Ed,

Thanks for sharing once again a very worthwhile tip on communication. We as as a society have a very limited time when we are actually facc to face with a person so being aware during that time is even more important then ever. Your story shows how even the littlest thing can influnence the communicaton process.

Giving the other person our full attention with good eye contact can make a difference with
the outcome.

However awareness is the first step and thanks for sharing this today.

Hi Ed,Leadership without Awareness will not lead us to maximum potential that we have. Therefore, we have to think or full awareness that we do need leadership to bring out the best in people. So, we have to belief it first before doing others.

Ed, yes, thanks for the reminder. Self-awareness is a prerequisite for leadership. My field is pastoral theology. The goal for pastoral formation for many, if not most, seminaries is to make their students “self aware.” It is the only way they can put themselves “on the shelf” so they can attend to the needs of another. St. Gregory the Great reminds those in ministry that the great threat to ministry – as to most professions – is the opposite of self-awareness; which is self-deception. So, self-awareness has a positive affect but it also protects against a real danger – to ministers, to other professionals, and to leaders.

Thanks for the reminder to not beat ourselves up when we make mistakes. It doesn’t work when we try it on others, yet we too often try to motivate ourselves that way. “The (verbal) beatings will continue until morale improves!”

Hi Ed: I have been working on increasing my awareness for about 20 years. I’ve made progress but it is surprisingly difficult. I do agree that awareness or mindfulness is one of the most critical aspects of any personal or professional growth (or any learning whatsoever!) One resource that I have found useful is a book called “Mindfulness in Plain English” by Henepola Gunaratana. Don’t let his name scare you off; he’s very readable.
brian

Perfect message for me today, and thank you for the invitation to not beat myself up. I pride myself on awareness, but this entire week I have been pretty much just been into my own to do list and not aware of what is going on around me. Thank you.

Ed, as I read your comment, I was thinking back to my introduction to an NLP (Nero Linguistic Programming) class I took many years ago. One of the first things we learned about was “matching”.

The idea is that whenever you are talking with someone, and your goal is to influence, you “match” their body language, gestures, etc. You must do this in a subtle way. As you succeed in matching, you can then begin to effect their attitudes, so the theory goes, by using “open” language versus the “closed” language they may be using when you initially begin the conversation.

There is obviously a lot more to NLP, however your story pulled up an important memory of that training, so I wanted to share the thought.

Jim