Interview or naked party?

Source: russhnoise.tumblr.com via Alison on Pinterest

I attended a CIPS local chapter meeting last night facilitated by Lynsey & Jack from Hays here in Scotland. The topic was CV's and interviews - and whilst I'm not looking for a job, and was there mainly to network and connect, I still came away with many things to do differently.

One overriding message, for me anyway, was a reminder that the words we use impact what's going on in our head and therefore have an impact on our state. This in turn then impacts our behaviour.

For example we use the word Interview. Our head may then form a picture of an interrogation. This may then lead us to start imagining angry people shouting at us, all the things we don't know the answer to and/or being asked questions that have us siting there in dumbfounded silence unable to utter a word. With these images going around our head it's easy to understand how stress levels increase and our ability to think clearly starts to diminish.

If there's a link then to the words we use, the pictures they create in our heads and the resulting actions we take I'd suggest it's useful to be aware when these are helpful and when they're not. If unhelpful we then have 2 options:

1. Change the word we're using to a more helpful one.
2. Change our representation of the word.

The tip most offered for interviews is to imagine the interviewer naked which is simply option 2 in operation. In the session yesterday Jack suggested we see an interview as a meeting where we're exchanging ideas. Where both parties are checking the other out to see if they like each other. Which unless you also get nervous in meetings may very well work. In a tweet today someone suggested we go a step further and imagine it simply being a chat or even as a party! Whether the use of party works for you is really down to the state the word generates in you and the actions you're then likely to take as a result. I'd suggest a naked party might be taking it a little far!

Alison Smith
Helping Procurement find the right words when dealing with stakeholders

Speaker Authenticity - it's more than truth telling

Authenticity is something that is often mentioned as an aspiration of speakers. As a speaker myself and writing this to other speakers I think it’s useful to remember that we all judge others by our own definition. That is we each have our own definition, so too our colleagues, other speakers and audiences.

I’d suggest therefore that understanding our own and other’s views on authenticity may be useful. Without that understanding how can we ensure when speaking we avoid following others’ advice to become more authentic when that very action could make us less so.

This weekend I found myself tweeting the following in response to an exchange from other twits at @influence11 (see #nsa11) a conference of professional speakers in California:

alisonrbcm: challenge is that sometimes following others advice can take you away from being authentic and make it more 'manufactured'

alisonrbcm: wonder if telling it {the story} to be of service vs telling it to make more sales also makes a difference on authenticity felt by audience

alisonrbcm: something about congruency with self and not congruency with what we think we have to be to be accepted

These reflect the feeling I have that authenticity is more than simply truth telling, more than just not lying and yes even more than showing vulnerability. Looking on the internet for a definition I liked the one over on Wiki:

"Authenticity is the degree to which one is true to one's own personality, spirit, or character, despite these {external} pressures."

If this is true then it’s perhaps easier to see how we can determine whether we’re achieving this for ourselves – but how can we assess others against this? How can we know if someone is being true to their spirit? I’d love to know how YOU know.

For me my assessment has an energetic component ie where do I feel the speaker’s communication is coming from: ie their head, heart, spirit or body and where is it going to: ie my head, heart, spirit, back of the room or someplace else? Which is why I will disagree with many when I only feel the connection from the speaker’s head to mine rather than more deeply heart to heart or spirit to spirit.

I've raised a discussion in LinkedIn to share your thoughts - do join us there.

Childlike Wonder

This model used by Stephen R Covey in the 8th Habit demonstrates the relationship between all aspects of our life. That is each one of the elements impacts the other. So far in this blog this month I've shared my suggestions on how changes to your mind and body can significantly impact your life. This week I want to touch on the impact our Heart and our emotions can have. There's lots I could say but I was hoping I'd find a story from life to share and only got that last night!

Talk on the Chris Evans show of the new Chitty Chitty Bang Bang stories took me back to when I saw the musical. I just love musicals and when Chitty flew into the auditorium I'm not sure there was a child in the theater who had a smile wider than me :-). Which had me reminiscing about the Mary Poppins musical and the fabulous dancing to supercalifragilisticexpialidocious - or rather to suoicodilaipxecitsiligarfilacrepus. And then what about when Bert tap dances his way up the side and along the top of the stage curtains! Which meant last night there I was listening, and yes even dancing and singing, along to some of my favourite songs from musicals (you might want to turn your sound down little before using any of the links):

Seasons of Love from Rent - how do you measure a year?

Defying Gravity from Wicked - I still get goosebumps

Circle of Life from Lion King - what about those costumes?

Which had me remembering other acts that have amazed and inspired me:
Cirque du Soleil - La Nouba - the trampoline sequence just has to be seen

and finally I moved onto my other sing along at the top of my voice songs including:
Affirmation from Savage Garden

It's easy to buy into the current situation and believe it's that that's making us feel as we are - especially when it's not as we'd like it to be. We're upset because X did or said Y to us. The reality is we have a choice how we react and sometimes when life is getting us down we simple need to find that child like wonder to get that spring back into our step.

What would bring some child like wonder into your life this weekend?

Alison

PS I've so loved revisiting these again this morning and hope you all have a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious weekend.

Talking to yourself

The theme this week is the Mind's contribution to us having the life we want. You see for all it's complexity and ability to do amazing things it's also very simple. If your mind hears something enough it believes it. So if you say "I can't" you probably wont!

Yes it's that simple and before you start saying "I really can't" then just have a look at a previous blog that demonstrated a remarkable change around in my running times during PT. The only difference was I stopped saying "I can't", "It's difficult", "It's impossible", "But".

Dr David Hamilton has written a number of books detailing the scientific changes that take place in our body when we're positive, kind, or show gratitude. These things really are as important as our five a day. Yes they can improve our health and therefore our ability to achieve things.

So if you only do one thing this week can I encourage you to observe what you're saying to your self about: you, your abilities, your future achievements and reflect on how these are impacting how you're feeling and what you're choosing to do - or not do. If you think they might not be helping just try cutting them out of your dialogue and even better finding more positive and supportive wording instead. In fact don't just 'try' - DO IT.

Do let me know how you get on.

Homeplay for the weekend

A year ago I was asked to blog on well being for HRZone and have been an active blogger since then. Over that time I've continued to share insights, observations and challenges from life. This has covered an array of subjects including motivation, effective communication, integrity and authenticity etc. In other words things that can transform our relationships and help us out of the creeks we find ourselves.

In March (and possibly even a smidgen in Feb) I'd like to go back to look at well being - for two reasons:

The 1st: I've just been on a Food4Life workshop and would love to share the learning
The 2nd: Our well being has a HUGE impact on the quality of our relationships

To provide you with the motivation to read my blog for the next few weeks I'd like to set you some homeplay (homework but of the fun variety) I'd like you to notice the impact how you're feeling has on others - whether you're:

Happy, Energised and motivated or
Angry, tired and apathetic or
somewhere in between.

The blog will then look at how to get more of what you want and less of the other.

It came into my heart to do it

On the way home from a meeting last night I was listening to the Archers on the radio and Eddie Grundy said "It just came into my heart to do it". I just think that's such a wonderful saying. I often use 'it came to mind' and wonder what I'd do differently if I did listen to my heart a little more often? What about you?

Are you in 1st or 5th gear or on cruise control?

Go on humour me and just try sitting there doing nothing for 5 minutes.

Please.

How did you get on? I would imagine there will have been a number of reactions:

Not bothering to do nothing
Start and give up after a minute
Do nothing with one eye on the Internet
Do nothing successfully for 5 minutes
Do nothing for 10 minutes

It was such great weather at the weekend - yes even in Scotland - so I sat in the garden chatting with a friend. We must have been there for 4 hours. During that time I never managed more than 20 minutes in the chair at any time. I fidgeted for the whole time - I moved my chair, went to get a drink or wandered around the garden. My friend on the other hand was in her chair for the duration. In fact 4 hours relaxing was a record for me and that was only possible because that took place after a holiday of 2 weeks.

I would suggest my friend was in cruise control and I was in 1st gear! I wouldn't dream of running my car in 1st all day so why do I think I can do that to myself?

I can hear some people saying they don't need to do nothing and anyway it's such a waste of time. I met someone last year who worked 60 hours a week and then relaxed by being on so many committees and in what time he had left was on the golf club!! Wired wasn't the word for him!

Quite time doing nothing daily helps our mind, body and soul in so many ways. Just try it for a week and notice the positive impact.