How to Use Daydreaming to Improve Communication Skills

If we treat learning how to handle specific communication situations as a motor skill, can we use our imagination to improve our relationships?

Alvaro Pascual-Leone, a neurologist at Harvard, has demonstrated that piano players using mental practice improve their performance more than those not practicing at all. In fact, according to neuroscientists Robert Zatorre and Andrea Halpern, when pianists listen to a piece they know how to perform, they activate areas in the motor cortex that correspond to the finger movements they would have to make in order to produce the sounds even though they do not actually move their fingers. Even more amazing, the same parts of their brain activate when they recall the music in their heads.

Studies like these have been done over the past twenties years in sports psychology, where basketball players and golfers have proven to increase their performance through mental practice.

Can we apply this practice to improving our communication skills? Yes. In fact, this practice will also increase the speed of self-improvement.

Generally, we learn how to relate with other people-including skills of leadership, negotiation, conflict resolution and assertiveness-in a classroom, from a book, or from a mentor, but do not get regular chances to practice in real life. Therefore, the information we learn may or may not implant in our long-term memory, and our knowledge is susceptible to being overridden by fear if we do not remember or feel confident to use what we learn.

The good news is that our brains are even more adept at learning active skills than simply remembering information. If you figure out what you want to say and do in specific situations and practice over and over, even if it is just in your head, the brain records it as a skill in your motor cortex where you have access to use it even under duress. It?s true that you can?t account for all interpersonal situations, but you can prepare for upcoming interactions and presentations which will give you confidence for the unplanned events.

BRAIN TIPS:

1. When you want something to happen, practice how you will talk, act, behave and feel in your head a few times every day. Make it your mental practice as you would prepare for a concert or sports event. You have a much better chance of performing well in spite of your fears if your brain can remember what to do instead.

2. When you vision, be sure to monitor your emotions. Your brain works most efficiently when you are feeling happy, grateful, proud, compassionate, hopeful, forgiving, receptive, lucky, confident, optimistic, or any emotions related to feeling good.

3. Be sure to see it through to the end. Whenever you practice mentally, go from start to the finish. Most people just see themselves starting an event. They rarely see it through to the end. You are teaching your brain new skills and ways of being. You need to be thorough so your negative thoughts don?t creep back in.

4. Use this technique to start your day. Vision how you want to feel and who you want to be during the day. Mentally, and physically, practice this all day long to stay on track.

5. Be conscious of your thoughts as often as possible. Running negative tapes in your head is also mental practice that is remembered. You have to stop and listen if you want to change the channel.

Remember, your brain learns quickly. If you choose the lessons you want it to learn, and practice regularly, you will reach mastery. Begin today to master your communication skills.

About the author: Marcia Reynolds has spent over 25 years teaching and speaking to audiences world-wide. She specializes in helping people to understand how their brains work so they can make better choices about their behavior, their communications, and their impact. Speaking in over 11 countries, she has been recognized as an expert in emotional intelligence since 1997. Reynolds is the author of Outsmart Your Brain: How to Make Success Feel Easy and the audiotape series, Being in the Success Zone. Her insights have appeared in Fortune Magazine, Health, Christian Science Monitor, Harvard Management Update, Entrepreneur, Cosmopolitan and The New York Times, and she has appeared on ABC World News, NPR and Japan Nightly News. You can read more at www.OutsmartYourBrain.com or contact her at Marcia@OutsmartYourBrain.com

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People Ignore Me When We Meet

Question:Tell me what do you do, or what is your reaction, when people you know do not greet you or pretend not to notice you. You sometimes feel hurt when you either greet a person and they do not greet back, as if they have not seen you, OR they do not even look at you whilst passing or standing in a public place.

I sometimes feel resentful and decide that I will never greet such people again. I am not sure whether there may be something wrong with me OR I care too much OR I want to be noticed and feel great. Please help me to help myself so that I can grow inside.

Answer: I know what it feels like to be not greeted. It isn't very nice. It's a feeling of confusion.

Do remember that sometimes people can "ignore" you not on purpose but because they didn't see you. I've done this plenty of times and later found it has made the person feel bad but it was a simple accident.

Let's say they are ignoring you on purpose. The question is, do you greet them? Just slip in a simple "hey" and whether they respond and be rude is upto them. If your relationship with the person is weak (like just a person you've meet maybe and you know their name) why should you matter that they don't respond?

If you stumbled across your partner in public the two of you would happily greet each other. Why? Because you've got a good established relationship. So if someone doesn't greet you, it's likely that they just don't feel any "attraction" or friendship towards you. The greater your friendship the more likely the person will greet you.

Still worried about the person not greeting you? If they don't respond to your greeting or do so with resentment and unwillingness, it then becomes a matter of your insecurity and self-consciousness as you begin to ask yourself "What's wrong with me?" If that's the case, you do having something wrong with you. You can either build the relationship up beforehand or greet the person and overcome your insecurities and not care what the person does.

It's their choice to not greet you. Learn to deal with your insecurities or buildup the relationship beforehand.

The Top 100 Most Hated People

A national Australian magazine recently announced the top 100 most hated people. These strange surveys are conducted in many different areas such as on sports stars and actors and are in many different countries.

My only thought as to why these type of surveys are done is for a good laugh. Well, this particular survey certainly did that to me.

I'm sorry I couldn't find the official list I'm referring to. However, I found one that's worldwide for your pleasure:
http://www.hat.net/pop/lists.top_people/most_hated_people/

Among the most hated was the Sting Ray that killed Steve Irwin.

What I want you to know is the US President George W. Bush and the Pope, were more hated then Osama Bin Laden! This has probably left Osama very disappointed. The guy tries his hardest to like threaten the world, while the Pope is promoting wonderful things like world peace and yet Osama is more liked.

Why do you think this is so?

The answer ties very nicely in the recent post I made about Steve Irwin's death and in another post about "perceptual blindness" in the managing conflict email I also sent.

Steve's personality made him so visible to us. He was in a position of power even though no position was "officially" assigned to him. This is otherwise known as referent power where you create power for yourself based on charismatic and inspirational like skills. Other people look-up to you and follow you.

President Bush has a position of power that was assigned to him giving him a place in our lives.

Osama Bin Laden created power for himself through devastation and instilling fear in people.

If these positions of power are true, then why is Osama more liked then someone like President Bush or the Pope?

Referring directly from the perceptually blind post:

"Your perception is your understanding of what you see and hear. This means your perceptions are different to others as your understanding differs from theirs.

Perceptions can be nasty little things. What they do is filter out things in what we see and hear. Something may occur, but it does not reach our minds because it was 'filtered' out...

It's very similar to panning for gold except you're not looking for the gold.

You filter out the good (the gold) and let in the dirt with what we see in situations and others. We love to judge, analyze, and criticize others so we perceive the dirt in others."

The Pope has his interests in developing goodness in the world but the voters in the survey didn't see this! They were "perceptually blind" and ignored this.

Oh, by the way I didn't vote ;-)

Guess why he was hated? The voting Aussies hated him because he was too conservative and boring! Come on! According to the survey, this is a more awful characteristic then killing people. Talk about "perceptually blind!"

This just proves how powerful our perceptions are in how we see people.

Your co-workers, friends, family, children, and partner are all judged with this awful and natural human measurement. For this reason, I want you to stop judging people.

I'm currently writing an ebook about the most common communication problems and in it I thoroughly explain judging and how it is one of the biggest barriers to interpersonal communication.

I'll leave you with a powerful quote I use in the ebook: "Assumptions are the termites of relationships." - Henry Winkler

Have a great week with no judging!

Arguments, Fights, and Most Types of Conflict Start Because...

We are blind.

I'm not talking about being physically blind but something called "perceptually blind".

We all have perceptions. Your perception is your understanding of what you see and hear. This means your perceptions are different to others as your understanding differs from theirs.

Perceptions can be nasty little things. What they do is filter out things in what we see and hear. Something may occur, but it does not reach our minds because it was "filtered" out.

One characteristic that is known to do this is your beliefs. If you believe that all females are shopping, money-spending, resource consuming monsters (hehe sorry girls!), then everytime you see a female shopping you'll think "Bah! Typical money-wasting girls!" Your belief that females will spend as much money as they can blinds you from other possiblities that they maybe shopping for their first time all month [yeah right :-)], they maybe buying for someone else, or they are just window-shopping.

Its very similar to panning for gold except you're not looking for the gold.

You filter out the good (the gold) and let in the dirt with what we see in situations and others. We love to judge, analyze, and criticize others so we perceive the dirt in others.

It doesn't have to be like this. You need to apply another "filter" so you see the "gold".

When we argue, we try to prove to the other person that we're right by pulling out facts and opinions. We block out all other options and stick with our thoughts as our perceptions possibly mislead us.

You need to change your perceptions so you can see what others are feeling and seeing.

This helps in greatly understanding others and will greatly reduce the number of arguments and other forms of conflict. Yes, changing your perceptions so you can see what others see is a great repellent to keep conflict away.

If you enjoyed this, you can get much more information regarding conflict and a tonne of other communication skills information by signing-up to my newsletter here.

Learning From Steve Irwin's Personality

It's been broadcasted all over the world. It has said to be
one of the most universally reported events that doesn't
involve an act of terrorism.

Steve Irwin's death.

Otherwise known as the crocodile hunter, he become the figure
of reptiles and especially Australia. Wrestling vicious
animals like they were harmless creatures.

Why do you think Steve had so many people who not only knew
about him, but loved him?

Being Australian, I know he's done a great deal for this
country. But it was his charismatic personality that made him
so widely loved by many people drawing their attention and
attracting a lot of media attention.

It wasn't his job of wrestling crocs that made people like
him. There are a tonne of other animal wrestlers out there
that put their bodies on the line that people don't know
of and even hate.

It was his personality that made him so widely loved.

This begs me to ask you, what following do you have?
Do you have people that love you because of what you do
or who you are? Are they attracted to you and are proud
to know you? Are they a better person because they know you?

This is what developing your communication and self is also
about. You are developing the many areas within yourself for
not only your own good, but for the good of others.

When you improve yourself and especially improve your
communication, you begin to attract people and more favorable
emotions out of people you already know. These emotions
people experience go beyond feeling more attracted to you
(attraction includes every person and thing that is drawn
towards you), they inspire the person.

The person feels better about him/herself. They desire to
follow in your foot steps and learn the skills you have
learnt and this of course leads to amazing paths. These people
reach new personal development ground otherwise untouchable if
not for your influence.

Look at the wide outreach and influence Steve had on people.
A lot of people became happier, they become less fearful of
"dangerous" animals, and I'm sure quite a few would have
tried to replicate Steve's life-filled personality.

That's what I want you to realise today. Improving yourself
goes beyond the self-centered benefits. By effectively
communicating you inspire others to grow themselves.

Thanks Steve for being such a inspiration!