I’ve happy to present this guest post by Matt Maresca.  He contacted me to offer this perspective on motivation so I hope you enjoy the article.  You can find out more about Matt and his contact details at the end of the article.

There comes many times in life when we lose that fire to do the things we need to do in order to get what we want most.  We lose that passion to work toward our goals.  For a moment, we even lose our sense of purpose.  Something happens and sometimes we really don’t even know the cause, but we begin to think “what’s the use?” as we contemplate our goals.  We lose our spirit, our will to achieve.  The wind gets taken out of our sails and we have no idea how to get it back. The answer may be closer than you think.

A Discrepancy in Desires

Here is your dilemma: You know you want to be happy, but you are acting as if you want to be sad. The human mind is a crazy thing.  There are so many wires and bonds in there that sometimes things get a bit crossed up.  And this is why people often behave irrationally. Happiness is a choice, not something that is thrust upon you by a situation or a circumstance.  You choose how you react to your circumstances.  You choose your mood and your demeanor.  Everything about your attitude is a choice.

Unfortunately, there are acts of nature that are fighting this choice.  These acts are your habits.  Over the years, you have likely conditioned yourself to react negatively to certain things and positively to others.  This triggers your mental reflex to respond to situations accordingly.

Once your mental reflex kicks in, it gets the ball rolling in one direction or another.  To stop the momentum requires serious, conscious focus and effort.  You must will the ball to stop when it begins rolling you downhill.  You must clear your head of your negative reactions, and turn your thoughts into positive alternatives.  The problem is that, when you are feeling down, you really don’t want to focus any effort on anything.  You’ve lost your spirit and your will to fight for what you want.  This is why it is very easy to be negative and remain that way for extended periods of time.

The Turn-Around

To turn things around when you are down, you must remind yourself of how much you love being happy and enjoying life.  Remind yourself of why you do the things you do.  Remind yourself of your passions and your purpose.  Simply remembering the good things in life–the things that make you happy–is enough to stop the ball rolling you downhill.

You know you aren’t going to give up.  You know you have the opportunity and ability to do great things with your life.  Your plans got momentarily derailed.  Big deal.  You know you have the power to get right back on track.  You have this power because you have control of the most important things in the world: your mind and your spirit.  You control your attitude and the way you view the world around you.  Utilize this power to its fullest potential, for it is one of the greatest gifts you will ever receive.  Not many people realize their power to change their attitude.  This can put you at a major advantage in life.

The Self Motivation Kit

Whether or not you feel down right now, you can benefit from doing this exercise today.  Start by making a list of things you do not like about your life and the world around you.  What do you not want to experience?  What are your fears?  What gets you down?  What do you wish were different?

Once you have this list, make the opposite list.  Write down the things you want most in life.  Draw a picture of your ideal future.  List the things you have now that you are grateful for.  Write down your strengths and everything you like about yourself, as well as everything you want for your future.  Now look back at the negative list.  Begin working on the items by turning them into a positive.  Find the good in each situation.  Find ways in which you can take something away from the negative situation and better prepare yourself to create the life you desire for yourself.

For example, let’s say you recently lost your job.  What is the good in that situation?  Maybe now you can make a push to do something you were always afraid to do.  Maybe now you can start your own business.  Perhaps you can find a better job.  Or if you can’t find a better job and don’t have the capital to start your business, maybe this is a jumping-off point for you to learn a new skill or improve your current skills.  Maybe this is just a big learning experience for you and a kick in the pants to improve something about yourself.

When you have the will to achieve, there is nothing that can hold you down forever.  The quicker you turn the negative into a positive, the sooner you will get back to the things in life that you want and the more time you can live in happiness.  Practice the turn-around exercise whenever you catch yourself with a negative thought.  Find the positive in the things you complain about.  Find the good in your adversity.

The Test of Will

Overcoming adversity is one of the greatest ways to strengthen your will to achieve and build your personal power.  So whenever you find yourself struggling to find the good in a bad situation, simply say to yourself:

“This adversity is merely a test of my will.  I will not let this test get the best of me; and I will rise back up and be stronger for having done so.”

About the Author

Matt Maresca is a motivational entertainer and writer with a passion in helping people make their lives special by focusing on “Personal Power”.  You can read more from Matt on his website, My Life Motivation, where you will find advice ranging from how to be more productive to building self confidence.

Posted by Mike King under Success | 8 Comments »

I’m happy to introduce another guest author, Tim Rye who operates Extra Space Storage, and has much to tell about face to face communication skills.  Read more about Tim or contact him from his info at the end of the article.

One of my friends just came into the room. Oh, there’s another one. No, I’m not at a party (who has time for social events like that?) — I just happen to have my social networking software up and it’s telling me whenever a friend logs onto Facebook, sends me a tweet, or starts to compose an IM. The truth is, I can go for days interacting with friends and colleagues only via computer.

It’s great to be able to stay in touch this way, but as a result, I find that those occasional face to face encounters have become all the more precious. Ironically, I spend more time interacting with customers face to face than I do with my friends, family, or even my coworkers! But I believe in learning whatever you can from the experiences life gives you — and I’ve learned a lot about how to make the most from a face to face interaction by talking with my customers. Here are a few tips:

Make time for face time

Don’t turn down a chance to network with your colleagues because it will tear you away from your computer. I’m not an introvert — you can’t be in my line of work — but I know a lot of people who are. And for those individuals, the temptation to become a computer hermit is strong. If the opportunity for face time does not arise naturally, look for a professional conference to go to or even a lecture to attend. Or take the time to drop off a document in person (if it needs to go to someone in your town), just so you have a chance to say hello in person. Staying in touch through Facebook is good — but actual face to face time can really cement your connection. Make time for it.

Increase your vibration before you meet.

Increase your vibration? This is a New Age term I’ve been hearing from some of my customers — but to me it means, find a way to get your energy up before you meet with someone. If you are feeling down and depressed, you’ll be looking down a lot and your voice will seem flat. You won’t be able to seem interested in another person. So raise your energy in whatever way works for you — sing in the car on the way to your meeting, exercise that morning, drink a glass of orange juice or coffee — do whatever it takes to help you to feel cheerful and pleasant to be around. Most people can’t fake a good mood very effectively — so jolly yourself into a good mood, if you have to, before your face to face interaction. Extroverts seem to cheer up just by being around people, but if you are an introvert, you will have to take time to do this in advance.

Make eye contact.

In a meeting with colleagues or customers, don’t spend all your time looking down at your papers and taking notes. Not that having papers and notes is a bad thing — it can be a way to increase your credibility. But, I have to tell you, having facts and figures on the tip of your tongue, information that you can pull right out of your head, increases your credibility even more. Looking at people is hard if you are an introvert, but it shows people that you genuinely care and are interested in them. If you are too shy to look in someone’s eye, use an old self-defense trick: look at a point just over one of their shoulders. Believe it or not, it will still appear as though you are looking them in the eye.

Ask questions.

As they say on Sesame Street, asking questions is a good way to find out things you want to know! It’s true when you are a student, but it is equally true when you are a business owner or manager. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Most people are flattered when others take an interest in them.

Respect nonverbal cues.

Some nonverbal cues say “don’t talk to me right now.” Sometimes people don’t want to talk — yet. But pay attention, because “I don’t feel like talking” can turn into “I have a question” in the blink of an eye. You can tell when that change occurs by watching for nonverbal cues. Notice when a customer goes from a “head’s down” position, reading brochures and looking over merchandise, to a “head’s up” position, looking around and actively seeking to make eye contact with someone.

Have some down time later.

Again, this tip may not apply to you if you are an extrovert — but if you are a natural extrovert, you may not need to read this post at all! If you don’t get energized by being around people — if face to face interaction is a chore for you — then give yourself some time off between face to face interactions, if you can. Give yourself down time to recharge your batteries so that you can bring your energy back up for your next interaction. It’s worth taking the time to make sure that you are able to make the most out of each of your face to face experiences. But if one doesn’t go as well as you’d like, don’t worry about that either. I like to change the old saying, “Life is not a rehearsal,” and turn it on its head. The fact is, life IS a rehearsal. What comes before is practice for what comes next. So if a face to face doesn’t go so well, remind yourself that it was practice — and learn from it for next time.

Remember: most people say they are happiest when they have regular face to face interactions with other people. Don’t be shy about your face time with people — even if they are “merely” casual acquaintances — revel in it!

Tim Eyre helps residential and business customers who use self storage when they don’t have enough storage space on their own property. Tim’s company – Extra Space Storage – has locations from coast to coast, including Boston self storage storage and multiple Philadelphia self storage locations.

Posted by Mike King under Relationships | 9 Comments »

My friend, Armen over at TimeLessInformation.com had a recent article about why sometimes words don’t work as well as they should on a website.  He has many great points about how things can be misinterpreted or how words are not as powerful as they are intended because people skim them or don’t read them with the same thought put to them as experiencing it first hand.  Also, he mentioned how video can be better for those areas.  So, while I agree with his points on video while recognizing, each method has its own dangers of being communicated poorly, to me video has many more dangers, and this article covers some of the things that video posts are often lacking or have as problems. I’m sure there are more risks with video than outlined here so I’d love you to comment with your own feelings on video posting.  Here are several big reasons from my experience that I don’t like video on most websites from bloggers.

Egocentric

This has got to be the biggest one to me and unfortunately, while I have seen many good videos recorded without the host being ego centric or self-promoting, I find that video bloggers on the whole, spend a lot more time mentioning their own names or websites or achievements than they do in written form. Even introductions and mentioning who they are seems weird to me on a video cast since anyone watching is doing so from the website anyway, or there could be references at the end, instead of the beginning of every video cast. It seems very self promoting and even worse when a video caster spends more time trying to convince you of what they have to say is useful or important, instead of just saying it.  The added details or background information on what they have done or discovered seems to be more prevalent with video bloggers than with writers.  Or at least, that is what I have experience with seeing hundreds of video bloggers and thousands of bloggers who write text only.

Perhaps there is something about getting behind the camera that adds some nervousness or risk factor that people then overcompensate for by trying to hard to prove their point.  Perhaps it is because video bloggers are more free-flow with how they communicate.  It seems likely to also be because of assumptions of the audience.

Unedited, Less Concise or Impactful

Another big one for me is how often video bloggers don’t prepare well or finish their content well enough.  This is not the case for all video bloggers but many I’m sure don’t even watch their content before they publish it.  Unedited video is like reading from bloggers who obviously don’t even read their own written content before publishing it.  It is messy, disjointed and often repetitive instead of concise.  Many video bloggers are actually, very poor speakers as well so can be hard to understand or even listen to.  Poor speakers throw additional words like “umm”, or “ahh” into their message and it can be incredibly distracting from what they actually want to say.  I know that video takes practice, but even a beginner writer knows not to add “umm” into their writing, so they can usually get their point across easier with words.

Most writers spend a lot more time on the actual words they are going to write than do video bloggers, who often shoot with less notes, editing or planning of their content.

Impersonal

Video is often said to be more personal since the person is visible and the audience can learn a bit more about the person in the video.  Thinking on this however, it is actually, the opposite because communication is only more personal when it is delivered in a way that is pleasing and fitting to the audience, not the speaker.  The audience is not engaged in video and there is nothing in video more personalized than in writing.  I think video has a great danger of stereotypes and appearances from actually killing the personal content of the words themselves as well, since most people are so quickly and easily distracted by first impressions and appearances.  This leaves the deeper meaning of the words and message that may have been more personally reflected on to be masked by superficial and unneeded video distractions.

Out of Place Body Language

Body language is up to 70% of all communication and so the human brain is very in tune to body language with conversations.  Body language however is something that is normally delivered in a unique personal way, that matches the audience and often in response to the body language of the viewer.  With pre-recorded video content, you cannot have body language that is appropriate to the viewer (at best, you have a guess) so it is out of place more than it is suitable.  This problem once again, distracts from the message itself and makes the content less convincing, especially if the body language is considerably different than what is expected or common in conversation with that particular person.

Technical Limitations

Last but not least, there are several more reasons why I don’t care for video that much from bloggers.  They start with eating bandwidth on servers on the web for little or less value than reading written text.  They are much slower to listen to than to read even if you listen instead of watching.  Taking content offline for reading or watching on planes/transit is much more difficult and troublesome.  Most video is not searchable or indexed well (if at all) so it doesn’t have as many ways to find it after first being published in the news/feed circles.  Video is often harder to share with people as well since it cannot be printed or distributed easily except on the web and to the demographic of high bandwidth users.

Please add your comments about written or video blogging and some of your own personal tastes, I’d love to hear them!

Posted by Mike King under Personal | 7 Comments »