7 Tips To Become A Conversation Expert

Ever found yourself in a social situation, and couldn’t find something to say to jumpstart a conversation with a total stranger? How about you knowing what you want to say, but couldn’t figure out exactly HOW to say it or how to approach the situation? Here are some tips to help you talk to anyone, anytime. By mastering these tips, you will be transforming your social game, and you will be able to make solid connections with new people, which can help you in your personal or business life.

Enthusiasm
It is extremely important to approach anyone with a certain level of energy. Think about it, nobody wants to be around someone whose energy is plodding. By approaching with a smile and a positive vibe about you, you will dramatically increase your chances of getting a positive reception. Enthusiasm is highly addictive, and in no time, the person you are speaking with will be more upbeat, happier, and will perceive you in a positive light.

Eye Contact
When you are speaking with someone, it is important to look at them in the eyes. Now, for shy people, this can be a challenge, but you have to force yourself to do it. Get out of your comfort zone, and make an effort to initiate eye contact. Let’s face it, people trust and open themselves more through the eyes than with any other body part. As a matter of fact, lack of eye contact is associated with deceitfulness, so it is crucial not to be labeled as such right off the bat. Now, you do not need to keep eye contact forever. In fact, it is a good technique to gaze away for a bit and then return the eye contact. You don’t want to make the other person too uncomfortable, but you do want to convey a trustworthy image.

Focus on what they want
When trying to spark a conversation out of the blue with a stranger, most people fail in that they focus too much on what they want out of the ordeal. What you need to do is flip that on its head, and focus on what that other person wants. It’s very easy to figure out, just analyze the situation and ask yourself, what is this person doing here? What are they currently doing? What are they trying to get out of being here? Here’s the kicker, the vast majority of people are just waiting for someone with something interesting to say to come and talk to them. Even better if that something to say has to do with them. You can be that person!

Ask Why?
Asking the question why is a wonderful way to keep the conversation going, once you have established contact. It’s such a good question, which requires elaboration, so it will get the person talking for quite a bit. From what they say, you can then figure out a myriad of other topics to continue the conversation. Best of all, asking why shows genuine interest and shows that you are interested in what this person has to share.

Praise
The way to really make people feel at ease with you and to make them really enjoy your company, is to appeal to their ego. Everyone has an ego, and everyone enjoys being complimented. Use this to your advantage to sway the conversation into your favor. Praise people, and you will notice that your conversations are longer, better, and their perception of the whole thing will be incredibly more positive.

Leave on a high note
There is nothing worse than to linger around too long. Ever been in that situation, when there is nothing left to say, and it gets awkwardly quiet? Your goal should be to leave your audience wanting more. So always make sure to leave on a high note, and be the one to end the conversation. This conveys an image of control, and they will want to continue this conversation at another time in the future. Imagine a stand up comedian finishing his set with his worst jokes. Would you want to see him perform again? Not so much. However, if he leaves you cracking up with his best jokes, you will be dying to see him again! So always make sure to leave all conversations on a high note.

Practice
The bottom line is that the more you talk and the more you spark conversations, the better you get at it. So take the habit of starting a conversation with anyone, about any topics, anywhere you might find yourself. Could be at the bus stop, waiting in line at the bank, or at a party where you don’t know anyone. By doing so, you will not only become better and better at conversing with people, but this added layer of socialization to your life, will undoubtedly make you a happier person overall

3 Steps to Self Improvement – the Childish Way

It’s something all of us aspire to achieve, but unless we consciously choose to get rid of our weaknesses and promote our strengths, there is no way to self improvement. Improving the self is an exercise that is sporadic at best – to make it work on a continuous basis, you must be constantly aware of your thoughts and actions and be able to steer them towards a more positive direction. Self improvement starts with self awareness, and that’s one of the reasons why it’s possible to observe much from the world of children in taking your first steps towards improving yourself:

If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again: If you’ve seen a child trying to take their first steps, you’ll know what I mean. They may fall on their butt an awful lot, but then, they’re always up and at the attempt to walk again. Soon enough, walking becomes second nature rather than a conscious attempt. This instinctive attitude of kids is a lesson in self improvement to keep trying again and again even if you fail at first. For example, if you’re trying to quit an addiction, don’t be upset by setbacks or relapses; just keep trying until you’re able to rid yourself of the habit for good. Sooner or later, staying free of your addiction becomes the norm rather than an anomaly.Once bitten, twice shy: When a child touches an electrical socket or falls off the edge of a bed once too often, they’re wary of getting too close to a switch or the foot of the bed again. They learn through experience that certain things are dangerous and so must be avoided. Similarly, when trying to improve yourself, it’s important to remember that you must learn from negative experiences if you want to achieve progress. For example, if you’ve suffered because of an abusive or otherwise unhealthy relationship, don’t go right back into another one simply because you’re too weak and have no self-control. Remember the hurt you suffered – it’s going to happen again if you repeat your mistakes instead of learning from them.Beauty is on the inside: You don’t see children complaining about the way they look or worrying that they’re too fat or too skinny or just not right. They look in the mirror just to make faces at themselves; they choose their clothes based on the bright colors and funny pictures – they don’t care that they don’t match; and they look beyond the outside appearance of people and focus on what’s inside. So in your attempt to improve yourself, look not at the way you look, but on how you treat people and yourself. Focus on improving your inner beauty rather than boosting your outward appearance. When you’re a truly warm, kind and caring person, your external looks don’t matter.

Self improvement is a process that must be consciously done and continuously adhered to if it is to work. So know what you need to improve, and strive to achieve the necessary improvement.

This article is contributed by Susan White, who regularly writes on the subject of surgical technician schools. She invites your questions, comments at her email address: susan.white33@gmail.com.

Understanding The True Definition Of Self Discipline

Self discipline is one of the most common topics that comes back over and over again with my coaching clients. It seems like all of us are struggle to have the discipline to do something (or anything) in our life. Trouble waking up in the morning? Can’t get yourself to clean the dishes? Can’t finish that report or project on time? Can’t get yourself to exercise regularly? All of these scenarios have an issue rooted in the lack of self discipline.

What I have found to be one of the main causes why most people cannot master discipline easily or keep it up for the long haul, is a clear misunderstanding of the true definition of what self discipline really is. You see, most people go about self discipline in a way in which they eventually expect themselves to start liking whatever it is that they are doing, and when that doesn’t happen, they fumble back into their comfort zone, and give themselves all kinds of excuses as to why it didn’t work out. Such as “I’m not the type to be on time”, or “I’m the type that likes to be under pressure”, or “I’m a night owl”.

Here’s your wake up call:
Self discipline is doing something even if you hate it or don’t feel like doing it.
Doing something because you enjoy doing it is NOT discipline.

Many months ago I started a work out regimen, where I had to wake up very early and complete an intensive workout. Yes, it’s absolutely brutal the first couple of weeks. After a while, you get a little bit used to it. Months later, the habit is there, I do it every day, but it does not mean I like it! I totally would prefer to sleep that extra hour, but discipline is pushing me out of my bed and into the workout. When you understand that you will probably never like doing whatever it is that you want yourself to do, you can start to build incredibly powerful self discipline. That is the case because now, you’re removing the expectation that one day you will feel great about it, and it will be super easy. If you expect it to be hard, yet you push through every single time, you will create discipline on a level that will reverberate into every other area of your life. This is where you can begin to create something magical into your life.

Self discipline is exactly like a muscle. The more you exercise it, the more you get used to it, and the further you can push yourself. Don’t try to overhaul your entire life in one big swoop! Just like you can’t lift the biggest weights right away, you have to work your way up. I usually recommend my clients to start with something small, just to get their feet wet, and to get used to the idea that doing something that you don’t want to do, or that you will never like, is OK! As a matter of fact, it’s via this road that you will achieve your life’s greatest successes. Then, over time, you can gradually add more to your list of things to do that you don’t particularly like.

Doing something that you absolutely don’t want to do but that you know is great for you is the ultimate way to express self discipline in its purest form. Keep in mind that you will probably never enjoy doing it, but that if you keep on doing it, the rewards that you will reap will be far beyond the measly little satisfaction that you get by not doing it in the first place. If you can wrap your head around this concept, you are guaranteed to inflict immensely powerful self discipline into your life, which will in turn completely transform the life that you want from a dream, into sheer reality.

The 3-Step Stress Detox

Stress is toxic.

Actually, that’s not quite true. Long-term stress is toxic.

In the short term – say, for getting away from a tiger – stress is very useful. It turns you into a temporary superhero. Your senses become sharper to detect danger, your memory is enhanced (so that next time you’ll remember not to blunder into the tiger’s territory), and your blood fills with energy-boosting and protective chemicals and rushes out to your arms and legs so that you can a) hit the tiger hard on the nose and b) run away quickly. So far, so good.

The long-term not-a-tiger problem

The problem is that in 21st-century cities, what we have is not a tiger (which you either escape from quickly, or… not). We have debts and relationship issues and work pressure. You can’t hit them, you can’t run away from them, and instead of being resolved in 20 minutes they can go on for months or years.

That’s when stress becomes toxic. The blood that’s stuck out in your extremities isn’t helping you, for example, to digest your food and otherwise run your internal organs. It’s at high pressure, and it’s thick with all of the chemicals that are there to boost your speed and protect you from infections, allergies and pain. But they never get used, and either you run out of them (and get the infections, allergy and pain), or they lurk around and potentially clog or burst your arteries.

Your memory keeps getting poked: “Remember this. Remember this. Pay attention.” Eventually it can’t cope any more and starts dropping things out.

It’s toxic.

So what can you do to get out of this toxic state?

Here are three simple steps.

1. Connect. This seems totally unintuitive at first glance. Our instinct, faced with bad things happening, is to close them out of our awareness – but that’s fighting against the stress reaction, which is saying, “Danger! Warning, Will Robinson! Pay attention, this is important!”

We can end up putting an awful lot of energy into that struggle that we could be using for something more helpful – like resolving the situation.

Most of the techniques that psychologists refer to as “maladaptive coping” are ways of distracting ourselves from unpleasant situations. I’m talking here about everything from cutting yourself to overeating, drinking and smoking (or just working too hard). The stress is too big and scary, so we turn away and hope it won’t eat us.

The problem is, in doing so we’re trying to ignore the alarms that are going off and signalling that something’s wrong. By “connecting” I mean paying attention to the alarms – not to the fire, just yet, only to the alarms. Connecting means becoming consciously aware of what’s happening in your body, where you’re holding tension, how you’re feeling.

When that’s clear, move on to step 2.

2. Welcome. Again, this goes against all our instincts. But we’re not welcoming the bad situation, we’re just welcoming the feelings that tell us about it. And we welcome them by name. “Welcome, anger.” “Welcome, fear.” The feelings are there to help.

Naming feelings is very important. It creates a link between the rational, language-using part of your brain and the irrational part that is experiencing the feeling, and starts to draw off some of its activation.

You’ll feel that start to work, your body starting to calm down – because you’re still in touch with your body from step 1. Those stress chemicals will take a minute or two to be pulled out of your blood, but that’s all right. The process has started.

3. Let go. As the feelings start to fade, let them. Release them in your mind. You might want to say something like “I let go of anger,” or whatever the emotion is. You might even make a releasing gesture with your hands.

Breathe out.

You’ve just shifted your body from its activated state back into what should be its normal situation – with the blood flowing smoothly to the internal organs, the muscles relaxed and the mind calm.

The Welcoming Practice

What I’ve just described is the Welcoming Practice (or Welcoming Prayer), created by Mary Mrozowski within the Benedictine Centering Prayer movement. (Yes, it’s not just Buddhists who can do this kind of thing.) I use it to calm myself down whenever anger, fear or stress threaten to hijack my body and brain in one of those not-a-tiger situations.

The consequence is that I can move on quickly to a state of mind where I can start to think about how to resolve the situation – if that even needs doing after I’ve calmed down.

After all, sometimes, my toxic stress reaction was going to be the problem, the whole problem and nothing but a problem.

Are you stressed? Try the three-step detox right now, and tell us about your results in the comments.

Hypnotherapist Mike Reeves-McMillan blogs on health and personal development at Living Skillfully. For even more stress relief, get his free online course, Simple Stress Management Techniques.

5 Motivational Tips to Get You Through the Day

Photo Credit: The Pirata

Your motivation is what pushed you to succeed and determines to a large degree if you are going to succeed or fail. But even the most motivated person needs a little extra help sometimes.

When the going gets tough these 5 tips can help you turn the day around and get you back on track.

Getting out of a cold streak
 I recall using these techniques with one of my salesmen; he was having a really bad week and was on the verge of just giving up, working just meant another rejection anyway.

At the beginning of the month we had set the goal that he was going to make two sales a week and agreed upon a very nice reward if he made it.

He was still motivated, as he really wanted the reward, but just couldn’t focus and get hungry about his work.

We went through these 5 tips (I will share the results with you below):

4 Fool-Proof Methods for Slaying Health-Sucking Vampires

We live in an age of vampires. And their numbers are on the rise.

No, I’m not talking about the blood-sucking ones (I leave those to Buffy and Blade to deal with). I’m talking about health-sucking vampires.

Health-sucking vampires are those twisted creatures that consciously or not drain us of our vitality, vigor, and overall well-being.

You’ve met these villains of vibrant heath already – those that criticize your health endeavors, those that mock you for your health diligence, and those that would drag your health quality down to their unacceptable level.

It’s time to fight back. It’s time we become health-sucking vampire slayers!

1. Emotional Holy Water

Health-sucking vampires are nasty creatures. You certainly don’t want them to linger around for too long. But like any good tactician, your initial response to a vampire threat should be a controlled and measured one.

Enter emotional holy water – the delightful yet stealthy weapon against health-sucking vampires.

Let’s first explore how holy water works. Ordinary vampires are repulsed by any potent substance or symbol of genuine goodness. Holy water is the embodiment of that idea. And when sprinkled (or flooded) upon them, the vampires cringe and flee.

We’ll use the same approach when contesting health-sucking vampires. But instead of dousing them with holy water we’ll drench them in a bath of radiant and positive emotions.

This tactic is quite easy to execute. Simply share to the confrontational vampire how euphoric you feel when conquering health challenges. Convey how energized and confident you become when eliminating sugar-coma inducing foods from your diet. Vivify how magnificent it is to have near-limitless vitality for all the activities you love. And so on…

Such an emotional barrage has profound affects on humanoids – people and vampires alike. Both are hard-wired to be viscerally receptive to emotional arguments. So if you can effectively articulate the emotional benefits you reap from your life of vibrant health, then that positive force field will block the health-sucking vampires attack. Even better, they’ll recognize you as a powerful opponent and thus turn away in search of weaker victims.

You’ll slay most health-sucking vampires with emotional holy water. That’s the best of outcomes because you’ll have effectively regulated your energy output, minimized your stress, and also avoided using more contentious means.

2. Crosses of Conviction

Sadly, some health-sucking vampires will elude your emotional holy water dousing. If that’s the case then it’s time to break-out your crosses of conviction.

Vampires of traditional folklore cannot tolerate the sight and influence of religious crosses. The crosses are too pure for them to cope with. Why? Because such righteous symbolism conflicts with the very essence of a vampire’s vile treachery and outright wickedness.

Health-sucking vampires are equally sensitive to forces that conflict with their unhealthy spirit. Such conflict is a war of conviction – beliefs. Healthless vampires believe fabulous, joyful, and vibrant health is either unattainable or unimportant. This is toxic and seductive mindset that compels them to attempt inflicting others with it.

Your response to such health threats is an unleashing of your indestructible convictions for fearless health. Share your beliefs on why good health matters to you, how vibrant health makes you superhuman, and why healthlessness is a game for suckers.

The trick is to unleash these convictions in a positive and passionate manner. We don’t want an all-out war if it can be avoided. So don’t preach to the health-sucking vampire – merely convey the full extent of your healthy lifestyle beliefs.

The magic of pure health convictions is that they’re rooted in ideals far stronger than the every-changing whims of vampires. Such health-sucking demons follow trends. They’re loyal to no one cause. That’s precisely why they’ll never be as tenacious and valiant as you can be.

3. Blasts of Audacious Sunlight

Alas, sometimes health-sucking vampires get past your onslaught of fearless health convictions. If that happens then it’s time to up your game and let loose some audacity! But before becoming the James Bond of health, let’s first understand how this works.

Bright sunlight unnerves even the staunchest of conventional vampires. They wither at it’s presence and thus seek havens in the depths of darkness. The reason is simple – sunlight is raw and pristine energy.

Hitting health-sucking vampires with an equally concentrated dose of energy has the same effect. But with this breed of vampire, your audacity is your energy powerhouse.

Audacity, of course, is the apex of boldness. It’s not a force easily deflected or defeated. The thing with audacity though is that it only works at full-throttle. So if you have to get audacious with healthless vampires then don’t half-ass it. And by this point, it’s okay to be a bit edgy.

Precisely

1 Simple Decision That Gives You Financial Independence

A recent survey showed that 60% of us don’t keep a budget. Close to 20% hasn’t a clue where their money goes each month, yet 43% do spend more each year than they earn. Almost a third pay no attention to interest rates on their credit cards, even while carrying an average debt of $15,000 per household.

How can this head-in-the-sand approach to managing money end in anything other than disaster? Look at our economy over the last two or three years and the answer is obvious: it doesn’t. You can’t ignore the basic laws of economics. You can’t spend more than your take in without paying the consequences.

For over thirty years I have followed a very simple plan to financial stability. It allowed me to treat my family to Christmas in Hawaii several times, maintain a timeshare condo in Florida for 20 years, have a vacation home in the mountains of Arizona, live in a nice home with a pool and spa, and stop working when I was 52.

I didn’t hit the lottery. In fact, I wouldn’t buy a lottery ticket under any circumstances. I didn’t hit it big in the stock market. In fact, I am extremely conservative in my investments and suffered no major lifestyle changes during the last several recessions.

What I did is so simple, so easy to implement and so effective that anyone in virtually any financial situation can do what I did. It doesn’t matter if you are single, have a family, take care of your elderly parents, or live in a yurt in Mongolia. It doesn’t even matter what your income is. So, what is the one key?

Live beneath your means. That means spend less than you make. Ignore the siren call of instant gratification. Realize that credit costs you. Understand that risky investments are called that for a reason. Don’t be greedy. Remember the Turtle won the race.

As I’ve noted, we didn’t spend the last 30 years in a tent in the wilderness, living off road kill and fish. Our lifestyle was comfortable. We were not (and still are not) minimalists, though I like that approach to living. My wife and I agreed very early that we would do three things without fail: spend at least 30% less than we made, save and invest that 30%, and never carry credit card debt. We lived beneath our means.

Living this way means turning your back on the consumer society that fills our every waking moment. TV is not a medium for entertaining you. It is a delivery system for making you feel unsatisfied. Magazines and newspapers contain more ads than editorial content.  Every sense of yours is under assault to buy more, spend more, charge more, and risk more. To not do so is almost unpatriotic.

I am not going into detail on how you live beneath your means. Common sense will get you most of the way there. Thousands of books and web sites can educate you on the basics of budgeting and smart investing. There is really a very simple path to financial independence and anyone can follow it. Maybe not at the 30% level we managed, but if you spend less than you make and are committed, it will work.

Written by Bob Lowry. Bob hosts a blog, A Satisfying Retirement Lifestyle,  to help you achieve the type of retirement that leaves you happy and productive.