Appreciation

The Power of Listening

November 22, 2021 4 Comments

How well do you listen to the people around you? Listening can be challenging, especially these days, but the power of listening is so important.

When we listen, it allows us to better understand ourselves and other people too.

However, with all of the distractions around us and within our own heads, it’s incredible that we ever hear anything that anyone says at all.

By listening, we can become better leaders and learners.

The Power of Listening and All of its Benefits

Listening is not only the most essential aspect of communication – it can make or break our relationships.

Listening has a significant effect on our ability to appreciate, respond to, and empower others.

Here are some of the benefits of listening:

Listening shows respect

By listening to others, you show them respect. You let them know that you care about what they’re saying and that you value their perspective.

When you show respect to others, they will show it back to you as well.

Listening helps you understand

When you use the power of listening, you can better understand what people are saying, why they are saying it, and where they are coming from.

If listening is a challenge for you, welcome to the club. It can be very difficult to do and to do well, especially in today’s fast-paced, virtual world.

Listening can help prevent misunderstandings, conflict, and confusion.

Listening helps foster relationships

When someone knows that you are truly listening, it can help improve your relationship with them.

Showing that you care by listening can go a long way in helping foster relationships.

People are grateful for others who know how to listen.

The Three Levels of Listening

By understanding these three levels of listening, it can show us what to do to become more effective in our ability to listen to others.

1. Be Present

Give the person your full attention. Stop everything you are doing, whether you are typing on your phone or computer, watching TV, or anything else.

Multi-tasking doesn’t work when you’re listening to others.

By being present, you will hear everything the other person is saying. You will make them feel acknowledged and important.

2. Form an Emotional Connection

When we are present, we can listen between the words. We can hear and feel where someone is coming from.

When we connect with the person emotionally, it’s much easier to resolve a conflict, understand them, or figure out how to support them.

3. Listen in an Empowering Way

How do you feel about the person who is talking?

The “filter” we listen through has everything to do with what we hear and how we relate to the other person. If our filter (i.e. opinion) of the other person or what they are saying is not empowering, see if you can “upgrade” it (i.e., find the good stuff).

When we listen in an empowering way, we take responsibility for our judgments and realize that our opinions color what we hear and how we hear it.

It’s challenging to have an empowering or positive conversation with someone whom we judge in a negative way.

It may not be easy, but being committed to healthy communications and relationships means identifying our judgments and then doing whatever we can to move through them, which will allow us to listen to others in an empowering way.

The Power of Listening Requires Us to do the Internal Work

When we’re able to do the internal work it takes to become better listeners, we can enhance our relationships in a profound way.

Being someone who can listen to others is such a vital skill, especially these days.

It’s not always easy. It takes some practice and humility and is an ongoing, moment-by-moment phenomenon.

However, listening to others can allow for so many positive things:

Improved communication
Resolved conflicts
Deeper connection
Greater appreciation
Enhanced understanding
Increased learning
Profound awareness

Have fun with it as you practice the power of listening.

See if you can put some attention today and the rest of this week on taking time to put a deeper effort into listening to the people around you.

Share your thoughts, action ideas, insights, and more here on my blog below.

I have written five books about the importance of trust, authenticity, appreciation, and more. In addition, I deliver keynotes and seminars (both in-person and virtually) to empower people, leaders, and teams to grow, connect, and perform their best. Finally, as an expert in teamwork, leadership, and emotional intelligence, I teach techniques that allow people and organizations to be more authentic and effective. Find out more about how I can help you and your team achieve your goals today. You can also listen to my podcast here.

Liked this post? Here are three more!

This article was published on September 30, 2008, and updated for 2021.

Being Bold : What Does it Mean to You?

October 8, 2021 7 Comments

What does being bold mean to you?

Bold people are daring and courageous—they’re not afraid to break the rules. They have their own identity and are willing to express it.

Are you that type of person?

Do you consider yourself bold?

Some of us do, but most people I know and work with, myself included, admit that they don’t often think of themselves as bold.

Even when some of us have moments of boldness, these moments can be scary and are often few/far between.

Why is this?

Because we sometimes don’t have the courage to be bold or we don’t find ourselves going for it in our work and our life—or not nearly as much as we’d like (especially during these difficult times).

Being bold is essential to living a fulfilling life

While scary and challenging for many of us, being bold is essential if we’re going to live an authentic, successful, and fulfilling life. Boldness is about stepping up and stepping out onto our edge in life—pushing the limits of what we think is possible or even appropriate.

It’s about living, speaking, and acting in ways that are both courageous and true to who we are.

Because we’re all unique, our individual versions of boldness will look quite different.

Something that might be bold for me may not be so for you—or vice versa. Going for it has to do with us getting in touch with our deepest truths, passions, and desires in life and then having the courage to live and act out loud in a way that is congruent with this.

5 Tips On How to Be Bold

Here are five key reminders of what it takes to be bold and go for it in life:

1. Be True to Yourself

A part of being bold includes having the ability to honor yourself, your emotions, and the things you believe in.

Tell and live your truth with courage, vulnerability, and commitment.

Think about who you are and what is important to you. Don’t be afraid to admit when you’ve made a mistake, gone off course, or done something that’s out of integrity for yourself.

Remember that we all feel lost at times. Being true to who we are is about being ruthlessly honest and also forgiving ourselves (and others) fiercely and compassionately.

2. Live with Passion

Passion comes from within us, not from the external circumstances, events, activities, or people in our lives.

Being bold is about going for it, not holding back, and giving ourselves fully to our work, relationships, and lives.

To be bold, we must live with passion and be true to that passion.

3. Step Out

Don’t be afraid to challenge yourself.

Say and do things that are outside of your comfort zone. Do things that scare you.

When you start to challenge yourself, you force yourself to step out in life and to step more fully into who you really are.

Sometimes when we try to step out of our comfort zone, we get scared. We don’t think we’re ready, we sometimes don’t know exactly what we’re supposed to do, and we rarely have a guarantee that things will work out. So what.

As Ray Bradbury famously said, “Jump and build your wings on the way down.”

4. Create a Dream Team

Never be afraid to ask for support and lean on others. Sometimes our support systems are what can help us get through challenging times.

Support, inspiration, and accountability from other people are essential along our journey of boldness and authenticity.

You can’t do it all by yourself, which is why it is so important to understand when to reach out to others who believe in you, will tell you the truth, and can help you when you get stuck.

Create a “dream team” of powerful and supportive people around you with whom you can share your hopes, dreams, and ideas. Be willing to ask for and receive their support, contribution, and generosity.

5. When You Fall, Get Back Up

We all fall – and that’s okay.

It’s essential to make peace with the fact that you will fall, probably a lot, especially if you’re going for it and playing big in life.

How we respond to falling down is what truly makes the difference in our lives. How we get back up when we fall is how we become bold.

When we’re willing to get back up, dust ourselves off, be honest about how we feel, and not let it stop us from going for what we want – we tap into what true power, boldness, and authenticity are all about!

What are you willing to do in your life right now to step out and go for what you want boldly? Share your thoughts, ideas, insights, actions, and more on my blog below.

Liked this post? Here are three more!

This article was published on February 17, 2011, and updated for 2021.

Speaking Your Truth to Live a Life of Authenticity

August 27, 2021 14 Comments

Do you find it easier to talk about speaking your truth than actually doing it?

Speaking up and speaking your truth is an essential aspect of living a life of passion, fulfillment, and authenticity. However, we struggle to find ways to speak our truth for many of us, myself included.

Not too long ago, I was talking to a friend who told me a poignant and powerful story about speaking his truth. He was in a grocery store and saw a woman cruelly yelling at her kids.

He explained that he walked over to the woman and asked her to treat her children with kindness and love.

Bold, right?

The woman responded by telling him to stick it up his “you-know-what,” grabbed her kids, and rushed out of the store.

My friend explained that he didn’t know if he did the wrong thing. He was scared, upset, and emotional. But, he also said, “Mike, when I walked away, I noticed something interesting. I wasn’t blaming anyone. However, since I spoke up,

I was at peace and not wasting any time or energy blaming anyone. I have no idea if what I said impacted that woman, but I don’t have to live with her. I have to live with myself.”

By Speaking Your Truth, You Open the Door to Freedom

What if we dared to speak up like that in all areas of life – our work, our relationships, our family, with people in public, and in general?

Imagine the freedom and power we would possess! It’s not at all about getting in people’s faces and challenging them, although sometimes it might take that form.

An important distinction to remember is the difference between our “opinions” and our “truth.”

We all have opinions – but remember: our opinions are not facts.

Our opinions are filled with righteous judgment and an arrogant sense that we’re “right,” and those who disagree with us are “wrong.”

But our “truth” runs much deeper than any of our opinions.

Truth is About How We Feel

Truth is not about being right. Truth is about how we feel and what is real for us. It’s about expressing what we think and feel in an authentic, vulnerable, and transparent way.

We are all entitled to our own opinions.

For example, I might have an opinion that you are rude. I might even have evidence of things you did in the past that were rude. My truth about this, though, might be that I worry you will hurt my feelings, or I don’t like some of the things you do, which make me feel unsafe and uncomfortable around you.

When we let go of being “right” about our opinions and take responsibility for our experience, we can speak our truth from a much deeper and more authentic place.

Speaking this deeper truth will not only liberate us, but it has the potential to make a difference for others and bring us closer together with them.

How Do We Enhance and Deepen Our Capacity to Speak Our Truth With Kindness, Love, and Authenticity?

There are lots of things we can do to accomplish this – here are three to think about.

Stop Managing Other People’s Feelings

When we try to manage other people’s emotions, we use it as a cop-out not to speak our truth.

When we let go of taking care of others in a condescending way, it frees us and them up to have adult conversations, which sometimes can get a little sticky or tense when we’re speaking our truth.

Be Real, Not Right

I wrote a whole article about this – click here to read it.

When we focus on winning or being right, we no longer can access the deepest places within our hearts, which is where our real truth comes from.

When we let go of our attachment to the outcome of a conversation, what the other person thinks, and our erroneous obsession with always having to be right, we allow ourselves to get real.

Being vulnerable and transparent are the key elements of speaking your truth and not dominating the conversation and the person we’re talking to.

Practice

Like anything and everything else in life, the best way to get better, deepen our capacity, and grow is to practice.

Will you mess it up? Of course! Will you say the wrong things sometimes? Yes! Will people get upset, offended, or defensive at times? Absolutely. It is not about being perfect. It is about being yourself and speaking authentically.

Have empathy and compassion with yourself as you practice – this is not easy for most of us.

Remember that each situation is always new and different.

Speaking your truth is not always going to be easy – but it will be worth it.

Speaking up can be incredibly scary and challenging for us. Even if your legs shake, your voice quivers, or your heart races (all of which usually happen when we get real and vulnerable) – take a deep breath, dig down for the courage you have within you, and be willing to speak your truth.

When we do this, we can watch our relationships and lives literally transform.

Where in your life are you not speaking your truth, and what are you willing to do about that? Share your thoughts, action ideas, insights, and more on my blog below.

Liked this post? Here are three more!

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It’s Okay to Do It Wrong

This article was published on September 15, 2009, and has been updated for 2021.

How to Embrace Disappointment and Learn From it

August 16, 2021 9 Comments

I am not a huge fan of disappointment.

When I disappoint someone or disappoint myself, it can often lead me to feeling sadness, anger, and even shame.

How do you feel about disappointment?

Recently, I’ve been quite disappointed by some important people in my life and, in turn, they’ve been disappointed (and annoyed) with me.

As I’ve been noticing my strong reaction to these situations, I realize how I spend time focusing on doing everything I can not disappoint others while at the same time protecting myself against being disappointed.

Can you relate to this?

Don’t Let Disappointment Set You Up For Failure.

When we focus on trying not to disappoint others or worrying that people will disappoint us, we set ourselves up for failure.

And, as I’ve seen recently, this makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to speak our truth, be ourselves, and live with authenticity and peace.

Disappointment can have all sorts of adverse effects but it can also be a positive thing.

It’s essential for us to be able to overcome our fear of disappointment and learn how we can use disappointment to our advantage. This way, we can embrace it and learn from every disappointing experience.

Why Not Embrace Disappointment?

What if we embraced disappointment instead of avoiding it?

Disappointment usually isn’t fun, but we don’t have to avoid it. It can actually teach us a great deal. It can play a significant role in our emotional development and can help us on the road to achieving our goals.

We will inevitably disappoint people, especially when we authentically live our lives. Speaking up, going for the things that are important to us, and being true to ourselves are all things that at times won’t align with others and, in some cases, may even upset them.

However, we can be mindful and aware of others and still be true to ourselves – these things don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

Asking for what we want, counting on others, and trusting people – all of which are essential for healthy, fulfilling, and authentic relationships – make us vulnerable to being disappointed and even hurt by the people around us.

So what?

Disappointment is an Essential Part of Our Growth

Disappointment helps us grow, learn, and improve.

We end up getting more hurt and disappointed in the long run by withholding our desires and expectations. So we might as well live out loud and be honest about how we feel, what we want, and what’s important to us.

“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.”
Dr. Suess

Disappointment, as uncomfortable and even painful as it can be for many of us, is essential on our journey of growth, self-discovery, and authenticity.

Being okay with disappointing others allows us the freedom to be ourselves in an authentic way. It also takes away the pressure and stress we often feel about always having to do, say, or be a certain way.

Letting go of our fear of being disappointed by other people gives us the ability to take more risks and ask for what we truly want.

When we embrace disappointment, we create a sense of liberation and space that frees us up to be who we are and let go of our attachment and obsession with other people’s opinions. Of course, doing this isn’t always easy, but it can be transformational.

The Benefits of Disappointment

It makes you grateful.

When you experience disappointment, it can help make you feel more grateful for what you have. Whether you disappoint someone or someone disappoints you, it helps you better understand and appreciate the things you have in life, the people who have your back, and the fact that you can overcome anything.

It helps you learn.

When you experience disappointment, it can be a great way to learn a valuable lesson. In addition, you can use the experience as a guide to help you deal with similar situations in the future.

It motivates you.

Once you overcome feeling disappointment, it can help motivate you to grow and learn from your mistakes.

It makes you more resilient.

Resilience helps us recover and move on from difficulties, face challenges, and grow stronger each time we experience stress or pressure. When we go through a disappointment, it helps us grow, adapt, and make goals to become better in the future.

How to Embrace Disappointment

Here are a few things you can consider and do to expand your ability to embrace disappointment:

Take inventory of your life and relationships.

Take an honest look at some of the most important relationships and activities in your life. How many of your actions, thoughts, conversations, and more (or lack thereof) have to do with your avoidance of disappointing others or being disappointed?

Be honest and take responsibility.

As you notice areas, situations, and people in your life where fear of disappointment is present, see if you can tell the truth about it in a vulnerable way to the people involved. For example, you may say to a friend, “I want to ask you for this favor, but I’m a little scared to do so because I’m worried you will say ‘no’ which might disappoint me” (or something to that effect). Take responsibility for how you feel and remember that your issue with disappointment is all about you, not them.

Practice saying “no.”

Saying no is a great practice, especially for those of us “people pleasers” who find ourselves saying “yes” to stuff we don’t want to do. While there is an astonishing amount of value in being someone willing to say “yes” in life, there is also a great deal of power in owning our “no” as well. See if you can practice saying “no” to people, even if it’s scary or uncomfortable. Be authentic and vulnerable about it – with yourself and others. And see if you can expand your capacity to decline requests of things you don’t want to do and make peace with yourself about it.

Be Kind to Yourself

As you delve into this, be kind to yourself. Showing yourself kindness is a big one for me and so many people I know and work with.

We all want to be loved, valued, and appreciated in our lives. And, most of us have had painful experiences of disappointment in the past, which have profoundly impacted us. However, if we can alter our relationship to disappointment – we can grow stronger and transform our lives and relationships in a beautiful way!

Share your thoughts, ideas, insights, actions, and more on my blog below.

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This article was published on August 10, 2009, and has been updated for 2021.

Facing Challenges: How to Appreciate and Learn From Them

June 28, 2021 2 Comments

Are you facing challenges in your life or your business right now? Most of us are, especially with everything we’ve been through this past year and half collectively.

Facing challenges is never easy, and these days, there are some real challenges many of us face – at work, at home, in relationships, with money, with family, in the world, and much more.

The challenges themselves, even the most difficult ones, aren’t usually the real issue.

The Real Issue Behind Facing Challenges

The real issue that we face when it comes to challenges is our relationship to them.

Our relationship with challenges is what can bring about the most difficulty and suffering. Think of what your life, your relationships, and your career would be like if you didn’t complain about or resist challenges when they showed up. For most of us, myself included, this would make things very different and much more enjoyable.

So why do we struggle so much when we’re facing challenges? How can we improve our relationship with challenges and learn how to overcome them in a healthy way?

Overcoming Resistance

Resisting, complaining about, or even feeling sorry for ourselves about the “bad” things that are happening is normal. We’re often encouraged to deal with challenges this way by the people around us and our culture in general – whether we do it out loud or just in our heads.

However, while understandable, these things don’t address the real issues, the genuine emotions we’re experiencing, or make things better for us.

I’m not advocating that we pretend everything is “fine” when it isn’t in some phony way – this can be denial or toxic positivity, neither of which will help.

When it comes to dealing with difficulty, the question in life isn’t whether or not we’ll face challenges. The question is, what will we do, and how will we respond when they arise?

Do we avoid dealing with difficult things and learning from them by playing the role of the victim and not acknowledging our true feelings about them, or do we face them directly, acknowledge our emotions, and choose to grow from the experience?

It’s always up to us.

On our path of life, growth, and success, we all encounter difficulties. The road to success is full of lessons from failure, making mistakes, and facing challenges.

You cannot succeed if you don’t experience failure. It’s how you deal with failure that determines how successful you can be.

Challenges can be amazing learning experiences – things that force you to grow and change.

Many of the most successful and fulfilled people who’ve ever walked the planet have faced incredible obstacles. But they learned how to get back up after they fell.

What if we appreciated these challenges? Remember, appreciating something doesn’t necessarily mean we like or enjoy it. Appreciation means that we recognize the value of it.

How Facing Challenges Can Help Us Grow

Here’s a list of some things we can appreciate when things get tough:

Challenges often give us important feedback about where and who we are
Challenges give us contrast and can help us appreciate things when they get easier
Challenges can allow us to wake up and notice all the good things that are happening that we weren’t paying attention to
Challenges are almost always an excellent opportunity for learning, growth, and improvement
Challenges allow us to get in touch with, take responsibility for, and express our real emotions

By learning to appreciate our challenges and see the opportunities in them, we take our power back from the situations and circumstances of our lives.

Our ability to appreciate difficulties, learn from them, and use them to our advantage gives us an important insight into who we are and how to create success and fulfillment consciously and deliberately.

Here’s What You Can Do

Make a list of some of the biggest challenges in your life right now. Answer these questions about them:

What can you appreciate about each of these difficulties?
What are you learning from them?
What are you able to appreciate in yourself and your life because of these things?

If you look for it, you’ll be able to find many things to appreciate about every one of them.

It’s time to get real about how we feel and to face our challenges head-on.

Appreciating these difficulties can allow us to accept them, learn from them, and ultimately take back our power from them. Doing this reminds us that we’re the authors of our lives – not the circumstances we’re facing.

Where in your life are you currently facing challenges? What do you appreciate about these specific challenges (i.e., what are you learning from them and what can you be grateful for about dealing with them)? Share your thoughts, ideas, insights, actions, and more on my blog below.

I have written five books about the importance of trust, authenticity, appreciation, and more. I deliver keynotes and seminars (both in-person and virtually) to empower people, leaders, and teams to grow, connect, and perform their best. As an expert in teamwork, leadership, and emotional intelligence, I teach techniques that allow people and organizations to be more authentic and effective. Find out more about how I can help you and your team achieve your goals today. You can also listen to my podcast here.