The Art of Giving and Receiving a Compliment
I was recently speaking to a colleague and in the course of conversation complimented her hairstyle and how the new color and cut really suited her. She was positively beaming.
So, the rest of this post is about two things:
1) Why you or I would give someone a compliment, and
2) How the other person interprets and then responds to this gesture
Firstly, we all enjoy and thrive on positive interactions-it is certainly much more pleasant, triggers our feel good brain chemicals (endorphins) and puts a smile on our faces long after we’ve gone our separate ways.
Said from the heart and from a place of love, it enriches you as much as the person on the receiving end of this random act of kindness.
The “art” of giving a compliment is to spring it on the unsuspecting, catching them unawares. From your perspective, this is not done because you are angling for a reciprocal compliment. In this instance, it’s not all about you, it’s about them! Give without the thought of getting anything in return is what I am saying here.
Secondly, people are not stupid and will sense if the compliment is genuine (and not an attempt to “butter up” the recipient). We can all sniff out a phoney, some one with an ulterior motive or hidden agenda.
When you are on the receiving end of a compliment, note how you respond. Do you stammer, blush and try and play it down, or do you say a gracious thank you because you are comfortable in your own skin, and can accept the praise or kind words unreservedly.
By the way, your response is an indication of how you feel about yourself.
The “art” of receiving a compliment is to say to yourself, “Yes, I do deserve the praise, compliment etc”. So, when the inner critic asks why is it that you are deserving, have this reply ready. Say, “Because I just do”.
Let’s Play “What if..”
We all know what is best for us to do in order to get where we want to go, and what we want in life.
You don’t have to be Einstein to know that that regular exercise keeps your body fit and healthy. Same deal with what we eat, the double choc chip ice cream with hot fudge sauce sprinkled with toasted peanuts tastes great while we are busily shovelling it down the cake hole but has that helped us with maintaining a healthy weight?
The maxim that Knowledge is Power isn’t quite what it is cracked up to be. Actually, applied knowledge is power. There’s that “A” word again, applied.
Doesn’t matter that you have read up all the theory in the world about swimming in a pool, but if you don’t do it ie the action of moving your arms and legs in a rhythmic fashion to propel you forwards, you’ll sink like a stone.
When I am procrastinating and occupying my time doing things to displace such as answering emails or net surfing, I eventually get to the stage where I have to ask myself “What if I do focus on getting my business plan written like I planned, what is the result of doing this”.
I immediately get a very strong positive feeling (humans are a swarming pool of emotions and feelings, like it or not) and I start to feel the sense of accomplishment that comes with completing a task that moves me one step closer to my personal goals and dreams.
And then, I actually make a start on this project!
Secondly, it gives me momentum to do to the next task that requires my attention without me being distracted by the television, or the latest online “news” about another Hollywood star’s fifth nip and tuck and third relationship in as many years.
So, for the next two days (Thursday and Friday) before we cut loose for the weekend, just take the time to play “What if…” Please comment next week about your experience with this little exercise, because I am all ears!
Yours in health, wealth and happiness
You Ain’t Nothing But a Hound Dawg
A city slicker was visiting his distant relations out in the country and stopped by a gas station for refreshments and to fill up his fancy car.
As he was about to go inside to pay, he noticed an old timer sitting on his wooden porch in his rocking chair just quietly taking in the fresh country air.
But the peace and tranquility was disturbed by a howling dog laying at the feet of the old timer.
Mr City Slicker could not contain his curiosity and just had to ask, “Hey there sir, I can’t but help notice your dog howling. Is he ok because he sounds like he is in a lot of pain”.
“Well, son”, replied the Old timer, “That’s because this here dog is laying on a nail that ain’t hammered down smooth on this porch”.
The next obvious question he had was, “Why doesn’t the dog lay on the other side of the porch then?”
Without batting an eyelid, the Old timer said, “Because then, it’ll have to get up and MOVE!”
The first time I heard this story, I laughed so hard I almost snotted.
This is a great example of some people who say they want to be happier, thinner, healthier, richer etc but balk at having to make some type of effort.
They love the sound of their own whining, they wheel out their “story” to the unsuspecting and hope to reel them in with their tales of why something’s not right in their lives (cue violins).
So, below is this little checklist that is sure to get us thinking. It’s self explanatory.
We ask ourselves, do we play above or below the line.
If you are an OAR it means you take ownership of the situation. For example you might be a tad heavier that is healthy for your gender, age and height.
You are accountable for that less than healthy lifestyle, and you take responsibility by doing something about it such as making a choice not to have the greasy take out but choose the lean chicken whole meal sandwich instead. In other words you play above the line like a true CHAMPION.
Alternatively, you can lay in BED and play VICTIM and below the line by placing blame on everyone and everything, make convenient excuses about why you can’t (substitute “won’t) change your eating habits and downright be in denial about the fact that you haven’t been able to see your toes for years.
Ownership
Accountability CHAMPION
Responsibility
—————————————————————————————————————
Blame
Excuses VICTIM
Denial
“In the event of a sudden loss in cabin pressure…”
The flight attendant is standing in the aisle giving us the low down on what to do should some of us ever find ourselves in this particular situation when flying.
It is a life saver demonstration.
We know it is important to pay attention to her instructions as the plane is still taxiing on the runway but somehow getting out our magazines or novel and making ourselves comfortable for the long trip is a higher priority.
We half listen to the part where she says, “…place the oxygen mask over your face before attending to infants, small children….”.
Unknowingly, she has just given you the best piece of advice for catapulting the quality of your relationships, business and life in general from ok or average to being stratospheric (pardon the pun but we are using the flying analogy here).
What does she mean?
Until you remove the sub conscious blockages usually of feeling guilty about increasing your earning capacity, or feeling threatened and uncomfortable when relating to people at an honest, loving and deeper level, your goals and aspirations will remain frustratingly out of reach.
As much as you are moved to help others when you see them in distress, about to be evicted from their home or needing emotional support, there will not be enough to draw from (your own store to share) until you first help yourself.
This is where we meet a lot of resistance, because we’ve been told it is selfish to put ourselves ahead of others.
Or is it?
I challenge you to toss out this well meaning but erroneous preconceived idea that was programed into our subconscious without our permission when we were young and impressionable.
Who’s idea was it anyway? Here’s a clue: it wasn’t yours!
Below is a vastly different take on this matter:
“Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, handsome, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in some; it is in everyone. And, as we let our own light shine, we consciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” Marianne Williamson
Yours in health, wealth and happiness
What Are Your Daily Success Rituals
Some of mine are:
1) Looking at mirror every morning and saying aloud, “Today I am grateful for”:
the roof over my head, or
my family, or
being fortunate that I can afford a hot breakfast etc”
(Spend a minute thinking about the blessings in your life. It could be as simple as being able to walk and talk, feed and dress yourself)
2) Getting to my office and catching sight of my mission statement as I turn on my Mac and spending a minute thinking about what it means to me
3) Greeting colleagues with a bright smile and a “Good morning”
4) Answering the phone clearly with “Hello, Lorwai speaking”
5) Giving the person I am talking to whether over the phone or face to face my full attention (no wandering gazes or checking of emails as I am speaking to them).
So why be so fussy about these things?
It sends messages to your subconscious that you are a valuable and worthwhile person.
Therefore when you feel good about yourself, you tend to adopt a spirit and outlook of abundance.
When things are in abundant supply, we as generous beings want to share with others.
Get where I am going with this?
You are setting up a virtuous cycle where you giving freely to others, gets them to also give because you have made them feel good.
When you put out positive and uplifting vibes, you attract people with a similar outlook into your life. Our beliefs are reflected back to us, so if you think everyone is out to get you, guess what.
Similarly, if your belief is that the people you encounter are nice and considerate (because that is how you see yourself), it is exactly what you will consistently come across.
Whatever you focus on GROWS. (I’ll give you a moment to think about this)
No one becomes successful in isolation. It happens because there is mutual benefit to be derived by all parties and this is not necessarily in the form of dollars and cents (that is the nice bonus!).
If we agree that is the case, why not enjoy the company of the people around us on our journey to success.
Yours in health, wealth and happiness
Letting Go
“Holding a grudge is like drinking poison and hoping someone else dies”-Dr John F DeMartini
Think back to the last time you felt ignored, insulted, offended, ostracized, humiliated, criticized, denigrated, bullied, blamed, suffered a public put down, and the list goes on…(a Thesaurus is a handy thing!)
If you are a sharp wit and can think quickly on your feet, you might have a great come back. However, the rest of us tend to have our killer line and retort ready long after the event and when your tormentor is halfway into the next county. Don’t you hate it when that happens?
In our heads we have a replay button stuck on the same audio and video track, going through that event over and over again. With time, it is embellished with even more negativity and it starts to take on a life of its own.
“What to do” you ask yourself, still fuming. In the safety of your head, you plot or there is the other tack where you can say “You gotta turn the other cheek and forgive”.
I don’t know about you but I am not interested in long term penitentiary stays, nor am I a saint so the cheek turning business gets a bit tiresome after a while.
However, it is for your own sake to break the cycle, otherwise as Dr DeMartini has aptly put, “Holding a grudge is like drinking poison and hoping someone else dies”.
I like practical solutions.
Therefore you need to put Plan A into action i.e., dissipate the physical anger (see my previous post on Anger Management 101); second, get your head to talk to your heart about this negative situation.
Ask yourself how much of it was because of your own interpretation of how the event unfolded. Remember you cannot feel insulted, embarrassed or small unless YOU ALLOW it. How to overcome this?
Work on improving your self esteem.
Write a letter addressed to that person about what you want to say (give yourself permission to let ‘er rip!) and then burn it. This is symbolic of severing the tie that binds you to that person because whether we like it or not, when we do not let go, we are still attached to that person (yuck!).
Make better use of the energy that God has given us, put it to better use like spending time with people we like or working on increasing the value of our businesses.
Yours in health, wealth and happiness
Blessed are the List Makers
It’s been two weeks since Easter and here in Australia, the kids are going back to school. As much as we love the little dears, we can now turn our attention to more pressing things like getting some semblance of a routine back.
Whilst we lament that God gave us only 24 of those precious hours, we have also been given the smarts to organize our busy lives around it.
Here is a great tip for doing that-all you need is a pen and a piece of paper and if you are technologically savvy, use your cell phone.
Every morning as you are sitting down to your first cup of coffee, WRITE DOWN EVERYTHING you need to 1) DO (client/business phone calls), 2) GET (groceries), 3) BE AT (meetings or dropping the kids off or picking them up) and 4) PAY (power, phone bills) for the day.
Yep, it is that easy. You see what happens is that you are focusing on task completion. This means less stress because you don’t have to REMEMBER everything and it allows your brain to address other more interesting problem solving issues like how to have better relationships with your spouse and children (I kid you not).
Try it for a week and see how much more relaxed and serene you feel and if you don’t like it you can go back to where you were before.
Yours in health, wealth and happiness
Anger Management 101
You Choose When & Where To Lose It (in 10 Easy Steps)
I am surveying the Band Aid strips I have on both knuckles as I am writing this. I am loathe to peel back the plaster because I know what I will see is still raw and bleeding.
“Why, how and what happened?” you may be asking (I hope you will anyway). But before getting to the bones of it let me flesh out the scene.
As women we get the message, usually subconsciously in the form of societal pressures that women do not get angry or upset. It is frowned upon, unacceptable and just not “lady like”.
But it is ok for women to cry. How many times have you been so angry and seething over something completely different and finally all it takes is for some idiot to cut you off in traffic or you pull into your driveway at the end of a long day and see the kids have again forgotten to put their tricycles away that tips you over the edge.
Your partner and kids know that “Mommy is upset”. Actually Mommy is angry and feeling like she could throttle someone right now but what the people around you see, is a woman who is about to cry.
Usually we end up at the crying stage because we do not have the confidence to assert ourselves. For example, we don’t feel we deserve raise or promotion even though we have worked our guts out on a project and are afraid to ask the boss lest they turn us down; we let lesser life forms (who may take on the guise of work colleagues or relatives) denigrate us and we have no snappy comeback when it happens.
In the end, it is about being angry at ourselves for not standing up for ourselves.
Well ladies, this type of cultural conditioning is bad for your health. So what am I suggesting you do?
1. Get some assertiveness training, but this is a whole new subject, so I will post that at a later time.
2. What I am about to describe is a strategy that can be applied immediately. If you are uncomfortable about doing this, be assured this is a good thing. When you step out of your comfort zone, you grow as a person. The person who continually grows gets to finish first in the marathon race (we call life) towards creating lasting wealth and their ideal lifestyle goals.
This principle revolves around getting physically angry with an inanimate object eg a punching bag, or a couple of lounge cushions or pillows stacked up and getting down and hitting them. Not just little taps like you would fluffing up the cushions in your lounge but seriously belting them.
Many of you would be familiar with doing some physical activity to deal with your anger, but what I am proposing is that you do this regularly (at least twice a week).
But you say, “I’m not going to punch a bag when I am not angry”.
And I say that’s exactly when you have to punch the bag. The logic is that rather than always be on the brink of spilling over (think of when the toothpaste tube getting squeezed in the middle caused an almighty argument in your household that was way out of proportion to the perceived offence!), you have cleared enough head room to always allow for these sorts of conflicts to occur without you completely losing it.
If you are wondering, the answer is yes. I schedule my anger sessions every Tuesday and Thursdays at 4 pm when I head over to the gym and almost destroy the punching bag.
It has become a habit and it is quite easy for me to bring to mind situations that require this sort of physical venting.
As a consequence, I have found that I can deal calmly with people or situations that otherwise could easily degenerate into a shouting match. Rather than being riled and defensive and consequently responding aggressively at what I perceive as them having a go at me, I mentally schedule that person for 4:15 pm at my gym session. This allows me to step outside myself and deal with it in an unemotional way to get the best outcome for both of us.
For the sake of this exercise I will assume you are in the privacy of your living room or garage ie some place where there is enough space to do the following:
Step 1. Get changed into some loose comfortable clothing
Step 2. Arrange your cushions in a stack on the floor
Step 3. Kneel on a folded towel in front of the stack
Step 4. Your torso should be at right angles to the floor. Now raise your right hand in a fist and bring it down at half strength on the cushion stack. The side of your fist should make contact (like when someone is thumping the dinner table). When you are doing this your upper body moves with your arm almost like you are bowing, but not in a groveling or subservient fashion
Step 5: Repeat with your left hand
Step 6: Do this for a minute alternating with your left and right fists to get warmed up and feel a sense of momentum in your actions. Rest for a minute
Step 7: Focus on an imaginary point on the cushion stack and get serious about using your fist. You may well hear a thump when you do this. That’s great because that is exactly what you want to hear
Step 8: As you get into the rhythm of hitting, make a “huh” sound with each punch and have that vocalization come from your gut and not your throat
Step 9: Bring to mind the event or person that really annoyed and irritated you. Picture yourself smashing that person or event, if you want to say what you have been thinking, by all means say it now. Shout it if that is what you want to do. Keep going until all that anger has dissipated.
If you find yourself starting to cry, stop. This is about getting the anger out; if you want to cry, go see a sad movie.
Step 10: Breathe deeply through you nose and exhale through your mouth. Do this a couple of times until you feel a sense of calm and peace. Bring to mind again that person or event, bless and release them.
So, coming back to the Band Aids on my knuckles. Well, I had forgotten to pack my boxing mitts when I was away on a training course and had been doing my normal scheduled anger work at the hotel I was staying. I was so absorbed and in the flow that I did not realize until the end of my session that I had left some skin on the bag. No biggie.
Yours in health, wealth and happiness
It’s not a Too-moor-Attitude of Gratitude
I woke up last Monday with a bit of a sore throat, just a tiny tickle. You know the one that could go either way during the next 24 hours.
Being the positive person that I am, I WILLED it to go away as I went about my daily routine of heading to the gym, showering and breakfast and work.
By lunchtime I felt like I had been hit over the head with a baseball bat and within my body was a battle raging with the good guys white blood cells losing ground to the nasty virus invaders.
Miserable, miserable, miserable was all that I could think. Ah, what’s that I hear? The world’s tiniest violin playing just for me! Ok, so I was feeling sorry for myself.
At this point I bet you are waiting to hear whether I held a pity party for one or whether I did a mental stock take of what’s right in my life.
Err, try the latter, only because nobody wants to hear about your problems because they have their own thanks.
It was then I recalled some wise words from Socrates (you know the very profound ancient Greek philosopher who ended up drinking hemlock). He said that if we all gathered our problems and troubles and put it in one great big pile and then proceeded to divide that equally amongst all present, almost all of us would be happy to leave with what we came bearing.
So, I’ve got the flu, I’m not dying so get over it. Reality check, I live in a country where I can get over the counter medication-Hang on, I can even get into my car, drive down the street to do this and have money in my pocketbook to pay for this.
Contrast this with some people do not have the basics, such as clean drinking water, 3 meals a day, being able to walk down the street without being shot at, strafed, etc let alone being able to afford medical treatment.
How’s that for perspective, folks. Adopt an attitude of gratitude and life becomes easier.
Yours in health, wealth and happiness
LW
It’s the Little Things That Count
Hands up those of us who did the “I’m determined to lose those pounds and stop drinking/smoking in 2010” when the clock struck 12 on December 31 in 2009.
Hands up those of us who are on the path to making this happen even as you read this. Give yourselves that pat on the back!!
Now, hands up those of us who let that resolution take a back seat, from shooting out of the starting blocks like a finely tuned Olympic athlete on Jan 1st 2010 to being a weekend jogger today and if my reckoning is on the money, it will be a casual stroll before spring.
Good news! It ain’t half bad because we have an internal navigation system that we can switch on and need to keep on in times like these.
So, check in on yourself a couple of times a day and ask, how am I feeling about my desire to stop drinking/smoking and shedding a couple of pounds.
I feel your pain, as over the years I had acquired a demanding job and put on over 23 pounds!! Most of it through enjoying a glass or three of wine and spirits.
Here’s my tip for gently easing out of the habit of drinking a couple of glasses of scotch every night as my reward for a long day at the office.
Step 1-Fill a cut glass tumbler with ice
Step 2-Place a slice of lemon in it
Step 3-Fill with filtered water
Step 4-Swirl ice cubes around and enjoy the sound of ice clinking in the glass
Step 5-Propose a toast to myself and to my health
Step 6-Repeat on a daily basis
It was the action of raising the glass to my mouth more than tasting the alcohol. It had become a HABIT.
Newsflash folks-rather than try and break a habit, REPLACE it. It was still the same action, but a different outcome. That’s the secret.
And together with regular exercise I dropped 2 dress sizes.
In the immortal words of Arnie the Terminator, I say, “You can do it”.
To your health
LW