term definition introduced in · 2017. 12. 7. · says you’re a mean person, and you know beyond...

Speak Up and Be Heard Key Terms

Glossary page 1

Term Definition Introduced In

AggressiveDisplaying the behavior or tendency to make one's own feelings paramount, including a willingness to hurt feelings and break ties to serve oneself; brash and abrasive, particularly in a conflict Module 5

AssertiveConfident and expressive, this learned communication style equally regards the feelings of others and self; typically an individual with self-esteem and does not engage in conflict needlessly Module 5

Conscious mind The part of the brain that controls behavior, rational thinking, and learning Module 3Discipline The ability to reject immediate satisfaction in order to gain something better later on Module 2

PassiveTypically displaying the behavior or tendency to regard others feelings as paramount without active display of negative feelings or emotions; individual is often quiet and walked over Module 5

Passive aggressiveTypically displaying the behavior or tendency toward negative feelings, resentment, and/or aggression in an unassertive passive way; examples include stubbornness and procrastination Module 5

Rational emotive therapyA cognitive therapy based on a theory that one can learn to adjust behavior by reviewing one's thoughts and feelings and finding rational responses Module 3

Unconscious mind The part of the brain that controls feelings and emotions Module 3Willpower The inner strength that overcomes inner emotional and mental resistance for taking action Module 2

SPEAK UP AND BE HEARD MODULE ONE – CONFIDENCE FUNDAMENTALS Female: Module number one - Confidence Fundamentals. Confidence is just

simply your belief in yourself. That’s all it is. It’s whether you believe

you’re good enough. And what’s interesting is I remember years ago

watching TV and there was a gentleman – a trickster, if you will – and he

was showing people that by simply having confidence, he could convince

somebody of something that wasn’t even true. Let me share with you

what I saw. He was at a race track and he bought a ticket. He says, “It

doesn’t even matter which course you bet on. Just bet on any horse.”

And he chose a horse. That horse did not win – did not win by a longshot.

But by strictly having confidence, he went up to that glass window, turned

in his ticket, and said, “I’ve got the winning ticket.” And the lady looked at

him and said, “No, I’m sorry. You don’t.” He goes, “Oh, yes. Yes, I do.

Double check it.” And she looked at it and goes, “No, no, I don’t think you

do.” He goes, “No, I’m absolutely certain the ticket is a winning ticket.” By

the third time, just on confidence alone, she went ahead and paid it out.

Now he was showing how con artists do things. And I’m not suggesting

any of us should be a con artist, but it’s your confidence that influences

how people treat you. And when we build up our confidence, people start

to treat us differently. When we believe in ourselves, other people start to

believe in themselves. Have you ever met somebody and thought, “Wow,

they just don’t have any confidence in themselves,” and it almost made

you not have confidence in them as well? See, if they don’t believe in

themselves, it makes it hard for others to believe in them. So let’s just do

a quick confidence check. Evaluate yourself real quick. Think about a few

things. Is your life the way you want it to be? Do you have everything you

currently want? And if not, let’s find out what it is you’re looking for and

let’s start working towards getting it. Now how do you feel physically? Is

your confidence as high as it could be? Do you find that you’re getting

tension in your shoulders? Are you finding that our slumping? How are

you feeling emotionally? What are the lifestyle changes that you need to

make to make life better and to get more out of what you want? And

lastly, what are the fears, reservations, or barriers to change, and how can

you address each of these? See, our confidence shows in many different

ways. It leaks out of who we are. In fact when you’re confident, you do

what you know is right, what you believe in even if it offends or criticizes

other people See, you understand what you believe in and you’re willing

to stand for something. And when you’re confident, it’s so much easier to

do. Now when you’re confident, you’re able to learn from mistakes versus

becoming defensive and trying to justify. When you’re confident, you can

accept complements, especially when you’ve database something good,

because you know you’re worth it. You know you deserve it. And you can

feel good about yourself. Being confident contributes to our entire aura

and how people see us. Confidence is the magic potion. But when you’re

unconfident, interesting things happen. You start basing your feelings on

how other people feel about yourself. I remember when I was going

through college and I graduated, and I just had gotten out of school. I had

been working for a couple of companies. This was about four years after

graduating. And four years after graduating, I had gone through four jobs

in four years. At that time, somebody very, very close to me said, “What’s

wrong with you?” And you know, that resonated with me for more than ten

years. “What’s wrong with you?” And I was basing how I felt because I

was unconfident about how others were feeling about me. And it took me

ten years to overcome that. So when you’re unconfident and you don’t

believe in yourself, it’s almost like we have cracks in our armor. When

other people say things, it goes straight to the heart. And whatever they

do say, whether it’s intentional or unintentional, and the person who said

this didn’t truly mean any harm. It just slipped off their tongue. It’s just

whatever fell out of their mouth. They weren’t meaning to be mean. But I

took it to heart and I spent ten years trying to overcome, “What’s wrong

with you?” until I finally realized that person really didn’t mean any harm.

It was just their perspective. And they couldn’t understand why I was

struggling to stay in a career that I thought I lived, that I was really happy

with. And later I found out there was something bigger waiting for me, and

that was just a way of one door closing so another door could open. And

see, when you’re in unconfidence, you tend to stay in your comfort zone.

Because I was unconfident, I wanted to stay as an employee. I wanted to

stay working in a big company. That’s where I wanted to be because it

was comfortable. It hid the fact that I was unconfident. On top of that,

there were times that I bragged. I bragged about how great I was. My

friends and family would hear it, and that was part of the reason they said,

“What’s wrong with you?” I had a chemical engineering degree. I

graduated, you know, one of the few women to graduate from my class. I

made it all the way through. I was so proud of what I had done that when

they saw this, they said, “Well what’s wrong with you? What’s going on?”

And so my unconfidence was a crack in my armor, a crack in my self-

esteem, and you’ll hear me use those words almost interchangeably –

self-confidence and self-esteem, really we’re talking about the same thing,

two sides of one coin. And on top of that, when I did start recovering, until

my confidence had built back, I started to push off complements. People

would say, “Oh, you did a great job!” “Oh yeah, it was just nothing. No,

really. I’m just me.” And it was because I wasn’t confident in myself. So

over the next couple of minutes, I’m going to go over some very specific

ways to develop confidence, very specific things. And I’m going to highly

recommend you take some notes. But to understand what I’m sharing

with you, because my goal is to help you become more confident, I want

you to be that person that knows who they are and has that literally Teflon

foil wrapping that if anybody says anything negative or anything hurtful

that you can understand it wasn’t you. It was something on them. And I

want you to build that confidence. And all of that starts with self-

awareness. That starts with you being aware of the fact that you might

have a crack in your armor, that you might have a little area where

someone could say something and it could be hurtful. And I remember

listening to one of my mentors, Jack Canfield, and he talked about if

somebody said you had green hair, and you knew beyond a shadow of a

doubt you didn’t have green hair, would it bother you? Answer was no, of

course not. He said, “But what if somehow, some way, you suspected you

just might somewhere have one strand of green hair. Would it bother

you?” And I started to think about people when I joked with them and

said, “Oh, you’ve got a gray hair,” when really they didn’t, and how it really

bothered them. And I understood in just that moment that it wasn’t the

fact that I said they had gray hair. It was the fact that something inside of

them wondered if they did. And to take it one step further, if someone

says you’re a mean person, and you know beyond a shadow of a doubt

you’re not a mean person, does it bother you? No. Just like the green

hair, you know you’re not, so it doesn’t bother you. But if by some sliver of

a chance there’s a crack in your armor and you think you might be a mean

person, it resonates with you. And now you start to be consumed on it.

We need to be aware of this. These are cracks in our armor. And we

need to develop a positive self-esteem in order to be able to fix those

cracks so that when people say those things – and oftentimes they don’t

mean them. They’re just saying what comes out of their mouth. They’re

not trying to be hurtful. And actually some of them might be, and I’ll

confess, I’ve met a few in my life. I don’t believe there’s a lot of them out

there. Maybe there’s one or two and they run around really fast. But

when we encounter those folks, we want to have a solid shield of self-

confidence, self-esteem, self-belief that says, “You know, that’s OK.

That’s your belief. That’s not who I am,” and to be able to stand proud

and say, “It’s OK for you to have an opinion. I’ve got a different opinion of

me. And although you only see one fraction of one-tenth of one percent of

who I am, I know who I really am. And I’ve determined who I am – not

you.” And this starts with cultivating your awareness. Second is

cherishing yourself. If you’ve ever been on a plane, you probably

remember the stewardess at the front. They say something – they have

their little spiel and they say something like, “If you’re flying with a child,

you’re instructed to put your oxygen on yourself first.” Doesn’t that sound

counterintuitive? I mean as a woman, I know I take care of everybody

else – my husband, my daughter, my children, my company, my

executives, my staff – I tend to take care of everybody else’s needs first

and whatever’s left over is what I get. Unfortunately I tend to give 110

percent. So what’s left over often isn’t much. And I find that if I don’t

make time for me, I can’t give to them. And that’s what that instruction

from the stewardess is all about. You can't take care of yourself, you can’t

take care of another person. The old saying, “A drowning person can't

help another drowning person,” we have to cherish ourselves. We have to

respect ourselves. We have to take care of ourselves in order that we can

take care of others. So the second thing to becoming a self-confident

person is putting yourself first, taking time to recognize your needs and

taking care of your needs so that you are fulfilled and that you have the

energy, the ability, and the belief to help the people that you truly want to

give to. The third step is redefining winning. Sometimes we define

winning as beating someone else. And certainly in my younger days,

beating someone else sounded like I won, I beat you, I’m better than you.

And better than you is not a great way to build your self-esteem, because

would you agree that sometimes there are other people that are better

than us in certain areas? Say for example in ballroom dancing, I’m an

avid ballroom dancer, there are people better than me in ballroom

dancing. If I compare myself to some of the world-class dancers, I’m

horrible. I’m awful. I’m the worst dancer there ever was. I should give it

up and never get on a floor again. But if I compare myself to the person

who just started last week, I’m the best dancer there ever was. I know

every step, I know every dance, I can identify every music, I know what

every step is called, I know where to put my weight, when to do toe leads,

when to do heel leads – I know it all. I’m the best dancer there ever was.

The reality is, am I really the best? No. I’m just better than that person.

Am I really the worst? No. I’m just not as good as the other person. And

the only difference between those three is typically time. That’s it. The

only difference is time. So instead of defining winning by beating

someone else, let’s redefine winning by being better than ourselves, being

better than who we were a week ago, a month ago, a year ago. So I’m

going to challenge you to compete, but not compare. Compete with

yourself, compete with who you are and where you’re at, and target

yourself. By becoming self-aware, you know where you’re at. You have a

good feeling for where you are. And by comparing with where you were,

you can get better and get better on a regular basis. So compete with

yourself. Compare against yourself. But don’t compare against others.

Step number four is restore your perspective. Sometimes we over-react.

Sometimes we get overly emotional about things and we throw things off

the deep end. It’s horrible, it’s awful, oh no. It’s the worst it’s ever been.

We all go through emotional roller coasters in our lives. We have great

days and we have not-so-great days. It’s important to maintain our self-

confidence instead of being on this emotional roller coaster where we go

up and we go down, and we go up and we go down. We want to level off.

We want to know that when we’re at a top of a roller coaster, this is great.

But this too shall pass. This too shall pass. We’re going to have a bad

day again. Not every day is sunny. Not every day is rainy. And by

restring our perspective and being able to level out that roller coaster, we

can still have fun. It’s still cool when the roller coaster goes up the hill to

go, “Weeeeee!” And it’s still great when the roller coaster goes down the

hill to go, “Weeeeee!” It’s wonderful to have emotions. But we have to

manage our emotions. We have to maintain our emotions so that they

don’t take us out of control. And self-confidence really, to be able to

maintain that emotional roller coaster, we want to have an emotional first

aid kit. And in that kit, put the things that you love. Put the things that

help restore you back to a center, that help bring you back to that area of

feeling good. It can be photographs, letters from loved ones, music, CDs,

books. I have personally an “I’m Good” file. And in that file, I put all kinds

of good stuff, whether it’s rewards, recognitions, complements I get from

others. And when I go through that emotional roller coaster where I don’t

feel so great and I’m not believing I’m really wonderful or great or powerful

or good, I look at the “I’m good” file and it reminds me, this too shall pass.

And funny enough, on the outside of the “I’m Good” file are those simple

words – this too shall pass. Because I know when I go to that file, I know

why I’m going to it. I’m going to it to prove to myself I am OK. It’s just

their perspective. It’s not everybody’s perspective, and it’s OK. Number

five, it’s OK to toot your own horn. It’s OK to be good. It’s OK to let others

know you’re good, and it’s OK to accept complements. Now it becomes a

challenge when we go overboard and we start bragging, or we start

putting other people down. So we have to monitor it. We have to balance

it. Now number six, we have to have integrity. Integrity simply means

doing what we say. We need to walk our talk. We need to live with

integrity. And the simple way to live with integrity that I’ve found that

works well for me and many of my students is that live as if everything you

did was going to be on the front page of tomorrow’s newspaper. Think

about that. Live as if everything you did is going to be on the front page of

tomorrow’s newspaper. And before you do something, ask yourself, “If it

showed up in tomorrow’s newspaper, would I be OK with that?” And by

living that way, you can judge yourself and hold yourself to a higher

standard. Many times when people have integrity breaches, it’s because

they thought no one would know. Well, I assume everyone’s going to

know. Live your life to that standard. Everyone’s going to know. If it

shows up in tomorrow’s newspaper, would you be OK with it? And lastly,

develop yourself. Take the time to get better. Take the time to read.

Take the time to input audio. Turn your car into a learning library. Build

your confidence. And when you build your confidence, you start to see

your competence build, you start to see your composure go up, you start

to see people treating you differently. You’re starting to see you’re getting

more respect as you give more respect. And it all starts by developing

these seven habits. Now Eleanor Roosevelt said, “Confidence comes not

from always being right, but from not fearing being wrong.”

[End of recording.]

SPEAK UP AND BE HEARD MODULE TWO Female: Our challenge as a modern woman is we’ve got lots of responsibilities.

Let’s be honest – no longer do we just have one job where maybe we just

take care of the children. Now we have families, we not only have our

children to take care of, but potentially we have our parents to take care

of. We’ve got spouses or partners, we’ve got careers, we’ve got extra-

curricular activities – we’ve got tons of responsibilities. And many times

we love to help people. Someone comes to us, we say yes. We say,

“Sure, we’ll help. Sure, we can do that.” We become a super-woman of

sort and we try to take care of everybody. Unfortunately, when we’re

giving to everybody and everybody and everybody, if we don’t manage

ourselves, we end up running out. See, effective self-management

creates confidence. When we can manage ourselves, we have the

energy, we have the resources, and we have the ability to be able to help

others, to be able to become the person that is there when people need

us. And there’s three keys to self-management. First is time

management. We have to be able to manage our time. Second is

discipline. And third is emotional control. Let’s look at each one of those.

First is time management. Time flies by us so fast. Have you ever blinked

and all of a sudden five years went by? Time travels extraordinarily fast.

So it’s important when we’re managing our time that we consider specific

limits that we have to set. We have get good at certain things, like

deciding what’s really important. I want you to think when you have a

decision to make and you’re challenged with multiple decisions, multiple

things that you can do at any one given moment, and there’s more on your

plate than you could ever eat or handle, to ask yourself what is really

important. And put it against this paradigm – five years, ten years, 15, 20

years from now, which of these decisions is most important? Because

see, sometimes we have to say no. Sometimes we get more requests

than we can handle, especially if it’s a do-good request. Somebody needs

something from us. And we have to consider where are we going, and

what is important to us on our path? When we get better at deciding

what’s important, it’s easier to say no. I remember when I didn’t really

have a path and I didn’t really know what was important to me, I found

myself saying yes to everybody. I want to help everybody. Every charity

that came to me I said yes to because I felt bad saying no. Now that I

have specific charities, and I’m dedicated to a specific goal, it’s easier for

me to evaluate a decision. Someone comes to me with information, does

this meet my paradigm? If it does, yes, in a heartbeat. If it doesn’t, thank

you, but no thank you. So the way you can do that is be present. Be

where you are. Pay attention to what you’re doing. I often remember

when I was younger, I’d be thinking about what happened last week,

thinking about what I’ve got to do next week, and I’d be caught between

yesterday and tomorrow and I forgot to live today. And too often, we do

that. We find ourselves caught up with all these extra things and we forget

where we are. And it overwhelms us. And by overwhelming us, we’re not

able to make and set priorities. So setting limits also means making

yourself a priority. It means making time for yourself. It means being able

to find out what’s important to you, and scheduling that. Part of setting

limits and time management is making sure you have time for what’s

important for you so that you can help everyone else. Now this is going to

take discipline, no doubt. You’re asking your body, you’re asking your

mind, you’re changing a paradigm. You’re going to want to have some will

power, but will power only goes so far. Will power is almost brute force. “I

can do it. I’m going to make it happen. Brute force!” But self-discipline is

the continued dedication to it, even after the will power has passed. Self-

discipline says I’m going to do it because I said I’m going to do it. It’s a

dedication. It’s a commitment. Will power is a force. Self-discipline is a

commitment. You need to have both in order to be able to overcome the

challenges that sometimes we face, in order to be able to build up our

confidence, in order to be able to have the credibility, in order to be able to

have the confidence to speak up. We’re going to be able to have the

discipline as well as the well power and self-discipline to be able to

complete that. Now the reality is, self-discipline is a muscle that is built up

over time. You start with a little discipline, and we increase it and we

increase it and we increase it. And one of the areas that I want to

emphasize using self-discipline in is our self talk. This is probably one of

the most powerful areas that we can control and change not only our

confidence, but literally our future and our destiny. And I’ll share a quick

story with you. A friend of mine lives in Arizona. And every time I talk to

her, she says, “Well I’ll have that to you Monday, unless I get hit by a

truck.” And we’ve kind of laughed about it, and one Tuesday I called her.

Her name is Karen. And I said, “Karen, just wanted to follow up on a few

things I haven’t seen from you lately.” She goes, “You wouldn’t believe it.

I got hit by a truck.” See, years ago I saw Brian Tracy, one of the top

business coaches and trainers, and he says, “Never say something you

don’t want to have happen.” Do you get that? Never say something you

don’t want to have happen. Don’t put it in the universe. Well, for years my

friend Karen has said, “… unless I get hit by a truck.” And guess what?

She did. She got hit by a truck. Needless to say she doesn’t say that

anymore, but we have to be careful what we say because those become

mantras, and that’s what we tend to put out as what we want. Now in

order for us to have our confidence, we need to be talking in a positive

way. We need to be attracting great things into our life. This is the

loudest and strongest voice that we hear. It’s the one inside our head as

well as the one that comes out of our own mouth. In order for us to have a

better confidence, in order for us to be able to speak up, in order to have

credibility, we need to monitor what we say. And it starts with saying

positive things, like, “I am in a loving and positive relationship. My children

appreciate me. My boss is giving me frequent raises. My staff loves to

work with me. My assignments are done quickly and competently. I feel

great speaking up and sharing. My opinion.” These are all positive things

that we want to program into our brain. Whatever you say over and over

again begins to build a groove, and that groove over time gets deeper and

deeper and deeper and for many people that groove ends up becoming a

grave. Well, if that groove is full of negative things, things you don’t want,

things that you are trying to avoid, that’s what you end up attracting into

your life. So we want to create that groove on positive things. And it

starts with setting goals. It starts with deciding what do you want?

Instead of what don’t you want, avoid all the negative, “I don’t want … I

wish this wouldn’t happen.” We’ve got to start with a positive. What do

you want? What would it look like? What would your perfect world look

like? If you had all the confidence you needed, if you had all the self-

esteem, if you could speak up, what would that look like? How would you

feel? How would it make you feel? How would it be different than it is

now? And focus on what you want. And as you start to focus on that, that

creates a groove. And each time you think about it, it creates another

groove and another groove. And before you know it, that groove becomes

deep and engrained, and now you’ve changed where you’re going. So the

third thing is emotions. We have to be able to control our emotions. See,

our emotions can trick us. They control us and they can sabotage our

success at every step of the way if we’re not careful. Remember earlier I

mentioned a story about someone saying to me, “What’s wrong with you?”

I spent the next ten years trying to figure out what’s wrong with me. And I

lost many hours of sleep. I tried to justify it. And see, it was my emotions

that had me. It wasn’t logic. There was nothing wrong with me. I just

wasn’t meant to be an employee. I didn’t know it. They didn’t know it.

See, no one told us that. And I had to learn it the hard way. I gave up ten

years of my life to figure that one key out. Don’t give up ten years of your

life. See, this is baggage, and baggage is what we take with us as extra

stuff. It’s stuff we don’t need. And we take it and we hold on to it as if it’s

the truth. And we decide what the truth is. So I’m going to challenge you,

if you’re taking notes, what baggage are you carrying? What is it that’s

holding you back from having ultimate confidence and speaking up and

communicating in the way that you want? Is it the belief – what did

somebody say to you? What did you say to yourself? What event created

that? What belief, true or false, do you have that may be creating that?

See, we want to address that and help you let go of some of that baggage.

And it might not be an instant process, but you’ll know when you’re ready,

once you’ve identified the baggage, you’ll be able to let it go. And you’ll

be amazed at how much freer you’ll feel. You’ll be amazed at how much

easier it is to communicate and to say the things when you’ve let go of

those things that just aren’t you anymore. See, Helen Keller said, “I’m

only one, but I am still one. I can’t do everything, but I can do something.

I will not refuse to do the things I can do.”

[End of recording.]

SPEAK UP AND BE HEARD MODULE THREE – EFFECTIVE EMOTIONAL MANAGEMENT Female: Module number three – Effective Emotional Management. See, emotions

are the things that hold us back many times. Many a times, it’s that fear of

being put on the spot. It’s that fear of what other people will think. What

will they say? How will they take it? How will they feel? Maybe I’ll hurt

someone’s feelings. Maybe I’ll step on somebody’s toes. And these are

all emotions that come up and force our voice down. Sometimes it makes

us walk away and just ignore the issue. Other times we wait too long and

then we over react, and then we explode and people around us wonder,

“Well, what happened?” Sometimes we take out our emotions the wrong

place. Things happen at work and we bring it home. We take it out on the

family, the kids, the dog, our spouses or partners. And it’s really not fair to

them. And it’s all because we don’t have an effective emotional

management system. See, here’s what happens. There’s an event.

Then there’s how we perceive the event - in other words, what we think

happened. Then there are some feelings that get conjured up based on

our belief. Then this produces a behavior that has been created by those

feelings. Did you get that? There’s an event. Then there’s a belief. Then

there’s some feelings. And then there’s a behavior. And see, this is

rational emotive therapy. All that means is that there is a system behind

how we interpret events. See, the event occurs. That’s A in the rational

emotive therapy process. B is your belief. You now have a belief. Based

on what happened, you now have a belief about what happened, and that

produces feelings and behaviors. So A plus B equals C1 and C2. The

event plus your belief equals your feelings and behavior. And this comes

from the work of Dr. Albert Ellis. He’s a psychotherapist that has really

looked into this and gotten to understand exactly how our emotions affect

us, and how exactly we can monitor and manage our emotions. Well Dr.

Tom Miller has come up with an analogy based on Dr. Albert Ellis’s

findings. And he uses the analogy of a horse and a rider. And what’s

interesting is the rider is your conscious mind. It’s your neo cortex. Now

this is the thinking part of your brain. This is the rational part of your brain.

This is the brain that has logic. This is the person who talks to you when

you talk to yourself. That’s who’s talking. You intellectually attempt to

control behavior through this part of the brain, and it can learn new ways.

The rider also trains the horse. And let’s talk about what the horse is. The

horse is your subconscious. It’s your limbic system. And the limbic

system stores and uses learned information. It’s the unconscious

behavior. The horse also controls your feelings. The horse now learns

from repetition. And it doesn’t deviate once it’s learned. Now what’s

interesting about the horse is once it learns something, anything that’s

different is wrong or bad. So stop for a second. If someone sees you

doing something different than the way they would do it, how do they

typically classify it? Isn’t it usually wrong or bad? See, that’s their horse

coming out. Their horse is reacting. Do you ever notice how sometimes

intense that can be, and how sometimes people get really, really, really

emotional over things that don’t seem like they should be that emotional?

That’s the horse. See, the horse is all about the emotions. It triggers.

And the horse isn’t logical. It can’t think. It just reacts. So remember, the

goal of the horse, though, is to stay unchanged. Interestingly, power is the

only thing that your horse pays attention to. Remember we talked about

discipline and will power? This is where you need that discipline and will

power, is to train this horse. The only way that you can get your emotions

under control is through discipline and will power. Now on top of that, you

can have two opposing thoughts – one in horse, and one in the rider.

Have you ever had this happen? Your heart says one thing, your head

says another? That’s the horse. The horse is your heart. The rider is

your head. You’ve got two different things going on. Let’s look at an

example here. Let’s say, for example, that you had an opportunity for a

key assignment which involves a trip to Chicago. Your rider says, “Man,

this is a great opportunity. I’ve got to fly there. Flying is safer than driving.

I should accept this assignment.” And the rider is thinking thumbs up.

We’re ready to go. The horse says, “No, wait a minute. Whoa! That’s

really, really far away. Aw, did you see the plane crash on the TV? Oh

no, our plane is going to crash. No, no, no! You can’t go. Plane crash!

Stop! Whoa!” And it throws up red flags and alerts all over the place, and

your horse is being completely irrational because the reality is flying is

safer than driving. But have you ever heard somebody say, “I can't do that

because I have to fly. I just can’t fly.” I’ve seen grown adults, professional

athletes, authors, singers, who are terrified of flying. And it’s not their rider

that’s terrified. It’s their horse. They haven’t learned to train or control

their horse. And you know, it might be easy to say, “Well, then just get rid

of the horse. Why can’t we just get rid of the horse? We’ll just have the

rider.” Well, here’s the problem. Your horse is the part of you that

remembers and learns everything and stores it for you. So if you didn’t

have a horse, you’d have to relearn everything every day. Many of you

might remember the movie 50 First Dates. It’s kind of like the character in

there where every day is the same day as yesterday. She’s got to relearn

everything because she can’t remember any of it. And that’s what would

happen if we got rid of our horse. So short of getting rid of our horse, the

next best solution is we have to learn to train our horse. But we have to

be careful because there’s some tricks our horse plays. Our horse does

things to try to convince us, to try to use emotions to sway us. And one of

the things it does is it uses demanding. It becomes demanding. It says

things like, “I must get this. It shouldn’t have happened. It shouldn’t

happen this way.” It awfulizes things. “Oh, that was awful! It was

horrible! It shouldn’t have happened to me.” It will do the, “I can’t stand

this routine. I can’t stand this.” Or it will condemn and damn people.

“That person should have been punished because of this. This person’s

to blame.” That’s blaming. And our horse does all these tricks and uses

our emotions to try and control us. Now as the rider, here’s what’s

interesting. The more the rider takes control of that horse the less the

horse uses these tricks. The better trained your horse is, the less it does

this, which means the more in control you become, the more confident you

become and the more you’re able to quiet this voice that truly is not

helping you to get your voice heard and communicate the information you

need to communicate. See, the reality is we suffer the results of the lies

our horse tells us. Did you get that? We suffer the results of the lies our

horse tells us. And these are lies. It might be bad, but it’s not awful. It

might not be on a scale of 1 to 100, it’s not 100. Maybe it’s only a 5 or a 6.

But our horse will have us believing it’s 110. Our horse will have us

believing it shouldn’t have been that way. Well, it is that way. And we

have to accept it because we can’t change the past. Our horse tells us all

these lies, and until we get in control, our horse is going to continue to

make us suffer. So talk about getting in control. First is, we have to be

patient and persistent with our horse. Our horse will run rampant. It will

get out and it will prance, and it will do all kinds of crazy things if we don’t

get it in control. And this is a practice. Nobody’s born controlling their

horse. But when you’re born, the horse is in control. Did you ever see a

baby? They cry. They don’t know how to reason. Try having a two-year-

old. They don’t know logic. They want cartoons now. Cartoons now!

They don’t understand reasoning. Not yet. So when we’re born, our

horse is in control and we have to teach our rider along the way. Now I’m

going to give you a couple of tips here. If you have multiple habits or

multiple bad habits that your horse has, start with one of them at a time.

So if you find your horse is awfulizing, “This is awful, this is horrible,” start

with, “Ok, it’s bad. It’s bad.” Bring it back down from awful to bad. It’s not

good. It’s not great that it happened. It’s not good. I’m not happy with it.

And work on that until you get your horse under control. And then maybe

attack one of the other tricks that it’s playing. Remember, though, you

have to stay in control. Use reminders. Post-It Notes work great. Notes

to yourself, pop-ups on computers – there’s all kinds of ways to remind

yourself. But you want to remind that rider to stay in control. Remember,

you have to repeat this at least 21 days. Sometimes it takes longer.

Remember that groove? We have to recreate that groove. And

depending on how deep that previous groove was, it might take us longer

than 21 days. It might take us 90 days. It might take us 120 days. But in

the end, it’s worth it. We get to gain back control. We get to have our

confidence. We get to have people respecting us, looking up to us, and

going, “Wow, you’re so professional. You’re so composed.” They listen to

us. Everything changes when we change. And we want to reward our

success. When we make small steps in our success, consider what type

of rewards. Do you want to do maybe a shopping trip? I love shoes. How

about a vacation? How about a nice dinner out? What is it for you?

Choose something to reward yourself. When you start making forward

progress and you start seeing yourself becoming more confident,

becoming more competent, when you see your composure coming

together, how is it you’re going to reward yourself? Because remember,

your habits to change, you’re going to need to keep putting ideas into

action, and you’re going to keep needing to build new patterns to develop.

And over time, before you know it you’re going to be a totally different

person five years from now, three years from now, ten years from now.

People are going to say, “Wow, I can’t believe who you’ve become.” And

you’re going to go, “What? I’m the same person I was,” because you

won’t feel it. Everyone around you will know. But you’ll be just part of the

process. Remember, we are what we do repeatedly. Excellence is not an

act, but a habit. Aristotle knew this many thousands of years ago.

[End of recording.]

SPEAK UP AND BE HEARD MODULE FOUR – INCREASING CREDIBILITY Female: Module number four – Increasing Credibility. See, your credibility comes

from being seen as competent, from being seen as composed.

Competence is just really how effectively you perform. And when you

perform effectively, you increase your credibility. When you’re composed,

when you handle things, a mentor of mine once said years ago, “Be like a

duck. On top be calm and cool, and underneath let those little feet go a

million miles a minutes. But never let them see you sweat.” Isn’t that a

great tag line? Never let them see you sweat. So always look calm, cool,

and composed. Let me give you a couple of credibility killers. Here’s a

few things that can really hurt your credibility and will take away from

when you do use your voice from you having impact and the power that

our looking for. First, avoid making promises you can’t keep. When you

say you’re going to do something, do something. That’s having integrity.

So do what you say. Second is avoid game playing or one-upmanship. I

remember meeting with a sales professional years ago, and whatever I

said, they could one-up it. Whatever it was, I had three prospects – they

had five. I had three closings – they had ten. Whatever it was, avoid

those games. Instead, if I can give you a tip, be happy for them. If

someone says they have six closings or they had six sales, or they just got

a promotion, they’re bragging to get someone to say, “Great job.” Give it

to them. Give them what they want. You’ll be seen as the bigger person.

You’ll be earning more respect. And you know what’s funny? You will

have built up their self-esteem as well. And of course avoid behavioral

manipulation. Avoid mind games, head games, threats, personal attacks,

lies, sabotage, backstabbing, gossiping I’ll put in there – any of that. Any

of that pettiness really does hurt your credibility, and it really does detract

from your professionalism. So how do you build your credibility? Let’s

start first with catch and correct mental mistakes. You know, mental

housekeeping is probably one of most important things that we can do.

When we get our head right, everything else does seem to fall into order.

And this starts with putting good stuff in, putting good information in. The

acronym Good In, Good Out is really appropriate here. The more good

ideas you put in your head, the more good information you put in, the

more good that’s going to come out. And if I can give you a tip here, avoid

negativity. Avoid things like the news. The news is great for information,

but there’s other ways to get your information versus watching the news.

TV is sensationalized. It brings up the negativity, inspires negativity in us.

And we’ve got enough negativity around us that we need to avoid that. So

instead, pick up the newspaper. Read what you need and move on.

Listen to positive information as you’re driving. Read positive thoughts.

The only way to replace the ineffective thoughts that you have is to

replace them with effective thoughts, and that comes from new ideas.

And here’s a great idea that will help you as well in the mental

housekeeping, is make sure to accept response-ability. And response-

ability is the ability to respond. Too many times I work with individuals and

they don’t have their mental housekeeping in order. And they’ve kind of

fallen into the victim role. And I’ve been seeing this quite frequently,

especially with some economic downturns where people are blaming

everybody else. They’re blaming their friends, their family, the

government, the banks, the mortgage brokers, the real estate people –

they’re blaming anybody and everybody they can. And they’re not taking

responsibility for their own ability to respond. Jack Canfield has a formula,

E + R = O. E stands for the Event. The event plus your response equals

the outcome. So it’s not just the event. You have the ability to respond.

And how you respond determines the outcome. I remember years ago

when I was studying motivation and understanding people, I came across

a story of two twin brothers separated at birth. The father was an

alcoholic and both brothers came to find out their father was an alcoholic

and were reunited later on in life. And one himself ended up becoming an

alcoholic, and he said, when interviewed they said, “Well what

happened?” He goes, “Well, what would you have done if your father was

an alcoholic?” Interesting answer. The second, who was a twin from the

same father, absolutely would not touch alcohol, would not go anywhere

near it. He’d become one of the top executives in a company in the

United States. And when asked, “How did you do it?” He goes, “Well

what would you have done if your father was an alcoholic?” See, the

event was exactly the same. But the response was completely different.

How you respond determines the outcome. One brother ended up

struggling financially, couldn’t keep his family together, ended up being

divorced, losing his children. It was a very sad story. The other one was

one of the most successful men in the United States. Same exact event –

the father was an alcoholic; two different responses. Although you can’t

choose your event, you can certainly choose your response. I truly

believe that 90 percent of life is how you respond, and only 10 percent is

that event. When we take responsibility and clean up our mental

housekeeping, we now have got the ability to be in control. We’re no

longer a victim. We’re now able to make choices and move forward with

our lives. Now second in order to create credibility is be open to

possibilities. Have you ever talked to someone and every idea or every

suggestion you give them is like, “No, that won’t work,” or, “I can’t do that,”

or, “But what about ...?” You almost get to the point where you don’t want

to be with them. You remove yourself. They don’t have much credibility in

your eyes. You don’t want to be around them. In order to be credible,

open yourself up to possibilities. Be a possibility thinker. What is

possible? How can this be possible? Instead of being a “but” person, be

an “and” person. If someone gives you an idea, and you’re not quite sure

it can work, say, “And let me think, how can we do this?” instead of, “But it

won’t work because ...” Try giving them a way it will work. Try suggesting

solutions on how it can work. Try to think in the positive and avoid the

negative. Number three is respect yourself and others. This comes down

to having self-esteem. This comes down to saying, “I’m a worthwhile

person.” I remember years ago, one of my mentors said to me, “Kim, let

me ask you a question. If someone had a million dollars, are they more

worthy than you?” I said, “No.” “If they had a large car, are they more

worthy than you?” “No.” “If they had a title, a fancy title, would they be

more worthy than you?” “No.” He said then, “What you’re telling me is

nobody’s more worthy than you.” I said, “Well, so far.” He said, “Well then

the reality is what you’re telling me is everybody’s equal. Everyone is the

same level. Nobody’s more important than anybody else, right?” And it

kind of made me think about that. See, I always thought that people who

had more success, more money, more power, more titles, they deserve

more respect than I did. And consequently, I acted that way. And

whenever I was around those type of people, I would cringe. I would kind

of look up to them and worship them at some level that, ooh, wow, they’re

more important. They’re more successful. They must be more worthy

than me. And they’re not. And I’m not saying they’re not worthy. What I

am saying is we’re all valuable. We all have equal value. One person is

not necessarily more valuable than another. What we do and how we

treat others perhaps differentiates us. But it’s not based on our title, our

money, or the things we have. It’s who we are. So we need to start

respecting ourselves as a valuable individual. And when we start

respecting ourselves and giving others respect that they deserve, more

people start respecting us. Respect is a giver’s game. The more you give

respect, the more you get respect. And that creates credibility. Number

four is resist the bait. In order for you to stay credible, you have to resist

the pettiness that some people will try to manipulate you with. They’ll try

to bully, complain, criticize you unfairly. And these are baits. They’re

trying to lure you in. And this becomes an awareness. Become aware

when they throw bait and go, “Hmm. That’s some bait.” Sometimes it’s

just knowing when to say nothing. I work with some real estate agents,

and one of the best tips I’ve ever taught agents has made them literally

thousands of dollars - tens of thousands, excuse me – possibly even

millions of dollars, is to know which battles to fight. See, if someone gives

you an objection to something, you’ve got to decide, “Is that battle worth

fighting? Is that a battle I’m willing to discuss or have an argument over?”

And you know what, sometimes it’s not. You’ve got to resist the bait.

You’ve got to resist the bait. It’s OK if they say, “You know what, I don’t

think I like that shirt today.” “Ok, thank you.” Move on. That’s not a battle

I’m willing to fight. So what? That’s your opinion. I have my opinion,

thank you. Thank you for your opinion. It’s OK to have an opinion. I have

my opinion. I respect your opinion. I’m just going to ask you to respect

mine. And we don’t have to fight it out. We don’t have to fight to be right.

It’s OK just to acknowledge that they have an opinion and move on. Now,

this means having emotional control. And this starts with visualizing the

event. How do you want to respond? How would a role model that you

have respond – maybe Oprah or maybe any role model that you look up to

– your boss, your mother, somebody that you respect that has controlled

and has responded in a situation, how would they respond? And see

yourself responding that way. Step back and take that time to respond.

Now number five, use emotions as prompts. We’re all going to have

emotions. The horse is never going away. We don’t want it to go away.

We just have to use it as a prompt when it comes up in our lives. We

have to be able to hear what it’s saying, acknowledge it, and decide

what’s true and what’s not for us. Now number six, we have to be able to

discriminate between false alarms and gut alarms. Sometimes our horse

throws up these big alarms. “Oh my, the plane is going to crash! Oh no!

It’s horrible!” Is that really a false alarm, or is that a gut alarm? See, a

false alarm often has fear in it. And that’s how you know a false alarm.

That’s your horse trying to get you to do stuff. The horse’s main

manipulation tool is fear. When you hear fear, then you know that’s

coming from the horse. Now a gut tends to come from a little bit less

emotional stance. It tends to be more of an intuition feeling. It’s not highly

emotionally charged. And that tends to be a gut. It’s a sense more than it

is an emotion. And we want to be able to differentiate the two. If you can

differentiate the two, you can start to turn down the volume on the horse

and turn up the volume on your intuition. Start listening to the intuition.

We all have that information. We’ve seen enough, we’ve learned enough

regardless of what age, whether you’re 18 or 81. You’ve learned enough

that your intuition can pick up and guide you and show you how to get

more information. Now number seven, give yourself breathing room time.

What I mean by that is sometimes we get ourselves so backed up to the

wall that we forget that we need some space. In order for us to be

credible, we don’t have to talk the entire time. We don’t have to put out all

the information. We can take some time and just relax and find out what

do we need to provide? What are they looking for? Is it specifically for

your family? Is it for your colleagues? Is it for your boss? Is it for your

clients? We need some time. It’s difficult to constantly think when you’re

always under pressure. So build in some breathing room time. Comte de

Mirabeau said, “Nothing baffles the scheme of evil people so much as the

calm composure of great souls.”

[End of recording.]

SPEAK UP AND BE HEARD MODULE FIVE – GETTING HEARD Female: Module number five – Getting Heard. See, if we all have a voice, and you

are entitled to have a voice regardless of what anyone else. You as a

human right, you have a voice. You are entitled to anything at any time if

you’re willing to accept the consequences. So sometimes I understand

that as a professional, we hesitate. We hesitate because we wonder what

the consequences are. We don’t know where to go. But we are entitled to

success. We’re also entitled to fail. We’re entitled to design your life and

design your lifestyle. We have to remember, though, there are certain

skills that will help us get further ahead in these areas, even though we

have these entitlements. We also have to work on the skills. And

sometimes it’s not what you say, but how you say it that makes all the

difference. So let’s look at three specific types of communication and

communication personalities to take a look at how what we’re saying can

be said a lot more effectively so that we can get the respect we deserve,

so that we can sound confident. We can be composed and we can

communicate effectively the information that we have. It starts with

aggressive. Let’s take a look at the aggressive communication type. This

is the type of person that blames people, attacks people, criticizes people.

They’re often very in-your-face, grrr, I have to stand guard-type people.

People are trying to take my stuff. This often comes off as people who

violate others’ rights. That’s an aggressive personality style. Giving you

an example, let’s say we have Sue. And Sue is in her office, and she’s

got a problem. One of her colleagues listens to music in his cube, and it’s

way too loud. Sue is upset by it, and she’s under such tight deadlines,

she can’t focus. So she yells over her cube, “Hey, turn that down! Are

you deaf or dumb? This is a business!” The music immediately turns off,

and the outcome? Well, Sue gets her needs met, but at the expense of

her colleague. This is an aggressive behavior. The next behavior type we

want to look at is passive. And passive people tend to internalize fears.

They tend to withdraw. They tend to reject. They tend to turn away. But

they tend to be quiet about it. People don’t often know they’re upset.

People are often shocked. “Oh, really? I didn’t know you were hurt.”

They hide their true feelings. See, if Sue was a passive type, what would

happen here is that she would be upset. She would know that she’d got

an important deadline, even though it sounded like a block party, and she

can do nothing. She’s just pout in her cube. And she’d tune out the music

as much as she could, and she’d decide whatever reprimand her spvsr

gives her, well she must have deserved it. And that’s a passive behavior.

Her needs are not getting met. And she’s not saying anything to anybody

else. Now the third type is a passive aggressive. And the passive

aggressive is really friendly in front of you, and happy. But they make little

sly comments. They’ll throw a little sarcasm at you. They’ll spread

rumors. They’ll ask innocent questions. They’ll accidentally lose or forget

something. They’ll say yes, and actually mean no. Their needs don’t get

met and nor do anybody else’s. And they violate everybodys rights. So if

Sue was this type, and she was in that cubicle, what she might do is she

might not say anything. She’d obsess over the fact that that music was

blaring. And the next morning, she’d bring in a CD called American Idol’s

Worst Editions Ever. And she’d play it all morning at a ridiculous decibel

level. So by lunch time, the entire department is mumbling. And that’s

what Sue would do if she’s passive aggressive. She’d get even. She’d

get back. And that’s a passive aggressive type. The reality is all three of

these types – aggressive, passive aggressive, and passive – we are born

with these. We are born with either more aggressive, or more passive.

That’s the way it is. The reality is, though, we can learn a more effective

communication type. If we want our voice to be heard and respected, we

need to learn how to be what’s called “assertive.” Assertive is where we

can be expressive, respecting, confident, open, and productive. This is

where we now can say what we mean, not step on anybody else’s rights,

respect everybody else’s, and still get our voice heard. And it’s assertive

communication that allows us to be able to share our voice in a win-win

way. We seek to meet the needs of others while getting our own needs

met. And it starts with a simple script. It starts with “I feel ...” and then

insert your emotion. “When you ...” and then add the behavior. So, “I feel

sad.” Or, “I feel annoyed when you play your music very loud.” The next

sentence is, “Because I think ...” and fill in what you think. “What I would

like is ...” and this is how you fill it in. So if I were to use this script, it might

sound like, “I feel frustrated when you just get up and leave when we’re

talking because I think you’re not interested in what I’m saying. What I

would like for you to do is listen and wait until I’m done speaking before

you get up and leave.” And that’s what an assertive conversation might

sound like. Now if we go back to our friend Sue and see what happens

when she uses assertive cmmnctatn. So the next time the music comes

up, Sue goes over to her colleague. And remember, we’re going to follow

the script. So Sue says, “I feel distracted and stressed with my workload

when you have your music turned up so loud because I think – well, I can’t

think. And I’m not going to be able to meet my deadlines. What I would

like is for you to turn your music down so I can’t hear it.” Now Sue’s

neighbor apologizes and tells her that he had no idea that anyone had a

problem with his music. He thought everyone in the department liked the

music, and that’s why he had it up so loud. So from now on, h’lll keep it a

little lower. See, by using assertive communication, we’re able to ask for

our needs to get met without stepping on the needs of other people. So

here’s a few tips for standing your ground. First, focus on the issue and

not the person. It’s not the person that’s causing the problem. It’s just the

issue that we need to address. And again, focus on the interests – not the

positions of the people, either. Focus on the benefits for them doing it.

And make sure to use “I” statements. “I” is the most powerful letter you

can use in assertive communication. We start off by telling somebody

“you,” it’s almost like they turned off a dial in their head. They can get

quickly offended and stop listening. So focus on “I.” I disagree. I feel. I

would like you. And these are statements that will help them to hear what

you’re asking for and get your voice heard. Now getting heard at

meetings, here’s a couple of things that you can do when you don’t feel

that your voice is getting heard. First, reassert your ideas. Then restate

your thoughts. Follow it up in writing, and if you have to, bring it up again

at the next meeting. Don’t act annoyed, and don’t let your emotions get in

there. And be careful of that horse. He might start telling you things like,

“They just don’t want to listen to you. They don’t care what you have to

say.” Tell that horse, “No, no.” Quiet him down and go on with the

information. A lot of times people are so focused on what’s going on in

their horse in their head, they often don’t hear us. So it’s not us. It’s just

simply them. Now if you’re having a one-on-one conversation with

someone, here’s a few catch phrases that will help you to be able to get

your voice heard. First is something like, “I understand, and I’d like to

share my thoughts.” “I disagree, and here’s why.” “I feel I’m not

conveying this idea well. Let me state this in another way.” And here are

some very specific ways to be able to get that information because

remember, your interests are as important as anybody else’s interests. So

don’t be afraid to share your voice. Don’t be afraid to communicate the

information that they really need to hear. And remember, sometimes

you’re going to get criticized. Ask yourself, “What can I learn from this?”

And avoid disengaging. Sometimes when we hear negative information,

we tend to want to disengage. We tend to want to pull ourselves back.

Stay engaged. Think about and consider when you do hear some

criticism, who is it coming from? What are they really trying to say? Is it

really you? Or is it maybe something about them? Now there are four

steps to going from conflict to solution. First is make sure to eliminate any

false conflicts. Check your horse. See if your horse is telling you anything

that’s not true, like, “Joe always does this to me. Joe always interrupts

me. He never listens to what I’m saying.” This could be a false conflict.

Your horse may be telling you some lies. It may be awfulizing things or

creating some demanding situations that maybe just aren’t true. Second,

analyze your interests and find out what their interests are. What are the

interests? Look for possible solutions and keep reviewing the interests

and solutions until you can find an agreement. Oftentimes conflict is a

result of miscommunication. Be careful, though. That horse is often a

major influencer and factor. Now any fool can criticize, condemn, and

complain. “And most fools do,” says Benjamin Franklin.

[End of recording.]

term definition introduced in · 2017. 12. 7. · says you’re a mean person, and you know beyond...

Documents