Categoría: attitude

T / L Ratio

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“If we were supposed to talk more than to listen, we would have two tongues and one ear” Mark Twain

If we learn by observing, by copying someone else’s movements, learning by listening is a great option. In listening we can learn many important things. But that it’s not what usually happens.

We tend to talk al lot, and we “hear” what is being said, usually just awaiting the moment our speaker has finished so we can start our own speech. And that is mainly because from very young we are taught on how to talk, how to express ourselves, how to get the audience’s attention. So, our Talk / Listening ratio usually becomes >1. And that is no good, not helpful.

So, what to do to change the situation? Any knowledge, any different behavior we acquire in our adulthood takes a considerable amount of time and effort as we need to alter our habits. Truly listening would be on the “difficult ones” list. Turning around the ratio, Talk/Listening<1 will require your full attention 😉

Some tips:

  • “be patient my friend”, practice makes perfect and if you want to be a good listener you need to wait (allow your speaker finish completely prior to saying anything)
  • Play mindfulness, yes, stay open-minded, avoid assumptions, do not let yourself be led by stray thoughts, stay focused on listening
  • Create an open space: remove any obstacle, be careful with your body language, ..
  • be organized, if you don’t have the best brain storage capacity, take notes
  • PRACTICE, practice, practice

We are back, in the middle of August, but is there anything “business as usual” this year?

Concentration & performance

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Some of us have spent the last months working from home. Suddenly, there was a change of scenario, far from the office, colleagues, coffee breaks and interruptions that led us to increase our performance. Quiet times at home allowed us to concentrate much more on what we were doing. But after a while, performance, or at least the same level of concentration could not be kept at the same level.

Some of the experiences shared by those who have been working from home are to have seen reduced their ability to remember what they read on a document, worse notes taken, less focus capacity, the solitude of mind overload (no colleague with whom to have a coffee with to just distract our minds), …

Concentration and making the best of our time comes easily when we are able to establish different spheres in our lives. When everything has to be in the same place, there is no where else to go or no options when it comes to communication, it is pretty difficult to focus, to isolate ourselves from the outside noise.

A change of setting is always a good thing, it forces and, at the same time, allows us to give again our best.

Us and our memories

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How many things we have learned that seemed imposible, nonsense, useless, hard time more than anything else? School, home, family, friends, work, partners have been and are our learning’ playground.

The Who we are today is the result of adding experiences, trainings and decisions.

  • We went through a tough time, we had an incredible time
  • We meet amazing people
  • We succeed, we failed
  • We learned how to calculate objects volume, distances, … physics, maths, chemistry
  • We had an job we did not like, a boss we could not bear
  • We have learned what we like and we don’t
  • ….

Life is like a river and we can either watch the river flow or we can learn to swim diving into it. If you just look at the river flowing, you will have not learned anything, just letting everything go, repeating the same mistakes, unable to go further incapable to apply learnings as you only memorized them to pass the exam, to put a “check” on your day on that difficult moment. But, when you learn to swim, you are able to use what you have been through in order not to repeat mistakes, to be able to swim in other waters.

Memories will always be there, in a “that instant recall” or “deep inside of you”, how did that instant, that moment, transformed you.

Unfortunately we can not chose the things we want to happen to us, but we can learn, we have that ability. Will you just waste it? Will you be the sum of many things or just a sequence of happenings?

Normality?

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You have imagined infinite times what you are gonna do once (for those who are confined or with limited movements) you can go outside, once everything is “back to normal”. Traveling?

In the end what we are willing to have, to do, are those things we always gave for granted. Family, friends, conversations, hugs, kisses. Social life in the end, around a beer, even with 2 meters between us.

What we have figure out is that we can live without is traffic jams, technology over everything, queuing at lunch time, leaving the office at night, never ending meetings… Remembered that tiny/day-to-day that just were always there are the ones that matter.

We have learned that the normality we want back so badly is social life, with those close to us, with who we love spending time with but with who we always think: if it is not today it can be any other day. We have plenty of time.

This is an opportunity. Once again, we have been given a second chance. Do not waste it, keep it. First goes first, do not let being late for a meeting get ahead of anything.

Promised, my posts are going back to normal.

Mood and acts

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The way we feel can be triggered by outside events. And that can impact the way we act. And the way we act always changes how we feel.

These days are perfect to reinforce the way we act in a positive way, ignoring the rainy day and how it makes us feel, and instead start learning something difficult for us, or facing tasks or projects we have been procrastinating for a long time. Not because we were told to do so, but because we want to upskill ourselves. It’s the perfect time to change our acts. To connect more generously, give away our time to someone else. Deep into the relationships we are digitally building.

The more in control we are of our acts the better we feel. Maybe not immediately but the feeling of going over a challenge or having helped other people to move to the next level will be there. We can not control outside events but we can control how we act, do we let ourselves go with the flow and let the environment be in charge? or do we take responsibility of our own time and mood so we act and shift the way we feel?

We do not have a problem

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When you continuously challenge yourself, your environment, how things are done, how does the world work, .. You probably see fixable stuff everywhere.

Organizations are made by people, their knowledge, skills and attitude. The oriented-to-change or to improvement organizations&teams are always looking around, searching for things to be fixed, anything that can be improved by doing differently. Processed that are obsolete and needs to be adapted to a new reality or even better, to be created as there is nothing that can cover the gap. They act proactively. They always see an opportunity, a puzzle / problem that can be solved. The usual answer to How are thing going will be: we could do better.

The oriented-to-resolve organizations&teams happen to be on the other side of the room. They look only to fix what’s broken, only taking action when a PROBLEM is on the table. And when it does, when the problem is visible, it’s usually because it has become important, big, visible. It’s the outcome of adding many issues to which we didn’t pay much attention to, they were too small to be considered. The usual answer to How are things going? Will be: we don’t have any problem.

Well, continuous improvement permits us to avoid big problems or difficulties and be ready for the next challenge. And this is mainly a matter of attitude. The tools for changing will come after.

Because, if we don’t have a problem…. we have a problem.

Don’t get too comfy

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You got comfy because you had performed that task a thousand times. You are an expert. If business keeps as usual, nothing could go wrong. Sure? Maybe you could stop paying attention to details, boredom leading to no longer caring about giving a 100%, taking things for granted and focus not being where it should be. Lots of possibilities to make mistakes, wrong calls.

Or it could be that you are used to that comfort that training before practicing brings to our soul. The known path already walked by others is explained to you. The only thing needed here is to learn, apply your background knowledge to find the improvement opportunities and put them in place once you have learned how to handle the day to day.

Or what if, in business as usual you could always trust your guts like surfing the waves of a familiar sea. The one you love, the one you are used to and in which you know when you can get creative and when you can not. Where you can read in the environment.

Or, you know that family and friends are just around the corner and although you love spending time with them sometimes you just want to go home, get comfy in your sofa and have a drink or relax after a hard, long day. In the end, they will always be there.

But, things never stay as we want them to stay, sometimes it’s progressive, sometimes the world is turned upside down overnight. We need to be ready for change, always. Be sure of what we do or think but leaving a tiny space for questions, hesitations. Be sure that nothing is written on stone and maybe you will learn the hard way, by doing.

The only thing for sure, is that every opportunity counts, to be with yourself, to be together with your friends, your family, to learn something new, to go for that extra mile, …

Don’t wait too much for the perfect wave, to enjoy each moment and minute, to get the best from yourself. To think different. To change. Do not get too comfy, everything could just change overnight and catch you off guard.

I am aware of my comfort zones, the topics I love to read and write about. So, will do my best to replan my route, to enlarge my horizon. Thank you for helping me to achieve it.

Inspiration

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Writing helps me in infinite ways, it helps me organize my thoughts, it allows me to see a structure in the unstructured…

And so, where does inspiration comes from? From the world, the people that surrounds me, what I read, see on TV, what bothers me, the questions I have, what I wonder about, what amazes me, what makes me feel that something is wrong, misplaced, that does not fit, … but mostly, mostly from those good, enriching conversations which bring food for thought, what others are asking to themselves and their, mine point of view about it.

Today, this is a bit more difficult, we are far from each other, technology helps us to be, to feel we are a bit more closer, but this is not enough, not for me. Technology helps not to disconnect, helps us to be able to have a chat, to see how we are doing. But still, eye contact, face to face conversations are better, much better. We are social animals, and we need to have human touch. And I miss it even though I am lucky, very lucky.

Inspiration does not come only from words, it comes also from closeness. Hope we can be close again soon. Keep your eyes and ears open! Who knows where inspiration will find you

What are you made of?

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Reading, sports, conversations, loneliness, silence, reading, chess, drinks, walking, friends, family, pets, work, colleagues, driving, traveling, people closeness, food lover, ….

What are you made of? What brings you to life and is Your spark? What gives you food for thought, makes you vibe? What makes you smile and have comfort. What is it?

These days it will be difficult to have some of them but you may be able to cultivate some others. Just make sure you smooth the need, you contain yourself and you help others to bear the moment. That will also be part of what you are made of.