sincerity

I observed lately and specifically in my area of work and family, we lack sincerity in our day to day interactions with each other. From an Asian cultural perspective, we may say that it is not polite, not nice or just pure rude to be open, direct or sincere with someone especially when we talk about issues or problems about that someone. Is it? Or is it due to our lack of knowledge and know-how?

I know, and proved that we can still be sincere, open and direct provided we put ourselves in the right state of mind and emotions complemented with the right body postures. The thing is we need to be courageous and tell it as it is objectively with the right body language, tonality of voice and the excellent choices of words.

The right state of mind is not to prejudge him (her), be curious to find out the truth, maintain neutrality, maintain rapport (trust) and be honest to address his(her) behavior(s); not the person. And this point is extremely important!!!

Hopefully, with more sincerity, we connect more rather than just communicate! Try it and see the magic of connection unveils…

mind our words

Words have profound impact on our day to day living. It sets our state of being (emotions), plant ideas in our minds (thoughts) and governs our behaviors. How can this be? Well, words act as triggers or anchors as we term it in the field of neuro-linguistic programming (nlp). A specific word may trigger a specific thought or memory; that recalls an emotion which in turn results in a particular behavior. Such memories are mostly stored in our unconscious mind (subconscious mind). Yes, kept in specific areas within our maze of neurons connections or quite currently called our “connectome” according to neuro-scientist, Dr Sebastian Seung of MIT.

And that’s the reason why we must be on our guard when we talk to ourselves in terms of what words we used. Our self-talk can be very constructive, encouraging, loving, kind, gentle, self-controlled, joyous, hopeful, good and peaceful. Such words will set us in very positive state of being which helps us live effectively or deal effectively with our challenges in life.

So, be aware of our words and guard our unconscious mind well!

action speaks louder

I have been training people for 13 years now. And I’d like to share an observation. My pertinent observation is this: people wait for others to change instead of changing first.

There is a specific group of senior managers whom I have been coaching. After a session, one senior manager approached and asked me what I think of the effectiveness of our coaching session that we just had. I know and am trained too well to just give him an outright answer without knowing what he had on his mind. So, I asked him instead what he thought of it. His answer was as I anticipated. He said that he doesn’t see changes in “other people”. So, I facilitated our conversation to his realization at the end with the fact that he himself did not make the necessary changes and was waiting for others to do it. I was happy to hear him say that he will do his best to change things around within his areas of control. I patted him on his back and said well done!

So many of us wait for others to change instead of making the change ourselves. We first must be transformed by the renewing of our minds and behaviors. Only then will the whole group, community and society will transform itself.

This learning point is already in your hands. Will you use it and change or are you going to wait for others to change first?

the right influence

Choose the right people and spend time with them. Each one has his (her) own strengths. For example, when you need to have great time management skills, spend time with your friend (colleague) who is a proven great time manager. The point is choose the right influence. So, from now on, choose wisely for who you choose to learn from, you may become!

mind our minds

Our minds have two parts. One is the conscious part which analyzes information and the other is the unconscious part which stores all information.

Some of the differences between the two parts of our minds are the conscious part uses far less portions of our brain whereas our unconscious portion use the bigger portions; and the conscious part processes information logically (ie it can tell right from wrong), the unconscious part cannot and it accepts any thoughts that is fed to it as true (ie when it receives a piece of fictitious information, it sents us reacting emotionally and physically).

So, we have to be cautious in what we feed our minds lest we respond unnecessarily or incorrectly.

Lets mind our minds!

treasure

Treasure and live each and every moment. We experience life to the full when we live in the moment. This means focusing on what is happening before you with all of your senses. In fact, enhance your attention on each sense; heightening and expanding it. I revisit my time at the nlp trainers certification in Brighton UK in 2011. Here are some of my course mates and friends.

mind filters

We capture all of our external experiences via our five senses of visual, auditory, feeling, smell and taste. All these pieces of information are then filtered in our brain-mind. The process deletes, generalize and distorts all these information. Then, filtered information are further filtered through our linguistics. Eventually, we represent a specific experience from our existing linguistics. Whew! Now we know…