Team-up against each others’ challenges

We all get blocked, stuck, or overwhelmed on creative projects. So team-up with someone. Create a team with your husband/wife, boyfriend/girlfriend, friend, colleague, or associate. Have each of you identify something that you have resistance toward or are overwhelmed by. Pick someone to go first and then work on it together.

The helper best takes the energizer role. He or she can see the situation with freshness and clarity. They can ask the blocked artist questions to find solutions. But mostly they are there to encourage and support the artist to work through their inhibition, resistances, and fear. Jump off the cliff with them. Do not stop until you have accomplished something beyond what the blocked artist thought was possible. This exercise is intended to allow the artist to see new possibilities and hope. Then later that afternoon or on another day, switch roles and team up against the other person’s block.

You get the added value of creating a shared experience with the person. You get to know each other on a much deeper level. The person in the blocked artist role has to expose and trust. Exposure is the key to intimacy. The artist has to allow the helper into their world; he/she has to be vulnerable.

The helper has to get out of their own world to get into the artist’s world. This in itself can be liberating for the helper. The helper has to be inquisitive and care about the artist’s world. The bond you form in this exercise is powerful. I highly recommend it for couples at any stage of a relationship.

And get used to teaming up. With where we are going in the big, new world- we are going to have to go there together.

Getting involved creates connections

Whenever you get involved in something, it creates connections with other people. The higher the number and depth of connections, the stronger and more grounded you are- whether in business, or socially in a community.

The other night the Jacuzzi was not working at the gym I go to. Some of the people started to talk negatively about the gym and how they were cutting costs. Being a small business owner, I shared this with the manager. (In other words- I got involved.) Later she saw me and we spoke further about it. We talked about the business of the gym. Although, I did not intend it, I now have a new friend and business associate. If I did not get involved, we would likely have never met.

Getting involved almost always brings connections as a side benefit. From one perspective, getting involved creates a reason to engage with people. The connection(s) created are almost always worth the time and energy you expend getting involved.

The thing it reminds me of is making up some reason to talk to a pretty girl I wanted to meet. Getting involved is a nonthreatening reason to talk to people. Once you start talking to them and learning more about them, all kinds of cool things can happen. You can join forces in different ways and create win-win scenarios. You can be friends. You can be business associates. You can go out.

Just have to get over that inhibition and comfort zone long enough to get involved. Could be as easy as saying “hi” while waiting in line. Or paying some one a sincere compliment. Or offering to give someone a hand.

You should be looking for opportunities do these things all the time. You will be shocked with the connections that begin to open up to you.

Which third do you focus on?

They say that one-third of the people we meet don’t like us very much. One-third of people we meet naturally like us. And one-third really don’t care much either way. Which do you focus on?

Many try to get the people that do not like them to like them. I do not recommend this. It is important to realize that them not liking you is not personal. It is not about you. It is a personality thing. They do not know who you are. It is just what you represent to them. They may not like people that are friendly. They may not like people that look like or have mannerisms like someone they did not like. It is not about you. Do not take it as a rejection. How can someone reject you- if they do not even know you?

I have heard a sales strategy that says work with the third that like you and try to get the third that do not care to like you. That is not bad advice. Notice it did not say to try to convert the people that do not like you. Equally important is to not allow the people that do not like you to inhibit you. No matter what you do- they are not going to be very impressed. Be yourself. Trying to get them to like you usually makes it worse. Stop wasting your energy on them.

I recommend you focus on the third that like you. That leaves 2 and a third billion people to interact with. Create deeper connections with them. They are your people. They are the people that will naturally be interested in what you are doing. Swim down stream for a while.

You decide whom you interact with every day.

Of all the ways you could have shared, you chose this.

There are infinite possibilities of ways to connect and share when we interact with other people. There are countless opportunities to know what that person really cares about, and to share what is important to us. We can find common ground to share in, and for that moment, we are not alone.

Yet most times we choose to focus on relatively insignificant things. We love drama. We indulge in pettiness and arrogance. We strut ourselves and compete with one-ups-manship. We are so busy making our own point that we rarely even listen to what the other person is saying. W are left unfulfilled by the interaction because they didn’t reflect ourselves back to us they way we wanted. So we gossip about how they treated us poorly.

The tragedy of this pettiness is not the damage we inflict on those we interact with- although it does take its toll. Even more costly is the missed opportunity to connect and share with that person. Economists and investors call this opportunity cost. Investopedia defines opportunity cost as, “the cost of an alternative that must be foregone to pursue a certain action” (link).

So all of us will have phenomenal opportunities to connect with others in meaningful ways today. It is what human beings need most–especially in our present times. The question is, Will we have the courage to connect with them?

Will we walk through our inhibition and say “hi” in the line at the grocery store?…  Or will we stay in our own little world.

Will we choose to discover what is really going on with our friends and acquaintances? Will we share something real about ourselves?…  Or will we be clever, cool, and aloof?

So next time you find yourself going down a certain road in an interaction, ask yourself, “Of all the possibilities I have of sharing with this person, is this really what I want to choose?”

Regret: the only emotion you cannot resolve

Doors open and doors close. Possibilities present themselves to us and we either have the courage to step into them or we do not. Most of the time there isn’t even much of a commitment required at the beginning. So we just have to be willing to walk through a doorway to explore if there is something there for us.

But in order to do this we have to overcome our inhibition- our fear of someone not liking us. Or judging or ridiculing us.

The difficult part of not walking through a doorway is that you likely feel regret. I wonder what it would have been like if I asked her out? I wonder what it would be like if I had explored that opportunity oversees or started that business I thought about?

You will never know. You cannot resolve regret. It eventually has to get translated as a loss. You can try to reclaim it, but it will never be quite the same.

So next time a door opens, why not check it out? Just walk in and explore it for a while. Take it for a test drive.

It is not a trap. It is more of our inhibition and fear that creates the illusion that it is a trap. If it is not for you, leave. Ever walk into an appointment, see evidence and feel that the person/services will not work for you, say this will not work, and leave? Why not? It is a little awkward, but sure beats getting a bad meal or bad haircut. Or leaving your kids with someone that is unreliable.

So check out opens doorways when they present themselves to you. Live free of regrets. Then you will never have to wonder what it would have been like.