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Trying To See Into Someone Else’s World

Every time that we try to talk to someone else, or interact in any other way, we are leaping into the unknown.

There is a well known phrase “Perception is reality.” The meaning behind it is not that hard to grasp… reality is what you see, hear, or otherwise perceive. What’s more difficult to understand is the depths to which that affects everything we do every day.

Every person who witnesses an event sees it differently, because each person has their own perception, their own reality through which the event must be processed. The example that makes illustrates this the most clearly, I think, is when someone says something to another person, who takes it in a completely different manner than it was meant… the words mean something different in the listener’s world than they do in the speaker’s.

Each person basically has their own world, which sometimes interacts with the worlds of those around them. Any time we deal with another person, everything we do goes out from our world and into theirs. That includes words, actions, and even inaction.

All people have some overlap in their worlds, some shared perceptions, but which parts overlap change from person to person, and sometimes from day to day between the same two people. The more you know someone, and the more time you actively spend with them, the more closely your worlds tend to overlap… both worlds start altering to become more like that of the other person.

The amount of overlap of your worlds can also generally be described as your closeness… the more overlap you have, the closer you become, and the more you see things the same, which then reinforces the closeness.

This is true regardless of whether you like the person or not! When you spend more time around someone actively doing something with them, you will become closer to them, and more like them, like it or not.

That makes it incredibly important to be conscious of whom you are around the most. Another saying captures this very well: ”A man is known by the company he keeps.” That’s because the man (or woman) becomes more like the company he keeps.

Want to be closer to your husband or wife? Spend more time actively doing something with them. It doesn’t really matter what. While that sounds ridiculous, it’s true (arguing, however, is not something you do with someone, it’s more something you do to someone). Passive things, however, don’t require your worlds to interact, and don’t bring you closer.

Strangely enough some activities can switch from passive to active (or vice versa), even in the middle of doing them. Watching a movie is the easiest example… it may start out passive, but if both of you “connect” to the movie, it can easily become a shared, active activity. A conversation can do the same, if you capture their interest, or the opposite if you lose their interest.

Want to change something that you don’t like about yourself? Spend less time around people who share the trait, and more around people who have a trait (or traits) that you do want to pick up.

Try looking at the world like this… try to realize that every other person that you meet has their own world. It can really change the way you see things, and make you far more effective at anything involving other people. It can seriously improve your relationships, both personal and work. It can even help you to make your own world better.

Photo from Flickr

Author

December 20th

Communication

Break The Ice – 10 Creative Questions To Get Them Talking

Break The Ice – 10 Creative Questions To Get Them Talking One of the hardest parts of meeting someone new, especially someone who has captured your romantic interest, is finding ways to break the ice without sounding cheesy. Part of the reason this is difficult is because some really useful questions to ask are asked so often that they almost become parodies… things like “So, what do you do for a living?” or “What do you like to do for fun?”

The solution is to come up with creative questions (preferably before you meet) that get them started talking, but which they are not commonly asked. It really doesn’t matter what topic, as long as it’s something which most people can relate to, something that gets them to talk about themselves and their experiences.

If you don’t know what to ask, read the examples below… you can actually use these directly, or use them for inspiration to come up with your own. Either way will work… the key is just to get them talking, to get a flow of conversation started.

10 Creative Questions To Break The Ice And Get Them Talking

If money were no object, what kind of car would you drive?

Very nearly everyone drives… and very nearly everyone has thought about what their “dream car” would be. This question lets you find out a little bit about them (what kind of car they like) and gets them talking. You can continue by asking why, or possibly going to what kind of car they would never buy.

Alternatives: Almost anything works here, just start with “If money were no object, what kind of blank would you get?”
What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen?

Here’s a chance to get them talking and laughing… and getting someone laughing is an easy way to lower their walls. This question works particularly well if you have a truly bizarre story of your own to tell.

Alternatives: Replace strangest with any other – est… it could be biggest, loudest, etc.
What’s the best restaurant you’ve ever been to?

This is a good way to find out what kind of food they like, if you’re thinking about asking them out at some point. It also might give you an idea of a good place to eat, whether or not it’s with the person you’re talking to at the moment.

Alternatives: You can substitute other things for restaurant, but most things have less general appeal, and the ones that don’t are usually asked all the time. This is one where if you want to change it, you’ll have to base it on the particular person you’re talking to at the moment.
Where is the most exotic place you’ve ever been?

This is a chance for them to open up and tell a story… and that lowers their walls. If you’ve been to the same place, you’ve got huge bonus points… shared experiences are the fastest way to get closer to someone.

Alternatives: Most exotic can be replaced with farthest, most dangerous, etc.
What is the biggest event, by number of people, that you have seen in person?

Another chance for them to tell a story, and another chance for you to have similar experiences. One warning, though… don’t ask questions like this and always have a bigger, better story to tell… even if you really do, it will make them feel small.

Alternatives: Replace biggest with something like most expensive.
What is the dumbest thing you’ve ever seen someone do?

People almost invariably like to tell stories aboutthe dumb things they’ve seen, particularly when it was someone else that did it. If you’re really lucky, the person might tell you about the dumbest thing they have done… you can lead the conversation in this direction by telling them the dumbest thing you’ve done after they tell their story about someone else.

Alternatives: Really you can replace dumbest with nearly anything… nicest, weirdest, most spectacular, most dangerous, etc. Very little gets someone to really go off like dumbest, though.
What is the most expensive single item you’ve ever bought?

You might want to add words to exclude houses and cars, it’s up to you… this question gives you an idea of what the person thinks is worth paying extra for, what is important to them. That can be amazingly valuable both to continue the conversation right then, and in any future times you meet.

Alternatives: What purchase did you regret the most is a related question that can be interesting… but it may bring up bad memories, and that’s not really what you want when you’re breaking the ice. You might go for the most fun purchase.
What is worst tasting thing you’ve ever eaten?

This is another thing that people usually remember quite clearly and don’t mind sharing. It can even be another shared experience, if you’ve eaten the same thing… particularly if you also didn’t like it.

Alternatives: Most delicious, hottest, most sour… any of the major factors in taste can be used.
What is the most vivid/realistic dream you’ve ever had?

This is one that can also tell you a lot, but it’s also more dangerous than most on this list… not everyone is comfortable sharing their dreams If they are, though, this can get you past a lot of walls they might have, moving you pretty much straight to the “friends” level of relationship (and not in the bad way, for those seeking romantic relationships).

Alternatives: You could also ask what movie (or movie character) they most identified with… it’s basically probing for a deeper opening up. If you get it, great… if you don’t, they may push you farther away than when you started.
If you could make all of one kind of thing go away, what would it be?

What would you make go away? It can make you think of a lot of things, and things can come up and be laughed about (think mullets)… this question is very open-ended. If you get together more in the future, it can even be something that you bring up regularly, on the spur of the moment… “Okay, THAT is what I would get rid of”.

Alternatives: You can do the positive (and more common) side – If you could only have one kind of blank, what would it be?

Ten examples, with alternatives… there are more than twenty questions listed above that you can use to get someone to open up and start talking. And, since they are unusual, they will make that person far more likely to remember you. After all, how many people have you told the worst food you’ve eaten?

Being remarkable, in the dictionary sense of being worthy of being talked about, is just about the best thing way to establish a new relationship, whether it’s business, friendship, or romantic. It also helps spread your “network” as they tell the people they know about the interesting conversation they had the other day… if you happen to meet those people, they will already know who you are, which means the ice is already half-broken right from the start.

By the way, the worst food I’ve ever had, that I can remember, is beer cheese. Yes, I should have known… I tasted it anyway, and it was just as bad as it sounds. Maybe worse.

Author

December 3rd

Communication, Relationships

The Essence Of Effective Communication – Shared Experiences

The Essence Of Effective Communication - Shared Experiences Communication is the act of conveying a message from the sender to the recipient. Effective communication is when the message received is the message that was sent, without any misinterpretation. And all effective communication has one thing in common – shared experiences.

I'm not talking about shared experiences as in an experience that you went through together, although that certainly qualifies… I'm talking about experiences that you both went through, like both going through school, both having watched the same movie, or even both having learned the same slang and/or dialect. It can even be as broad as both sharing the same language, but without the rest, sharing the same language (which won't be precisely the same without sharing slang) is less effective.

Essentially, the more shared experiences you have, the more effective your communication becomes. This becomes particularly apparent in families, especially between a husband and wife… you share so many experiences that you can sometimes convey five minutes worth of conversation with someone else in one sentence with your spouse.

This, of course, is not limited to families. If you meet someone (a stranger) who you find out grew up in the same general area as you, you will immediately have more effective communication with that person than with a stranger who grew up far away. If you find out that someone you work with has watched many of the same movies as you, or listens to the same music, or reads the same books, your communication with that person becomes more effective because of the shared experiences.

This is easily apparent in reverse, as well… less shared experiences causes communication to be more difficult and frustrating. This is especially apparent in the area of slang and dialect… it can be very difficult to speak to someone who speaks the same language, but with a heavy (to you) accent (this is dialect), or with very different slang (think lower-class American English vs lower-class British English).

So how does this affect you? How can you use this knowledge to become a more effective communicator?

Always look for things that you have in common with the person with whom you are communicating. This can even be done by adopting similar body language, oddly enough, but it's more effective to simply listen to what they say and how they say it, looking for something familiar and then focusing a bit more on that shared experience. As you find more and more areas in common, your communication with that person will become more effective.

As if effective communication weren't enough incentive on its own, though, there's an additional bonus… the more shared experiences you find, the more that person will like you, almost without fail. Shared experiences yield common ground to talk about other things, which leads to getting to know each other better, which leads to more shared experiences… you get the picture. This is also the reason why relationships where the couple does not spend enough time together tend to become less close… there are less shared experiences, and so less effective communication, and so knowing each other less… it's a vicious cycle which takes conscious effort to break.

So… if you want to become a more effective communicator, look for shared experiences… and watch all your relationships improve, too, as you apply the same techniques to them.

PS – This post was inspired by Adrienne.

Author

October 29th

Communication, Relationships

A Foolproof Way To Not Care What Others Think

There is a really simple, foolproof way to not care what others think. It's not difficult, it doesn't take long, and everyone is capable of doing it. It only takes one sentence to tell you this amazing secret.

I'm going to go about this all wrong and give you the answer right up front, and hope that you stick around afterwards for the explanation. It'll be worth it, I promise.

The foolproof way to not care what others think: Give up telepathy (mind reading for those of you who don't know).

"Give up mind reading?" you might say. "What does that mean?"

Here's what it means: You can't possibly know what other people think, unless you can read minds. So you can't worry about what people think… you can only worry about what you think they think.

Even if someone were to tell you what they think, they might very well be deceiving you. After all, if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all, right? People are taught from a very early age to misrepresent certain feelings in the name of politeness. This isn't necessarily a bad thing… if no one were polite, it's likely there would be a lot more violence in this world.

On the other hand, it makes it even less likely that you will ever know what someone is thinking. When you worry about what other people think, you're not REALLY worrying about what they think, you are worrying about what you think they think. You are worry about the shadow of a shadow… their thoughts as a shadow of their feelings and actions, and your thoughts of what they think as a shadow of the real thing.

Then there's the fact that you can't really control what other people think, even if you could actually know it. In spite of your best efforts, others can, and will, misinterpret your words and actions, and think things other than what you want about you. Ever said something completely innocent like "Nice weather" and had someone decide that it meant something far more, like you were bored and didn't want to be with them, etc.? I have… and it just brings home the fact that people will think what they want, adding or subtracting meaning from whatever you say and do.

So now you can't control their thoughts, and at best can make a semi-educated guess at what they (the thoughts) are anyway (that smile might be for the person they just left, not for you… or the anger could be at something that happened in their childhood, not what you just did), so you're spending your time and mental energy on something you can't know or control. You're giving it importance in your life by giving it your attention… attention that you could probably find a better place to spend, something that will actually bring you benefit.

There's no magical way to not care what you think other people think, but maybe now that you think about it, and realize that you don't really care what others think, but about what you think they think, and that what they DO think isn't even necessarily a reflection of what you say or do, then maybe it will help you to realize it's sily and give it up.

Author

October 2nd

Awareness, Communication, Energy, Feed Your Mind

How To Tell If Your Relationship Is Fantastic

Do you want to have a fantastic relationship? Do you know how to tell if a relationship has what it takes to be great instead of somewhere between "okay" and "good enough"?

Relationships can seem like tricky things, but the basics really aren't that complex. There are certain things that any really good, great, or fantastic relationship will have. Some lesser relationships will still have some of these things, but often only on one side. In other words, one person possesses the quality, but not both. Other lesser relationships will feature both people showing some of the attributes listed below, but missing others. Sometimes these lesser relationships can turn into great relationships if effort is put into learning, and adopting, the other pieces.

There are many lists of things a relationship needs to be successful, but most of them are of a more mechanical nature. I've even posted a few of that kind myself, listing things like time together, communication, etc. This list, however, is not things you do, it's things you have.

If you want to know whether your relationship has what it takes to be great, and to last the test of time, then evaluate it based on the attributes of a fantastic relationship listed below.

You Both Know How To Love

Do you know how to love? To really love, not to like, or do things for, or get turned on by, your love? Do you feel that you are soul mates, that you have a connection so deep that it will be there forever, no matter what happens to the relationship?

Love takes more than buying someone flowers. It takes more than holding their hand when you're out… Love is when you take them by the hand and it reaches out and touches their soul, too. If you don't know what I'm talking about, or that sounds scary or too deep, then you may not be ready for love. That's okay… you don't have to be in love, and trying to force yourself when you aren't ready only backfires.

"Love is patient; love is kind and envies no one. Love is never boastful, nor conceited, nor rude; never selfish, not quick to take offense. There is nothing love cannot face; there is no limit to its faith, its hope, and endurance. In a word, there are three things that last forever: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of them all is love."

The Bible has some great pieces of wisdom concentrated down to their basics, and this is one of them. Love is patient and infinite… trials and tribulations can scratch the surface of it, but never damage its depths.
You Both Know The Complexities Love Contains

So you both know how to love, but do you know the complexities that love contains? Love can encompass and contain your whole awareness at one moment, and be rejected in pain the next. It never really goes away, not if you truly loved, but you can certainly bury it deeply. You can bury it so deeply that only you know it's what is causing you pain, or so deeply that even you don't know that's where the pain is coming from.

Love can have good days and bad days, but it never really goes away, and as soon as you let go of the walls you use to hold it back, it will come surging in again, often bringing with it whatever pain caused you to build those walls, but only temporarily. The flow of love washes away the pain, though the time required varies.

Love is complex, bringing both pain and healing, leaving you vulnerable but making you stronger. If you don't understand this, if you don't accept it, your relationship is going to be weaker than it could have been.
You Both Have Forgiving Hearts

There is one thing that is certain in any relationship: You are going to hurt each other. If you have a good relationship, it won't be intentional, but it will still happen. If you can't forgive each other when it happens, then your relationship is going to be very shallow.

If you can't forgive someone for hurting you unintentionally, you are building walls to keep love away, probably because you are scared of the way it makes you vulnerable. Those walls will keep the other person out and limit how deeply love can spread its roots. Shallow roots can still keep it alive, but when trouble comes along, its grip is weak, and it can be ripped away.

Learn to forgive, and relax those walls… getting rid of them can be scary, and usually hurts right at first, but it will make you a LOT happier in the long run, and the pain is only short-lived.
You Love The Other Person, Not The Attention They Are Giving You

When you are "falling in love", it's easy to mistake loving the attention you are getting for loving the other person. You are getting closer rapidly, you haven't hit your walls yet, and you're getting loads of attention. Attention is the universal currency by which you show that someone is important to you, and it's an awesome feeling to know that you are important to someone specific, especially if that person is someone you like. This is also what leads to a lot of affairs, unfortunately… people need to feel important, and if they feel that they aren't important to their spouse because they aren't getting attention from them, and someone else comes along and offers that attention and feeling of being important to someone… well, it's a bad situation.

There's a relatively easy test to see if you love the person or the attention, though. It works like this: close your eyes. Now bring up the other person in your mind. What is it about that person that comes to mind? If your answer is a part of their body (a la eyes… if it's certain other portions of their anatomy, don't kid yourself, you know it isn't love), or the fun you have together, you may be loving the attention. If what comes to mind is more of a complete concept, something that's hard to put into words but is a representation of them and what they mean to you, something that if you're really open to it nearly brings tears to your eyes… THAT is being in love with the person.
You Don't Have Any Walls Just For The Other Person

I've been thinking a lot about "walls" lately… if you've been reading my stuff, you may have noticed. If you have any walls that are for a specific person, it means that person is important in your life. You may have walls that only your mother can hit, created in response to some pain she caused at some point in your life. You may have walls for any specific person who has caused you pain, and that can include your significant other.

Walls are built to keep pain out, but they don't… they keep pain in, trapped inside of you. When you build walls that are just for one person, you are doing two things… you are shutting that person out of that part of you, and you are holding on to pain that they caused. Holding on to pain that someone specific caused you isn't really a good way to have that relationship grow stronger and deeper, and a real love is generally either growing deeper or becoming more shallow.

Holding on to walls at all limits the heights you can reach, but holding on to walls against just one person also limits your depth.
When You Close Your Eyes, You Know They're There

In any really good (fantastic, anyone?) relationship, you share a bond of a depth that anyone who has not been in such a relationship cannot imagine. This connection can be stronger or weaker at different times, but one thing should always remain: if you close your eyes, you should know that the other person is there. I'm not talking about any psychic phenomenon, like knowing exactly where they are even though you're hundreds or thousands of miles apart. I am talking about that unshakable certainty, that depth of connection, that unmovable mountain that says "I am here".

If you've been in a good relationship where there is real love, you know exactly what I'm talking about. If you haven't, I can't explain it any better than that. You might be able to guess, but when you feel the real thing you'll know that your guess wasn't even a shadow of the truth.

Does your relationship have these elements? If you're not in a relationship currently, then may I recommend that next time you find one, and you think it might be THE one, you pause the breakneck plunge for just a moment to come back to this list and see if it has the signs of what could be a fantastic, long-lasting relationship?

As I said, this is not a list of "mechanical" type attributes of a relationship, things that can be quantified. It's a list of… well, I don't know how to describe the common thread, but it's there.

Does your relationship have these things? Does it have more or less of any given thing? Do you think any of the points listed above are more important than the others? Let me know in the comments.

Author

October 1st

Awareness, Communication, Expectations, Fear, Feed Your Mind, Relationships

Discard Your Life And Find The Real You

What is the real you? What is it that makes up the true you, what belongs to you and only you? What do you get when you see past the surface, past the anger and fear, "love" and betrayal, hurt, pain, and even agony? The real you… the deep you, the you that is beyond what the surface you can even imagine.

When you are born, you have no concept of your "self". As you grow older, you build up a structure, a belief system, a framework of lenses and mental maps through which you see the world. You are told, and you believe, that this framework is you. The framework gets covered with experiences and emotions, and even the spaces between the beams of the support structure get filled up eventually. You go on about your life with the belief that this giant amalgamation is you.

Everyone else around you believes this, too. Only what they think of as you isn't even the structure you have built up… it's only the surface of that structure, a surface that changes constantly as new experiences, new emotions, and new everything else piles up, sometimes stripping off pieces of the old coverings, but more often simply piling over them, making them part of the inside, and making that structure ever harder to discard.

As you go about, identifying more and more with this framework that you've built, some of it intentional construction, most of it not, you build walls, walling off this portion from that portion. You do this to protect yourself, to keep yourself from getting hurt, but that's not what they do, it's only what you fool yourself into believing they do. Because those walls don't keep things out, they keep things in.

That's right… you're building yourself a prison. A prison inside a structure that is built of the giant ball of stuff that you call your life. And you not only build this prison, you voluntarily stick yourself inside of it, trapping yourself in with all the pain and injuries that you have suffered over the years. And to top it off, the prison that you build, and trap yourself inside, can't ever even fulfill the purpose for which you supposedly built it… it can't even keep out new pain!

That's right… you build up this structure of falsehoods, lies told to yourself, walling yourself in to keep out the pain, and it doesn't even work. The walls only function in one direction… they hold things in. They hold you in… they limit you to far, far below your true abilities. They keep the pain that you have experienced close to you, so that it can continually injure you and prevent you from healing. What do you do when the pain builds, when it gets harder and harder to deal with? You build more walls, and build the walls you have higher!

The walls that you build for yourself are a prison… but they're also an illusion. They are part of the framework that you have built up, an integral part as a matter of fact. But here's the thing: that framework isn't you.

That's right, all those lenses and perceptions and mental maps, all those experiences and emotions, those hatreds and angers and fears… they aren't you. They're a tiny little pimple that you've built up on the surface of the real you. All that stuff that you're trying to protect, the part that hurts, the part that knows pain and fear and suffering… that is only the very smallest fraction of you. It's like looking at a tiny island in the middle of the ocean, and calling that the ocean.

The real you is vast. It is deep, and strong, and powerful. It cannot be hurt by the vagaries of this life, because it is only the tiniest fraction of it that is involved with this life. Your physical presence, and the structure that you have built up, are merely the tiny portion of it paying attention to what you perceive as your whole life. And when you identify yourself as that tiny portion, you are giving up the vastness of the real you, like identifying yourself as your pinky.

Your walls you have created are illusions, but they are self-maintained illusions, given the power that you are drawing through your connection to the real you. Want evidence that what I'm saying is right? It's very easy to obtain… all you have to do is let down one, just one, of your walls. You will immediately feel closer to that vastness that is the real you. And with each wall that you release, you will find yourself closer to that reality.

When you get close, you may be scared by the openness, the sheer open expanse that you feel drawing nearer. After all, for all of your life that you can remember, you have lived inside your walls. You may never have even had a moment's clarity, an opening of the mind's eye to see the vastness around you. If you HAVE had one of those moments, you may be even more scared, because you have an inkling of what it's like.

It's not an empty vastness, though… you aren't alone. In fact, when you reach that vastness, you'll find that you are connected to everyone and everything else, with a deepness of connection that the very word connection doesn't seem strong enough to convey the reality of what you feel. You are a part of everything, and everything is a part of you.

It's sometimes hard to keep this connection to the real you… it's easy to forget and focus back on the surface structure, identifying with that structure that you've built up. Once you've let the feeling go long enough, in fact, it's hard to remember what it was like… until something triggers it again, and then it all comes rushing back.

There is an old movie called Dune. They made a newer version of it, too, but I'm talking about the original. In it, there is a phrase that is repeated a few times: "The sleeper must awaken." I have always identified with this phrase… I've always felt like it meant something to me, something more. I've felt like there was something bigger slumbering inside me.

Lately, as I have read, and learned, and written, and looked inside of me, my awareness has gradually expanded, and the phrase has changed, in my mind, to "The sleeper is awakening." I felt that bigger thing inside of me stirring from its slumber, starting to uncoil.

Tonight, as I was talking to my wife to help her relax, something clicked. Sometimes the greatest words of wisdom come when the conscious mind gets the hell out of the way and lets things flow from far deeper inside. Suddenly, that thing that had slowly been awakening came aware. The sleeper has awoken.

This connection, this deeper you, is your connection to God, to the awareness that created, and contains, and in a way is, the universe. But it is being "consciously" (too small a term, I think) aware of that connection, not in some sort of vague "God created the Heavens and the Earth" kind of way. It is an intimate and strong connection, a direct connection. It is deep, wordless communication flowing back and forth, much of which, to this point at least, seems to be more of an "I am here" message and an "I know" response flowing from each direction.

This vastness is inside each of us… in fact, it IS each of us. We are not the limited lives reflected in the world we live in, we are not even the conscious part of our minds… we are far more than that. But in order to find our true selves, we must first give up the structure that have built up, that we have defined as "us"… and that's probably the hardest thing in the world to do. That last wall, the one that separates us from our true selves, the one that is the foundation of support for our whole framework of our lives, is really, really hard to let go. It is giving up the "you" that you have always known, for a great unknown.

Do not be afraid. The whole world will change before your eyes, leaving nothing unaltered. Once you let go of that last wall, and the fear, there will be no doubt, however.

It's worth it.

Author

September 28th

Awareness, Beliefs, Body/Mind Relationship, Communication, Conscience, Energy, Expectations, Fear, Feed Your Mind, Free Will, Growth, Healing, Internal Quiet, Learning, Motivation, Patterns, Relationships

Two Ways To Make Yourself Smarter Through Writing

Would you like to both appear, and actually be, smarter? There are many techniques out there that can help you to learn this or that easier, or improve your memory, but it's not quite so common to find techniques that allow you to increase your general ability to acquire and apply knowledge across the board.

If you're looking for such a way, or weren't particularly looking, but you're interested now that I caught your attention, continue reading this article. I have two such methods for you that both involve writing. Not only will they both help you to acquire, categorize, and interconnect knowledge, but because they involve writing, they will also improve your vocabulary (especially if you make that one of your goals while applying the techniques), which makes you sound (appear) smarter.

Alright, so let's get started… here is the first way to make yourself smarter:

Write About A Random Topic

Our first technique is to pick, or even better, have someone else pick for you, a random topic and write at least a page about it. If you want to get the most out of this method, write three to five pages about the topic. Write it as if you were writing it for someone else to read, not just for yourself, and it's even better if you do let someone else read it, as they can give you feedback to improve your writing. It can be whatever kind of writing you want… you can explain the topic, research it, introduce it, write fiction about it… whatever you want, they all work.

It doesn't really matter whether you know anything about the topic or not. If you do know something about the topic, then writing will help you to refine your knowledge and make it more concrete and easy to call to your conscious mind. If you write about a topic that you don't know much about, you will obviously have to learn something about it in order to write about it.

As you write more about things you know, you are practicing your skills of making information you already have usable and easy to recall. This makes it easier and easier to do this with any other topics as well… it's a general skill that you learn, not just applicable to the specific topics that you write about.

When you write about things you don't know you practice you skills involved in learning, categorizing, and applying new knowledge. Again, as above, this is a general skill which will improve your ability to do these three things with any new knowledge, not just a specific topic, and not even just when it comes to writing.

So, now on to the second way to make yourself smarter:

Connect Two Unrelated Topics

Our second technique is slightly more complicated, and really puts your mind to work. It works by picking two apparently unrelated topics, and finding a way to relate them. This can be anything… you can pick two random nouns from the dictionary, or as above, have someone else pick the two things for you. In fact, if you're really feeling adventurous, and wanting to push the envelope on this method, you can use more than two topics… but don't use too many, or the relations you draw between the topics lose their depth.

As above, this works best if you write it as if you were writing it for someone else, and actually allowing someone else to read it can result in feedback that improves your writing. It can also be any type of writing you want, but in this method you really need to write more than one page to get the full benefit. You can use up one page just introducing the two subjects, and you really want to give the connection between them some depth, as this is what makes this technique work.

This second technique teaches you how to see connections between two seemingly unrelated things. This is vital to pushing your intelligence to higher levels… being able to see the relationships between things where it's not obvious is what separates the smart people from the average people. It helps you to see more and more patterns in the world around you, and recognizing these patterns quickly and usefully is what intelligence is all about. Everything in the world, the universe, is related… there is a pattern that contains any two subjects, and of course there is the pattern that IS the universe.

Your ability and skills in the area of recognizing patterns will be stretched farther (and thus grow more) as the topics you use are less related. That means that if your two topics are monkeys and bananas, you're not stretching much, and won't get much. If you relate bananas and an allen wrench, that might be a bit more of a stretch, and thus you gain more.

Again, fictional stories also work for training these skills, though you might not get the added benefit of learning more about the topics as you would if you did another form of writing.

Shared Benefits

There's another useful thing that you can get out of using these techniques… if you have someone else who is reading your results, you are likely to be helping them improve their intelligence, as well. Their vocabulary should be expanding as yours does, and they, too, get to see connections between things they hadn't previously recognized as being related. Their benefits will be smaller than yours, because you are having to find those connections, while they are having them shown to them, but they will still benefit.

Make Either Technique More Effective

There are a few things that can make both techniques more effective. One of these things is to have someone else suggest your topics. This keeps you from going easy on yourself when you're feeling less motivated, and is likely to push you even more outside of your comfort zone. Another one is to have someone else, or several someone else's, read your end product. At least one of these people is likely to be the one who suggested the topics, but it's always good to include someone else, because they won't have any preconceptions based on knowing before reading what the topics were.

Another thing that makes both techniques more effective is to do it with a partner and suggest topics to each other, with a set time to finish your writing. After that time, which should be as short as possible without causing undue stress on either of you, you should give each other what you wrote, read the other person's writing, and then talk about it. This gives you added motivation to keep it up, added benefits from reading the other person's writing, and can make it more fun, as your suggestions for topics can mean something to you, and even if they don't before you write about them, they may have added meaning for both of you afterwards.

Summary

So… there you go. Want to be smarter, and make it apparent to other people as well? Practice one, or better yet both, of the techniques above. Make it work even better by finding a partner, or even a network (ie more than just you and one other person). Speaking of which, I'm interested in finding a partner or network for doing this myself… anyone interested?

Author

September 28th

Awareness, Communication, Feed Your Mind, Growth, Learning, Patterns

The Truth Behind Falling – And Being – In Love

Holding Hands

There is nothing like falling in love. Your whole self, body, heart, and mind, yearns for the person you are in love with. You want to be with them all the time, you wonder what they're doing or what they're thinking when you are not around them, and the whole world just seems like a better place. There's only one problem.

You can't, and won't, be falling in love forever. At some point, if you want to keep the relationship, you have to go from falling in love to being in love. If you're already at that point, you might want to read The Secret Killer Of Relationships or The Very SImple Secret To A Happy Marriage.

Falling In Love

Falling in love is the beginning (and can sometimes re-occur later, but I'll get to that)… it's that place where the other person, your significant other, can do no wrong. Everything about them is beautiful, fascinating, and you can't get enough of them. Any time your focus is not fully on something specific, your thoughts drift to the newly significant other in your life.

At this point, everything is new… every day together brings new revelations, new learning, which make you feel like you're getting more and more "inside" the other person. You let each other in deeper than the surface, and there is always a constant feeling of growing closer, an observable closing of the mental and emotional distance between the two of you.

That is a huge part of the greatness of falling in love… getting closer at a visible rate. It's also part of why it can't last forever. Eventually you are close enough that even as you grow closer, it's not as visible, and so it feels like you have stalled, or even like you are growing apart. When you are (bad, but understandable, analogy coming up) a mile apart, and you get 10% closer, that's a huge distance. When you are a foot apart, and you get 10% closer… that's a lot harder to see.

So does this mean that you have reached that point where you love each other, but you are no longer "in" love?

No… when you are growing closer at a very visible rate, that's the "falling" part of falling in love. When you are already close, and moving closer by inches (or even fractions of an inch, eventually), that's when it changes to being in love. It doesn't mean you're no longer in love, it just means that seeing results of your efforts, where you see the relationship grow, is not as easy, and so you need to find other sources of motivation as well.

Being In Love

Being in love is where it starts taking conscious involvement to keep the "in love" part without the falling. Now, instead of falling in love, you need to start being in love. You will have to go out of your way to keep yourself in your partner's thoughts (and make sure that they stay in yours!). If you don't go out of your way, it won't mean anything.

What does it mean to "go out of your way"? Going out of your way can mean different things to different people, but the important thing is that you are devoting the two things that you can't possibly acquire more of to them. What two things? Time and attention… you can't get more time and you have only a limited amount of attention to invest during the time you do have. Giving time and attention, therefore, is the universally recognized way to convey someone's (or something's) importance to you.

When you are falling in love, and everything is new, it's easy to devote an enormous amount of attention (and with it time) to your significant other. New things always have a draw on our attention… it's part of being human, and part of our survival instinct (you have to determine whether or not something new is a threat, after all). That's why it's also easier to stick with a new diet, or a new workout, or why you may find you love a new dish or a new restaurant. Once something (or in our case, someone) become familiar, however, it requires a conscious decision to dedicate mental energy (attention) to that thing (or, as I said, person).

When you combine that advantage of newness drawing our attention with the visibly growing closeness of the relationship, it makes giving more attention to the relationship a no-brainer. It doesn't require much in the way of conscious effort, because not only is your subconscious driving you to make sure this "new" thing is not a threat, but the rewards are blindingly obvious.

Once you get to the point of obviously diminishing returns, however, you start to notice that the same amount of effort doesn't move you the same amount closer. At the same time, the subconscious drive to categorize anything new as "threat" or "non-threat" fades away, leaving you with much less "drive" to devote attention to the relationship. Other things start to claim your attention, drawing it away from your significant other.

I mentioned earlier that your partner needs you to give two things in order to keep being in love, as opposed to just loving each other (the difference between soul mates and good friends). One was time, the other attention. Out of the two of these, time is the easiest to give, attention the most important.

Attention Is Money

Despite the phrase above, attention is far more important than money. Attention is the currency by which you show how much you value something. You've heard the saying "time is money" but time without attention means nothing. Whatever it is that you do, it's highly unlikely that they truly pay you for your time… they really pay for your attention across time. They pay you to write, to watch a security monitor, to serve burgers… whatever it is, they may pay you for the hours you do it, but if you don't "do it", whatever it is, you don't get paid.

This applies to relationships, too. Giving time without attention is sort of like leaving a seventeen cent tip at a restaurant… it lets the other person know that you didn't forget, you just didn't think they were worthy of more. It's insulting, whether done consciously, as with the tip, or subconsciously, as with spending time with your significant other without giving them your full attention.

When you give someone time, without attention, you are telling them that they are low on your priority list. It doesn't matter whether you intend for them to be or not… you are showing them, with your actions, that they are. You can show someone that they have your attention in many ways… communication is an extremely important one, but there is also buying them something (probably the least effective way), making them something (the more it reflects the fact that it is something YOU created, the better), or doing something with them (ie going out to dinner and/or a movie).

All of the ways listed above can show your attention, but if you don't show your mental involvement, show that you were thinking of them specifically, the value drops. For instance, when you buy something for your significant other, if you don't take the time to buy something that they specifically like (for instance buying roses when your wife prefers tulips), it loses some of its value… that doesn't mean it has no value, just less. The same goes for making them something… if you don't show that you were thinking about them when you made it, it loses some value. If you do something with them, and keep taking phone calls, it takes away some of the value.

Communication is a special case. By the very act of communicating, you are giving them some fraction of your attention. Different forms of communication show different amounts of attention, and also show how much of your attention the other person has to different degrees. Email, for instance, doesn't require much attention, or show how much attention the other person has, unless it's a long and involved email, which could STILL have been written across time, and thus be less of your attention. Instant messaging, on the other hand, still doesn't require a lot of attention, but shows how much of your attention the other person has a little better, because they can see how long you take to respond. Voice communication (ie a phone call) is better yet, as it requires more attention, and they can hear in your voice how much of your attention they have. An in-person meeting provides them with the most attention, and lets them read your body language as well to determine how much of your current attention they have.

The Difference

What it boils down to, then, is that the difference between falling in love and being in love is that you can't fall forever. Eventually you have to move from falling in love to being in love, from the easy part to the part which requires your conscious effort. It IS worth that effort, though… being in love still moves you closer, and still builds your relationship and love higher. It just exchanges speed for depth… it goes back and fills in all the little chinks that falling in love passed over.

You can also fall in love all over again. This usually happens when you let your partner slide from your attention for too long, and then something wakes you up to that fact. All of a sudden what was old and familiar is new and different. You close the gap that opened up between you, and now have that momentum to keep you going once you move back to being in love once again.

Again, falling in love is absolutely wonderful. It is an amazing experience, and one you will likely always remember. Being in love, though, has depth and duration that falling in love is not capable of producing.

Falling in love gets you to the starting line. Being in love is the rest of the race. And when you win at being in love, you win big.

Author

September 26th

Awareness, Communication, Energy, Growth, Motivation, Perseverance, Priorities, Relationships

11 Bad Signs Your Man Is A Gator

Alligator

Women always seem to have a hard time recognizing when a man is an alligator (or gator, for short) looking for easy prey. A gator is a man that tricks women into starting or continuing a relationship. This is most often, from what I have seen, because he has more than one woman (or is looking for more than one… he may not show many of these signs if you're the only one he has currently).

I can't count the number of times I've had to point these signs out to my friends of the female persuasion, and most of time, even when I do, they refuse to believe… THEIR guy couldn't possibly be a gator. Until the guy does something so obvious even they can't ignore it. And then they fall for it again with the next guy. And the next.

Women, please pay attention… if your man does one of these things, it's a warning sign. If he does all of them, he's clearly identifying himself as a gator.

Here they are, in no particular order:

No PDA (Public Display of Affection)

Now admittedly, there are some people who are simply uncomfortable with public displays of affection, but if he won't even hold your hand… that's a bad sign. It's an even worse sign if you notice that there are times when he's totally comfortable with it, and other times when he's not comfortable at all, especially if you notice that it's specific places (excluding, of course, places where it IS inappropriate, like church) where he is uncomfortable, or places in a specific area (such as near his home or work).
Only Calls You At Odd (Or Specific) Times

Another very common sign of a gator is that he only calls you at odd times or only at specific times. The specific times could be, for instance, when he is at work, or even more so when he is at lunch at work. The odd times could be late at night, early in the morning, etc. If he never calls you during prime off business hours, be careful.
Frequently Doesn't Answer When You Call

This is a HUGE red flag raising, alarm bell ringing kind of bad sign. If he doesn't take your call when he's in a meeting, that's one thing. If he doesn't take your call an hour after he's supposed to be off work, and this is a regular occurrence, it's time to be suspicious… very suspicious.
Never Wants To Be At His Place (With You)

Some guys just don't want you over because they feel like their place is not up to par with what they think you want/expect, and so they will be lowered in your opinion. This is relatively rare, however, especially if you are having a great time, feeling close, and heading toward being intimate… there are VERY few guys that will turn away from going to their place at that point, unless, possibly, they have roommates (which I suppose would still be the case if they are married ).
Gets Nervous At Spontaneous Time Together Requests

If your man is not the nervous type, or the perfectionist planner type, but they still get nervous when you say "Let's go do something right now" or even "Let's go have dinner tonight", you can pretty much count on the fact there is something odd going on. There's probably also something odd if they always have to call someone, and talk privately, immediately after such a suggestion.
Says I Love You In Private, But Not Public

There are a few old fashioned people who don't say I love you in public, but it's rare these days. If you say it to him, and he doesn't say it back, or says something vague that could be interpreted to mean something else, that's a bad sign. It's a sign, as so many of these are, that he may be trying to hide your relationship.
"Friend" Body Language In Public

If you notice that your man stands a little farther from you in public, that he is generally facing slightly away from you, and even when you're having a conversation he doesn't face you directly, these are all body language indicators that he is distancing himself from you, that he is uncomfortable with you being seen as someone with whom he is in a relationship. Of course, you might want to check your body odor, too.
Never Wants To Go Somewhere Near His Place

This was mentioned in passing above… if your man never wants to go anywhere that is near where he lives, and especially if he doesn't want to go anywhere near where he works, either, you have a potential gator. And it's a rather strong potential, at that. The only way that sort of behavior makes any sense is if he doesn't want someone to know he's with you… and if he doesn't want someone to know he's with you, there's a reason there that most likely spells trouble even if it's not another woman.
You Never Meet Any Of His Friends

This is, of course, assuming he has friends. Some guys don't make friends easily… if your man is one of those types, don't take this too seriously. On the other hand, if he's always hanging out with someone else when he's not with you, and you never meet any of these someone elses… then you have plenty of cause to be suspicious
Often Takes Calls In The Other Room

If he takes calls in the other room all the time, or uses some other way to be where you can't hear what he says, you have a problem, whether it has to do with your relationship or not. There is very little reason why someone would need to regularly speak privately away from his significant other. Most of the reasons that I can think of why someone WOULD do that are bad… the only thing I can think of that's not bad would be a doctor/patient or lawyer/client relationship. And even with those exceptions, they really shouldn't be receiving that many of them while you're together.
Their Words Don't Match Their Actions

This is true of any relationship… if they say one thing and do another, that's a bad sign. If nothing else, it immediately calls into question their trustworthiness. It might not be a big deal: for instance, some people will NOT remember to call you back, even if they say they will do so. If they are that way with you and not with other things, however, you can be sure there is something fishy (or gator-y) going on.

One more thing, as a bonus… your man may call you "honey" or "baby" or some other pet name, it may not be because he loves you so much… it may be because he doesn't want to slip and say the wrong name.

Again, if your man does one of these things, it doesn't mean he's a gator… but it might mean you want to watch for the other signs more closely. And, in truth, these signs are mostly from the "second woman" perspective, though some of them apply otherwise, as well, but then again, there are tons of articles out there in magazines and on the web about how to tell if your man is cheating on you (one of the most popular topics of women's magazines, from what I can tell looking at the magazine covers in the check out line at the store).

PS – Thank you to Jenny for a couple suggestions for the list.

Author

September 13th

Awareness, Communication, Relationships

7 Macho Traits That Mean Nothing

What is the measure of a man? What does it mean to be a “good man”? What is it that makes one man a good man, respected by all who know him, while another is admired but not necessarily respected, and yet another is looked upon as unworthy of the title of “man” at all?

It is very common to use surface traits, traits that are easily visible from a distance, to judge a man. These traits, however, describe what a man has, rather than who he is. While you can measure a man by what he has, it easily leads to giving someone far more credit than they deserve, and putting your faith in someone who will fold under pressure.

There is a single word which sums up using surface traits as a measure of a man: macho. Someone who is macho possesses these surface traits, usually without the underlying core traits, is considered macho. Someone who possesses the deeper traits can be better described as honorable. The two are not quite mutually exclusive, but it is fairly rare to know someone who is thought of as both, because those who are honorable rarely play up the surface traits, often even downplaying them as unimportant.

Below is a list of seven of the most common of the surface traits that fall under the label “macho”, along with the “honorable” trait for which they are being used as a proxy.

Physical Strength/Toughness

Core Trait(s): Persistence, Inner Strength
Physical strength or toughness are often used as a substitute for persistence, or inner strength. There is something to this, as going on in spite of injury (toughness) does show persistence and at least a measure of inner strength, as does sticking with working out long enough to become strong. Both of these only show one small piece of persistence and inner strength, however… a man can be quite tough and strong physically, but wilt away like a flower when it comes to things like taking care of his family.
Showing No Emotion

Core Trait(s): Inner Strength
Many men make the mistake of thinking that being strong means not showing any emotions. This is silly… all people feel emotions, and denying yours actually gives them power over you, because you push them out of your conscious mind and into your subconscious, where they can still affect you, but you are no longer aware of what it is that’s doing the affecting. Denying that you have emotions, suppressing them every time you feel them, simply keeps you from actually dealing with them. True inner strength involves accepting that you have emotions, facing them, dealing with them, and doing what you need to do.
Being Aggressive

Core Trait(s): Honor, Respect
It is very common for men to believe that they need to aggressively demand respect from all of those around him, to prove their honor. Respect, however, cannot be taken. It must be earned, and that requires showing that you are worthy of it over time. Look at anyone who is REALLY respected, like the Godfather. How often is he aggressive? Rather than being aggressive, he stands his ground, and will not violate his honor, nor allow another to do so. Even when something physically aggressive is done on his behalf, it’s never him being aggressive… he just indicates that he wants it taken care of, and someone does so. Learn from his example… respect does not come from aggression.
Wealth

Core Trait(s): Strength, Respect
People often use a man’s wealth as a sign of whether or not he is worthy of respect. They also often think that having great wealth is itself a sign of strength. Whether or not these things are true depend on a lot of things, the biggest of which is whether the man earned the wealth himself or was given it. A man who was given wealth actually tends to be LESS worthy of respect, and weaker, than one who has no wealth to speak of. For those who earn it, the longer it took to earn the wealth, the more likely it is that they actually ARE worthy of the respect generally accorded to them just for their wealth. All that being said, wealth in itself has NO significance for how honorable or worthy of respect someone has. There are homeless people possessed of far more honor, and worthy of far more respect, than some of the wealthiest people in the world.
Political Power

Core Trait(s): Strength, Respect
This can be political power within any large organization, whether government, corporate, non-profit, or something else entirely. This is a surface trait… like physical strength, political power IS one measure of strength, but not a good indicator of the strength that matters, strength of character. A politician may wield power, that doesn’t make them worthy of respect. Just look at Hitler, Stalin, Saddam Hussein, etc… they had great political power, but the last thing they were is good men. They lacked honor, integrity, and were unworthy of respect as a person (it’s certainly arguable that some of their achievements deserve respect, but as a person, they don’t).
Fame

Core Trait(s): Strength, Respect
Fame is very similar to wealth. It does grant you power, as does wealth, but as mentioned many times already, power is not the same as strength, let alone the inner strength that is so important to being a good man.

Some people earn their fame through their accomplishments, like Mother Theresa (I know this is about men… but she is the most recognizable example of what I’m talking about that I can recall at the moment). Others achieve fame by accident, like a lottery winner. Still others acquire fame by virtue of their position, like the Pope, or the President of the United States (or even candidate for President). The fame itself is meaningless as a tool to evaluate who someone is. All it does is bring the person to your (and a lot of other people’s) attention. That makes granting someone respect, or assumptions of honor, simply based on their fame, silly.
Women

Core Trait(s): Strength, Respect
People often give men respect they don’t deserve simply based on which women they have been in relationships with, or, alternatively, the sheer number of women they have been with. Many women have poor taste when it comes to men… basing your opinion of a man based on some woman’s (or women’s) opinion is foolish. In fact, the fact that a man has been with a large number of women is a pretty solid indicator that their honor, integrity, and faithfulness are lacking. It may be a sign that they are virile, possessing strength in that sense, but certainly not the inner strength that is a reflection of who they are.

Be careful, when looking at a man, and evaluating him, that you separate the macho from the honorable, the surface persona from the core person. There are times when you will WANT to evaluate someone based on their surface traits, or what they have, rather than who they are… when you’re looking for someone to help you move, for example. It’s important, though, to do so consciously, when it is desirable, rather than using those macho traits as a substitute for who they are, what kind of man they are, and how much trust you can put in them.