12 Things That Can Really Influence What People Think of You

By Lolly Daskal

Here are 12 ways you may be unconsciously influencing what people think of you:

1. How you state your opinions. How you say what you think says a lot about how you feel about yourself and how you treat others. Are you overbearing? Do you leave room for other perspectives? Do you listen as well as speak?

2. How often you check your phone. There are few things more irritating or frustrating than someone sneaking looks at their phone mid-conversation. Unless the circumstances are extraordinary and you've explained them in advance -- "I'm sorry, my child has been sick so I'm keeping an eye on my messages" -- doing so conveys disrespect and impoliteness.

3. How you handle rejection. People observe how comfortable you are with hearing "no." You can be reactive, following your first instinct in the heat of the moment, or you can be responsive, by taking a more measured approach. Being able to handle disappointment well is one of the hallmarks of maturity.

4. How you manage your emotions. Don't let your emotions distract you. It's fine to display emotion appropriately, but in most situations you should learn to manage your emotions if you don't want them to manage you.

5. How you react to change of plans. Being flexible and agile shows you can go with the flow and deal well with the unexpected. Be stubborn with your goals but flexible with your methods.

6. How you handle blame. People can tell a lot about you by how you handle negative situations. Do you focus on blame or solutions? Do you blame others or take responsibility yourself? Can you let it go?

7. How you hold a conversation. People listen to what you say and how you say it. Are you living in the past, available in the present, or focused on the future? Optimistic or pessimistic? An eloquent speaker or more inclined to listen? Bombastic or soft-spoken?

8. Whether you gossip about others. When you gossip, people will know one thing for sure: that you speak about others behind their backs. Unsurprisingly, they'll find it hard to trust you.

9. How you display confidence. Confidence doesn't mean walking into a room thinking you're better than everyone else -- it's walking into a room and not having to compare yourself to anyone else. The most confident people are those who don't have to rely on bragging or monopolizing the spotlight.

10. How you treat others. How you talk to others is a sure sign of your own self-respect. Do you treat everyone with the same courtesy and kindness? If not, know that the differences are likely to be seen and noted.

11. Your appearance matters. Your clothes, grooming, bearing, and body language are all speaking for you before you even utter a word. What message are they sending?

12. Whether you're on time. Punctuality -- or the lack of it -- forms an impression about your personality. Being late for an appointment or meeting creates an impression of being self-centered and discourteous, while being on time or even early shows consideration for others.

Sometimes it's the little things we do that make the biggest difference. It's good to be aware of them so you can be prepared for the impressions people are coming away with.

4 Ways to Create Positive Synergy in Team Meetings

• Make the conversation about data.

After the chit-chat has finished, it’s time to make it clear that we’re getting down to business. One of the best ways to do that is to get the numbers flowing as soon as you can. All the data related to the conversation should be discussed here. Emotional and opinionated talk should be discouraged and put aside in favor of empirical discussion. This pushes everyone towards a data-driven mentality. It makes people use the numbers discussed to justify their points of view later in the conversation. 

If you can, present some visual cues of the importance of data by using Zoom’s screen sharing feature and displaying charts and graphs that are relevant to the discussion.

• Steer towards inclusivity.

Now you have started to see embers. It’s time to breathe life into them so that they may transform into flames. At this point, make sure that the conversation is as inclusive as possible. Do not allow people to dismiss each other’s ideas, and make sure that you are as attentive to all of them as possible. In short, make everyone feel that their voice has been heard. Even if an idea sounds objectively weak, try to expand on it for a moment. If all else fails, just acknowledge the idea and move onto the next one. The idea is to make people feel as much a part of the conversation as possible.

• Build consensus through win-win thinking.

The most productive meetings have some form of consensus between their attendees. Working towards a consensus involves trying to engage everyone in a similar mindset. Yes, humans are humans, and because they’re humans, they’ll have a confrontational and competitive nature. There’s nothing wrong with healthy competition as long as the end goal of collaboration and compromise comes first. In a team effort, everyone has to be on the same wavelength. It might actually take you a few meetings, but you can accomplish this as long as you try as much as you can to create environments in which people can come up with win-win situations in every possible occasion.

• Find common ground.

It’s inevitable that you will reach a point of entropy, where conflict will overtake the discussion. It is at this point that you should actually avoid going into “damage control” mode as much as possible. If you want to solve the conflict, backing down is only going to make things worse. Instead of trying to quell things, focus on trying to find common ground. Elevate yourself above the rest of the voices and be assertive. Then, once you have everyone’s attention, attempt to find where the dissent comes from. After that, discover every point where everyone is in agreement and pick it up from there.

Once you’ve finished quelling the conflict, you should then try to work with the naysayers to see whether they are spotting a potential issue with what’s being discussed. Sometimes, they’ll spot something that could cause deep problems with the goals you’re trying to accomplish. Listening to negative input doesn’t hurt!

Fuente: http://blog.zoom.us/wordpress/2016/01/21/4-ways-to-create-positive-synergy-in-team-meetings/

10 Ways to Do What You Don’t Want to Do

By Leo Babauta

Life would be grand if we only did what our fleeting hearts wanted to do, each moment of the day.

Unfortunately, the laundry, taxes and difficult conversations would never get done. The best books would never be written. All the achievements of humankind would be imagined, not realized.

So what should we do if we’re facing a task we don’t want to do? Well, we can run, and find distraction. That usually works, until it causes problems. Or we can find a way to get crap done.

Here’s how to get crap done.

1. Meditate on why you need to do this. Instead of giving in to distraction, sit there for a minute. Why do you need to do this task you don’t want to do? Sure, because it’s on your todo list, or because someone else wants you to do it. Or you’re getting paid for it, or someone’s got to do it. But why? What will this task help accomplish? Who is it helping? Dig deeper and find the good that you’re creating in the world. If you’re a dishwasher, you might not think getting dirty dishes clean matters, but those dishes are required to serve food, and the food nourishes people and it can make them happy and then they can go out and do something good in the world with a smile on their face. So connect the dishes to the good.

2. Meditate on your fear. The thing that’s stopping you from doing the task, or wanting to do it, is fear. You fear failure or looking bad, you fear the discomfort or confusion of the task. So take a moment to look inward and see this fear. Feel it. Accept it as part of you, instead of running from it.

3. Let go of your ideal. If this fear were gone, you could just do the task easily. So what is causing the fear? Some ideal you have, some fantasy about life being free of discomfort, confusion, embarrassment, imperfection. That’s not reality, just fantasy, and it’s getting in your way by causing fear. So let go of the fantasy, the ideal, the expectation. And just embrace reality: this task before you, nothing else.

4. Intention, not results. You are caught up with the results of the task — what will happen if you do it, what failure might result. So forget about the result — you can’t know what it will be anyway. That’s in the future. For now, focus on your intention: why are you doing it? If it’s to make the life of a loved one better, then that’s your intention. That intention is true no matter what the result is. Focus on this, not what bad things might or might not happen.

5. Embrace the suck. Doing something hard sucks. It’s not easy, and often you’re confused about how to do it because you haven’t done it much before. So what? Hard things suck, but life isn’t always peaches with roses on top (and a sprinkle of cinnamon). It sucks sometimes, and that’s perfectly fine. Embrace all of life, thorns and pits and all. Life would be boring without the suck. So smile, embrace the suck, and get moving.

6. Give yourself constraints. We tend to rebel against restraints: “I don’t want to do this! I want freedom!” Well, unfortunately, having unlimited freedom means unlimited choices, unlimited distractions, and nothing gets done. Simplify by putting restraints on yourself: do only one task at a time. Do just this one task for now. Do it for 10 minutes. Forbid yourself from going to any other websites or checking anything on your phone or doing anything else that you like to do for distraction, until you do those 10 minutes. Ask a friend to hold you accountable — another restraint that often helps.

7. Do a little, then get up. If you have to write something, just write a sentence. Then get up, get some water, stretch. Pat yourself on the back for getting started! Now do a little more: write a few more sentences. Get up, take a mental break (don’t go to another website), do a few pushups. Go back, do a bit more. Pretty soon, you’re in the flow of it.

8. Don’t let your mind run. Your mind will want to run. That’s OK, that’s the nature of minds. They are scared, and they will rationalize going to distraction, going to what’s easy. Watch this happen, don’t try to stop the phenomena, but don’t give it anywhere to run to. Watch the mind want to run, but don’t act. Just watch. It will eventually calm down.

9. Find gratitude. This task might seem hard or sucky, but actually there are a lot of great things about it. For example, if you’re doing it for work, hey, you have a job! You have money to buy food and shelter! You have eyes and ears and a mind to do this task! Imagine life without all these things, and then try feeling sorry for yourself for having to do something so hard. Or, instead, try being grateful for the opportunity to do some good in the world, to learn from this task, to get better, to be mindful as you do it.

10. Learn and grow. By meditating on your intentions and fear, by letting go of ideals and embracing the suck, by giving yourself constraints and finding gratitude … you’re learning about yourself. This task, as mundane or scary as it might seem, is teaching you about your mind. That’s a wonderful thing. So this task is a huge learning opportunity. What a wonderful way to spend your time!