Relationships
Self-Acceptance and Confidence Makes Business Networking Easier
Face it – social networking is not a new concept; it’s ancient. Human beings are social creatures and in person contact cannot be replaced in its entirety by online social networking. I’ve thought about this before and today I read an article in Fast Company on the topic (see at the end). Skype is certainly closer to in person networking than any of the three big social media platforms – Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn – yet in person networking has many benefits. Here are three:
1. You can go beyond the 7% limitation point of what is typically ascribed to verbal communication cues since you can see the person (body language and eye contact) and hear their voice.
2. Since there are better and greater social cues, there is more potential for trust and relationship connection, which leads to more integrity, sharing of ideas and establishing the “likeability” factor as written of by Tim Sanders
3. It’s just plain more fun.
All three of these are likely to increase the viability, productivity and bottom line financials of your business. It’s also good for your health, since human contact and relationship is associated with happiness and well being. With all of these benefits, why is networking dreaded by many and creates havoc in some people’s heads? The inner critic goes crazy if you listen to the stories of some people in business.
Stories such as getting knots in their stomach at the thought of going to networking events – or even not being able to get out of their car to go inside to the meeting. Why is this? I can speak from personal experience. While I tended in to past years (yes!) to push on and go to the meetings, it was often a burden, and totally unnecessarily so.
As a child, I was very social and a natural leader. Yet, due to not understanding how my mind worked at all in those days and social conditioning, I tended to drift toward “competition” and lack consciousness, as I grew older. It was, and is, all a matter of perception. As a culture, as we “grow up”, we tend toward connecting who we are with “what we do”. We tend to buy into the lie of “zero sum gain” and “competition of the fittest”.
We tend to believe that humility equals self-deprecation and that some how, beating ourselves up is noble. We reject ourselves and then unwittingly often project that self-loathing onto other people because our psyches can’t deal with the storyline about our lives that we’ve ignorantly created. Yes, you read that correctly – created. Science shows there is no totally “objective” reality.
0The Rarely Traveled Path to Likeability
Likeability is good for your relationship health. I’m reading “The Likeability Factor” by Tim Sanders and he also gives lots of WIFFIM (What’s In It For Me) reasons why one should choose to be likeable. It will impact your health, wealth and relationships – the “big” three for most people.
I’m not finished with the book yet, so I can’t speak to all of his conclusions. I can say that he is witty, inspiring and gives practical tips to being more “likable”. Now I want to add something that occurs to me as I’m reading this enjoyable book.
I’ve been really focusing in “intention” lately. Like, “why” do I want to do what I do? I’m starting with “why” not only for my purpose and business platform, but also my “why” for my relationships in general. It occurs to me that a deeper intention for likeability is to first like yourself so that you are not trying to “get” people to like you.
Your relationship to “self” is your primary and most important relationship from which everything else in life flows. Have you ever wondered why so many people – most I dare say – are “trying” to be/get “liked”? It’s because we are so wired to look for love, security and self-esteem outside of our selves instead of first embracing who we are and coming from this space.
It occurs to me if we like/love ourselves first, we can simply share our enthusiasm for life with others
instead of trying to manipulate, control or “get” from someone else.
We can then simply be ourselves – magnificently! Just think, if we feel genuine appreciation, acceptance and compassion for ourselves (instead of beating ourselves up to “motivate” or feel “humble”) we will feel more confident and lovable. This will naturally lead to the charisma and radiance to attract others who will feel inspired to be near us. Also, and this is soooo important so pay attention – what you believe about yourself will form your perception and will project out onto others.
3The Power of Networking: Heart, Lies and Videotapes
Networking and personal power is vital to growing your business and being a successful leader. This is true whether you are a one-person business, a professional or a corporate leader running a billion dollar business. Nowadays, this is truer than ever.
We have systematically been taught in the past (which means it is a part of most people’s habitual way of thinking whether they realize it consciously or not) that rugged individualism and “logical” thinking is the path to “success”. Of course, that depends on what one means by success.
As I look around there seems to be many unhappy people in the world, and that includes people with and without large bank accounts. I know that a big part of the problems we have as a society today is due to the misperceptions that the human race in general has about the power of the heart. It is the heart that connects people, creates ownership and team alignment and gives purpose and meaning to life. Fortunately the heart, represented by traits of the right-brain hemisphere, is now being given attention in research that is showing how important it is to access these aspects of our self. Logical thinking when taken overboard disconnects us from our inner life, our “self” and from others as well.
When we repress our heart, (of course we cannot literally totally disconnect from it), it leads to a build up of painful feelings that we have unwittingly wired our brain to see as “bad” and fear them. Well, perception IS reality. As Einstein said,
“Reality is an illusion; albeit as persistent one”
One’s perceptual reality is formed from a combination of genetic generational consciousness, their own story/inclination and the environment. To the degree one is not aware of the power of their brain’s attention, their personal power to access conscious choice and act in the world can really be “hijacked”.As long as the perception is that the heart is equivalent to “weak” as a whole this huge aspect of our self will be shamed, rejected and ignored.
Do you realize that research is showing that the magnetic energy of the heart is 5,000 times greater than that of the brain? And, our nervous system is powerfully impacted by feelings so much so, belief is not really “belief” unless there is a strong, bodily visceral component to the thought. Memory is formed by emotional attachment. For example, where were you September 11, 2001 here in the United States? I not only remember where I was, I can tell you the weather that day in Chicago. Now, don’t ask me where I was at 8:30 am CST time and what the weather was like a week ago today, much less ten years ago. What creates memory, whether pleasant or unpleasant and what makes it stick?
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Relationship Matters: 3 Well-Kept Secrets to Great Relationships
When it comes to relationships, one can find lots of “how to” information on the Internet. Having “steps” are fine, the issue is, being able to take the action to implement them.
For years, I struggled with not feeling authentic within my relationships, not feeling like I was understood or supported, that I didn’t “belong” or much too often dealing with contention and strife – just too much judgment and self-centeredness going on, on both sides of the fence.
By the way, since we “take our self with our self” wherever we go, this can apply to business and personal relationships. A major piece to the missing puzzle for great relationships is understanding the power of perception and the role of how we see our self in relationship to others and the world in general.
Science is showing how we are “making up” the meaning to our life and relationships as we go, which makes sense considering we interpret the world according to how we “see” it. We don’t see the world objectively; we see it subjectively based on the way we are conditioned by our environment, those around us, and I’ll add our life purpose and lesson.
Our brain is the filter between the seen and unseen, spiritual/energy world. Our consciousness and how we relate to others must go through our own filters which is why loving ourselves is so important. If we reject our self and act without compassion to self, we distort how we relate to others. Just use some practical “common sense” here – if you feel insecure, self-conscious and compare yourself to others, you will likely walk into a room full people more concerned with how you look and act than if you were comfortable with who you are – it just makes sense.
Yet, people often seem to get offended and assume the worse, like you have to be a selfish, narcissistic maniac just to talk about “loving self”.
3Body Language, Business and Brain: It’s NOT What You Think
Body language accounts for up to 87% of what people use to assess what they think about you according to various researched studies and body language experts. The right-brain is constantly picking up clues from the environment that you do not even notice consciously and is the main hemisphere involved with body language.
What we say, a conscious function of the left-brain actually accounts for the small remainder of initial first impressions. Now I do want to mention that what we say and our behavior is a synthesis of involvement between the two hemispheres as they do work together, they just contribute in their own unique way.
While visualization can be used to help you with nervousness before an important meeting, do be aware that the subconscious mind, is also a function, for conversation purposes, of the right-brain. Most of body language is outside of our conscious awareness. Also, a big missing piece here is that is it not so much what you “think” as it is what you “feel”.
Feelings have been measured to have 5,000 times more magnetic energy than does thought, according to the HeartMath Institute (HeartMath.org). I do believe that if we vividly imagine, using as many of our five senses as we can, we can “trick” the mind into calming down at times. The brain doesn’t distinguish between something actually happening and something that is vividly imagined.
6Your Most Important Relationship is Typically the Most Often Neglected
Relationships are often cited as one of the more important reasons for living and what gives life meaning. All too often though, we are unaware of the impact of the most important relationship of all – our relationship to our self. Though we as women are known for seeking relationships and forming friendship, we also all too often neglect to nurture and cultivate self-care and attend to our own needs.
Due to the conditioning of our culture, this is often seen as honorable. Yet, if you are not mindful of how self-rejection, self-neglect and over indulgence of the needs of others to your own detriment is affecting you, you may very well become depressed, frustrated and develop ill health.
There is a difference between self-love and narcissism. Self-love comes from a place that values your self as much as other and shows honor to the Creator by appreciating yourself as a reflection of Life with unique gifts and talents. One who appreciates self tends to come from a place of abundance, as love is a vibration of abundance and giving. Narcissism comes from a place of lack consciousness and seeks to establish hierarchy and judgment of self compared to “others”.
There has to be a loser and a winner, one person less than and one person greater. There is a huge difference between self-love and selfishness. Healthy business and personal relationships require healthy boundaries and clarity of purpose. This is where ego has its place in that, ego, or your mental sense of “identity” allows you to speak your truth, have your voice and take care of yourself. It is only when this sense of self is wounded does the need to “sell your soul” for attention become a problem.
The healthier your sense of identity is and the more clarity you have for the vision for your life, the more you can say “no” and paradoxically, the more likely you will have healthy, happy relationships. Why? Because life is a great Mirror reflecting back to us “who we think we are” within the context of relationship.
1Your Relationship With Yourself Determines The Way Others Treat You
Relationships are one area that most people, especially most women, give a high priority to. Our concern regarding how others perceive us can run our lives if we are not aware of common social conditioning.
It is a fact that the need to love and be loved is a fundamental human characteristic. In fact, when we come into the world, we are a shining, bundle of love and we are expecting to continue feeling the unconditional love and acceptance that enlivens us, and is the Source from which we come.
Babies in general are such magnetic radiators of this love that we become mesmerized with their eyes and their smiles. Adults generally smile and feel good around a happy baby and unconsciously; we too sense this unconditional love coming at us.
In fact, babies so expect to have their needs met that if you don’t respond pronto, they will let you know how upset they are loud and clear without holding back. Now between birth and age seven a lot happens to potentially incite within us the sense of fear of separation from this unconditional love. As young children, we are emotional beings, with very little logic.
In fact, early in life, children are so close to source awareness, and their left logical/mental faculties so immature, that they have not even developed a sense of separate self. They still experience literal oneness with others, particularly their primary caregiver. It is not until we start language and are aware of our name, that we start forming our sense of self/identity.
Fast forward: commonly, we attach negative stories about ourselves early in life as children tend to think that everything is their fault, and they do not understand logically how to deal with “negative” (I like to call them inharmonious) emotions that are opposite to love. They just know they don’t feel good, and the fear center, survival center of the brain is kicking out “flight or fight” neuropeptides.
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