It can be a pretty loaded question for a potentially heated area.

Talking with a female friend on the weekend who is just starting to be OK with her emotions – after years of telling herself that to show emotion is a sign of weakness – and you read right – a female friend and she would be in her early 30′s. She’s still a bit embarrassed by her emotions.

So lets have a look at this…

Lets look at the seat of our emotions, the source of our emotions…

So in Right Brain Left Brain theory we’re told that the Right brain is the part of the brain that is responsible for creativity, spatial thinking, ‘big picture’ , intuition, the “how” of speech, lateral thinking, emotions, kinesthetics, the question Why…
Where the Left brain is said to be logical, analytical, sequential, details, organsied, language and grammar, the question What, rules.

Hmmmmmmm…

Can you see something similar here between what we’ve been learning about the Parent Adult, Child model as well?

Can you also see that creativity seems to lie in the same domain as emotion?

So it seems from this (very loose) association that a freedom of emotions could also equate with an increase in creativity. (We could also expand the definition of creativity to include freedom of association, problem solving, innovation and lateral thinking, not just art, music, writing and craft…)

More often than not emotion for many people is a thing to fear and to be embarrassed by. In my mother’s day to be strong was to not to show emotion. (it’s sill around today – ref my female friend) So what I don’t want to do is make this behaviour wrong… enough is made wrong… it is, afterall, what it is.

This is more about asking you what you want your reponse to be – your own response…

So if you value creativity, creative problem solving, lateral thinking, innovation – then you might also like to look at the association of these attributes with emotions.

I’m not talking about over the top out of control emotion. Just permission…

I’ve see this more times than I care to count, the number of people who begin to get in touch with their emotion (permission?) and have a quantum leap in creativity.

Ken would call permission OKness.

I think the word is incredibly misunderstood and at one point became a cliche. OKness is a life position…

He would say the 5 OKs of life were
I’m OK You’re OK
We’re OK They’re OK
It’s OK

It’s not a cop out, it’s not asking you to accept the unacceptable.

But the question I ask is that believing that people are NOT OK in the first place, that emotions are not OK, that making mistakes is not OK …. I’m sure you can add plenty of your own .. could that be more the reason for the unacceptable in the first place?

Am I in a very pensive place today – I think I am…

I also like to ask questions…

Until tomorrow…

OK So back to the business of getting the best out of everyone.

Lets do a small recap.

The areas we’ve covered so far are:
For Things to Change 1st I Must Change
What you Resist Persists
You Cannot NOT Influence
Focus on your strengths
Story of Ken Windes – a real lesson in ‘For Things to Change…
Transactional Analysis – Transactions between ours and others’ Parent, Adult and Child
“True Communication is the Response I get”
Choosing your Response FIRST using the PAC model…
Using PAC to keep others resourceful (of course YOU must be resourceful First)
Using PAC to develop a creative environment
Using PAC to handle others emotions

So the question I have for you right now is – what’s going on between your own PAC?

Do you often feel that you are your own biggest critic?

Do your often feel your emotions ‘hijack’ you? (They can be moodiness, anger, sadness, tears, fears, rebelliousness.) And yet when it’s appropriate to display emotion – you can’t?

I had an amazing conversation with a couple of share trading brokers today and they said the number 1 reason why people lose money on the share market is not only are THEY driven by their emotions – SO ARE THEIR BROKERS! In fact they are PARALYSED by their emotions. Inability to handle their emotions is the Number 1 reason why people lose money! It’s also the reason why people trash relationships and trash their careers.

Am I saying that emotions are to blame? Absolutely NOT! In fact most people have no idea how incredibly powerful a tool their emotions are. In fact they are the source of the beauty and the colour in our lives.

We’ll talk all about THAT in my next blog.

Until tomorrow…

In fact in two main areas I just love, TA (transactional analysis) and suggestology (the foundations to accelerated learning developed by Dr Georgi Lazanov), both teach that you will get the results you expect and that you hold as our position. Ken would say, if I hold the position that I’m a therapist and people need fixing, then that’s what I will have around me, and if I hold the position that those around me are OK, then that’s what I get, people’s who OKness keeps showing up.

Tony Ward, my teacher in Suggestology said if you come from the position that everyone is a genius and that learning is fun and easy, then that’s what shows up around you, people and students whose genius keeps showing up… And these days the definition of genius is being shaken by people such as Howard Gardner who has shown that there are multiple ways to express genius. You can read more about him in the posted link on Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences .

So lets look another example of how to choose you response.

Example 2

Lets look at a brainstorming session. In order to be able to brainstorm effectively we need to be in a creative place. Now the seat of our creativity lies in our emotional state – or child state. One of the most important rules in brainstorming is “There’s no such thing as a dumb idea”. If that’s not in place up front, participants are likely to edit their ideas for fear of looking foolish. In fact foolishness is a requirement to great brainstorming. So if the response I want is creative ideas – then the participants need to feel safe to go into their child state. How do I get them there? Fun and laughter is always a good start. You can take them there by either being in parent mode or in child mode. Remember, as a facilitator all you need is to keep the ideas flowing and make sure they are documented. After the process is the time to get into parent (judging) and decide which ideas to keep and which ideas to shelve… Remember – there really IS no such thing as a dumb idea. Don’t ditch them…

OK so how do we handle some one having an emotional meltdown?

Where are they? Of course – they’re in child – no matter how scary they might appear to be – think someone in extreme anger.

Here are the steps to moving someone from child to adult.

1. Let them ventilate, or cry or whatever they need to do emotionally.
2. Resist the temptation to engage eg. get angry back or try to comfort someone crying. STAY COMPLETELY NEUTRAL!
3. When it seems the emotion is beginning to subside start the process of getting them into solution thinking.
4. Ask WHAT HAPPENED? to make you angry/make you cry. NEVER ASK WHY. WHAT asks for FACTS. WHY asks for REASONS. No the 2 aren’t the same…. think about it.
5. If they are sliding back (that’s your response so check where you are) and ask for more details. The more you can get them into the facts and the details the sooner they will move from child to adult.
6. Now we’ve gathered the facts ask them for their solution…

Thanks again

Until tomorrow

In order to understand more of what we’ll be covering today you need to have watched the videos on Transactional Analysis(TA). Apart from anything else, they are a simple, easy way to start
understanding your own – and other’s behaviours in any given situation.
The first thing in certain situations (not all – sometimes it’s fun to just go with the flow…) I will decide what I want my Response to be. How does that work? Well it works based on the situation. You might remember that classic book by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson ‘The One Minute Manager’ – the first book to talk about situational leadership, well the book is a diamond and if you still haven’t read it YOU MUST. I choose the sort of response I want from whoever I’m talking with – individual or group – based on the situation.

Let me give some examples, one in this blog and in the next blog I’ll discuss another example…

Example 1
Lets say I need to talk with one of my team about their behaviour in the workplace. Not a situation many of us enjoy. However if you decide the response you want from the other person – in advance – the process becomes 1. more predictable and 2. more satisfying for both. OK in this situation I (always!) want the other person to be:

able to hear the truth about their behaviour
aware,
rational,
resourceful,
solution focused,
able to take corrective action,

So from what you now understand from the videos – what state do I need them to be in?
Do I start the conversation with “I’m really disappointed in the way you’ve been behaving” …?
Not if you want them to have my ideal response you don’t…

(Unfortunately you’ll hear someone saying this more often than not. Or they’ll be so uncomfortable they start by praising the person. Stop doing that! (And that’s a whole other blog!)

YOU must be all of the desired behaviours FIRST – if you want THEM to respond that way.

So if you answered ‘Adult’ – that’s correct…

Now to know you’re in adult or not, ask yourself ‘am I in solution thinking right now’ or ‘do I want to make a point of how right I am and how wrong they are?’

Until you’re solution focused you’d better not go anywhere near them!

The other thing I do is I tend to ask more questions about the situation, how they perceive their behaviour, how can they see what the consequences could be… What consequences would they prefer, how do they intend to achieve them…

My adult holds a fundamental belief that they are OK and they are completely capable of working it out themselves. I’m just facilitating their process. I can also give feedback on their solutions in terms of it working or not for the team and the organisation… because they are in adult and they can take it… and besides you’ve done nothing to invalidate them from your side…

If you find yourself starting to slip into giving advice, working it out for them, getting upset with them, getting angry, doing it for them…. you’re no longer in adult land…

Your Exercise is…
… Start observing your responses – that is, the responses to your communications with others. Are they the responses you want? And more particularly are you CLEAR about the responses you want in the first place?

Until tomorrow…

Jan

I was extremely fortunate to have studied with Ken Windes – considered at one time to be one of the top 3 analysts in the world.

I want to do a slight detour and talk a bit about Ken.

His story alone is worth a blog on it’s own.

By the age of 26 Ken had spent half of his life behind bars either in Reform School or in prison. He’d started his life of mostly petty crime at around 12 stealing hub caps from cars.

By 26 he had been sentenced to life imprisonment as someone who would never be rehabilitated. In the USA they had a policy of sentencing a person to life when they showed no signs of ever going straight. Ken had got to that point. When the reality hit him he kidnapped the federal Marshall who was escorting him to Marriott. That crime alone was worth life. He had really done it now!

As an inmate Ken was what he called ‘a punk’. He always wore sunglasses and behaved in a cool, tough kid sort of way – part of his survival strategy. His other strategy was to keep himself occupied by loking for a means of escape. He had decided that even though he was in the highest security jail in the US, if it had been made by humans then there had to be a flaw – and his job was to find that flaw…

One day Ken was walking to has cell and he passed a guy sitting in a lotus position in his cell. He asked him what he was doing. ‘Meditating’, came the response. ‘What’s that’ said Ken – upon which the fellow prisoner gave him a tape set called Meditating 101. Ken set about diligently practicing his meditation.

You see ken had worked out how to escape. As he says ‘You have to understand how sick I was – because I figured that if I meditated enough I’d be able to get my atoms to vibrate at the same frequency as the walls of the prison – I’d be able to walk through those walls.’

So Ken meditated day in and day out and in the process began to transform himself. And as he said – when the student is ready, the teacher appears.

The teacher turned out to be the new prison psychiatrist – a man named Dr Marty Groder. Marty had been the last student of Eric Berne the founder of Transactional Analysis. At the tim the Vietnam War was raging and doctors were given a choice – serve in the army for 2 years or work in a prison for 2 years. Marty chose prison.

First thing Ken noticed about the new doc was he wasn’t like anay of the others. He could see through every prisoner’s bs and played with it ina way Ken had never seen. Marty got Ken’s number in seconds. Ken didn’t like it – but it fascinated him. After a while he approached Mary and asked him to teach him. At first Marty laughed but Ken persisted. In frustration Marty told Ken what it took for him to become a psychiatrist and told Ken it would never happen. Again Ken persisted. Finally Marty told him OK – if you can get a degree in psychology then maybe… Ken immediately started enrolling any inmate who was faintly interested into studying psychology – he enrolled enough to get MIT to send the lecturers to the prison to hold class.

Soon Ken was working closely with Marty and the two of them set up a prisoner pre release program. It became the most successful of it’s kind in the history of the US prison system. They completely reversed the percentage of ex-prisoners re-offending. They were soon being sent to other prisons to set up there program.

Eventually the parole board called Ken to an interview and told him he could leave prison. Ken declined. He felt he hadn’t finished his work yet. Eighteen months late he decided it was time to leave.

I met Ken when I went to a seminar in Southern California back in the late 80′s. I the started to promote him. His program was a small taste of his prison program – and it was extraordinary. I was so fortunate to have him teach me what, in part, I’m going to teach you.

So in order to understand where we are going next you need to watch theses videos.

They are Transactional Analysis Parts 1 & 2

Did you find the Marcus Buckingham video informative?

When you watched it did you find yourself really starting to look for more of your own strengths? And are you writing down that list of strengths?

I was discussing this with a friend today and she has recently gone through a similar exercise where she had benn given feedback by people who knew her, on what they saw as her strengths – and she was surprised to find that what they saw as a strength – she had always seen as a weakness. Hmmmmmm – very interesting.

So an important part of what you could do right now is ask at least 3 of your friends/colleagues what they perceive to be your strengths. Again – write these down.

Notice what they are. Just notice – and if your having a hard time with that – notice what you’re saying to yourself about this.

So much in the past has focused on our weaknesses. We’ve all been to those yearly evaluation sessions where you’re told what you’re doing right and what you’re doing that needs improvement and areas of weakness you needed to work on.

And as one of my teachers, Blair Singer says “I have yet to see anyone, ANYONE, get rid of their weaknesses. Ever”

And that’s my experience too. The other thing I want to say – in whose opinion is it that it IS a weakness?

AS my friend said today – behaviours she had always seen as weaknesses – were seen by others as strengths.

Please think about that…

In my last post I said we’d start to look at the statement “True Communication is the RESPONSE I get”

Again – we need to ask what that really means. I often hear people say this statement – to others! It’s of no value unless you apply this statement to yourself – and only to yourself.

In this path towards influencing positively – an important aspect to this is deciding what you want your response to be. Have you ever said something to another and they responded in an extraordinarily unexpected way?

Was it you – or was it them?

We are about to start looking at this statement in depth and it’ll be pretty hard to work on this one unless you start to look at the possibility that you are the source of all your experiences – including how others behave around you. Is this some sort of new age mumbo jumbo? It CAN be – and more often than not it’s used to blame others or more often – to blame ourselves.

In order to understand this completely we need to agree that – for the purposes of these exercises – there is no one to blame – especially ourselves.

Blame afterall – is still blame.

So getting back to the statement – if you see it from a point of blame – it’s pretty dis empowering. If it’s seen from the position that there is no one to blame – then it is completely empowering.

So to complete this blog I want you to contemplate for a while – what is meant be this statement, True Communication is the Response I Get.

Influencing the behaviour of others always comes from WHO you are first and then what you do… To influence other’s attitudes first look to your own To influence others behaviour first look to your own.

We still have a lot to do here – we’re only just scratched the surface.

How was the strength exercise? Did you start wrting them out? One of the ways I’ve always founduseful is to have my notes with me while I’m doin something else and while the pressure is off my subconscious has the time to reflect and you’ll fid yourself getting the occasional ‘ahas’ – so write them down as they come to you.

Just writing about this topic is getting me to look at the strengths I had as a child and how time, people and my agreement has them as only dim memories. Allowing myself to remember past strengths has been extraordinary.

So allow yourself be in this process – and allow the memories come up and allow yourself to get back in touch with strengths you may have lost touch with over the years.

So today the blog is short and sweet -to just remind you to keep working on your strengths.

Tomorrow’s blog will strat to look more deeply at not only ‘For things to Change….’ we’ll also start looking at ‘True Communication is the Response I Get’

In the meantime enjoy this video by Marcus Buckingham

Find it to the right under VIDEO LINKS

Did you do you exercise? How did you go with just noticing. There’s actually a term for that process – it’s called obnosis – def: observing the obvious. As a friend of mine would say ‘It is what it is – and it ain’t what it ain’t’

OK so lets keep looking at For Things to Change 1st I Must Change. It’s a biggy – because unless you start this way you will never be able to positively influence the behaviour of others. Notice I haven’t said we’re going to change anyone. You can’t change anyone else – but you CAN positively influence the behaviour of others.

You can also very successfully negatively influence the behaviour of others. One of my teachers an extraordinary trainer – Dr Stephanie Burns – used to say You Cannot NOT Influence

So lets get back to you…

The lesson for today is based on the the principle - What You Focus on Expands

So lets go back to that list of things you want to change about yourself – you know – what you fundamentally believe is wrong with you.

You were pretty good at reciting them yesterday. And you get evidence every day that they’re true – true? Like “I really do have to do something about my procrastination problem – it’s getting worse every day” – or – ‘I have a real lateness issue’ -or – ‘I’m always so untidy” and so on and so on…

So, let me ask you something, what are you focusing on?

So this time I want yo to start writing a list of all your strengths. You might be the sort of person who can do this instantly – but if you’re like most of us this can be a really tough exercise. There could be things that you openly admire about yourself, secretly admire about yourself or simply don’t see somethang as a strength.

You might find it really useful to ask someone you trust to give you feedback – honest feedback – on what they see as your strengths. Write them down! NOW!

So you can see where we’re going with this can’t you?

Remember! WHAT YOU FOCUS ON EXPANDS!

Talk again tomorrow.

So we SAY this – what does it really mean?

(Don’t worry we’ll get onto THEM – the others who need to change in another blog)

Do you have something you want to change about yourself? Maybe an easier question would be – is there anything you don’t want to change? I guarantee you have already started listing all the things that you think is wrong with you – and when you really concentrate on them they literally make you cringe. In fact you are so familiar with these things you can recite them – and have been able to for years – AND not only have you NOT gotten rid of them some are even WORSE… and you’ve probably spent a small fortune trying to get rid of them. RIGHT? (Of course they’re the one’s you’re not in denial about. Don’t even start me on them!) And the harder you’ve fought them, the bigger the war you waged against them – the stronger THEY seemed to get.

Alright alright … do the list – spend a few minutes writing them all out. You know you want to…

So – now we’re going to spend a minute or two on the first of some basic principles.

Today’s Principle #1

WHAT YOU RESIST – PERSISTS

You know for years I heard this statement. It sounds pretty good. It does doesn’t it?

So let me ask you something – when you think of all the things you want to change about yourself, what do you feel?

The moment you start to ‘make them wrong’ or want to ‘get rid of them’ you’d have to say there was an element of resistance there – wouldn’t you?

Resistance is making something wrong and/or needing to get rid of it. We are such victims to the feelings that, in order to feel more powerful, we decide to overcome them.

So today’s exercise is to notice – doing your best to not make them wrong – just notice – the things about yourself that up until now you have judged as wrong, or as a weakness.

Next – notice, again doing your best not to make them wrong – the weaknesses you have judged as wrong yourself – and those others have told you were your weaknesses.

Bucky Fuller, whose principles we study in the Money & You® Program says ‘I’m sure I was born with a right foot and a left foot – not a right foot and a wrong foot”.

Talk again tomorrow.

Jane

Another reason – it’s a way I can add lots of value to my followers…

The last reason is – I actually know what to do.

So – how often does this happen in workplaces around the world ? STILL (The post I read was from Malaysia…)

Is it that the common – or is it UNcommon – wisdom , that you can’t change anyone else other than yourself, not been heard, misunderstood … or simply not believed.

This series of blogs is going to be short, sharp and daily and teach you how to bring out the best in anybody but most particularly yourself.

Just a bit about myself first.

I’m Jane Jordan and I own the license to promote the Excllerated Business Schools and the Money & You® Program in Australia and New Zealand.

I’m NOT a psychologist – I AM a student of human behaviour.

I’ve been enormously privileged to have worked very closely with he following people …

Robert Kiyosaki ( I promoted RTK for 8 years BEFORE he became famous) .He made me play Grid Iron and Rugby in order to understand team and the use of games to create powerful learning.

Blaire Singer – a protege of Kiyosai and Marshall Thurber and great proponent of high performing teams. Now a ‘Rich Dad Advisor’ and writer of very useful books – eg The ABC’s of Business Teams that Win & Sales Dogs

Ken Windes – historically one of the top 3 transactional analysts in the world (now sadly deceased). Creator of The Game, co-creator with Dr Marty Groder of a prison pre- release program that was the inspiration for the enormously successful Shock Incarceration First Time offender program in New York State.

I’ve promoted Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela, Gen Norman Schwarzkopf, Stephen Covey, Dr Deepak Chopra and many more…

I’ve successfully put 100′s of high performing teams together over the past 23 years…

I’ve also used myself as an experiment with everything I talk about on this blog.

So are you ready to find out how to bring the best out in anbody – and I mean anybody

The Lesson for Today -

For things to Change 1st I must Change!

Find out more on this tomorrow…

Watch for my next blog in 24 hours.