Look for a note from me in your email inbox this Wednesday if you currently receive my THOUGHT OF THE WEEK newsletter! To continue receiving it, you will need to confirm your email address.
As a thank you, I’ll send you my special FREE report "5 STEPS TO BREAK THROUGH OVERWHELM" once you click on the link to confirm!
To your continued success,
James
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
ZEN ~ Life Coaching Tip!
"Do not permit the events of your daily life to bind you, but never withdraw yourself from them." -Zen Saying
Getting to the bottom of the Grand Canyon is a perfect metaphor to illustrate this Zen Saying. When approaching the rim of the canyon, stay focused on your outcome, which is to get to the bottom of the canyon. As you walk up to the edge of the canyon and look over, be careful not to let the height overwhelm and bind you in fear. Similiarly, don't give up, turn around and walk away (or get frustrated and jump!). The solution lies in walking along the rim of the canyon, continuously assessing the landscape, and looking a solution. Eventually, you will find the path down to the bottom and success will be yours!
"Do not permit the events of your daily life to bind you, but never withdraw yourself from them." -Zen Saying
Getting to the bottom of the Grand Canyon is a perfect metaphor to illustrate this Zen Saying. When approaching the rim of the canyon, stay focused on your outcome, which is to get to the bottom of the canyon. As you walk up to the edge of the canyon and look over, be careful not to let the height overwhelm and bind you in fear. Similiarly, don't give up, turn around and walk away (or get frustrated and jump!). The solution lies in walking along the rim of the canyon, continuously assessing the landscape, and looking a solution. Eventually, you will find the path down to the bottom and success will be yours!
"Do not permit the events of your daily life to bind you, but never withdraw yourself from them." -Zen Saying
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Stretch yourself!
The Boring Life of an Office Supply
If you are like me, you may be scared to open the desk drawer that holds all of your office supplies. All of those jumbled up rubber bands, paperclips, staples, thumb tacks, and the pad of sticky notes that has become torn apart and has desk lint stuck to the back. If you were one of these poor mixed up office supplies, what a boring life you would lead. They just sit there all day in a jumbled up mess, ignored and waiting to be used.
Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever felt all jumbled up and confused? Have you felt bored, ignored by others and waiting for something to happen? Have you felt you were living but not really fulfilling your life’s purpose?
There is a solution. Rubber bands need to be stretched in order to hold things together that would otherwise fall apart. Paperclips need tension put on them to hold important papers together that have innovative thoughts, stories and ideas on them. Staples need to separate from the group and be bent in new ways to link thoughts and ideas together long term. Thumb tacks need to be focused and pushed into a specific area to keep things in the line of sight and visible to others. The sticky notes need to be written on with ideas, moments of brilliance and reminders of what is important in life.
Office supplies take on an exciting life when they are used for their intended purpose. The only thing keeping office supplies from having a life of meaning and fulfillment is that they are dependent on others to use them.
Thank goodness that we, as humans, are not dependent on others in order to be stretched and used for a purpose! What a gift it is to be able to choose the purpose of our life and how we stretch, put tension on ourselves, and use the gifts we inherently have!
It is up to you to choose a meaning and purpose for your life today. Let that purpose guide you to make a difference by uniting people or ideas together for a common cause. Put some tension on yourself, separate from the pack, bend yourself and stretch in a new way, and write down your important thoughts and ideas for later reference. Take action to get yourself out of the drawer and do what you were meant to do. Be free from living the Boring Life of an Office Supply.
To your continued Success,
James
919.792.0085
To subscribe to The Thought of The Week,
click here: http://MyOptIn-003.com/?pid=6238070
Monday, January 17, 2011
Communicating More Effectively
Is Your Message Not Getting Through?
How to tell anyone anything!
By James Murphy
Effective communication is one of the most challenging issues for anyone working in a team such as a business or organization. With so many different personality types working together, trying to tailor your communication strategy to each one can be daunting.
The Compliment Sandwich method is a classic and effective tool that we often forget to use. It is one of the easiest and most effective ways to communicate anything to any personality style. The conversation will feel genuine and flow smoothly provided that the positive feedback/compliments are genuine and related to your concern(s), and that you do not overuse that technique so that your words don’t seem contrived.
The idea is to start with some positive feedback (the bread), followed by the issue you need to address (the meat of your message), and finish with another compliment or positive feedback (the second piece of bread). The part that is most overlooked however is the verbiage you use in between the compliments and the main message itself. Stay away from words like “but”, “although”, or “however”. The immediate response to those words is defensiveness. They directly void any positive feedback —however sincere— you started with.
Let’s say that you are having an issue with a team member spending an increasing amount of time at work on personal matters. You might approach the person this way:
“John, We love having you as a part of this team. Your idea at yesterday’s sales meeting was right on point!
AND in fact it’s clear that you have a real impact on our corporate culture in the office; a lot of the junior associates take their cues from you.
So it’s crucial that you limit the time you spend on personal matters whether it be on the phone or online to the times when you are officially on break.
I know how committed you have been to this organization and I appreciate all your work especially for this last project. It made a difference."
Now, let’s add one more concept into the process. There are three different types of postures you can adopt when communicating with someone: authoritative, participative, or subordinate. An authoritative posture is always direct and to the point: “it’s crucial that you do xyz”. Your main message —the meat of the sandwich— is ALWAYS authoritative so the corrective action is clear and concise. The positive feedbacks or compliments —the bread— are ALWAYS participative: “We love you being part of the team”. You are not posturing down or up, you are simply delivering a genuine compliment as one person to another.
We always have a choice on how we communicate with the people around us, be it in a business or in our private lives. Using this Compliment Sandwich technique is an effective way to deliver constructive feedback while minimizing defensiveness in your audience. And better communication within your team, means greater effectiveness and greater results!
To your continued success,
James
If you would like to subscribe to our newsletter, click on the following link: http://MyOptInPage2.com/?pid=6280951
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)