The Art of Building Relationships – Part 3 – Basic Rapport Building

In the parts one and two I introduced the concepts of rapport and congruency.  Today I will introduce you to the basic skills you will need to improve in order to build stronger rapport easily.  You will learn what you must pay attention to as well as how body language, speech patterns, and tone of voice affect others.

Building relationships would be much simpler if each person we was exactly the same as the last and we could react to every person in exactly the same way.  In reality, every person we meet will be different in some ways, even if the differences are subtle.  It is these subtleties that we must learn to observe in order to improve our rapport building skills.  What we observe about the people we are relating with is every bit as important as anything we can do ourselves because our observations will dictate the way in which we should interact with the person.

If you attempted to do the “homework” from parts 1 and 2, you have already begun to learn to observe certain aspects of the people you are conversing with. When you are in a conversation, always take time to note the posture, body language, vocal tone of the other person as well as the speed of their speech.  Notice how fast or slow the person speaks.  Notice the posture and position of the person you are speaking to.  Specifically note the positions of hands and feet, the angle their body is at, and whether they are sitting or standing.  Notice if the person’s attention is on you or if it is drifting to something else.   Eventually you will be able to notice all of this transparently during every conversation you’re involved in, but for now you’ll want to slowly start paying attention to more and more so that you can continue to devote your attention to the interaction at hand.  You probably already react to some of these “signals” unconsciously, but one begin to notice their significance, you will be able change your own non-verbal cues to control how you are being interpreted.

One very important signal that we all send is eye contact.  You have most likely heard that you should always maintain eye contact while speaking, but you may not know why.  Our eyes can say quite a bit during a conversation.  For instance if you are speaking to a person and notice that she is often looking up at a clock, you can probably assume that she is either bored, or nervous about being late for something.  If the a person were rolling their eyes, you could probably infer that he was annoyed by something.  You may then be able to infer further what is annoying, or why the person is bored based on the conversation or other cues.  For instance if the person appeared to be sweating more than normal, you might also consider that they may be nervous.  When you are building rapport, you want to communicate that the other person has your attention.  Maintain eye contact when they are speaking as much as you possibly can.

Another think to look for is the other person’s posture.  If you mirror the same posture, you will find that the other person will be instantly more open to you.  This happens because it creates an instant commonality between you and the other person that can be identified with.  From here you can begin to make subtle changes to your posture that will affect the other person in the ways you would like to affect them.  For instance if the person is in a stiff, nervous posture, you can slowly shift to a more relaxed posture, and they will likely follow and be more relaxed at the same time.  Speech works in much the same way.

As with mirroring posture, you should also attempt to mirror speech volume, tone, and speed as best you can.  If you do this, they may follow you as you shift them to the state you want them to be in whether it’s more confident state, or a more relaxed state.  In most cases this means you will gradually make vocal changes in steps over time allowing time for the other person to follow in between.  Combine your speech with eye contact and pattern matching and you will be much better at building rapport.

Now that you have a good idea of what it takes to build rapport I have one more “assignment” that will help you to notice how these techniques work.  If you want to, before reading Part 4, I want you do a little experiment while you are talking to someone.  Initially match the speed of the person’s speech.  After you’ve said a few sentences to each other at that speed slow down slightly and then continue speaking at that rate.  Do this a few times, and pay attention to the speed of the other person’s speech. Now, after speaking back and forth a bit more, speed the speech back up slowly, and notice the effect this has on the other person’s speech.

Be sure to come back soon because in part 5 I will begin to discuss the use of everything you’ve learned up to this point in various situations that you may find useful.

The Art of Building Relationships – Part 2 – Congruency

In the first part of the series, I took time to explain what rapport was, and how you will be able to build better relationships with it.  In this part more on the inverse, and how body language, and incongruence can lead to bad or untrusting relationships.  Congruency can almost be said to be a metric or how consistent you are with your self in your communication.

In most cases, when we think of communication we relate it to the words we say with our mouths, and maybe the tone of voice we use to say them. Many people never realize that their tone of voice, and their unconscious body language have a huge effect on the way that people respond.  This because short of the words we say, the other channels are normally processed unconsciously.  When we are incongruent, people tend to get a feeling that something isn’t quite right about us, or that we’re strange or weird.

If you didn’t do your homework from Part 1, you’ll may want to from this point on.  I am designing it specifically to help you to be more aware of what is happening around you which will be crucial in developing strong rapport skills.  If you did do it, think now about what you noticed.  When people were communicating well, what feelings did you get from them?  What was their body language like when you had this feeling?  What about when they were communicating badly?

Now here’s your homework for Part 2.  I want you to find the answers to the same questions as in Part 1 only this time while you are in conversation.  Answer the same questions for the person you are speaking with.  Are you confident?  Are you nervous?  How is that reflected in your body language?  How is it reflected in your tone of voice?  What about the speed of your voice?  If you slow down your speech, what happens?  If you speed it up what happens?

In Part 3 I will begin to explain how you can learn to build rapport.  I hope to see you back!

The Art of Building Relationships - Part 1 - What is Rapport?

Whether you're here because you want to learn to get dates, conquer your social anxiety, or just because you want to learn to be more socially inclined, at some point you will need to know how to build relationships. Maybe the first thought that pops into your head when you read the word "Relationship" is the thought of romantic relationships, but there are many other types of relationships that we build all of the time. The social interactions we have with friends, family, colleagues, cashiers at stores, and even people we meet in passing all require a relationship of one form or another. A relationship is defined as an emotional or other connection between people, so in reality we have a relationship with everyone that we are connected to in any way. Your ability to build rapport is essentially your ability to build good relationships.

The art of building good rapport could very well be one of the most important things you will ever learn. Imagine if you could walk into an interview, and have the interviewer feel comfortable with you almost immediately.  Imagine striking up a conversation with a group of women you’ve never met before and having them feel like you’ve known each other for years.  Gaining good rapport building skills will have positive effects on every aspect of your positive life. As your skills improve you’ll begin to notice how people are more at ease speaking with you as new doors open to new possibilities in your life.

As you anxiously await part 2 of this series, where I will delve deeper into building rapport, you may wish to do a little bit of homework.  Start to pay close attention to the interactions around you.  Watch both positive and negative interactions, and try to determine how different aspects factor into them.  Watch the postures of the people involved.  Listen to the tone, and pattern of their voices.  Watch their movements.  Most importantly, notice how all of this affects the conversation.  

Until then, have a great time observing those around you!

Quitting Smoking - The Night Before

If you're like me, you're pretty good at putting thing off until the last minute. Seeing that I have set my goal to quit smoking tomorrow, this means that tonight, I will need to get everything in place. Here are a few things you may want to do the night before you quit.

1. Make sure you have your stop smoking aids ready to go. Go buy them if you haven’t already and make sure to read the instructions so that you know exactly what to do in the morning.
2. Search your house for empty or partially empty cigarette packs and throw them all away.   The more you can avoid thinking about smoking, the better off you’ll be.  If you have packs sitting around, you’ll undoubtedly be thinking about smoking constantly.
3. Get to bed a bit earlier than normal and get a good sleep.  Hopefully if you are more rested in the morning, you will also be less stressed, and you’ll probably think less about smoking.
4. Unless the directions for your stop smoking aid says otherwise, don’t wait until you have the urge to smoke to use them. If you use them first thing, you may completely avoid the cravings all together.
5. Try to avoid stressful situations tonight.  They may not affect tomorrow at all, but why risk losing sleep because of stress if you don’t have to?

Whether you’re quitting with me tomorrow, or planning on quitting in the future, I wish you the best of luck.

The Secret to Learning to Just Let Go and Be In the Present

Do you often find yourself worrying about stupid things to the point that you rarely have fun?  Personally, this has always been a problem for me.  I used to worry about everything and as a result I did just about nothing.  Recently though, that has all been changing as I have learned to focus my attention on the present and live life. In just a few hours today, I was able to do three things that would have left me with a crippling pit in my stomach just a few months ago.  So how did I get to this point, and how can you get to this point?

First you need to understand what it means to be present.  Take a moment to concentrate on everything that is going on around you right now, at this moment.  Forget about what happened before this moment and what will happen after this moment.  Just focus on everything that you see, hear, and feel right now.  This is the present. All of the pain and worry we feel comes from what we have experienced in the past, and expect to experience in the future.  So when you are in the present, you are focused on what is happening right now, instead of what has happened in the past or will happen in the future.

Once you have experienced being in the present you can begin to learn to let go.  It can take a lot of practice to be able to be in the present all of the time, so it makes sense to learn to bring yourself into the present at times when you being in the present is most helpful to you.  Doing this is actually pretty simple once you get the hang of it.  The next time you start to feel a pit forming in your stomach, just start to focus on everything that is happening right then at that moment.  Listen to the sounds, feel the breeze and see the colors all around you.  Then continue what you are doing, focusing on it one moment at a time.

Of course you wouldn’t want to do everything without considering the consequences, but even when you are in the present you know the difference between right and wrong.  You still are able to use your past experience to make decisions, and make choices that work toward what you want in the future.  The only difference is that in the present you don’t dwell on those facts, and can make the best out of every moment.

I have no doubt that if you take the time to learn to be present, you will have much more fun in life.  I cannot even begin to explain the difference that this has made in my life and I can only hope that it will help each of you, my readers, as well.

Further Reading

If you would prefer to learn more about being present, I highly reccomend reading "The Power of Now" and "A New Earth" by Eckhart Tolle.

The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment by Eckhart Tolle Read more about this book...

A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose (Oprah's Book Club, Selection 61) by Eckhart Tolle Read more about this book...

Am I Socially Anxious Or Just Shy – Overcoming Social Anxiety Disorder

Matt at “Overcoming Social Anxiety Disorder” has written a very interesting Blog on the shyness and social anxiety disorder.  Personally I choose to believe that the two are the same beast because they involve the same irrational fears.   My social anxieties in some ways extend directly from my shyness as a kid, and because I was “just shy” I never learned to overcome my shyness into adulthood.  “Just shy” became my excuse, lie and reason for being miserable and cut off from the world.  I learned quite a bit reading Matt’s blog, and even though I don’t totally agree with everything, there the majority of what he says is spot on.

http://socialanxietydisorder.org.uk/am-i-socially-anxious-or-just-shy/

Dating 101 for the Socially Anxious

Ok, so you've managed to overcome your anxiety enough to get a date, and now you're feeling the dread of the infamous first date. How can you do it? What will you say? Will you sink or swim? Ooooh, the anxiety.

Don't Panic. Did you bring your towel?

Relax, most of your anxiety is most likely caused by irrational fear.  Ask yourself why you are feeling what you’re feeling.  What are you afraid of?  How does that make sense?  Once you know the answers to those questions, you can reason with yourself as I discussed in  “Inner Dialog - The Craziness in Us All”.  Beyond that, the most difficult part is being prepared to be social.

How Do I Prepare?

There are a few things that you can do to prepare for your first date that came make a huge difference.  Watch some of your favorite movies again.  Make sure to learn some of your favorite lines, and scenes so you can talk about them later.  Listen to your favorite music, and remind yourself why it is your favorite music. Get to know your likes and dislikes again, and rehearse talking about it with your self, and other people whenever you have a chance.  This will give you a ton of material to talk about while you are on your date.

Talk About Things You Know

I’m sure there are things that you’re very confident with that don’t cause anxiety.  Working these into conversation can be very useful.  As well as the benefit of having more material to talk about, this can lead to other advantageous side-effects.

Talking about the things that you are intimately comfortable will help you to think about those things.  While you are thinking of them, you will slip into the same state you were in as you experienced them.  This will help you to be more comfortable, confident, and prepared to forge forward.  Your anxiety may disappear altogether.

Where Should We Do?

The answer to this question depends on you.  I would suggest doing something that you are comfortable with.  If you are comfortable going out to a particular restaurant, go there.  If you have a ton of fun, skydiving, do that.  Whatever you’re most comfortable doing, that’s what you should do.  This will allow you to be more comfortable to begin with.  If you’re not comfortable doing something, it will only add to your anxiety, but if you do something you are comfortable with, you’ll tend to forget about the things that cause your anxiety and have fun.

But What if I get Rejected?

I wish I could say that rejection isn’t a possibility, but fortunately it is. If you’ve done as I have talked about and you still get rejected, you’re love interest isn’t interested in the same things that you are.   In fact, if he/she isn’t interested in the things that are important to your, you should be the one  rejecting him/her. 

If your date is genuinely interested in these things, you won’t get rejected.  If you do get rejected, that just saves you the additional anxiety of having to reject your date. 

And Now the Date

Now you can plan and go to your date.  You will be prepared to talk about the things you are most comfortable with, do something that you are comfortable with, and be able to get yourself into a state where you are empowered.  Now it’s time to let your anxiety fade away and know that if you should be together, you will be.

Blogging as Therapy for Social Anxiety – Can it Help?

Lately there has been quite a bit of news about how blogging can be therapeutic and I have been reading along. I have been blogging for over two years, and I had never stopped to think about how it might be therapeutic up until I started seeing articles pop up on Digg, Slashdot, and the news.

Even then I started this Blog with no thought as to the therapeutic opportunities it could offer me.  It wasn’t until a few days ago that I started to realize the changes I had made without noticing them.  Prior to starting this blog, I would troll the social networks, waiting for people to add me to their friends lists, and never adding them myself.  I would start to write comments and then chicken out and cancel them before posting them.  It was pretty bad.

Now things are different.  I regularly add new people on the social networks I belong to.  I even message people and strike up conversation occasionally. When it comes to commenting, I now find myself easily posting positive responses, and occasionally having to pry my hands from my keyboard to avoid posting negative responses.  I’ve taken some time to consider how much of this change can be attributed to blogging itself.

I have come to the conclusion that in conjunction with the various techniques blogging has contributed quite a bit to my accomplishments for a number of reasons.  First of all, it has given me a reason to reach out and contact others.  When you combined with my understanding of my irrational fears, I could suddenly overcome the fears to do whatever I had to do.  Secondly, whenever I write an article I learn a slew of things that I didn’t notice before.  I’ll sit for hours writing and re-writing as I discover more about how the different techniques work for me.  Of course while I’m doing that, I come up with hundreds of ideas about how the techniques could possibly be improved, and come up with other related techniques to experiment with in the future. 

I really do believe that blogging is therapeutic, especially when you blog about your problems.  Whether you meet new people with the same problems, or learn more about your problems it is all beneficial in the end.

Related Articles:

Blogging: Group Therapy of the 21st Century – ABC News

Blogging now Considered a Therapeutic Tool – Yahoo Tech

Blogging as Therapy – The Obvious

Blogging seen as Good Therapy – Dr. Deb

Can I Always Be “Present?” – Thoughts About Being In the “NOW”

When I first read “The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle, my first thought was “How can I always be in the now, and still have things to work toward?”  It seems like goals are always in the future, so it would seem at first glance that Mr. Tolle would have us believe that we shouldn’t have goals. This thought scared me until I discovered that when I was in the present, I still had goals as much as I did when I wasn’t in the present.  When I am in the present, however, my perception of my goals is very different.

Explaining the difference in my perception of my goals in the present perspective versus the future perspective is very difficult. In a way, while in the present, I feel detached from my goals. It feels almost as if they might belong to someone else.  In this state, I no longer feel intense pressure to accomplish the end result of the goals, but feel the reason to accomplish the small piece that I am working on right now.  While I am in focused on the future, however, I feel the overwhelming pressure of the whole goal stacked up against the miniscule piece that I can accomplish right now. 

After realizing this I have come the conclusion that you can live your life in the “NOW” all of the time.   You can draw on your past and ideas for the future, but in the end both the past and future are just there to give you a plethora of possibilities that you can draw upon to live life now. 

NLP Resources

I have mentioned NLP in many of my articles, but I have been trying to avoid writing too much about it, because I do not feel I know enough to do the subject any justice. At the same time I have been itching to introduce everyone to this amazing field as it has been extremely helpful to me. This is why I have chosen to provide a list of resources to help with the matter. Below you will find a list of sites and books that deal with the subject, and do it much more justice than I could.

NLPMan.eu - This site contains many useful NLP techniques. The author has over 20 years experience and has been trained by some of the biggest names in the field. I have personally learned quite a few techniques here including how to cure a headache.

neuro-linguistic-pro-site.com - Yet another excellent reference, Neuro-linguistic-pro-site provides a wealth of information from the basics to more advanced topics.

http://www.intonlp.com/ - Here is one last resource that I felt worthy of being on this list. This site contains just about everything one needs to know including a very good article explaining anchoring.

But I'm Shy

How many times have you heard someone say "I can't because I'm shy." or something similar? Personally, I have heard it a million times and there have been many times that that same phrase has come out of my own mouth. In reality this phrase is just a well accepted excuse that we use when we are scared of a social situation. Is there a difference between being shy and having a social anxiety? I don't think so.

In reality, being shy is our excuse to ourself to avoid entering into an uncomfortable social situation. It allows us to deny that our fears are unfounded, and comfortably hide behind a socially accepted term.

If being "Shy" is socially accepted, then isn't it ok?
This depends on how being shy affects you.

1. Does it hold you back?
2. Does it frustrate you?
3. Does it prevent you from doing things that you should be able to do?
4. Do you miss out on things because you are shy?
5. Do you avoid finding a job because you're too "shy" to go to an interview?

If you answered yes to any of those, then I would have to say that it isn't ok. Your shyness is composed of social anxieties which you can learn to cope with should you choose. Too many times I have seen people, including myself, sit back and miss out on wonderful opportunities while hiding behind the shield of being "Shy." If you fit into that category, and you would like to change, you can. I have posted alot of information and tips on my blog pertaining different methods I have used to overcome some of my social anxieties. In addition to what I have here there are a number of sites, books, and other information available that can be invaluable in your search to conquer your shyness. In the Related Sites section of my site, I have posted links to a number of sites that you may find helpfull. In addition, you will find that I reccomend various books that I have read in some of my post.

Where am I With My Anxiety?

I have struggled with social anxiety for the past 20 years of my life. Events that began to unfold when I was 6 led to me first feeling uncomfortable when I was 8. When I was 6, my first grade teacher didn't know how to teach exceptionally smart kids like me and assumed that because I couldn't learn well from her that I must be stupid. They put me into a class for slower kids where that teacher quickly realized that I learned quite a bit faster than the most kids and got bored rather easily.

In 3rd grade I was put back into normal classes, and the teachers couldn't understand why I'd daydream all of the time, yet was still able to do very well on my work. So, they once again figured there was something wrong with me and sent me to the school psychologist for testing. She then sent me to doctors who eventually determined that in reallity, there was nothing wrong with me, other than that I learn faster than most people, and get bored easily.

All of this took its toll on me. Just the fact that everyone assumed that something was wrong with me didn't help my self esteem at all. When you added in name calling, and bullying that all of this caused it was even worse. At least at that point I still had my friends in class with me. In 5th grade, that all changed. My 4th grade teacher, probably one of the best I ever had, knew how to teach me. This led to me doing very well, and I was put classes with the smartest kids in 5th grade. None of my friends were in any of my classes, and because of everything that happened, I was afraid to make new friends. Because I was quiet and submissive, I would get picked on more, and the process continued to propetuate itself until I was a junior in high school.

While I was a junior, I broke out of my shell a little bit but not enough. I became comfortable with people coming to me for help with things I knew about. I was comfortable talking about music. I still wasn't comfortable approaching anyone but my best friends.

As I went through college and began to work I became very comfortable speaking in front of large groups of people about things I knew very well. I could walk into a room of 10 to 100 people without breaking a sweat or stammering for one work. Even still, one on one, I was a wreck. My anxiety has pretty much stayed this way up until a few months ago.

I was nearing the end of a bad relationship, and needed to find a way to bring myself to dump her. I started reading everything I could trying to find a way to get over the fears I had of doing it. While I was doing that, I came acrossed many techniques and methodologies of dealing with fear and anxiety. In the end they did little to help me dump her, but they did start making changes in my life overall.

One thing that I discovered is Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). NLP is a way of making changes to the way you mentally perceive and act on things. I would definitely encourage anyone looking to make changes in their life to study up on it. This is by far one of the quickest methods of making change.

I also read a book called "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle. This is definitely a must read for anyone who hasn't already read it. Once you read it, you will notice change in your life even if you don't totally agree with Mr. Tolle about everything.

The most important thing that I have done is just talk to people. I felt a little wierd doing it at first, but I walked around saying at least "Hi" to everyone I passed in stores or at work. Now I do it without thinking about it, and every once in a while I somehow manage to get into an interesting conversation that way.

That gives you an bit of an overview of what I have done already. I will go deeper into the details and keep everyone up to date on my progress in future posts.