2009

Free Life Coaching Offer

by Vlad Dolezal on November 18, 2009

Update 3: The offer is now closed. Cheers to everyone who applied!

I’m officially starting my life coaching practice!

Of course, I don’t expect you to immediately run to me, throwing hundreds of dollars at me begging me to life coach you, just because I say I’m a great life coach (I’m not going to say it, either). Instead, I’m looking for words from real life coaching clients. Which brings me to my offer.

I’m offering 3 free life coaching spots. Each one is 6 1-hour coaching calls with me personally, over Skype.

All I’m asking in exchange for the coaching is a testimonial. Which means a quick 1-or-2-paragraph summary of what you thought of the life coaching sessions with me. (If you don’t like them, that’s fine, feel free to say so. I want you to be honest.)

Who is this for?

  • if you’re not happy with your current life situation, but aren’t sure what to change (feeling stuck)
  • if you have trouble staying motivated
  • if you have goals, but find it hard to keep on track, succumbing to procrastination
  • if you think you’d benefit from getting a life coach for other reasons (read through to the bottom of this post)

Then my life might be for you!

Who is this NOT for?

  • if you have deep psychological problems or trauma (see a therapist for that)
  • if you expect to spend hours just chatting about everything and anything, without changing much (we life coaches work quickly and efficiently)
  • if you feel it would be nice to change something in your life, but can’t be bothered to actually do anything (I only work with clients who are motivated to take action to change!)

If any of the above 3 points is true for you, I’m not the right person for you.

Still not sure if life coaching is for you?

Other benefits of getting a life coach are:

  • accountability – some people simply need an occasional ass-kicking and someone to keep them on track with their goals. We life coaches provide that.
  • dealing with limiting beliefs that might be holding you back without you even being aware of them
  • opening your mind to possibilities – sometimes people end up running over the same thought patterns again and again. We life coaches can quickly snap you out of that circular thinking, and get you considering all the awesome options you have

In other words (the best summary of life coaching I’ve ever heard):

We figure out where you are right now, where you want to be and what’s stopping you from getting there. Then we get rid of whatever is stopping you.

So how do you get the free life coaching?

If you’re interested, just e-mail me at me@vladdolezal.com.

Include:

  • a little bit about yourself (one short paragraph is enough)
  • what you want to work on

While my offer is not on a strictly first-come-first-serve basis (I will pick three clients who seem the most motivated), I will probably close down the offer after I get a bunch of replies I would want to work with. So act quickly if you want a life coaching spot!

I’m only offering this for free because I have yet to establish any street cred as a life coach, so you have a unique chance to get the benefits of life coaching for free. You probably won’t get another offer like this anytime soon.

If you still have any concerns like:

  • you can’t use Skype for some reason
  • you don’t fit the circumstances mentioned at the top of the page, but still think you would benefit from life coaching
  • any other questions…

Just e-mail me! My e-mail is me@vladdolezal.com, and I’m happy to answer any questions you have about life coaching.

And remember, you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

Update 3: The offer is now closed. Cheers to everyone who applied!

{ 2 comments }

A Friendly Face

by Vlad Dolezal on November 14, 2009

smiling_kittyEver noticed how looking at a happy face makes you smile?

That’s because in our brains we have so called “mirror neurons”. Basically, whenever you see an expression on someone’s face, these neurons automatically try to replicate the expression on your own face.

And once you have this expression on your face, it makes you feel the emotions the other person is feeling. Funny thing, your body… feeling a certain way makes you hold your body and use your face muscles a certain way. But it works the other way as well – holding a facial expression makes you feel the associated emotions. (For more fun uses of that, see my article on Body Language Basics).

That’s why being around anxious or angry people makes you inexplicably stressed. The mirror neurons in your brain just can’t help trying to replicate their facial expression, and that brings you stress.

But today we won’t focus on unhappy people. Let’s focus on you being happy and excited, and how that affects everyone around you :D

How your smiling affects those around you

  • your friends feel happier around you, and so want to spend more time with you
  • you feel happy (need I say more?)
  • you meet more friendly people…

About the last bit – if you expect people to be fun and interesting when you first meet them, you will naturally smile and be positive towards them. This makes them think you’re a fun person to be with, so they smile and laugh more. That in turn confirms your initial suspicion, so you start smiling even more as you’re with them.

Voila, just you met a fun interesting person, just because you expected them to be that way!

Smiling a lot gives you a permanent “friendly face”

Have you ever noticed how people who have been together very long (like 20 years) start to look alike? That’s because over time they use the same facial expressions, which lets the same muscles in their faces grow and others shrink.

Similarly, if you smile a lot, you will eventually get a permanent “friendly face”. You’ll get those little smile wrinkles in the corners of your eyes, and certain muscles in your face will become more prominent because you use them a lot.

People who look at your face will immediately get a gut feeling that you’re a friendly, trustworthy person. They probably won’t be able to explain why, or will say vague things like “she had a friendly face”. But we are all extremely good at recognizing facial features, and we’ll subconsciously get a good feeling about someone who’s happy most of the time – even if we can’t tell why.

Some fun ideas to try

You know how cracking a big friendly smile at someone just naturally makes them smile back? Try it with strangers on the street! It’s a ton of fun :D . It’s like happy elixir – you just create happiness out of nowhere.

Tim Brownson calls this a smile ripple. You crack a big smile at a complete stranger on the street, they just can’t help it but start smiling themselves, which in turn makes all the people who see them smile a little. A ripple of smiles spreads around you, like waves in a pond.

On a related note, the same works with high fives. When you put up your hand and just confidently say “high five!”, the other person will slap your hand about 95% of the time. Yes, even complete strangers. You can try it while walking down the street. Or, if you’re not that crazy, just try it in a pub. Walk up to a complete stranger, and just lift your hand and say “high five!”. I guarantee you’ll have a fun time from that, whichever way it goes :)

.

(Photo courtesy of fofurasfelinas.)

{ 7 comments }

Advice For Life From FLD Readers

by Vlad Dolezal on November 11, 2009

A few days ago, I asked what was the most important advice that you ever received.

I was blown away by the response, to be honest. A lot of you guys really shared some great advice that made me think. So here, I’m sharing all the best advice for life put together by FLD readers!

1. Son, we are too poor to buy cheap things.

2. Material things can be replaced, so don’t value them higher then family, friends or your health.

3. Focus only on the essentials in your life, cut everything else out.

4. Benny shared The Sunscreen Song, which contains a ton of great advice, so I’ll just pick one that really stuck out for me: Do one thing every day that scares you.

5. Follow your gut.

6. You can do it.

7. Good health is one of the most important things. Take care of your body because when it’s not working right it will make you miserable.

8. No one can hurt you without your permission.

9. You are awesome.

10. Too much thinking complicates things….let go what’s inside.

11. There is always a sunrise after every darkness.

12. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

13. What you tolerate, you deserve.

14. Take the first step–no more, no less–then the next will be revealed.

15. Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

16. Change habits one at a time.

17. Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.

18. You can’t make chicken salad out of chicken shit even if you use Hellmann’s.

19. You miss 100% of the shots you never take.

And, I’ll throw in one of my own, to make a nice round number :)

20. You can read books, watch videos and read blogs… but nothing will change until you get off your ass and take some action!

 

How to use this advice (don’t skip this!)

So you read the above list, nodding at many of the pieces of advice.

And right now, there’s about a 90% chance you’d just go on with your life as you did before, not changing anything. That’s the trouble with list posts – they’re easily digestible, and make you feel smart… but they don’t inspire change!

So I challenge you right now to actually take these pieces of advice and take action on them. Like this:

1. Go back over the list, and pick three pieces of advice that really resonated with you. Ones that made you think, ones that make you feel inspired to make changes in your life.

2. Write them down!

3. Figure out how, within the next 24 hours, you can take specific action on at least one of them.

Then think about how you can apply each of your 3 pieces of advice over the coming week. Write down a couple of ideas for each of them.

And now all you need to do is take action!

For example, I chose the one that said “Do at least one thing every day that scares you.” There’s this girl in some of my lectures I wanted to get to know better for a while (occasional 5-minutes conversations between lectures can only get so deep). Anyway, yesterday I kept the advice in mind, decided to do one thing that scared me, and asked her to meet me for lunch today. In fact, I’m off there right after I post this post :)

Good luck with your own life, and I hope you apply some of the advice from our great readers!

###

Quick update about my goals (life coaching!):

Remember how I said taking action is key to making changes in your life? (Hell, I even put a free 7-day e-mail course on the topic).

Well, one of my dreams is becoming a life coach, but I haven’t been doing much about that. So a few weeks ago, a friend of mine asked me: “Why don’t you just offer a few free life coaching spots? Just get it out there that you’re a life coach!”

I thought about his question, and realized I didn’t feel 100% confident I could handle helping real life coaching clients. So I got in touch with Tim Brownson, who’s a professional life coach with years of experience, and he gave me tons of great tips and support. Long story short, I’ll be opening up a few free life coaching spots a week from now!

tl;dr Free life coaching offer (from me) coming on Wednesday 18th November, stay tuned!

{ 8 comments }

What piece of advice changed your life the most?

by Vlad Dolezal on November 7, 2009

Normally, I write about ideas that helped me the most. But I’m just one person, and it’s quite possible that what made the biggest difference to you is different from what made the biggest difference to me.

So today, I’d like to hear YOUR point of view. What piece of advice changed your life the most? What single insight made the biggest impact on your quality of life?

It could be something you read on a blog or in a book, a quote from a famous person, or even something your grandfather told you when you were a kid. Any advice that really changed your life.

I don’t want to skew your answers by sharing my personal answer – so I’ll share that in a few days, when I sum up the most interesting answers I get from you.

Please share your answer below in the comment form (you can do it anonymously). (If you’re reading this in your RSS reader, click through to the site.)

Thanks for your input! I’ll see you again in a few days.

{ 21 comments }

5 Simple Ways to Have Tons of Fun Every Day

by Vlad Dolezal on November 4, 2009

I haven’t shared any of my crazy fun ideas in a while.

So today, I’m putting that in order. I’m going to give you 5 at once! 5 great ways to bring tons of fun into your everyday life. Let’s rock!

1. Associate mundane objects you see every day with fun ideas/memories

Imagine you walk past a bakery, and smell the freshly baked bread…

Does it bring back memories? Or maybe it’s the sound of a cow moooing, or the feel of a feather pillow, that brings back the best memories in you. It makes you feel great, far out of proportion to what’s happening in the moment.

Like Pavlov, who got his dogs to associate ringing a bell with food, you can associate pretty much anything to anything, just by having them happen one ater the other repeatedly.

So let’s use that to have fun! First I’d like you to think of a couple of ideas or memories that always make you smile :) . It can be movies you’ve seen, jokes you’ve heard, or something that happened to you personally. Pick somewhere between 3-5 of these.

(Personally, I picked FPS_Doug shouting “BOOM HEADSHOT!”, the Monty Python sketch about Four Yorkshiremen, and a couple of personal memories that would take too long to explain.)

Next, we’re going to pick everyday objects to associate these with! For example, you could pick your bathroom door, or a chair in your room, or something you see out of your bedroom window. In any case, pick something you see several times every day. We’ll turn these into your fun triggers.

Okay? Let’s get started! (If you haven’t yet, pick at least one fun memory and one mundane object, right now!)

Take one of your fun memories. Take one of your everyday objects. Look at the object, then close your eyes and think of the fun memory until you crack a huge smile. Then open your eyes and shake it off – think of something completely unrelated (If a quiz is quizzical, what is a test?).

Then look at the object again, and think of your fun memory until you have a huge grin on your face. Then break your state again by looking around and thinking of something unrelated. Repeat 10 times, which should take you a few minutes in total.

If you’ve done this right, now every time you look at your boring everyday object, you get a huge grin on your face because it brings back that fun memory! :D

Repeat this with the other fun memories you picked, and you’re done! You’ve just brought a ton of fun into your life for every day in the foreseeable future… and it only cost you a few minutes of your time and a bunch of happy thoughts! ;)

2. Talk to random strangers

If you’re shy and introverted, this can be a tough one. But I’m putting it here anyway, because there’s so much fun potential in it!

We’re talking about having fun here, so forget for a moment that meeting random strangers can be great for your business and personal life. Let’s just focus on the fun part of it.

The first step would be to not take yourself too seriously. You’ll likely never see this stranger again, so forget about what they think of you.

Second step – realize that weird/crazy is much more fun than boring. So don’t try to stay inside your comfort zone by having boring conversations about the weather. Instead, start talking to a random stranger, and immediately go for a completely crazy topic! For example:

[scene: you're standing at a road crossing, waiting for the light to turn green. You turn to the person next to you.]
You: Excuse me, can I ask you a question?
Stranger: Uh-huh.
You: Who do you think would win a fight between Iron Man and Godzilla?

If they just look at you like you’re crazy, don’t worry about it. They’re just a stuck up bore. And even if they look away and ignore you, they will later get to their office, say “Guys, you won’t believe what happened to me today!” and have a good laugh with their friends at your expense. You just brightened up their day!

As long as you have a fun and positive attitude with it, you can’t go wrong. And if someone answers “Duuuude! Are you nuts?! Of course Iron Man would win, he can frickin’ fly!” – you might have just found a friend for life!

3. Use your senses in unusual ways

I first started playing around with using my senses after reading Feynman’s experiments with smelling. In fact, I wrote about this here on FLD before:

Richard Feynman read that people are a lot better at smelling than they think. So he proposed a little experiment to his wife. In her room, there was a shelf with old books she hadn’t touched in a while. Feynman would go out for two minutes, she would take a book off the shelf, hold it in her hands and then put it back. Feynman would then come back in and try to figure out which book she took by smelling them.

He got it right.

Later he got three of his friends to try a similar experiment. Each of the friends would touch a book, and Feynman would try which friend handled which book. He got it right again!

Of course, after hearing this story, I had to try it myself. So I got a friend, and we both took turns going out of the room as the other held one book in their hands. Then we tried guessing which book it was, just by smelling them. We both got it right on our first try.

As Feynman said, the books that havent been handled in a while have a dry, uninterested smell. But the ones that have been touched, they have a sort of moist smell. More alive.

Try it yourself sometime. It’s silly, it’s fun, and at the same time it’s quite amazing!

You’re a lot better at smelling than you think! And while we’re talking about smelling… try thoroughly smelling other things. Ever tried smelling your computer screen? (Do it right now!) A glass of mineral water? A fresh newspaper? An old newspaper?

There’s a lot more fun you can have with using your other senses in unusual ways (like blindfold eating), but this article is already long as it is, so I’ll leave that for another time.

4. Leave secret messages to friends (and strangers)

When I was a kid, we used to ring strangers’ doorbells and run away, or leave coins on the ground, propped up on a small stone, with the underside covered in mustard. And we used to laugh when we thought about how annoyed the strangers would get.

Then I grew up.

I know that because now instead of doing small things that will annoy someone I’ll never see, and giggling about that, I do small things that will make someone I’ll never see feel good, and I giggle about that!

A very simple fun way of doing this is put-pocketing (do this to friends):

Put-pocketing is like pick-pocketing, except instead of stealing stuff, you put something in the pocket. So take a small piece of paper, write (or draw) some positive message, and try slipping into one of your friends’ pockets without them noticing. For added fun, write that they’re supposed to pass it on to someone else, again without the recipient noticing.

5. Smile for no reason

I describe my experiences with this in detail in my article Read Minds and Lift Your Mood – Body Language Basics. But the basic idea is that smiling makes you have fun! So just put a big grin on your face, and fun will follow shortly :D

(Random note – when psychologists want you to feel happy without realizing they’re making you do that, they’ll ask you to hold a pencil in your teeth, without letting it touch your lips. This forces your lips into a smile, which makes you happy!)

Oh, and since we’re having fun with this – if anybody asks why you’re smiling, make up some crazy reason! Like…

“My doctor discovered an imbalance in my blood chemicals. He prescribed me one hour of forced smiling each day.”

or…

“I’m scaring away polar bears.”
“Polar bears?”
“Well, do you see any polar bears around?”
“No…”
“See? It’s working!”

And that’s all for today. Have a funtabulous day!

{ 10 comments }

Keeping a Buffer Zone

by Vlad Dolezal on October 31, 2009

Back in the old days, the rudders of huge transoceanic ships were attached with cast-steel necks. The reasoning was that by making them from one of the strongest materials known to man, they would last longer.

But whenever the rudder hit a rock, the neck would break because it was so rigid.

Nowadays, the rudders are attached with flexible rubber hosings, because although it’s nowhere near as strong as cast iron, it’s more flexible and ultimately lasts longer.

And flexibility is what I want to talk to you today. How you can increase your flexibility so that adverse circumstances don’t break you, and make full use of life opportunities!

The buffer zone – what stands between you and utter despair

Nod along with me if you ever ran out of toilet paper while on the toilet. Yes? Then nod again, if you thought something like “Oh, s***! Why didn’t I buy more toilet paper? I’ve seen it running out ages ago! Damn, damn, damn…”

Hopefully, your story had the same happy end as mine – I found a pack of tissues in my pocket.

Anyway, my point is… the time to buy toilet paper isn’t when the last roll is just about to run out. You naturally create a buffer zone. If you go buy new toilet paper when your second-to-last roll runs out, you’ve got a buffer zone of one toilet paper roll (or an average 241 sheets, claims my toilet paper packaging). If an unexpectedly demanding… umm, you know… turns up, you’ve still got 241 sheets of toilet paper between you and utter despair.

Why keep a buffer zone

So you don’t think I’m completely obsessed with toilet paper (see Understanding (or why some people put the toilet paper roll in the holder facing the wrong way)), I’ll switch to a different example.

Savings.

Let’s say you’re working at a job you’re reasonably happy with. But a unique chance to earn a living doing something you absolutely love turns up. Your dream job… but you’ll first need to quit your old job and live off your savings for 3 months.

If you have 6 months’ salary in the bank, you’ll say to yourself “Hell, yeah!” (or “Helheim, yarrrr!” if you’re a viking), and go for it. Even if it doesn’t work out, you’ll have another 3 months’ savings left to find another temporary good-but-not-fantastic job.

But what if you’re living paycheck to paycheck? What if you can’t even afford to get ill, let alone quit, or your mortgage, student loan, car payments, and all the other bills will run you over better than an 18-wheeler truck?

Right. You’ll pass on the opportunity to get your dream job.

And that’s why a buffer zone rocks. It gives you flexibility.

(And great power comes with great flexibility.)

Like the rudder attachment, you can bend to evade adverse life circumstances, instead of running into them head on. With savings in the bank, you can look for a job you love, or take some time off to figure out what you really want to be doing. With extra toilet paper waiting, you can afford to skip shopping on Saturday if a really fun day-trip comes up.

Oh, and because your buffer zone gives you flexibility, it helps you build an abundance mentality. You no longer feel like money is horribly scarce if you always have several months’ salary in the bank – and that lets you relax about money, and thus earn more. (Abundance mentality is a funny thing.)

Keep a buffer zone. Flexibility rocks!

http://vladdolezal.com/blog/2009/understanding/

{ 0 comments }

Facing Uncertainty

by Vlad Dolezal on October 27, 2009

Back when I first moved to Belgium, I spent most of my free time at home.

I would sometimes get invited to a friend’s party, or friends would go out on Friday nights – but I was afraid to go with them, because of the uncertainty. I had no idea what it would be like, if I would like it, if I would have fun… so I usually stayed home alone.

Then I would hear people talking about “last friday”, and I thought they all had an amazing blast and I was really missing out. But I was too afraid to go.

Then, one day, I finally decided to come along. And lo and behold, those “amazing” friday nights usually consisted of people just standing around, drinking a little, talking a little, and generally being pretty bored. I went another one or two times, and had the same impression every time.

And yet for months, because I was so afraid of the uncertainty of going out with my friends, I created this idealized idea of what an amazing time everyone was having, how much I was missing out, and made myself feel really bad.

That was the last time I let uncertainty stop me from living a full life.

To let you learn from my mistakes, here are a few insights:

1. Uncertain situations are often the most fun

When you go into a situation where you don’t know what will be going on – sure, you’re scared as hell. But everything’s new, everything’s interesting… and it’s a ton of fun! Think back to when you were a kid, and went exploring a forest with your friends. It was big. It was amazing. And it was uncertain.

2. 90% of the time, you will have fun and be just fine. The other 10% make great stories.

Really. Most scary things you imagine never come true.

Strangers don’t shout at you angrily for approaching them. They’re usually really warm and receptive… and the worst thing I’ve seen happen is that they ignore you. (unless you’re being an obnoxious ass)

People don’t boo you off the stage if you suck at public speaking. The worst that happens is that people get bored and start checking their watches and daydreaming. The best that happens is that you share some interesting information, get a laugh or two, and get off the stage leaving the audience wanting more.

And when you DO get into an embarrassing situation or get an way-out-in-the-left-field response from people, you get a great story to tell!

3. Uncertainty is scary. Overcoming scary means courage. Courage leaves you feeling confident and empowered.

I covered this in detail in my post How to Conquer Fear.

Basically, you can’t think your way out of fear. The only way is to do courage and face the fears. And once you do that, no matter what happens, you will have more confidence and feel empowered afterwards.

So the next time you’re faced with an uncertain situation, feel the fear, and then go through with it anyway. You’ll see afterwards that you’re completely fine, and have a good laugh about how you were afraid for no good reason.

May you face a ton of uncertainty!

{ 6 comments }

Life Isn’t Fair… And That’s Great News!

by Vlad Dolezal on October 22, 2009

Ever heard your friends complain that life isn’t fair?

Well, they’re right. But that’s great news! Think about it; a completely fair life would be like hard-core communism. No matter what you did, you would still do exactly the same as everybody else. Your actions wouldn’t matter.

But because life isn’t fair, your decisions matter! You can make a huge difference to your life by making the right decisions, finding your mission in life and values etc.

Most people go through life like a sea boat without navigation. They occasionally stumble across a tropical island of bliss, but then leave again, and spend most of their days just floating around aimlessly.

You, on the other hand, can become an experienced captain, set on a course for a treasure island. And you’re already well on your way – hey you’re reading a personal development blog! You have taken the first and most important step – learning to improve yourself.

You could say that life being unfair is great because you can easily get ahead of all those people who sleepwalk their way through their lives. That’s definitely a point, but I don’t think that really matters.

It doesn’t matter that you can easily do better than others.

What matters is that you can easily do great, in absolute terms!

So don’t worry about life being unfair. On the contrary – celebrate it! In this unfair world, you can truly make a difference with your actions.

{ 3 comments }

How to Get People Excited About What You Have to Say

by Vlad Dolezal on October 19, 2009

Back in high school, I had a fantastic economics teacher. He would always talk excitedly about the topic we covered in class, tell us related (and unrelated) stories, and show us current real-world examples of exactly what we were covering. You could just feel the fascination with economics oozing through his pores. Everybody loved him.

Then, one day, we got to a topic called “indifference curves”. And straight away, the teacher told us he really doesn’t like them. He dropped his usual excitement and only feebly attempted to joke around. For the next lesson or two that we covered this, the energy level of the whole classroom went down several notches, pretty much down to the usual dreary boring high school class levels.

I always remember this teacher not only because he managed to get absolutely everybody excited about economics… but also because I saw what a difference his attitude made on the one topic he didn’t like. I actually thought indifference curves were pretty interesting (I even drew a Chuck Norris joke relating to them in my notes), but his attitude just dragged the whole class down.

Funnily enough, most people act the exact opposite way. Most of the time, they make everything sound dreary and boring, and only occasionally get really excited about what they’re saying. Let’s change that!

Excitement is contagious

You’ve probably heard someone describe a topic in such a passionate way, you just couldn’t help being interested. Hell, I’ve heard a friend tell a completely fascinating story about making a tomato-lettuce-bacon sandwich!

Excitement is incredibly catchy! One of my favorite examples of excitement is FPS_Doug – thinking of this video always cracks me up, no matter how down I’m feeling :D

…

When I was younger, I talked very monotonously, and didn’t let much emotion through. So even when I was talking about something I was absolutely passionate about, I made it sound about as exciting as watching paint dry.

Eventually, I took the time to figure out what makes interesting passionate people so interesting… and here’s a simple 3-step method to help you do the same!

How to get people excited about what you have to say

1. Pick a topic you’re passionate about

I could probably keep you entranced with stories and fun little experiments about psychology and the human mind for a good few dozen minutes, but ask me to talk about football, and I’ll put you to sleep faster than a professional hypnotist.

It’s all about picking something _you_ are absolutely passionate about. Yeah, I know, you’re always told to talk about what the other person is interested in. That’s great advice, but for the sake of this experiment, we’ll have you talking about something YOU love!

2. Find an interesting angle to explain it from

You can make anything sound boring. What if I told you something’s all about sitting motionless for an hour and a half, barely moving your arms, and occasionally wiggling your fingers?

Not too exciting? I’m talking about driving a Formula 1 race!

Similarly, you can make anything interesting if you approach it from a good angle. In fact, this whole article was inspired by Benny‘s comment on my article on how to stop boring conversations:

(…) Instead of lying or avoiding the question I exaggerate the answer. I dont say I’m a translator; I say that I bridge gaps between cultures — sounds pompous, but technically its true.

Instead of “Maths” you can say that you study the rules of the universe and the greatest achievement of mankind. You could say how passionate you are about particular specialities (e.g. how statistics comes up in such obscure and interesting parts of life etc.) and not use the word “Maths”, which they would associate with their boring secondary school teacher. I used to be a Maths teacher and always introduced my job with such drama that you’d swear I was a lion tamer…

You can make anything sound exciting if you pick the right angle to approach it from.

3. Put a LOT more excitement into your voice than you’re used to

Did you watch the FPS_Doug video above? When I first saw it, I showed it to some friends, and then we were joking around, running around, crouching and jumping, saying “BOOM HEADSHOT!” like Doug in the video.

Or at least that’s what we thought. But when a friend recorded me on video, I saw that I was actually saying more of a “boom headshot” as opposed to Doug’s BOOM HEADSHOT!!! YEAH!!!

Moral of the story? You’ll sound a lot less excited than you think. So don’t be afraid to go completely overboard at first.

In fact, do this exercise with a friend. You both find a topic you’re passionate about and an interesting way of explaining it, and then try saying it to each other again and again, getting more and more excited every time!

It’s hard to get excited by yourself, but once you start getting into it with a friend, you will just feed off each other’s excitement, to ridiculous proportions! Soon you’ll be saying things like “So you TOTALLY try differentiating the function and YOU’RE GOING ALONG THE X AXIS, going along the x axis and OH NO!!! there’s a discontuity at x=0!!! But WAIT, there’s hope…”

If you can’t find a topic that you find super-exciting that your friend would understand, then by all means, talk about brushing your teeth or something! You really don’t need an inherently exciting topic to practice this. It’s all about letting go of your inhibitions, and putting as much emotion as possible into your talking.

…

And that’s all for today. Go find a friend to do this with (feel free to send them a link to this article so they know what you’re on about), and practice the 3 steps. Soon you’ll get people excited about what you have to say just by opening your mouth!

{ 5 comments }

Stop Boring Conversations – Answering Questions Indirectly

by Vlad Dolezal on October 16, 2009

How many times have you had one of those awkward small-talk conversations? Here’s a typical example of mine:

“So, what do you study?”
“Maths.”
“Ah… errr… I used to hate maths at school.”
“Uh huh.” [awkward silence] “So… what do you study?”
“Philosophy.”
“Ah… so… found the meaning of life yet?”
[forced smile] “Not yet.”
[more awkward silence]

All along we could both be esperanto-speaking jugglers who write a personal development blog, and we’d never find out.

Here’s something I found out – you don’t always need to answer questions directly. It all depends on the question…

The 2 Types of Questions

For simplicity’s sake, there are 2 main types of questions you will get asked:

1. Genuinely want to know the answer

You’d think that if your conversation buddy really wants to know the answer, you should answer. And often that’s the case.

But sometimes, you’re better off answering a different question…

I got this concept from one copywriter. (someone who writes those long sales pages online). Here’s roughly what he said:

I was approached by a guy asking how much I charge for a sales page. Now, I know exactly where that question leads to. You tell him your regular rate, he thanks you, and then he’s off to ask the next copywriter. Just browsing for price. He’ll end up getting one of the cheapest, and get exactly what he’s paying for.

But after that happened several times, I found out how to handle that question. *Don’t answer it.* Instead, start asking them for more details on exactly what they need.

Because you know what? They don’t really want to know how much you charge. They’re only asking that because it’s the only thing they can think of asking. They want to appear knowledgeable, but they don’t know any other questions to ask. Hey, they’re not copywriters, they don’t much about the industry.

So instead of answering the price question, start steering them in the right direction. Find out what type of product they’re selling, what their customer base is, how much traffic they’re getting. Those will all lead them to find exactly the right copywriter to look for.

And, as a bonus, by asking all those questions, you’ve now established value as an expert. If you find they’re a good fit for you, you now have a good chance of getting paid your quote, even if it’s higher than what they were expecting to pay.

And if you find they’re not a good fit, just pass them along to someone you think will fit well with them. A win for everybody involved.

Did you catch the main point?

You don’t need to answer every question directly. Sometimes, you can answer the question they would have asked, if only they knew.

This happens especially when you’re the expert on something, and they aren’t.

2. Just want to talk to you

Then there’s the small-talk type of questions. The other person just wants to talk to you, they don’t really care that much what your job is or where you grew up. Those are just ways to find common interests to talk about.

I’ll be honest. I’m still experimenting with this one. Sometimes I answer directly. Sometimes I tell people who ask me what I study that they’re asking the wrong question – what I study won’t tell them much about me. Sometimes I instead ask them what’s their mission in life. That usually leads to interesting conversations.

Don’t be afraid to ignore boring questions and steer the conversation towards more interesting topics. If they really want to know the answer, they’ll ask again.

Also, if you have any good ways to deal with boring small-talk questions, please let me know!

And that’s all for today. Remember – just because someone asks you a question, it doesn’t mean you should answer it directly.

###

Quick update – How to Be Rich and Happy now only $47:

A few days back, I posted a review of Tim Brownson’s book How to Be Rich and Happy. A few of you did a double-take at the hefty price tag of $97. While I believe the book is worth that, some people just can’t wrap the mind around the concept. As Tim summed it up:

We’re not just trying to sell a book, we’re trying to sell the concept of paying $97 for an e-book first and that makes it twice as hard.

So Tim decided to drop the price to $47. If you bought the book at the original price, don’t worry, Tim will personally refund you the difference. And if you got turned off by the high price, you might want to give it another thought. The 365-day money back guarantee of course still holds.

{ 9 comments }

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →