ATTENTION DECODED

Add caption We run on autopilot for most of the tasks we do during the day. A habit is shaped based on how we internalize external stimuli. If we encounter the same stimuli frequently we tend to handle it similarly for each encounter. Eventually, our brain simply recognizes a trigger—and sends a simple message to our body to express something. A reaction. You can compare it to how text messages work on your phone. After you respond the same way to an incoming text the phone is able to auto fill and guess how you are most likely going to respond. Scary….but true. Just like your phone, habits are learned over time. Once learned and set, they require hardly any of our higher brain functions to maintain them. They are the reflexes of the brain. It takes thinking to change habits. Self-awareness thinking. If you know that you need to break a bad habit for your own good. You have to turn off the autopilot. While autopilot is off, you have to replace...

Sometimes you can't do much to change the asking price of something you are selling.   What you do have control over is people's perception of the value they are getting for the price of something. That sometimes requires knowing what your customer wants because you listened. It also can mean knowing what they might want before they do because you got to know them as an individual. You made an attempt to understand them. Now you can think that them. You will need that when value is what you have to sell to make the sale.

Have you ever noticed that the last person you extend your forgiveness to is sometimes yourself? When someone hurts you, you need to hear him or her say they are sorry. There is good that comes from hearing the communication: “I was wrong”. As humans we forgive others but once we make a mistake, we hold it against ourselves for a long time. It is a long-standing human tradition. Most golden rules advise that we should forgive the people in our lives that have mistreated us. When did that start not including us too? Ourselves. You are a person in your own life after all. It is in our best interest and the interest of those around us to extend forgiveness and positive self-talk. Including us . I have found this works best when you say it out loud. You are the only person you have to spend every moment of your life with. You may as well be friends. I find that the better I am to myself, the better I can be for other people. We promise to be good part...

What if you thought about prospecting as giving away free advice? If you are an expert in your field then what you have to say on that topic is valuable. That is all Lawyers do. They talk about the topic they know best (law) and people consider that a valuable service. People also pay significant amounts of money to get a Lawyers advice. What if one day you got free legal advice from a Lawyer who never attempted to sell you her services? All that schooling, expertise and time invested…and they give it to you free of charge. The Lawyer never tries to sell you her service. The only reason what she does for a living even came up is because you were two strangers that knew nothing about each other. A conversation started because your paths crossed and she asks what line of work you were in. You…she asks about you. She showed genuine interest in you , just because. You in return ask what she did for a living. You happen to mention a situation/comment that ...

Passive aggression is sugar-coated anger. It is a cover up. A sneak attack. A covert way of getting someone back. Some people turn it into a behavioral art form they become so good at it.   But passive aggression is a no-win power struggle. A no-win means no productivity, and there is usually some form of pain involved. Passive aggressive people satisfy their own anger by pushing another person to publicly displaying anger.   It is nothing more than a coping mechanism.   Displaced anger stemmed from a long time of being directly ignored.   Before you label a colleague, client or partner as passive aggressive and throw your hands up feeding the negativity with more negativity… Try assertive communication. Call a spade a spade. Talk about the elephant in the room, and resist any urge to do this with sarcasm—passive aggression’s evil twin. The reality is that a person who is passive aggressive is not being heard and acknowledge...