Exciting News When Shared

You ever notice that when you’re sharing exciting news, that some how there are people who seem to bring it down. It’s such a terrible thing to do…the question is whether you’re aware of it or not yourself.

Let’s say that a friend of yours gives you some great news about starting a new business. She’s all excited, and ready to go, and all of sudden you start giving her advice on why she needs to be realistic about accomplishing her goal.

A big mistake that I hear from conversations and even have experienced in real life, is the fact that I see people bring down the energy of good news by being critical.

You might be in the best mood, you might have gotten a raise, or you have this brilliant idea for a new product line, but these people instead of sharing in your joy they put you down or over analyze the situation.

“Hey i have the best idea. I’m going to start my own business that manufactures robots that can dance to music. I think these will be very popular around the clubs, and I think a few people who have the money would like one just for one.”

BAD: “That’s a stupid idea, why would anybody want to buy your robots. I personally think that people don’t go to clubs to see robots dance. And I don’t know one person who would be interested in this product.”

GOOD: “Well it sounds like you’re really into this. I can sense the excitement that is coming from your voice. What about this project makes you excited?”

DON’T be one of those people that has to find all the loops and be critical of what another . I’ve always had the simple philosophy…”This world needs more happiness.” So why when someone is the most happiest would you critisize her. If you think someone’s idea isn’t great, or if you don’t share their joy or about to make some critical judgment…Just don’t. It’s that simple.

Instead share with them that joy…”Oh that’s great that you’re so excited about this new business you’re starting. What made you want to do this?”

Notice I’m not saying you have to agree with the idea, it’s just you need to be supportive of how the person FEELS. Let them be excited for that moment, don’t rob away that sense of accomplishment and joy.
Keep making that person feel good, and then what you do, is that you wait till the very next day when their joy has calmed down slightly, then have a more objective conversation about the “realistic” aspects of a business. People will appreciate you much more because you weren’t trying to be a party pooper on their idea.

Next time someone has a really great idea, or shares some exciting, just share the excitement. At times we like being excited and let people be like children.

For more information please feel free to go to the website http://www.conversationarts.com. We have a FREE Workshop coming up for the Art of Complimenting on Jun 14th.

Art of Conversation-Smiling

I’ve been speaking for six years now, on and off at different events and for a variety of different topics.

One of the things that still amazes me is the lack of [tag]smiling[/tag] when people are making their sales pitches, or are make a quick elevator pitch to a large crowd. Many times we focus so much on what to say that we often forget that only 7 percent comes from the words. The rest comes from our tone, our body language, our sublte facial expressions and so on.

One of the big things I see that people are lacking in their presentations today, is a simple smile! YES PLEASE..SMILE. Nothing oozes out more charm and grace than a smile. It shows that we’re friendly. And even if you don’t feel like smiling…you should put some effort into it during a presentation.

After all we’re not talking about making serious negotiations here the way that Donald Trump is. We’re talking about trying to sell your product or service to somebody else. Personally I would rather deal with a friendly and co operative sales person, than a sales person who seems to be unfriendly and laissez faire about what he or she is doing.

And let’s face it, if you have a crowd of 30, 50 or even a hundred, making a bad presentation with a unfriendly vibe, is just as bad as delivering a bad product to someone. So next time that you stand in front of crowd, and are about to make an elevator pitch..ensure that you smile at your crowd from time to time. Even if they don’t hear a word you said…they’ll know you’re at least friendly.

May 9th event at the YWCA. Visit http://www.conversationarts.com for more details.

Networking Events of Recent

I spent the last few days spending time with networking through an Meetup.com organizer Ronald Lee, who runs Man Meets Woman. It’s been really good and very productive. What’s interesting is that I’ve met some people who have been networking for a year and even two years, and have noticed that not much has really changed. The social skills and their charisma factor haven’t increased and therefore they’re still struggling to get their business going, and therefore they seem to be lacking a clear vision of what it is they want their business to be like. Professional charisma comes a lot from knowing your product inside and out. And knowing how to explain to people clearly and definitively what they need. For example I met Big Picture Coach Patrick Von Pander. Now I want to make it clear, I’ve never worked with Patrick directly nor have I been his client, but there’s one thing for sure, he was professionally charismatic. And I noticed what made him noticable at the meeting were a few things.
1) He was very comfortable being able to speak to a group of people. I hate to say it, if you’re going to be an entrpreneur, you better be able to be comfortable with yourself talking to others.
2) He knew a lot about life and his industry in general. And he was able to offer advice at the RIGHT TIME! offering advice that other people find useful are so important and even engaging people in questions is good.
3) He came prepared with an information sheet. This is part of the professional charisma he had, he was able to offer some useful advice without us requesting. A sheet I personally found very useful.
4) His “elevator pitch” was phenomenal. Here’s a man who’s worked it out, and was able to clearly define the type of person he wanted to work with. No ifs and or, buts.

So Patrick, really knew what he was doing. He knew what his business was, and he was able to explain it. And if you’re going to be charismatic socially, being able to gracefully explain your services in a way that appeals to people is just the tip of the iceberg.

Sadly the person I talked to in an early event, just didn’t seem to understand and apply what he needed to get the attention of people. He was just quiet, and not very engaging. He didn’t seem to have much input into the group and didn’t admit that he was new to the particular topic we were mentioning. So it’s rather sad to see that…

But Patrick…competely opposite. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to meet more people like Patrick and that I’m hoping that I can help out people achieve that sense of not necessarily being a better closer, but someone that is able to express themselves clearly to others, whether it is their business or it’s how they feel about their journey on how they started their business.

Anyway I hope to see you all on May 9th. I just added Alanna Fero to my line up of talks. The event will be called Charismatic Conversation!

UBC Leadership Summit

Here’s a link to the original page. I was invited to speak at the Emerging Leaders UBC Leadership Summit, which is always a pleasure. There were over 100 people there, so I was absolutely pleased to talk to so many young leders.
UBSSEY LEADERSHIP SUMMIT

The leadership summit hosted by Emerging Leaders of UBC on March 19 at the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre brought together over 100 students and four accomplished speakers in an effort to dissect leadership and identify the skills necessary for success.

The AMS club, whose mission is to inspire and create lead­ers, re-emerged in 2007 after its predecessor, the Emerging Leaders Network, was dissolved in 2005.

The leadership summit, one of the club’s biggest events, al­lows students to see how leader­ship is applied, giving them an opportunity to expand their ho­rizons and inspire them to lead.

Art of Conversation-Featuring Dan Johnston

I just came back yesterday night from presenting again at the Emerging Leaders UBC. And had an absolute blast. There were four presenters including myself in front of crowd of easily 50 people I believe. I felt honoured as the very last speaker to go because usually at large events, it’s the most popular one that goes last.

Last night I met two wonderful speakers who I think are fantastic. I would highly suggest that if you get a chance to go and visit Dan’s Site, Leading in Motion. He has some great articles. I ran into this one, and I think that it’s a great complement to one of the articles I had recently wrote on the Art of Complimenting.

A Classic Dan Johnston Article: A Lesson in Flattery

In both business and social environments I have always been one to avoid compliments and flattery. I think my thought pattern went something like this:

“If they look nice they know they look nice, so why tell them? I’ll just look like every other suckup.”

Of course what I have always failed to take into account is that well, people tend to be insecure and unsure of themselves. Even if we were to forget about insecurities, well, we just love compliments. Why do I wear an expensive watch or does lady wear a designer dress? To get noticed! So of course people love it when you notice.

This all came together today with the last nail in the coffin. The last few days I’d been feeling overly tired, and despite seeing some legendary speakers on Wednesday a bit out of gas. This morning after over sleeping I decided that was all going to end right there. I threw on my shoes and started what ended up being an epic 20km run.

As I was running through Stanley Park feeling ambitious, pumped up and energized again I saw an interesting looking gentleman drawing something, we made eye contact and he motioned for me to remove my headphones. As I approached I realized he was much more interesting that I could have hoped for. In an attempt to get me to write him a cheque for a few thousand to support his journey to Hollywood to be a comedy writer he told me how ambitious and successful I looked. It was as I “ran” away that I realized how good I was feeling from his obviously contrived compliment. Here is a situation where:

* The person flattering me is clearly doing so because he wants something
* The flattery is empty as he doesn’t really know me at all, and of course is using it to get something
* The person flattering me holds no significant social value in my eyes (not a mentor, role model, parent, boss, friend etc)

Despite all these factors, well, it felt good to hear (almost as good as when this really cute girl caught me singing “Mr.Brightside” to myself and gave me a smile). Whats the moral of the story? Well it isn’t to go out and throw empty compliments at everyone you meet. I’d also be careful complimenting those who tend to hear nothing but praise as you’ll blend into the masses who tell them the same things day in and day out. What I am suggesting is that the next time you notice some-one’s shoes, new haircut or the graceful way they carry themselves, tell them. I’m going to try and compliment 25 strangers over the next week, what is your goal?

Another great article from Dan Johnston. Dan is an entrepreneur, practical psychologist and performance coach. For information on coaching opportunities with Dan, please email penthousedan@leadinginmotion.com.

Art of Conversation-Small Talk with a Co-worker

Hi everyone, I’m back with another blog and this time I’m going to share with you a question that I like to ask the people I work with as well as I manage to get to know them on a deeper level. But before I decide to share with you this great question, I want to discuss a little bit of my background in conversation in the work place.

When I first started working for a large hospitality coroporation that had during peak time 500 employees, I always seperated my professional life from my personal life. I didn’t feel that I needed to know my co-workers at all. I felt that these were two different spheres of my life. Work for was like Mars, and my home life was Venus. Different ways of acting and trying to be professional. But I realized something,

Art of Conversation-Give a Little More

Hi Everyone, this is Vincent from Conversation Arts back with more conversation tips for you.

I wanted to touch base on a very simple thing you can do during your conversations that will help things flow a little more easily when you start your conversations with strangers. When people first start off their conversations they tend to put a low investment in at first. Usually it’s one word answers or answers that are so brief that it’s hard to really get the fire in the conversation going.

“So what do you do?”
“Oh i’m an accountant.”

“What are you going to do on the weekend?”
“I’m planning to relax and just watch a movie.”

Now there are some ways to follow up these types of questions, but I want to suggest a simple conversation tip that you can use to ignite the conversation. Give a little bit more information

The Art of Conversation-The Financial Cost

I’m not here to post another tip on how to be a better conversationalist, but instead I wanted to look at conversation as a real dollar value. With all the concerns about the economy and how things are going it can be tough to be optimistic at the a time like this. Every week I hear somebody either a stranger I’ve talked to or a customer who seems to have been laid off. It’s rather heartbreaking, but it’s the trend at the moment.

But in this environment when people can be competitive,

Art of Conversation-Art of Appreciation

Hi everyone,

This is Vncent Ng from Conversation Arts back with another article.The conversation tip that I’m going to offer today is the art of complimenting. A truly charismatic speaker will know how to charm people by making them feel good about themselves.

There are two things that I find are important when complimenting someone on something you appreciate about them.

The Art of Active Listening-Listening Skills

Here’s a quick excerpt from the book that I’m currently working on right now.

The Art of Listening: I once told my friend Edward about a good friend of ours that never seemed to have great listening skills. I remember telling Ed “Man, he’s such a horrible listener. All he does is just want to get his own input in. He’ll talk for like half an hour, and then when I need two minutes of his time, he can’t even give it.”

Ed listened to me sympathetically. I remember about a month later, Ed and I were having a conversation on the phone. “Hey you know how you mentioned that he can’t seem to listen, I KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN NOW…all he does is talk and talk, and then he just seems to ignore me when I say something, or he’ll let me talk for like a minute and then he’ll go on tangent again.” I wish I could say that this is not a common pitfall in conversations, but active listening doesn’t happen as often as I would like. In this case it can be quite understood why