, your mind goes blank and it's obvious to the audience that you are not well prepared.

As you begin your talk, your audio-visual equipment malfunctions and it destroys the flow of your talk.

You attempt a piece of observational humor to open your talk and it falls flat. Not a chuckle from the crowd. And you try to explain the joke to the audience.
You get the idea. A slow start. And you're behind right from the beginning, trying to make up lost ground. And if your start is slow enough, you'll never pick up enough steam to win the audience back by the end of your talk. A good speech, like a drag race, is also often won at the starting line. You want the audience energy and momentum with you right from the beginning. Otherwise you may be fighting a losing battle.

Let's look at some things you can do to get off to a good start.
Be well prepared and practiced. This gives you confidence and the ability to relax and be in the present moment as you start your talk.

Arrive early to allow you plenty of time to set up the room for your talk. This is part of your being fully prepared.

Prepare a great, written introduction for the person who will introduce you to the audience. Send a copy to him/her in advance and bring two copies with you to the meeting venue. I always like to include a bit of humor in the introduction to warm up the audience and make the introducer look good.

As you begin your talk, breathe and make good eye contact with the audience before you say your first word. This relaxes you and psychologically connects you and your audience.

If you can only know one part of your speech really well, make sure it's your opening. Of course it's really nice to know your whole speech really well.

Keep all humor in good taste...without exception. Off-color humor is the lazy speaker's attempt for laughter.

Observational and spontaneous humor tailored for the group can often hit the mark. But it can also be risky. Unless you're absolutely sure that an untested humor line will work, work it into your speech after you pick up speed rather than using it as an opener. To get off to a good start, begin your talk with material in which you have high confidence.

Develop your skills of handling the unexpected: When equipment fails, when your mind goes blank, when laughs fail to come. Keep your cool. Don't let the audience see you sweat!
You'll find that when you get off to a great start, your momentum will carry you through little bumps in the road. You'll have a great talk, get more laughs and you'll finish as a winner.

Copyright 2006 by John Kinde

Touch Your Audience with Stories

Template User — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 10:59:39 PDT

It was stormy and almost midnight. On an isolated country road in Missouri, my truck plowed into a section of flash flooding. Water shot up on the right and left and over the hood. The engine died. And it wouldn't start. All I could see was water in every direction and tree branches floating in front of the truck. There would be no traffic until sunrise...

This is a true story. It happened to me. It has become an eight-minute vignette with lessons learned and several laugh lines along the way.

Stories grab your audience. Listeners will remember the drama and the humor, and chances are good they'll remember your point as well.

But what comes first_the story or the point? Personally, I never start with a point and then look for a story or joke to fit it. I used to do that, but I've found that it works better to find the story first and then discover the natural points that flow from it. A good story will usually make at least two or three insightful points. And with a good arsenal of stories, you'll be able to support almost any point you want to make.

You can come up with great stories just by being alert to everyday events. I recommend zeroing in on the following five areas when looking for story material:

Look for difficult and traumatic events. Obviously, these events aren't funny when they happen, but sometimes an event will generate a thought like "Someday I'll laugh at this." I wasn't laughing the night I was stranded in the flood waters! But after the ordeal is over, I look for the humorous twists. The process of always being on the lookout for stories often becomes a helpful coping device. When a challenge hits you, you might think, "What a speech this will make!"

Focus on lessons learned and personal growth that resulted from tough times. These provide story material you can use to teach others.

Copyright 2006 by John Kinde

Developing Original Humor for Your Talk

Template User — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 10:59:05 PDT

Most humor in the business setting is unplanned. It just happens. Spontaneous events with clients and co-workers create the surprises and uncomfortable situations which call for humor as a coping tool.

We all have differing abilities to recognize, appreciate and create humor. How's your HQ (humor quotient)? Do you work with people who are full of wit?

Regardless of where you are now, you can increase your humor skills. When you study humor, it's obvious there's more to it than just spontaneous laughs. There are times when you may want to deliberately use humor, maybe even plan it in advance. Perhaps you want to spice up a training session or a planning meeting. Maybe you want to lighten up a sales presentation. You can learn ways to administer a dose of laughter to help you connect and communicate.

There are three elements which can help you understand and structure your humor: surprise, tension and relationships.

First, humor is based on the element of surprise. Humor often comes from something as simple as someone saying the unexpected. The surprise twist creates the humor.

Because of the element of surprise, when we are deliberately structuring a piece of humor (perhaps for a speech) we don't want to telegraph the joke. A line like, "a funny thing happened to me on the way over here," signals your listeners that a joke is coming. This will lessen the element of surprise.

To enhance the surprise, it's best to place the punch line at the end of the joke. And within the punch line, the punch word is usually given last. The punch word is the word that makes the humor work. It's the trigger that releases the surprise.

If your humor falls flat, do what professional humorists do. Pretend you are serious. Since the listeners didn't realize you were making a joke, you never need to apologize or explain it. Turn your surprise into a secret.

It's no surprise to people who work in pressure-packed work environments that humor is also based on this second principle: release of tension. Laughter is a pressure valve which releases muscle tension. Uncomfortable situations, fear and pain are all tension builders that cry out for humor. We find ourselves laughing at risqué humor and embarrassing situations because they make us uncomfortable. We release the tension they create with humor.

People who intentionally and frequently use humor know tension can be used deliberately to heighten the impact of the humor. A pause placed just before the punch line or the punch word builds a sense of anticipation, a form of tension, which makes the joke stronger.

In most jobs, daily challenges give you the opportunity to purposely use tension in setting up your humor. Simply by sharing a real life humorous situation, you can recreate the spontaneous circumstances which generated the laughter in the first place. Although there's nothing like "being there," you can improve on the actual event by embellishing to create a little more tension in the set up. You can structure the punch line for maximum effect by putting the punch word last. And you can pause to add impact.

As we plan our humor, we also notice that the third principle of humor is relationships. Most humor is based on how things are related and not related. We can create humorous twists when we play with relationships.

Gary Larson's Far Side cartoons are well known for twisting relationships. One of his frequent tools is giving animals human characteristics. For example, the cartoon shows a car driving down the road. Driving the car is a bull. Sitting next to the bull is a cow. And in the back seat is a calf. They're driving past a field with humans standing in the pasture. The picture, by itself, creates a funny picture by twisting the normally expected relationships. The calf sticks his head out of the car window and says "Yakity, Yakity, Yak!"

Understanding the principle of relationships, you are able to create your own, original humor. You can create "shopping lists" from which you search for humorous connections.

Let's say you had an idea for building some humor. We'll call this idea a seed from which the humor can grow. Perhaps, on a difficult shift at a hospital, someone made a comment that working in a hospital was like working in a war zone. This is the starting point for developing some humor.

You'll begin by creating two "shopping lists." On one list you'll put "hospital things." And on the other, you'll list "military things." It will work better if you choose "military" rather than "war zone" because it's a broader category which will give you more options when looking for relationships.

Your first step is to brainstorm by making the lists as long a possible. The more items you have on each list, the more likely you'll be able to make some humorous connections.

As you make your lists, you'll look for opportunities to branch out and create sublists to multiply your chances of finding humor. For example, if the idea "basic training" comes to mind, your sublist should contain everything you can think of relating to basic training: drill sergeants, marching, inspections.

The next step is to search for connections between your two lists which might lead you to humor. Play with it. Then set it aside and come back to it later. Once you find something with humorous possibilities, you'll massage it to maximize the humor impact.

To see what this exercise might produce, check out "Why a Hospital is Like the Military," in the sidebar at the end of the article.

Whether you're creating a list or a slogan to go on a poster, looking for a monologue to open a speech or training session, or just searching for one joke to make a point, you can use these lists to create your humor. It works.

These three principles of humor are illustrated by the classic slip on the banana peel. The slapstick spill illustrates surprise because we weren't expecting someone to fall. We also experience tension. When we see someone get hurt we get startled, and react with tension. It also twists relationships. Seeing a distinguished person sitting on the sidewalk is something our of the ordinary. Surprise, tension, relationships...we laugh!

Natural, spontaneous humor is one of your greatest tools for coping with stress as you work. By understanding what makes the humor tick, you can become better at planning and deliberately using this powerful adjunct to your success arsenal.

10 Ways To Make Your Boss Laugh

Template User — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 10:58:41 PDT

People like and trust someone with a good sense of humor. A good sense of humor shows the boss that you are happy and like your job. A sense of humor is good for job security. Developing a great sense of humor is a commitment. If you wanted to be a good golfer, it�??s not likely you�??d think that reading one article would do the job. So it is with humor. Here are a few thoughts on impressing the boss with humor which will get you started and point you in the right direction.

1. Analyze the humor style of your boss. If your boss likes Gary Larsen cartoons, wouldn�??t it make sense to clip a great cartoon when you see one and attach it to a memo? Does the boss laugh? Does she tell jokes? Does he smile? Just because your boss doesn�??t tell jokes doesn�??t mean that he or she doesn�??t have a sense of humor. She may be a carrier of humor, rather than a creator or initiator of humor. He may be the first one to laugh at someone else�??s jokes. It�??s also a possibility that your boss may never laugh at jokes and yet appreciate and enjoy humor. Your boss may have MY personality. I don�??t often laugh out loud, but I love humor. Everyone�??s humor personality is different.

Here�??s a word of caution. If your boss seems to like off-color humor, I�??d avoid using that style of humor yourself. If she tends to tell or laugh at sex jokes, it�??s still unlikely that she will want the person she promotes to sales manager to be a teller of sex jokes or bodily function humor. And just because the favorite movie clip of the boss is the campfire scene from Blazing Saddles (where the cowboys had eaten far too many beans), that doesn�??t mean that she will appreciate a whoopee cushion on HER desk chair. For an upward-bound career, keep your humor clean and know your audience. Blue humor is a comedy-cop out. It�??s too easy to tell a sex joke. Leave that style of humor to the lazy and less inspired. You can do better. And your career will thank you. For more on blue humor: www.humorpower.com/art-bluehumor.html

2. Understand what makes humor tick. Humor is primarily about surprise and relationships. One of the basic principles of telling a joke is keeping the punchline and punchword disguised until the end of the joke. The punchword is the word that triggers the laugh. Ideally it should be the last word you say. And the element of surprise is the reason it�??s best not to say: Here�??s something funny that happened to me on the way over here. That�??s called telegraphing the joke, and it works against you.

Also a critical concept of humor is relationships. A good joke or cartoon is almost always a connection of two previously unrelated thoughts. I arrived early before a speech and noticed two signs over the exit door in the back of the room. The signs were not related, but posted one above the other. The lower sign said �??Capacity 475�?? and the upper sign said �??Restrooms�??�?� In my opening remarks I observed that the SIGN over the back door said �??Restrooms capacity 475�?�I guess that means there�??s no waiting.�?? It got a big laugh. The humor connected two previously unrelated signs. Get into the habit of looking for connections and relationships. It�??s the number one skill for creating your own humor. For more insights on what really makes humor tick: www.humorpower.com/original_humor.html

3. Get in shape. Go to the gym. No, I�??m not talking about free weights and admiring yourself in the mirror. We�??re not talking about pumping iron. I�??m suggesting that your humor skills get stronger with exercise. Many of our blog readers participate in our monthly humor contests. We normally get between 250 - 600 entries for each contest. These are people who not only want to have fun, but know that their humor focus is sharpened by writing funny lines until they have none left�?�and then writing ten more lines. Just about anything of value takes work. Developing a relationship takes work. Becoming talented on the piano takes work. Getting in better shape takes work. And improving your sense of humor takes work too. It�??s about commitment and focus. Check for the contest announced on the HumorPower Blog on April 1 and give it a shot. Even if you just set aside just a half hour to develop some funny lines�?�you�??ll be preparing your mind to be funnier in the future. Step into the humor gym and give yourself a workout. For a look at several of our past contests: www.humorpower.com/blog/category/humor-contests

4. Take Mind Vacations. To make your boss laugh you have to be in a state of fun, to be relaxed. It�??s hard to be funny when you�??re stressed out. When you�??re tense, you�??re humor tends to be negative. Sarcastic humor is the result of frustration and tension. It works against you. Here are some ideas to keep your mind, and humor, on a higher plane:

a. Keep something that makes you laugh or smile near your phone. When you get placed on hold for thirty seconds, flip open your favorite book of humor writings or cartoons to lighten the moment.

b. Have a fun photo on your desk, something that recalls wonderful memories. Maybe you have a picture of your kids at Disney World. Maybe a picture of your last year�??s Halloween costume. Perhaps a photo will remind you that your dog makes you laugh.

c. Consider breaking the pattern when you�??re in a stressful mood. Do something differently. If you�??ve been with people, spend some time alone. If you�??ve been sitting, take a walk. If you�??ve been in a quiet environment, go someplace stimulating. If you�??ve been indoors, step outside. Whenever you�??re stressed, your body is usually telling you that you need to do something differently.

d. Help design a better break room. This will provide a place for you and your co-workers to have a mini-vacation. Find some fun posters to decorate the room. Furnish the room with fun games and puzzles. Design a bulletin board for fun photos, cartoons and contests. You�??ll make the work environment more fun for you and for everyone else. The boss will like that. For more ideas on brightening the break room: www.humorpower.com/humor_workplace.html

5. The physical leads the emotional. And visa versa. If you want to feel like you�??re having fun, act like you are. If your physical posture is depressed, it will be hard to be funny. Do you spend a good part of your day smiling? This is a challenge for me. I�??m not a smiley kinda guy. I wish I were. On the one hand, if I�??m walking down a dark alley and I see someone approaching me, I�??m really good at giving the �??don�??t mess with me�?? look. That�??s a good thing. But if I�??m at a party and want to meet someone, sometimes my body language will unintentionally say �??don�??t mess with me.�?? Oops. It�??s something I work on.

One of the keys to developing a great smile is to do some mirror work. I�??ve done that and it has been very helpful. Here�??s the trick. We know what a good smile looks like. We just don�??t know what a good smile feels like. By doing mirror practice, your goal is to create muscle memory, to be able to recreate that great looking smile. Since doing mirror work, my sessions in a photo studio are so much more productive. I find it easier to get photos with great smiles. That�??s a step in the right direction towards being more humorous. For more on smile power: www.humorpower.com/smile_power.html and also www.humorpower.com/art-smilemyth.html

6. Story power. A great way to impress your boss with humor is to be great at telling personal stories. With this skill you can earn the reputation as a great leader, motivator or sales professional. Telling a story is the perfect way to build one-on-one relationships and a terrific way to bring a speech alive. Start by keeping a humor journal. Record every funny thing that happens to you. You�??ll discover that funny stuff happens to you more frequently. Actually that�??s not true. What really happens is that you become more tuned to the funny stuff that would have normally gone unnoticed. Then practice telling your stories your friends and family. You might even join a Toastmasters club. It�??s a great place to sharpen your stories. I joined when I was 25. I wish I had joined sooner. When your story gets consistently good, that�??s when you tell it to the boss. Don�??t use the boss for practice! For more on Toastmasters: www.Toastmasters.org

And remember, when you tell stories, one of the most effective forms of humor is poking fun at yourself. Humor targeted at you is almost always safe material. And stories coming from your own experiences will be original and fun to listen to. People like others who don�??t take themselves too seriously. For more thoughts on the power of stories: www.humorpower.com/touch_audience.html

7. Volunteer to plan a party. This is a hot idea. Doing this is what led me to a career in humor. I was in my 20s and noticed that my workgroup was always looking for volunteers to plan parties. I found two co-workers (who happened to be really funny, since I wasn�??t) and together, for three years, we planned and presented holiday parties, roasts, retirements and going-away parties. This hands-on party planning experience taught me the nuts and bolts of humor skills. For me it was the beginning of becoming a humor expert. And the boss loved it. Don�??t underestimate the value of this suggestion.

8. Become a humorous summarizer. Set a goal for yourself. Every time you attend a staff meeting, try to create a piece of observational humor by the end of the meeting. This doesn�??t mean you always will use it. But when the timing seems right, weave your humor gem into your closing remarks. You�??ll get better over time. And eventually you�??ll gain a reputation for being a very funny person. People will learn to listen to you every time you speak. This is hot tip number two. Observational humor skills are powerful. For more on observational and spontaneous humor: www.humorpower.com/spontaneous_humor.html For more on why spontaneous humor is powerful: www.humorpower.com/art-whysponthumor.html For a case study on creating observational humor at a meeting: www.humorpower.com/blog/2006/03/creating-observational-humor-a-case-study

9. So you don�??t tell jokes? No problem. Show your sense of humor in other ways: By a toy on your desk, by a plaque on your wall, by a bumper sticker on your car, by the books on your shelf. There are ways to show your appreciation for and enjoyment of humor without being a jokester. Wear a funny shirt on casual day. One of my favorite shirts is filled with cartoon characters. Send a humorous greeting card. Look for ways to share humor other than traditional jokes.

10. Don�??t try too hard. A lesson you learn from the comedy-improv stage is: The harder you try to be funny, the less funny you�??ll be. When you try really hard to be funny you appear to come from a place of need. You appear to be desperately craving attention. And that�??s not funny. I�??ve known people who were funny, but who tried so hard to be funny that they weren�??t. Does that make sense? When you try some humor, just throw it out there as though you were simply testing it. If nobody laughs, pretend you were serious. If you do it right, nobody will know. After all, the best humor comes as a surprise. So since your boss wasn�??t looking for something funny, if you weren�??t funny, then he won�??t have a clue that you were expecting to be. Don�??t beg for laughs. Just let it go and learn from it.

41 Tips For Writing Funny Lines

Template User — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 10:58:10 PDT

1. Quality and quantity. The winner of each contest was usually the person who submitted the most lines. In the comedy writing business, even top professional writers aim for quantity. The funniest lines seldom spring from the pen or keyboard while writing the first line. Inspiration comes from deep within the creative process�?�with the 20th line, the 50th line, the 100th line. When you go to the gym, your success comes not from the first pushup or curl, but from many repetitions.

2. When you�??re stuck, go deeper. When you do creative writing, and you think you�??ve run out of ideas, write ten more. The deeper you go, the more likely you�??ll uncover that great line. Are your chances of winning the lottery better with one ticket or 188 tickets? Sometimes someone who buys only one ticket wins, but not normally. It�??s a numbers game.

The Philosophy of Competing

3. Remember, the contest is about growth. It�??s not about winning. Trite as that may sound, it�??s true.

4. Subjectivity of humor. As usual, the taste of the judges varied from person to person. You might disagree with the selection of the judges. When I provide a suggested rewrite to improve a joke, you may feel that the original version is better! So remember than if you don�??t win, it doesn�??t mean that your lines weren�??t great.

5. Funny ideas seem to have no limits. Of 650 entries in the School of Fish contest, amazingly there were only five duplicate entries. As a group, we could come up with over 10,000 different lines. I�??m sure of it. Your personal capabilities for creativity are also unlimited.

The Truth is Funny

6. Life philosophy. Often the submitted lines had a philosophical message with a humorous touch. One of the guiding principles of humor is that the Truth is funny. Looking at personal experiences, likes, and dislikes strikes a humorous chord.

Your Audience

7. Target audience. Often times the quality of a joke is judged by whether it�??s presented to the right audience. When a joke is customized for a specific audience, it magnifies the impact of the joke. Lines which you�??ll write for a skit to be presented at work will hit the mark, yet when you tell them to your friends at home, they�??ll yawn.

8. Superiority theory. One of the theories of humor is that people, your audience, find something funny when they �??figure it out for themselves.�?? It is sometimes referred to as the superiority theory of humor. Don�??t give them everything. Give them the clues and they love it when they �??get it.�??

The Set-Up

9. The Set-Up for a joke is as often as important as the punchline. The setup is often the background necessary for the listener to understand the joke.

10. Sometimes the Set-Up is not directly stated. For example: Life has taught me�?�to run like hell when a chicken sneezes. What is implied is your awareness of the news headlines on the bird flu. Without that awareness (setup) your likely response to the joke would probably be �??Huh?�?? Sometimes it is a choice to imply the set up or clearly spell it out. It�??s better if it�??s implied, but sometimes it�??s essential to clearly state the set up.

Surprise and the Unexpected

11. Remember that the punchword, the humor trigger, should be the last word of the punchline. You want to hide the surprise until the very end.

12. The twist. Often, a good humor line has an unexpected twist.

The teachers always hated me, even when I was the principal.

I once tried reading a book upside down, but I had a hard time keeping my legs up in the air.

Relationships Are the Key

13. Relationships and connections are the key to nearly every joke. When you understand this principle, the humor lines will start to jump out at you.

14. Pay attention to how things and groups are different and how they are the same. This uses the principle of finding relationships.

15. Laying the qualities of one category onto another: If toasters were made by Harley-Davidson, they�??d be noisy and only cool people would buy them.

16. Look for both positive and negative relationships. The creation of humor lines could be for praise or satire: A sage of psychics. A scam of psychics.

17. Word relationships and word flow combinations. An interesting technique is to find a group name that blends with the �??A�?? that starts the sentence: A lone of popes. A loof of social climbers.

18. Splitting an Existing Word Pair. Look for names, word pairs and phrases that can be split to create group names.

A karen of carpenters

a huckleberry of Finns

A nit of wits

A forgiveness of sinners

19. The Flip Side. A giggle of girls..might suggest:

A brat of boys

20. Or look for totally opposite meanings within your humor line.

a deity of atheists

Look to Your Life Experiences

21. Tap your life experiences. Explore things that have happened to you that were funny or embarrassing.

22. What in life irritates you? That takes advantage of the principle of The Truth Is Funny.

23. What life experiences taught you lessons? This will lead to funny connections.

24. Look for a problem, then find a funny solution. Dumb solutions are funny.

Ask The Right Questions

25. Asking �??What If�?? questions lead you to funny ideas. For example, looking for a twist with a what-if: If BREAD made toasters, they�??d be marketed as portable tanning salons.

26. What if questions can lead you to excellent exaggerations.

Go Beyond the Ordinary

27. Exaggeration is a great humor technique. My wife watches fear factor for the cooking tips.

28. Extrapolation. Taking something a step further. Life has taught me that if you burn garlic toast bad enough, it will catch on fire.

29. Absurdity. Taking exaggeration to an extreme. When I replace my carpet, I�??ll look for a pattern that looks like dirt. With my luck�?�if I bought a life insurance policy, I wouldn�??t die.

Playing With Sounds

30. Homonyms and Similar sounds:

Toasters made by a religious group are made for prophet (profit).

A herd of cowboys

A heard of ear doctors

I would combine these two lines to make:

A herd of ear doctors. (and let the connection be implied)

31. A rhyming dictionary is a great creative tool to find fun-sounding connections: A clobber of boxers.

32. Alliteration works well. A cackle of comedians.33. Onomatopoeia. Look for group names that consist of sounds to add an auditory dimension to the humor.A splat of painters

A slammer of spammers (double duty here for the word slammer/prison)

A crash of cymbalists

34. It is said that words with a K sound are funnier: Life has taught me�?�Never buy a cactus covered couch with a credit card if you can carry cash.

Word Play

35. Playing with double meaning of words: If toasters were made by accountants, every crumb would COUNT (addition versus significance).

A wave of greeters. While wave relates to greet, it is also a descriptive word for a group (amber waves of grain).

A hail of cabbies. Double word meaning for hail sets up the visual picture of lots of cabbies or �??raining cabbies.�??

A yank of jerks. Double word meaning of jerk sets up the group name.

36. Use a dictionary and synonym finder to connect word relationships.

37. Tweak the Spelling. Don�??t necessarily settle for the first spelling of a group name.

A firmation of Yes Men�?�could be changed to

A formation of Yes Men. A subtle connection to affirmation when read aloud.

A thong of streetwalkers. A nice twist on throng with the R deleted.

38. Adding a Qualifier. Sometimes you can add an adjective or adverb to give the connections in the line a better link or twist.

A hoy of sailors�?�could become:

A hoy of Spanish sailors

Watch Current News and Advertising

39. Connecting with common marketing slogans: If toasters were made by Rice Krispies they would Snap Crackle and Pop.

40. Connection with something funny from the past: If toasters were made in cyber space, Al Gore would have claimed to have invented them

Backwards and Forward

41. You can work in more than one direction. In the group name contest (school of fish) you could work from either the group looking for a name

Build Healthy Relationships

Template User — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 12:15:23 PDT

Speak a little less, listen a little more
Most people get tremendous pleasure from speaking about themselves. But, here we have to be careful; if we always speak about our achievements or tribulations, people will get fed up with our egoism.If we are willing and able to listen to others, we will find it much appreciated by our friends. Some people are not aware of how much they dominate the conversation. If you find you are always talking about yourself, consider the advice of the Greek philosopher, Epictectus:"Nature gave us one tongue and two ears so we could hear twice as much as we speak."

Forgiveness
Forgiveness it's a powerful and important factor in maintaining healthy relationships. However, real forgiveness also means that we are willing to forget the experience. If we forgive one day, but then a few weeks later bring up the old misdeed, this is not real forgiveness. When we make mistakes, just consider how much we would appreciate others forgiving and forgetting.

Know When to Keep Silent
If you think a friend has a bad or unworkable idea, don't always argue against it; just keep silent and let them work things out for themselves. It's a mistake to always feel responsible for their actions. You can offer support to friends, but you can't live their life for them.

Right Motive
If you view friendship from the perspective of "what can I get from this?" you are making a big mistake. If you make friendships with the hope of some benefit, you will find that people will have a similar attitude to you. This kind of friendship leads to insecurity and jealousy. Furthermore, these fair weather friends will most likely disappear just when you need them most. Don't look upon friends with the perspective "what can I get out of this?". True friendship should be based on mutual support and good will, irrespective of any personal gain.

Humour
Don't take yourself too seriously. Be willing to laugh at yourself and be self-deprecating. This does not mean we have to humiliate ourselves, far from it �?? it just means we let go of our ego. Humour is often the best antidote for relieving tense situations.

Work at Relationships but don't over analyze
Maintaining healthy relationships doesn't mean we have to spend several hours in the psychiatrist's chair. It means we take a little time to consider others, remembering birthdays and anniversaries etc. But, it is a mistake to spend several hours ruminating and dissecting relationships. This makes the whole thing very mental; it's better to forget any negative experiences. Good friendships should be built on spontaneity and newness, sharing a moment of humour can often do more benefit than several hours of discussion.

Concern and Detachment
Healthy relationships should be built on a degree of detachment. Here, people often make a mistake; they think that being detached means, "not caring". However, this is not the case. Often when we develop a very strong attachment we expect the person to behave in a certain way. When they don't we feel miserable and try to change them. A good friendship based on detachment means we will always offer good will, but we will not be upset if they wish to go a different way.

Benefits of meditation

Template User — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 12:04:51 PDT

Improved concentration - A clear mind makes you more productive, especially in creative disciplines like writing.
Many of the sports professionals regularly employ meditation methods. Studies have found a direct correlation between concentration exercises (meditation) and the performance level of sports professionals. Meditation strengthens the mind, it comes under control and is able to provide effective guidance to the physical body to effectively execute all its projects.

Better Health - There have been numerous studies pointing to the health benefits of meditation. The reason is that meditation reduces stress levels and alleviates anxiety. If we can reduce stress, many health benefits follow.

Knowing yourself- Meditation enables us to have a deeper understanding of our inner self. Through meditation we can gain a better understanding of our life's purpose.

With regular meditation you will get a lot of other benefits like:

-Increased brain wave coherence.
-Greater creativity
-Decreased anxiety
-Decreased depression
-Improved learning ability and memory
-Increased happiness
-Increased emotional stability

How to meditate

Template User — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 12:04:39 PDT

Meditation requires practice. To get the most from meditation you need to do it every day. This requires a place and time where you will not be disturbed.

1.Sit with a straight back. Don't try to meditate lying down because you are likely to fall asleep. Meditation brings relaxation and peace but at the same time this is a dynamic peace. Meditation is quite different than the relaxation of sleep. When we really meditate, we are fully alert and conscious. Our sense of awareness is heightened. Afterwards you'll have a positive feeling for the world and a renewed sense of dynamism.

2.Don't eat before meditating. After a heavy meal your body will be lethargic with digestion.

3.It is not necessary to mediate in the lotus posture. It is fine to meditate in a chair, as long as the back is straight.

4.Burning incense and having a candle are not necessary, but they can add a little extra inspiration.

5.It is good to meditate early in the morning. It is said the best time is 3am, although.

Make Good First Impression

Template User — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 12:04:18 PDT

Relax.
Just play it cool. Don't panic and try to be yourself. People are perceived as more attractive when they are having a good time.

Smile
Remember a smiling face is what people want to see. A serious face gives all the wrong impressions, so keep smiling.

Don't knock yourself out trying to be clever.
Whatever you do please don't try to hard to show something that you are not. You might just be making a fool of yourself.

Be less-than perfect.
Don't try to show that you are Miss Perfect. Be careful not to praise your many virtues to the point of boredom, or even suspicion. No one can be that perfect. Your minor faults and charming inconsistencies make you human, interesting and approachable.

Avoid sending up red flags.
Don't whine, complain or drivel on about any problems in your life. Refrain from casting yourself in the role of the victim or the depressed soul. Be positive and optimistic. Chaos, depression and drama aren't attractive attributes.

The eyes have it.
As they say "The eyes are the window to the soul". While you are talking to the person in front of you look into his eyes while talking and listen deeply and intensely. Pay attention to person in front of you and don't look off to the side or at another person.

Say it with style.
What you say may not be as important as how you say it. Play with language. Be smart and creative.

Use the magic touch.
A slight touch of the hand conveys a lot. So when you shake hands make the grip firm and confident. It's also fine to reach out and give a casual pat on the first date. If he is interested in you he will also touch you back.

Slouch not.
Just as good posture shows confidence, slouching or standing with your arms folded across your chest sends an insecure message. Arms that are out and away from you convey that you are interested.

Be yourself.
This is most important. Don't say you're a vegetarian if you really eat meat. Don't try to do something just because you want to impress your date. Be sincere and truthful.

Close with confidence.
Lastly make the other person feel that you had a great time. Offer your hand for a shake and say with assurance, "It's been nice talking to you." This will definitely leave your man wanting for more.

How to Use Eye Contact to Make a Good Impression

Template User — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 12:03:22 PDT

Have you ever wondered why some people seem to make new friends so easily, while others find it so hard to form successful relationships with new people?

Researchers who study relationships have discovered that a big difference between those people who make new friends easily, and those who don't, is that socially successful people tend to make eye contact with their conversation partners much more frequently than those who are less successful socially.

Many shy people never make eye contact at all. When speaking with others, people who are socially unsuccessful and who have a hard time making new friends, are more likely to look down at the ground, or look away. They rarely will look at the face of the person they are talking with.

If you have been less successful in making friends than you wish, you may be able to become much more socially successful by making this one simple change to your behavior.

Most North Americans, especially Caucasians, prefer to have a lot of eye contact when they are talking with someone. When a person doesn't make eye contact with them, North Americans tend to assume that person is hiding something. The very phrase "shifty-eyed" connotes a person whose eyes dart around the room, implying that they are untrustworthy.

When you are having a conversation with someone and you want to leave a friendly impression, be sure to keep looking at that person frequently while you are talking. You don't need to use a piercing stare, a friendly gaze will do.

If it really bothers you to look directly into another person's eyes, you can look at the person's face without focusing solely on the eyes. If you gaze generally at the eyebrow area or the bridge of the nose, this is close enough to the eye region that you will appear to be looking at the person's eyes. You may find that it eases your own discomfort if you let your vision go slightly out of focus.

Whenever you are in conversation with someone, keep the majority of your focus on the other person. If you glance around the room too much, or look too frequently at other people, your conversation partner may assume that you are bored, or that you are looking around for someone else you would rather talk with.

If you have difficulty knowing exactly how to make eye contact, you can benefit from practicing in front of a mirror, or practice with another person.

Don't stare at other people too intensely however! A very intense, unblinking stare can make your conversation partners feel very uncomfortable.

You can lighten the impression you are making by smiling more often, nodding, and by gazing at the entire face as well as the eyes. In addition, you can frequently glance away for brief periods.

When people get the sense that you are really paying attention to them, and that you enjoy talking with them, they will be much more likely to want to have conversations with you!