How to Win Friends & Influence People By Dale Carnegie

For some reason, successful leaders seem to know how to effectively handle people, to win friends and to influence people…

These leaders have built their entire life and professional career around people by following basic principles.

How to Win Friends & Influence People By Dale Carnegie #books #bookreviews #influence #relationships #journeytoleadership journeytoleadershipblog.com

Wining Friends

Leaders understand that relationships can take you to the next level. Therefore, they tend to:

1. Avoid negative reviews

Leaders who are socially skilled avoid making complaints, condemning people, or manufacturing open and public criticism.

They understand that negative criticism generally breeds resentment.

Instead, they try to understand where the people are coming from.

2. Find out what the people really want

Most people care about their health, self-preservation, food, sleep, money, a craving for sincere appreciation and a desire for importance…

Furthermore, appreciation does not consist in giving cheap flattery but in honest appreciation.

If you tell me how you get your feeling of importance, I’ll tell you what you are. - Dale Carnegie Click To Tweet

3. Show people how to get what they want

To show people what they want and how to get it, leaders:

  • Consider the advantages and disadvantages of the situation.
  • Learn to see things from the other person’s point of view.

Influencing People

Influencing people is a basic and important skill in leadership.

That is why leaders who seek to increase their leadership:

1. Genuinely become interested in other people

They understand human nature, truly enjoy the interaction with people and do things for other people without any ulterior motives.

In addition, they remember people’s name, learn to smile and to be cheerful in their presence.

Indeed, smiling is contagious and can change an entire situation.

2. Become versed in the art of conversation

Being a great conversationalist starts by listening to people and encouraging people to talk about themselves.

Therefore, leaders find out the other person’s interest and start from there.

3. Obey the Golden Rule

Leaders observe the rules of human relationships.

As a consequence, they obey the Golden Rule and give unto others what we would have others give unto us.

4. Use diplomacy

To win people over to your way of thinking, they:

  • Are diplomatic.
  • Avoid arguments at all cost.
  • Never tell a person that they are wrong.
  • Consider the other person’s feelings, ideas and point of view.
  • Show respect for another person’s point of view.
  • Admit their wrongs and appeal to nobler motives.
  • Admit their mistakes and talk about them.
  • Don’t give direct orders but suggestions.
  • Give people the opportunity to make decisions for themselves and to correct themselves.
  • Don’t hurt people’s self-esteem and don’t diminish them in their own eyes

Review

How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie aims to educate adults into building healthy relationships and climbing up the social ladder.

Dale Carnegie shares contemporaneous and pragmatic principles that serve as guidelines for leaders who wish to network and grow their social capital.

Most of these principles are essential to life as much as the business world and will increase your skill in human relationship.

However, Dale Carnegie promotes the praising or “sucking up” game and uses the term “friend” very loosely.

That is because most of the principles are geared towards the business world and most of his examples are taken from people who have successfully implemented these principles.

Unfortunately, praises don’t work on everybody and is not a solution to all problems.

Let me know below what you think about this book!

Favorite quote(s)

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain – and most fools do.
But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.

Hurting people not only does not change them, it is never called for.

Ratings 3.5/5

Author

Dale Carnegie

Digiprove sealCopyright secured by Digiprove © 2022

Find Your People By Jennie Allen

We stay stuck in the routines of our lives.

We don’t connect with others, we seclude ourselves for self-protection and stay within the social circles we are comfortable with.

Yet we remain unsatisfied with our lives and wonder whether or not life is supposed to be this way.

Yet we wonder how to find our community, our people, the ones who will fight for us and who are worth fighting for.

Find Your People By Jennie Allen #relationships #books #bookreviews #journeytoleadership journeytoleadershipblog.com

What is a Community?

Community is more then friendships.

Community is a way of life and is essential to living a fulfilled life.

In addition, the sense of community is based on the truths that people are the best and most painful part of our lives.

Your Community is made of non toxic people who see you, know you and who are willing to be seen and known by you.

Principles for Community

Community is necessay.

Needing other people is not a weakness but a strength.

There are 5 principles to building a healthy Community.

1. Proximity

The principle of Proximity relates to a need for intimacy and physical closeness.

To create Proximity, you can start noticing people in your vecinity and initiating the friendship even if you get frustrated.

2. Transparency

Closeness leads to Transparency.

However, you will only be as close as you are transparent and vulnerable.

3. Accountability

When we are left alone, we tend to become the worst versions of ourselves.

That is why Community has the potential to make us better and keep us accountable.

Indeed, Community makes us more effective, challenges us to aim higher, sharpens the mind and speaks truth.

4. Shared purpose

Most communities are built around a bigger and common mission.

Communities give the opportunity to do something meaningful and exciting.

5. Consistency

Communities provides healthy and consistent relationships.

Usually, people aren’t because they don’t want to deal with conflicts.

Nevertheless, conflicts are an inherent part of life.

That is why the people from your Community have to be consistent, choose to stay and be willing to be inconvenienced by your relationship.

To stay consistent, one must:

  • Assume the best because so many offenses are misunderstandings.
  • Seek peace and address a problem directly before it grows.
  • Be quick to apologize and make amends.

Review

Find Your People by Jennie Allen is a faith-based self-help book about building deep community.

Find Your People is destined mostly for extroverts, for people who are hardwired for relationships, for people who are afraid of being alone and of being lonely.

It is also written for those who hope to make deep connection and build an authentic community.

Allen uses her own life experiences and as an example of moving from a space of lack and fear to one of finding the right community.

Indeed, Allen transforms her initial neediness for relationship into a personal strength.

Furthermore, she demonstrates through biblical references that Deep Community is a social necessity and a path to greater success, hope and faith.

It seems like building and keeping that Community requires hardwork but is worth it.

Finally, Allen stressed that there are no perfect people but only the right people for you.

So, go out there and find your people!

Let me know below what you think about this book!

Favorite quote(s)

But community is bigger than two or three friends. Community should be the way we live.

We live guarded because we fear someone will use our weakness against us.

No one can be your everything, but everyone has something to say, something to teach you, and something to bring to your life.

Conflict isn’t the enemy to our friendships; conflict is fodder to make them grow. Conflict is inevitable in the kind of deep community we are talking about here.

If we’re going to deal with an offense, it needs to be a real offense. This is my rule on when to address something: don’t react too quickly. So many hurts are just misunderstandings.

Ratings 3/5

Author

Jennie Allen

Digiprove sealCopyright secured by Digiprove © 2022

Jennie Allen

Author Biography #bookreviews #books #bio #biography #author #journeytoleadership journeytoleadershipblog.com

Jennie Allen is the founder of IF: Gathering. Jennie Allen is also the author of Find Your People.

How to Win Friends & Influence People By Dale Carnegie

For some reason, successful leaders seem to know how to effectively handle people, to win friends and to influence people…

These leaders have built their entire life and professional career around people by following basic principles.

How to Win Friends & Influence People By Dale Carnegie #book #bookreview #bookreviews #reviews #influence #relationships #leadership #leadershipdevelopment #businessworld journeytoleadershipblog.com

Wining Friends

Leaders understand that relationships can take you to the next level. Therefore, they tend to:

1. Avoid negative reviews

Leaders who are socially skilled avoid making complaints, condemning people, or manufacturing open and public criticism.

They understand that negative criticism generally breeds resentment.

Instead, they try to understand where the people are coming from.

2. Find out what the people really want

Most people care about their health, self-preservation, food, sleep, money, a craving for sincere appreciation and a desire for importance…

Furthermore, appreciation does not consist in giving cheap flattery but in honest appreciation.

If you tell me how you get your feeling of importance, I’ll tell you what you are. - Dale Carnegie Click To Tweet

3. Show people how to get what they want

To show people what they want and how to get it, leaders:

  • Consider the advantages and disadvantages of the situation.
  • Learn to see things from the other person’s point of view.

Influencing People

Influencing people is a basic and important skill in leadership.

That is why leaders who seek to increase their leadership:

1. Genuinely become interested in other people

They understand human nature, truly enjoy the interaction with people and do things for other people without any ulterior motives.

In addition, they remember people’s name, learn to smile and to be cheerful in their presence.

Indeed, smiling is contagious and can change an entire situation.

2. Become versed in the art of conversation

Being a great conversationalist starts by listening to people and encouraging people to talk about themselves.

Therefore, leaders find out the other person’s interest and start from there.

3. Obey the Golden Rule

Leaders observe the rules of human relationships.

As a consequence, they obey the Golden Rule and give unto others what we would have others give unto us.

4. Use diplomacy

To win people over to your way of thinking, they:

  • Are diplomatic.
  • Avoid arguments at all cost.
  • Never tell a person that they are wrong.
  • Consider the other person’s feelings, ideas and point of view.
  • Show respect for another person’s point of view.
  • Admit their wrongs and appeal to nobler motives.
  • Admit their mistakes and talk about them.
  • Don’t give direct orders but suggestions.
  • Give people the opportunity to make decisions for themselves and to correct themselves.
  • Don’t hurt people’s self-esteem and don’t diminish them in their own eyes

Review

How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie aims to educate adults into building healthy relationships and climbing up the social ladder.

Dale Carnegie shares contemporaneous and pragmatic principles that serve as guidelines for leaders who wish to network and grow their social capital.

Most of these principles are essential to life as much as the business world and will increase your skill in human relationship.

However, Dale Carnegie promotes the praising or “sucking up” game and uses the term “friend” very loosely.

That is because most of the principles are geared towards the business world and most of his examples are taken from people who have successfully implemented these principles.

Unfortunately, praises don’t work on everybody and is not a solution to all problems.

Let me know below what you think about this book!

Favorite quote(s)

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain – and most fools do.
But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.

Hurting people not only does not change them, it is never called for.

Ratings 3.5/5

Author

Dale Carnegie

Digiprove sealCopyright secured by Digiprove © 2021

Radical Candor: How to Get What You Want by Saying What You Mean By Kim Scott

Being a boss is a full-time job and is not as easy as it seems.

The truth is, being the boss can be an emotional rollercoaster.

It requires maturity, focus and emotional discipline, especially when dealing with people.

That is why Kim Scott has established a few principles that can help bosses create a culture of candor, build stable relationships and evolve into great bosses.

According to Kim Scott, managers, leaders or bosses:

  1. Achieve results.
  2. Deal with people.
  3. Express what they think.
  4. Build and guide cohesive teams.
  5. Accept and give fair and candid feedback.

As you can see, Kim Scott makes no distinction between a boss, a leader and a manager because eventually, they have to assume different roles and master different skills at different moments.

They all have to find out a way to get what they want by saying what they mean.

Radical Candor: How to Get What You Want by Saying What You Mean

Radical Candor_ Be a Kickass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity by Kim Scott (2)

Why and how to build relationships?

The relationships you have with your team determine your level of success, company culture, and performance.

To build great relationships that will help your business:

  • Take care of yourself first.
  • Stay centered and create a healthy work life balance.
  • Find out what works best for you and apply it.
  • Care personally about people.
  • Respect boundaries and people physical space. It is detrimental to find a balance between creating personal yet professional bonds.
  • Spend time alone with your team members.
  • Stay true to your values and share them if possible.
  • Be transparent and aware of your emotions.
  • Discipline your reactions. Learn to respond and not react.

Why and how to build a great team?

People’s motivations are personal.

Every team member can be exceptional, they just have to find the right fit and the right motivations.

Needless to say, work life is better when your team loves what they do.

To build a great team:

  • Get to know the people on your team. Focus more on them than on results.
  • Understand people’s strength and weaknesses, identify how they tick and how their job fits into their life plan.
  • Avoid micromanaging or ignoring your team members.
  • Allocate as much time to those who are struggling as the top performers.
  • Listen to your team members, learn to incorporate their thinking into yours, and give them the opportunity to complain, share ideas, and raise issues. This way, you will create a culture of innovation.

Why and how to accept/give feedback?

Feedback is an uncomfortable process. To accept and give proper feedback:

  • Earn your team’s trust.
  • Listen more than you speak.
  • Understand what motivates your team and help them avoid burnout or boredom.
  • Understand your audience and adapt to it.
  • See feedback as an act of guidance and don’t make it personal.
  • Solicit feedback especially in private conversations and outside of meetings.
  • Voice your own disagreements. Speak up when things are not going well.
  • Take responsibility fo your actions and admit when you have made a mistake
  • Discern the truth from a lie when it comes to feedback.
  • Be humble in your delivery and state that you want to help.

Why and how to achieve results?

Every boss wants results. To achieve results:

  • Have frequent one on one conversation with your team and with a positive mindset. Have a one on one conversation with your team members to get to know them, to solve problems effectively and to help you understand what is working and what is not.
  • Create key metrics to measure progress. Write down any possible updates.
  • Create meetings where you can debate, encourage new ideas and make big decisions.
  • Test out the feasibility of the ideas you have received.

Review

Radical Candor: How to Get What You Want by Saying What You Mean By Kim Scott is a step by step guide on how to be a candid boss.

It is about building candid relationships with the people you work with and about using your humanity as a leadership tool.

Radical Candor: How to Get What You Want by Saying What You Mean By Kim Scott essentially takes the pressure off leaders.

The principles shared expose candor as a management tool, put bosses at ease and help them understand that there is more to being a boss than giving orders.

In addition, the principles shared remove fear, self-doubt and anxiety, then create an understanding regarding the role of a boss.

Furthermore, Kim Scott uses her own experiences at Google and Adsense to drive the conversation and to illustrate her ideas about radical candor.

She provides amazing tools and techniques to implement in order to be a great boss and to have a healthy relationship with your direct reports.

Her tools and techniques are detailed and are not exclusive to bosses.

Finally, the best thing about this book is that you can tell that Kim Scott cares about the career advancement and the emotional health of every boss.

Through radical candor, she demonstrates how to improve all aspects of your work life.

You don’t have to implement every tool or technique right away.

Let me know below what you think about this book!

Favorite quote(s)

In order to build a great team, you need to understand how each person’s job fits into their life goals

The way you treat people determines whether you’ll get their best effort, a perfunctory effort, or an effort to sabotage you.

Ratings 3/5

Author

Kim Scott

11 Best Strategies For Leaders To Fight Workplace Stress

Have you ever noticed that no matter how much you are successful, how much you wish to be happy or to have peace of mind, life has a way of placing you in the same stressful situations?

That is because, until you have learnt to deal with these stressful situations, they will keep showing up.

For example, if you try to avoid someone who stresses you out, you will constantly run into that same person until you deal with your feelings about that person.

It is therefore important to learn how to cope with these situations and find the right methods to address your stress.

Wondering how to cope and effectively fight workplace stress?

11 Best Strategies For Leaders To Fight Workplace Stress

Why are leaders stressed in the workplace?

Stress is inherently part of life and stressed leaders have seemed to become the norm. Leaders are mostly stressed at work due to:

  • interpersonal conflicts,
  • poor time management,
  • poor work performance,
  • a lack of financial freedom,
  • drastic and sudden changes,
  • excess meetings, policies and procedures.

Stress has a direct impact on the corporate culture, on the leader’s leadership style, performance, and health.

People express stress differently: some people get angry, some get exhausted and withdrawn, and others go into fight or flight mode.

11 Best Strategies For Leaders To Fight Workplace Stress

There are several ways to remain calm under pressure, manage your stress and use it to your advantage.

#1. Be more self-aware & develop your emotional discipline

It becomes critical to always take a step back from a situation, seek deeper insights in your thoughts and behaviors to identify stress triggers, weigh out the outcomes of the situation. How important is this situation for you?

To be more self-aware and develop emotional disciplined:

  • Confront your painful situation and identify your triggers.
  • Identify your strength, weaknesses and limitations.
  • Be aware of the first physical symptoms of stress. Observe how your body responds to stress. During stressful times, some people are tense, can’t sleep, can’t eat.
  • Control your emotional reaction to the situation.
  • Write down the things that bother you.
  • Put a name to your emotions.

#2. Change your mindset

Your mind has everything to do with your behavior. To change your mindset:

  • See stress as a motivation.
  • Influence your brain to accurately interpret a high pressured situation. We have a tendency to distort situations through our lenses and either make them grander than they are.
  • Assume strictly positive outcomes of the stressful situation and speak positivity into reality.
  • Be open to new opportunities and new experiences.
  • Stay calm and positive. Positive attitudes can become difficult to maintain in challenging situations in the workplace. But once acquired, it is a habit that can help you overcome bad situations.
Adopting the right attitude can convert a negative stress into a positive one. - Hans Selye Click To Tweet

#3. Be grateful

No matter how hard it gets, you are still breathing. This means that you have one more day to change your situation and to create a better life.

To dispel stress:

  • Be grateful for your day to day.
  • Make a gratitude list to remind yourself of what you are thankful for.
  • Appreciate where you are in life, even where it’s not where you want to be.

#4. Prioritize & stick to the essentials

When deadlines are set and cannot be moved, when we are late we tend to stress out.

Prioritizing is all about honing your decisions making and time management skills in order to achieve more. To do so:

  • Understand that it’s OK to miss out on things.
  • Learn how to say no and to set boundaries.
  • Learn to prioritize. When you have your priorities in check, you are able to know what is essential, what you are able to handle in your work day and who you are able to see.
  • Apply the 80/20 principle.
  • Don’t try to be perfect.

#5. Create a better work-life balance

Your professional and your personal lives are tightly intertwined. Creating work-life balance is not giving equal attention to both work and life.

However, it means that you are satisfied with your contributions to your life and work, that you are able to create a sustainable synergy between both so that you are fueled by them on a daily basis.

To create a better work-life balance:

  • Don’t stay too long at work.
  • Don’t take your stress at home.
  • Take long drives before getting home.
  • Spend more time with family and friends.
  • Figure out if you can work from home.
  • Create a morning routine to kick off your day on the right foot.
  • Take care of yourself first and boost your leadership self-esteem.
  • Align your daily activities in life and work with your values, principles.

#6. Learn how to delegate 

Most leaders want to control people, do everything themselves, be on top of everything all at once and find it hard to delegate.

However, to remove stress due to work overload, it is important to learn how to delegate and automate some of your activities.

Delegating will allow you to take all the load off your shoulders. To delegate:

  • Demonstrate confidence in yourself and in your team.
  • Select experts in their field, clarify their roles, give them the authority to do their jobs, allow them to fail and to grow.
  • Create clear progress measurement tools and milestones.
  • Avoid micromanaging people but measure their advancement.

#7. Learn to communicate

Great communication skills will improve your leadership credibility, your self-confidence, your relationships with others, your feelings of belonging and will decrease your stress level.

They will also drive change and increase team motivation.

To decrease your stress level:

  • Learn to effectively communicate your grievances.
  • Remember that everyone is different and won’t communicate the way you do.

#8. Emotionally detach yourself from your job.

Obsessing about work is problematic and unhealthy. Most of the time, being emotionally attached leads to being sensitive to feedback and to being unable to see the bigger picture.

Unfortunately, most people who succeed are those who put in work and yet are detached from their work.

#9. Filter out your entourage

Leaders and employees have to make quick decisions while getting along with everyone, in multicultural contexts, with people from various backgrounds.

So, if your relationships brings you more stress than necessary:

  • Surround yourself with people you can trust. Build real connections and learn to discern the authentic relationships by observing their actions.
  • Confide in your mentor and ask for advice.
  • If you can, get rid of toxic coworkers or relationships.
  • Isolate yourself if needed. Sometimes, it is good  to remove yourself from society, to contemplate solitude in order to enjoy yourself, your thoughts.
  • If you are unable to avoid negative interactions, isolate the information that you need from the interaction. Write down that information and do not rely on memory or distorted thoughts.
  • Do not compete with people and stay focused on your job.

#10. Exercise and take regular breaks

Exercise and regular breaks will allow you to break your routine and mindless actions.

  • Plan your breaks.
  • Take time off to disconnect and enjoy your holidays.
  • Listen more than you speak to give your brain a break.
  • Make sure that your habits and exercise routine fit your lifestyle.
  • Do activities that you enjoy in the middle of the work day and on weekends.
  • Unplug from the internet and from your phone on your breaks and on the weekends.

#11. Let go & let God

At some point in life, you must:

  • Understand that you cannot control everything.
  • Control the controllable factors (like your reactions to the situation) and release what you cannot control. Worrying about people or events beyond your control is a waste of energy.
  • Know that your situation is temporary and that you will come through the other side. Meanwhile, be kind to somebody and help someone.

Last Words Of Advice!

Remember that, as a leader, people are closely monitoring your behavior.

They will be looking to you for inspiration and for a sense of calm in challenging situations.

Finally, make sure that your passion for your job outweigh your level of stress on the job. If it doesn’t, then it’s time to quit.

Hope that I’ve helped you get it together on your way to leadership!

Don’t forget to like, share and leave a comment below.

The Importance Of Effectively Improving Your Communication Skills

Leaders receive a multitude of information on a daily basis. They make hard decisions every day and expect that their employees will directly understand and precisely apply them.

Decisions become erroneous when leader fail to listen. The execution process falls short when leaders fail to communicate and clarify their vision. Subsequently, they also fail to solve problems and reach their goals.

Wondering how to hone your communication skills and create a better working environment? 

The Importance Of Effectively Improving Your Communication Skills

What is communication?

Communication is a complex and dynamic process, used to collect information. It is also a form of human interaction that always involves at least 2 people, that depends on the character of the people involved and that relies on trust.

While communicating, we receive and/or emit information through silence, facial expressions, writing, reading, talking or listening. We use these skills practically everywhere at work, for every situations.

In addition, a noisy environment, stereotypes, cultural differences, lexical differences, company culture are barriers to communication. These barriers distort what is being said and what is being received. However, being aware if them is the first step to reprogramming communication.

Why is it important?

Communication skill is the ability to effectively interact with people to influence, to convince, to mobilize people towards one goal, to unify teams.

Developing communication skills will bring success at every level, help convey a better understanding of your standards and requirements, build positive healthy relationships, avoid or work through conflicts.

Great communication skills will improve your leadership credibility, your self-confidence, your relationships with others, your feelings of belonging and will decrease your stress level. They will also drive change and increase team motivation.

Furthermore, poor communication skills can prevent you from understanding your coworkers, getting hired or getting promoted, saving time or sharing request in meetings. communication failure leads to resentment.

How to improve your communication skills?

At work, some people struggle to share their thoughts, ideas. To improve your communication skills and get ahead at work:

  1. Be self-aware and stay authentic to your principles.
  2. Demonstrate empathy. Empathy will allow you to reach people, to perceive their feelings and perspectives, to build a team that you understand. For example, start by learning your employee’s name to show that you care.
  3. Demonstrate that you can be trusted by keeping secrets, by following through on promises and commitments, by being consistent, and by not withholding useful information
  4. Even though you don’t believe it, you are a brand and must treat yourself as such. You must learn to present, to market yourself, to quantify and value your assets.
  5. Find a purpose for every interaction. Your purpose gives your communication direction.
  6. Remember that everyone is different and won’t communicate the way you do.
  7. Always think win-win. According to Stephen Covey in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, it is better to seek mutual benefits in all human interactions, believe that life is a cooperation and not a competition.
  8. Understand the corporate culture to adapt your communication style. Your communication style will influence the way others react to you. Numerous communication styles have been developed throughout the years and most often, have been equated to leadership style. Needless to say, everyone doesn’t communicate the same way.
  9. Bear in mind that appearances are important, even detrimental to success. Maintain professional decorum at all times, dress appropriately, groom yourself, be hygienic, keep your composure according to the company’s culture.
  10. Take care of your own body language by standing straight, by eliminating over the top behavior, standing still, staying focused on your interlocutor, maintaining eye contact and restraining your facial expression.
  11. Actively listen and speak less. While listening, monitor body language, evaluate the emotional intensity of the conversation, stay open-minded, and choose your words carefully not to offend. This also means that you don’t need to emit judgement during the process, that you must avoid listening to reply or to seek ulterior motives in someone, and that you must allow people to talk without interruption, even if I disagree with them.
  12. When writing and speaking, keep it succinct, specific, clear, coherent and compelling for others. Avoid using ambiguous words.
  13. Treat people as you want to be treated. Stay polite and treat people with the respect that they deserve and with regards to their culture.
  14. Have an open door policy and be approachable.
  15. Analyze your audience. Take time and analyze the full situation and pay attention to non verbal communication.
  16. When in conversation, observe what is being said and paraphrase to confirm that you have properly understood, ask probing questions to get all the information and avoid daydreaming, tuning out or jumping to conclusions. If nervous, introverted or shy, practice your conversations before.
  17. Avoid using stereotypes to categorize someone or the info that they share.
  18. Use humor to defuse negative situations to elevate any subject, to put your audience at ease. Using humor is risky but is worth-while.
  19. Reward positive behavior and hold people accountable for negative behavior.

Last Words Of Advice!

To effectively improve communication, there are also a few unspoken rules to follow. One must avoid:

  • Discounting information on the account of discrediting the source.
  • Comparing the information you are getting with your own experience.
  • Calling attention to yourself or your situation.
  • Gossiping, openly criticizing or making fun of others and their interests. Find solutions and help resolve problem instead of creating them.
  • Noisy environment to have conversations.
  • Respect silence. Silence is golden in some cultures.
  1. Finally, don’t take anything personal.

Hope that I’ve helped you get it together on your way to leadership!

Don’t forget to like, share and leave a comment below.

Confidence Plan — How To Build A Stronger You, Mastering The Practical Skills Of Winning by Tim Ursiny

In Confidence Plan — How To Build A Stronger You, Mastering The Practical Skills Of Winning, Tim Ursiny believes that building self-confidence does not only rely on positive self-talk, on words of affirmation, on changing our thought patterns or other mental strategies.

To build long-term confidence, Ursiny believes that we also have to develop emotional, behavioral, relational and spiritual strategies.

For Ursiny, confidence is an important factor to fulfilling our dreams, for achieving real success at work and at home, for building and maintaining healthy relationships, for understanding and communicating with others.

Confidence Plan

Recognizing the importance of confidence

Struggling with confidence either means that you suffer from low self-esteem or that you are living, working, breathing in the wrong place. If you have never suffered from lack of confidence, then you have never left your comfort zone.

Needless to say, confidence is the opposite of humility. It is the belief in our abilities to perform, to get results from our performance, in our worth and in our opinion of ourselves.

In addition, we all internal regulator that measures our level of confidence, depending on our successes and failures, that forces us to take action and that can be explained by different factors. We have a level to which we will not allow ourselves to fall or to rise. It is important to identify those levels in order to rewire our expectations and reset our internal regulator.

To recognize the importance of confidence:

  • Learn from adversity. Through resilience, “quality that allows us to pick ourselves back up after experiencing hardship or trauma”, you grow your confidence despite failure.
  • Embrace your past, enjoy your success, get over past failures and learn from your mistakes. People who hide or don’t observe their past tend to repeat the same mistakes and miss out on opportunities.
  • Assess your current abilities, behaviors, habits, blind spots, strengths and weaknesses. Welcome feedback from trusted people around you and make the needed changes.
  • Stay focused on your vision and be optimistic that you are going to get there.
  • Work on your attitude. Attitudes are composed of what we think, how we feel and what we do. And, when all these aspects are aligned, we are more peaceful and more confident. Therefore, to constantly adjust your attitude:
    • Watch your self talk, reward positive thinking and remind yourself of your own competencies.
    • Take time off for yourself, enjoy the company of your friends and family.
    • Practise future behaviors in fictional situations.
  • Identify the motivations for reaching your goals and take the steps to grow.

Challenging personal comfort zones

The way we perceive ourselves or a situation can seriously impact our confidence. To challenge your personal comfort zones:

  • Use different techniques to control your thoughts and to remain present. Some turn to meditation, some to God and others to religion to instill peace of mind.
  • Avoid making snap judgements that create insecurities and that easily lead us into error.
  • Avoid self-fulfilling prophecies and remain optimistic. Sometimes, when we believe that we can achieve something, our subconscious will arrange our actions and behaviors to match that expectation. Believing that good things will come to you will help you live a happier life.
  • Don’t be your own self-critic. Use words of affirmations to motivate you and to reach higher grounds of success.
  • Identify the embarrassing thoughts and seek new ones.
  • Stop negative thoughts from taking root in your mind. For example, use the highly effective rubber band technique:
    • Put a rubber band around your wrist.
    • When negative thoughts come in, snap the rubber band.
    • Tell yourself to stop the thought pattern.
    • Replace the negative thought with a positive one.

Building confidence in failure

Most often, our behavior and emotional response are illogical. To gauge your emotional level of confidence and to gain sight into your emotional core:

  • Evaluate your behavior in stressful situations and your relationship with compliments.
  •  Start journaling.
  • Take responsibility for your feelings about yourself and about how others make you feel, for your successes and failures.
  • Avoid  negative opinions and hypothesis about people and yourself. You will end up attributing negative connotations to every single one of their behaviors and only confirming what you already belive.
  • Don’t allow past hurts to define your future.
  • Use visualization techniques and your 5 senses to deepen your confidence, your emotional core, to increase self-control and resilience.

Understanding the limits of self-confidence

Fears have a knack for decreasing our confidence. To understand the limits of self-confidence:

  • Act more confidently so you can become more confident.
  • Identify what drains you and what fills you up with energy. We usually feel stressed when there are elements out of our control because we feel less powerful than we think we are. To feel better, shift your focus on things that you can control.
  • Identify the goal to grow your already existing confidence. Then, stop and measure your progress.
  • Identify your fears then face your fears by gradually desensitizing and exposing yourself to them. “Confidence is not the absence of fear” but means that “fear has no control over you”.
  • Avoid procrastination. Procrastination tends to intensify our fears.
  • Expose yourself to embarrassment more often.

Building confidence through the 5 approaches

The culture and the people we surround ourselves with have a huge impact on our self-confidence. To grow your confidence through mental, emotional, behavioral, relational and spiritual strategies:

  • Identify people who drain your confidence, that judge your abilities and capabilities. Assess their actions, learn to deal with them effectively or learn to repair the relationships.
  • Find out whether or not you are draining someone else.
  • Create and increase your support system that defines your social identity. In this support system, we feel more comfortable being ourselves.
  • Consider how conflicts impact your confidence. Conflicts are born from prejudices, stereotypes and differences in opinion. Firstly, center yourself around your own opinion in order not to be threatened by someone else’s or to become defensive. Secondly, build relationships that promotes trust and loyalty.
  • Forgive and give back to your community to help you grow.
  • Invite feedback from people you trust and respect.

Transcending self-confidence

To find our higher levels of confidence, we must believe that there is something bigger that us and we must tap into our spiritual being. To transcend your self-confidence:

  • Identify your purpose and higher calling. This way, you won’t accept environments and position that don’t satisfy you or that don’t play to your strengths and weaknesses.
  • Examine how you can bring significance to your work, what you want to be remembered for, that mark you want to leave on earth.
  • Practise what you preach.
  • Develop a deeper relationship with God.
  • Build a personal mission statement.

Review

Confidence Plan — How To Build A Stronger You, Mastering The Practical Skills Of Winning, by Tim Ursiny, is written for those who want a better life for themselves, a more positive vision of life, or to assess their level of confidence. It is also written for those with low self-esteem and for those who struggle with self-confidence.

Confidence Plan — How To Build A Stronger You, Mastering The Practical Skills Of Winning is transformational and can be used in our professional life as much as our personal life. Through his book, through immediate practical exercises, Tim Ursiny seeks to impact people long-term.

Tim Ursiny provides us with timely, implementable exercises that you can work on, on a daily basis. You can work on the exercises in six weeks or you can work at our own pace. It is therefore necessary for you to select the techniques and sections of the book that speak the most to you.

Favorite quote(s)

In any situation where two people are competing with relatively similar skills, the more confident person will always succeed at a greater level.

The way we view a situation can have serious ramifications. Our perceptions will often dictate what we do, how we feel, and how we interact with others.

Our minds are capable of processing a huge amount of information. This is both a plus and a minus concerning whether this information aids us or hurts us.What goes on in our minds has a powerful impact on our confidence and our behavior. Having the wrong stuff in our heads is dangerous to our success.

We cannot control what others say to us, but we definitely can impact and change what we say to ourselves.

One form of conflict is a result of prejudice and stereotypes

No matter how confident we are, no matter how successful we become, no matter how powerful we feel, there is something bigger than us.

Ratings 3/5

Author

Tim Ursiny

Purchase

Tim Ursiny

authorTim Ursiny, PhD, is the president and founder of Advantage Coaching & Training. Tim Ursiny is also the Author of the Confidence Plan — How To Build A Stronger You, Mastering The Practical Skills Of Winning.

Building And Maintaining Healthy Relationships In The Workplace

Deep long-lasting work relationships in corporate can take your career to the next level.

In a world where technology has taken over, where interactions are made behind our computer, where misunderstandings often foster and loyalty is a luxury, building relationships is challenging but can make the difference.

Wondering how leaders build and maintain long-lasting relationships in the workplace?

relationships workplace

The benefits of healthy relationships in the workplace

Building work relationships is difficult in itself. Mostly, because we don’t have the luxury of choosing who we hang out with.

In addition, highly skilled, smart people easily lose their jobs because of their low social skills, of their poor behavior and their lack of emotional intelligence.

The quality of the work relationships has direct impact on the quality of our lives. Indeed, healthy relationships have a tendency to reduce the effects of stress, to improve job satisfaction, quality of life, to keep us motivated and enthusiastic. They are a great indicator of whether or not we love our job.

Build and maintain deeper relationships

Thinking that work relationships are not worthy is a mistake. Leaders and employees have to make quick decisions while getting along with everyone, in multicultural contexts, with people from various backgrounds.

  1. Be authentic and comfortable with yourself first.
  2. Believe that you are worthy of relationships.
  3. Believe that you are trustworthy, that people are trustworthy even though you are aware of snakes in the grass. You can demonstrate trust by soliciting people’s opinion in one on ones.
  4. Believe that relationships are important to your career and to your self-development.
  5. Be reasonable. Monitor your behavior and what you say to people on a daily basis.
  6. Be patient and wait for an opportunity to present itself. Prepare yourself in the meanwhile by taking training and becoming an expert in your field.
  7. Get to know your audience, the decision makers and the influencers in the workplace. This means that you have t identify and anticipate their triggers, their motivations, their challenges, their needs. For example, ask specific questions to discover what someone cares about. Furthermore, discreetly get their attention and align yourself with them.
  8. Treat others the way you want to be treated. Respect yourself and the people around you even though they don’t reciprocate. Also, respect their time and opinion, accept them for who they are.
  9. Expect the best behavior from people even if you don’t like them and even though their behavior is not the best.
  10. Stay positive and develop your emotional intelligence to understand your emotions, those of others and to sustain your work relationships.
  11. Increase self-awareness. Assess your people skills and seek to develop them.
  12. Be assertive and clearly set boundaries to your relationships.
  13. Stay on top of corporate opinions and make sure you align yourself with them.
  14. Work on being more approachable. For example, if you are serious, smile a little more often. If you are very private, reveal a little bit about yourself to your coworkers.
  15. Identify and adapt the corporate communication style in order to express yourself. For instance, learn how to cordially disagree with your coworkers.
  16. Avoid destructive conflicts and avoid making enemies uselessly.
  17. Keep networking and making your new-found contacts your most valuable allies.
  18. Invest time and energy into your employees. Create a sense of unity and openness and show team spirit. Don’t allow people to feel excluded or disconnected and promote collaboration.
  19. Increase your team’s self-esteem. Make people, mostly your younger workers, feel good about themselves. You can do this by giving out meaningful assignments and validating the contributions of your employees. If your employees are not able to fulfill their duties, coach them or send them to a training instead of taking away their responsibilities.
  20. Help others in their work and help them to succeed.
  21. Share purpose to gather everyone around your vision.
  22. Address important issues in the room during meetings and don’t allow them to grow.
  23. Involve your employees in the decision-making process.
  24. Listen actively to understand your teams deepest needs, to build trust and loyalty before trying to influence and persuade them.
  25. Avoid gossip and spreading negativity. Gossiping will not dissipate misunderstandings but will only exacerbate them.
  26. When a situation turns sour, identify the reasons why. Look at yourself beforehand, own a piece of a problem, avoid shifting blame and see how you could have positioned yourself differently. Also, to maintain relationships, quietly make amends, repair past damages, be accountable for your actions, without needing to ask for forgiveness or without begging.
  27. At work, we connect differently with our coworkers and sometimes take that connection outside of the workplace. With some coworkers, we are comfortable enough to talk about our private lives, families and are able to take the relationship beyond the workplace. We either think that our coworkers are out friends and families or we either don’t care to be liked by them. It is therefore necessary to learn how to discern personal and professional connections in the workplace.
  28. Show appreciation by publicly and privately congratulating your team for their great work.

Hope that I’ve helped you get it together on your way to leadership!

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