Mar 22 2010

Forcing the social animal

Category: self improvement, social butterfly — jkt @ 22:38

I wrote a while ago about rapport building (previously.) I still maintain it’s a good thing and it’s something I focus on frequently.

As my mood’s been fluctuating for various reasons the last couple of days, I’ve been experimenting with forcing myself to be outwardly happy and social in every day situations where, if previously I’d been in a bad mood (or experiencing another negative emotion), I’d have been withdrawn and sullen.

I didn’t think it would work. I didn’t think I could force a temporary state change for individual interactions (positive thinking eh?) where I’d expect to revert to the negative emotion afterward.

The results are surprising (to me, at least). Just by forcing a smile on my face, before speaking to someone, I feel a lift of my emotions. Just from that one bit of effort I find conversation flows freely and it’s easier to engage with anyone. I even had two people in a single day – both shop assistants, at coffee places – say that just chatting with me had improved their day.

I have found, however, that it’s far more draining emotionally than if coming from a naturally positive state. For example, I went to a friend’s last night and met their cousin and wife. I was determined to make a good impression and we had a great couple of hours chatting about absolutely everything. But when I left I was exhausted mainly, I believe, from the effort of forcing the happy state.

I think one of my goals with this is to be able to establish a positive state and maintain it with less effort. Is it like a muscle which can be made stronger with training? I’ll find out, I’m sure.

I’ve done a complete 180o from my position on small talk a couple of years ago when I wouldn’t engage in it at all. I now realise understand that it’s a very necessary part of life and a skill that’s worth working on. To have ignored it for years was foolish, and something I regret.

I don’t profess to be any good at talking with people, but I’m having fun with it and I’m learning a lot about myself – and others – as I do so.

Mar 16 2010

Quick rapport building – is it (bad) manipulation?

Category: articles, self improvement, social butterfly — jkt @ 13:23

A definition of rapport: Rapport is one of the most important features or characteristics of unconscious human interaction. It is commonality of perspective: being “in sync” with, or being “on the same wavelength” as the person with whom you are talking.

I spend quite a bit of time studying social dynamics, human interaction and I dabble a little in the psychology behind people’s actions – quite a fun game to play, and one you improve at as as your intuition increases.

I also love interacting with strangers, there’s something intensely satisfying about going to an unknown quantity and conversing. It improves a number of skills eg: confidence, improvisation, listening, and importantly, building rapport.

If you have good rapport with someone, conversation flows freely, you feel at ease, and most often it’s thoroughly enjoyable. On the other hand, if you either don’t establish rapport, or deliberately break rapport, situations can quickly become uncomfortable or awkward. On the positive side, in a social interaction, if this occurs, you can just walk away.

There are some things you can do to build incredibly quick rapport with people – going from meeting a complete stranger (male or female) to getting contact details within a five to ten minutes with a mutual desire to meet up for further interactions (rather than getting fake numbers, emails, etc).

Conversations I’ve had with a few people recently have been about the ethics of doing such a thing. Eg. is it wrong to deliberately exhibit manorisms, perform actions or behave in a way which you know quickly makes people feel at ease with you (fall in rapport).

I’m definitely of the school of thought that anything which improves social intuition or calibration is a good thing. If you have the ability to make interactions with you easy, and, most importantly, enjoyable, for others, it’s a good thing. And everyone, I believe, has that ability, if they’re prepared to practice enough and push themselves outside their comfort zone.

I would even go as far as to say that these kind of social skills are perhaps the most important skills anyone can learn in life, as without them, opportunities may not be so plentiful, eg, who hires the awkward interviewee vs the one who’s chatty and you connect with?

The other school of thought is that it’s manipulation of someone’s feelings and therefore, by default, a bad thing; that rapport is something which needs to be built over time and shouldn’t be rushed.

What do you think?

Footnote: For the purposes of this post, the assumption is that rapport building is for a mutually beneficial purpose, eg to build a true friendship, not utility (where the benefit is a service provided or offered to one or both parties) or entertainment (the friendship is built around activities and doesn’t extend beyond that) friendships – to use Plato’s categorisations.

Mar 11 2010

Psychological analysis.

Category: self improvement — jkt @ 21:44

A brief and necessarily cryptic post which I’ll use as a trigger of thought streams and memories of today.

I did some, what I’d call, psychological analysis of my life, with the help of a trusted confidant, in an effort to understand part of the reason I may be feeling anxious.

While I’d love to write about the results in detail here, it would be wrong to do so on many levels, so I’ll refrain.

I will say that it’s given me another step I can take in the resolution of my anxiety and insomnia issues; a change to one aspect of my life which should reduce stress immensely.

The change requires a lot of thinking – to determine exactly what needs to change – and then most likely putting it into action, likely via copious amounts of writing

I’ll be spending some of tomorrow working out an action plan, taking a week off while Emma visits from Austin, and then working on it some more. This is something I’m very positive about, and wish I could share more, but I shouldn’t (and won’t.) Forgive me.

Mar 06 2010

Business networking

Category: consultancy, employment, self improvement — jkt @ 23:29

Following some recent personnel changes at the office, I’ve been reviewing my LinkedIn profile.

When I was first invited to join LinkedIn, I didn’t pay too much attention to the site beyond creating my account and adding details of the job I was in at the time (I believe I was working for MoneyAM Ltd.)

As the years went by, more people requested ‘connections’ with me – generally all people I’d worked with previously, very few of the random “let’s add everyone even if I don’t know who they are” invites which seem to happen frequently on Facebook occurred – and my interest in its potential use grew.

Today, as I look through my list of contacts, I see many are either rising stars of their professions or people already near the top of their chosen career. Quite an address book to have, and it continues to grow regularly as I have the privilege of working with new people on a weekly basis.

I’m now using LinkedIn more frequently and professionally; recommending people’s work if requested, assuming I feel in a position to provide such recommendation, and requesting recommendations (aka references) from those I’ve worked with in the past or, in the case of freelance work, currently.

If you get a request for a recommendation from me but aren’t happy providing one, please drop me an email at jonathan (at) downagain (dot) com because I’d like to know where you feel my personal, interpersonal or professional skills need a polish before getting a seal of approval. And of course, feel free to request a recommendation from myself if we’ve worked closely together. I will be honest in my evaluation and, ultimately, it’s up to you if it’s displayed on your profile.

I will add at this point, in case my employer is reading, that I’m not looking for work as I’m very happy in my current role, but given my LinkedIn profile is the number two result on Google if you search for my name (with this blog being number one!), I feel having a solid professional online presence is time well spent.

Nov 24 2009

notice of the imminent

Category: just breaking, self improvement — jkt @ 14:37

I cover a wide variety of topics from every aspect of my life on this blog, from the trials of raising children to the intimate details of some health issues. There have also been a large number of geek related posts, with a smattering of employment related news.

I’ve occasionally received some backlash from the content too, from comments stating simply, ‘TMI’, to observations that it’s distasteful to air grievances publicly.

For the former, I laugh. I have a very strong stomach and it’s rare anything shocks or disturbs me. The latter is more interesting because I try to ensure I don’t air any grievances online, and on the posts in question, upon re-reading I’ve not seen how it can be interpreted as such. Each to their own.

But I digress.

Regardless of the subject I’ve not previously had any difficulty in writing. However, at the moment I’ve a few posts swimming around in my head that I’m either struggling to put into a coherent form or hesitant to write because they’re emotion or relationship based topics; something I’ve not written about before.

But in the interests of pushing my comfort levels and expanding my horizons, this is clearly an opportunity to start writing about new topics. What this space!

Jul 27 2009

An attempt at a week of being happy…

Category: health, self improvement — jkt @ 19:23

A week ago, I blogged about taking the positivity challenge. The idea is that you spend seven consecutive days looking on the positive sides of everything. I tweaked the concept slightly by putting in a restart clause if I lingered on a negative thought for too long.

First off, I’ll admit I had three restarts, including one this morning. They were because:

  1. A ridiculous family argument
  2. Mental funk/upset about the state of my stomach
  3. Disturbing dream

The disturbing dream was a silly reason – it seemed so real I woke up feeling quite upset and on edge, and wasn’t able to shift it for a few hours.

I tried reframing the stomach issues, and failed. I spoke to T about the idea (the seven day positivity thing) and she made the valid point, one I’d said in the original post, that not everything can or should be reframed, and that needn’t mean ‘failing’ the task.

So that’s what’s happened, but more importantly, what effect has the time so far had on me? Well, in bullet-point form:

  • I’m feeling much better
  • I’m smiling and laughing far more than usual.
  • Conversations in group social situations flow more easily
  • Time passes quickly

It’s been a thoroughly worthwhile endeavour so far, and I’ll be starting the seven days again from tomorrow morning. Here’s to a good week.

Jul 20 2009

Taking the positivity challenge.

Category: health, self improvement — jkt @ 19:42

While I mostly come across as a sweet, fluffy, light-hearted ball of fun, it may shock you to find out that actually, I’m quite a pessimistic, cynical person.

I know, you’re stunned.

My line of thinking has always (in my adult life) been: assume the worst will happen then at least you’ll be pleasantly surprised more than you’ll be disappointed (and if you’re disappointed, it shows that the worst you assumed was off the mark – something to work on later.)

I’ve decided I’m going to take The Positivity Challenge. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I’m going to try re-frame negative things in a positive light in a concerted effort to improve my over all level of happiness and general well-being.

I’m not going to go nuts about this – if my house burns down, I’m going to be fucked off and upset, but if my toilet falls off the wall (again), I’m going to see that as a great opportunity to redo my bathroom (well, I’m doing that anyway, but you get the idea.)

Anything I struggle to re-frame in a positive way, I’ll post about and perhaps you can give me some ideas.

Remembering at the right times (ie, when someone pisses me off) may take some getting into, so I’m making a tweak to the program:
When ever I allow a negative thought to linger for more than a couple of minutes, I’ll restart the seven days from the beginning.

This should be fun. Who wants to join me?

Jun 23 2009

Further diet changes.

Category: diet, self improvement — jkt @ 09:15

I’m writing this here because making decisions/wanted changes public seems to increase my will power and my ability to stick to them.

Like last year, I need a period of cutting sugary foods and other crap out of my diet. The sugar highs are affecting my energy levels more than I like (peaks and troughs), and drinking fizzy drinks and eating sweets are not making my teeth happy. The other crap (crisps etc) isn’t helping my waistline either.

So, what’s out:
1. Sugary/fizzy drinks.
2. Sweets.
3. Shop bought cakes.
4. Crisps.

What’s in: 1. Crop tops 2. Short skirts. – oops, wrong post.

There are a couple of exceptions to this rule: home baking. If I’m offered home baking, or if I bake something sugary myself, I’ll eat it. And I’m not giving up fizzy water.

Already I’m craving stuff. This is going to be tough.

Jun 22 2009

Reflection.

Category: biographical, self improvement — jkt @ 17:04

Just after I returned from Peru, I posted that I’d learned a number of things on the trip, but I’d hold off writing about them until I’d processed all the pictures and written most of the posts. Well, I still need to write about the Inca trail, but here goes anyway.

This is what I learned about myself while away (some of which I’ve already addressed)

1. I eat far too much. We were hiking for around 8 hours a day, and ate small, but healthy, portions of food. The food provided was more than enough to sustain us for the trek. To compare, I would think nothing of eating 500g mince with spaghetti for dinner (to myself). Given my fairly sedentary lifestyle, this is obscene.

2. I love reading, but most things I read these days are in the form of ebooks/pdfs, and trying to read while on a laptop doesn’t work, as in inevitably I’m chatting online, or responding to email too. I need to make more time to read for pleasure, and available in a form which doesn’t require my laptop turned on.

3. There is no need to fill the silence. Sometimes it’s really good to be sitting with a group of people, and not have anyone say anything. While in the Galapagos, there was a time where all seven of us were on the deck of the boat. We’d been swimming with sea lions, and were now sailing between the islands and we all sat there, enjoying our surroundings, in silence, for probably twenty or thirty minutes. It was beautiful.

4. Anything I want to do, I can. And if I want to do something then I should do it to the best of my abilities, anything less is a disservice.

Only four things, but important ones to me, anyway.

Since returning, I’m adjusting my eating habits and being restrained in what I’m consuming; I have even been keeping a diary to shame me out of eating too many unhealthy things. So far, it’s working.

I’ve purchased an e-book reader too, so I can read all I want, without going near a computer other than to upload the e-books. It’s great.

And I’m spending more of my time in quiet mode, and am taking up some hobbies.

Life is good.

May 26 2009

Teetotal? You know, I think I could.

Category: ageing, just breaking, self improvement — jkt @ 16:05

I used to drink regularly. Very rarely to excess, but I always had a crate of beer in the garage, vodka in the freezer and some bailey’s in the fridge. That sounds much worse that it is – I would drink perhaps 2-3 times a week, usually just a bottle or two of beer.

However, since I’ve been investigating stomach problems, I’ve been paying far more attention than usual to what I consume and how it affects me.

On holiday, I noticed my stomach was always worse after a beer or two. Nothing to do with excess, just a little consumption would upset my delicate balance.

So since May 5, I pretty much stopped drinking. In the last two weeks of my holiday, I consumed one glass of picso sour, and since landing in sunny England, I’ve not had anything.

I don’t miss it at all. True, it’s not a scorching hot summer yet, so the beer craving hasn’t arrived, but the signs are good. While not being anal about it (and thus occasionally consuming one or two), I may just continue this way…

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