Imagine my surprise when the CEO responded to me directly:

“Celes, you probably don’t remember but you coached me during some of my tough times. You and Tony Robbins helped me tremendously. You helped me do the limitless. :) ” — Deep

Surprised, I quickly scanned my mind for all the clients I’ve worked with before. Deep? From 2009? The details came flooding back. I recalled that Deep had signed up for my coaching 8 years ago in 2009. At that time he was a manager at a top bank, but felt empty with his work and life. During our sessions, we worked on finding his life direction, creating his career vision, and building his business plan, among other things.

After our sessions ended, Deep left his job and freed himself from his baggage. He traveled for a year, worked on his personal growth, and then started to build a software, which led him to found his company today. With over 15 million orders processed, he is helping thousands of business owners today, and the number continues to grow.

Planting Seeds

When I looked back at our coaching logs in 2009, it’s remarkable to see Deep’s vision turn into reality. Here’s what he wrote back then:

• His life vision: “To generate enormous wealth to help the human community.”
• His business vision: “To make awesome tools, information products, and online marketplaces to help small business owners across the world. To be a preferred choice for all our clients, customers and partners.”

This is exactly what he is doing now.

It got me thinking about the concept of planting seeds. How a seemingly small action can blossom and lead to some unimaginable, amazing outcome later.

Corn seeds, ready to be planted into the soil (Image)

For Deep, when he decided to act on his emptiness in life, he didn’t have a big brand plan to start a world-class business. He just wanted clarity on what to do next. He planted his first seed — to act on his unhappiness. His second seed was when he took the leap of faith to sign up for my coaching. After all, he didn’t know me personally, and the only thing he knew about me was through my articles.

During one of our sessions, I told him: “Don’t restrict yourself with your situation in life. Don’t worry about whether something is possible, realistic or logical. Just imagine this as your anything-goes menu where you can order anything you want from the universe.”

This really struck him. Following this direction, he opened his heart, wrote his vision and was extremely inspired by what he wrote. This was the third seed planted.

Subsequently, we discussed other things during our calls, including his goals, values, and plans. These planted seeds would germinate and grow into his company today, with him being the CEO of a team of 12 employees across the United States and India.

It is the same for other goals in life. Every goal, no matter how big, starts off as a seed.

• Dating — You want to meet the love of your life. It starts by clearing your limiting beliefs surrounding love. Then opening your heart to others. Then meeting new people. Then building relationships. Then assessing the right guy/girl, if the connection is for you. These are some of the things I teach in Soulmate Journey, my course on finding love, and some of my participants have been updating me on their new-found relationships and upcoming nuptials.
• Friendship — Having best friends you can rely on doesn’t happen overnight. It starts by being there for others first. Giving without expecting to receive. Being responsive. Making the effort to maintain your friendships. 
• Health — Having good health doesn’t come from exercising and eating healthily for one single day. It’s something that you build over time. Choosing healthy over unhealthy food each day. Choosing to be active. Many seeds planted over a long period, every day.
• Family — Having positive family relationships takes time, especially if your family relationships aren’t perfect to begin with. Caring for them. Doing little acts of kindness. I had a client who made the decision to work on her estranged relationship with her mom. One year after our coaching, their relationship is now in a much more positive place, where they talk with love and understand each other more.
• Career — Getting an amazing job doesn’t happen overnight. You have to first plan your career. Build your skills and talent stack. Then network and build relationships with industry peers, recruiters, and headhunters.
• Business — Same for a successful business. It starts with a vision. Then taking an endless series of steps to build your empire. Making endless iterations, adapting every second. Being open to failure and criticism, because these will always be there no matter what you do.

For each seed, you nurture it by giving water, warmth and sunlight. As you do that, it grows into a seedling. Then a plant. Then a sapling. Then a tree.

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The tree here refers to what you want to achieve — run a successful business, have a great career, have a great relationship, have great friends, have great health, be financially abundant, be a prominent figure in your field, have your TV/talk show, move overseas, travel around the world, or some other goal.

The seeds here refer to your first steps to make your goal happen.

Many people often look at the trees, wondering when they are going to get that. Nice, big, gorgeous trees that they want in their garden.

But that’s missing the point. The critical point is not the manifestation of the trees, but the planting of the seeds. Because if you are not planting seeds, how can the trees grow? How can you expect to get results, when you have not put in the effort to get things moving?

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Planting Seeds in Your Life

This brings me to these questions:

1. What goals have you been meaning to pursue, but are putting off? In Love? Health? Carer? Business? Family? Friendships? Pick two areas.
2. What is the first seed you can plant to get it going?
3. How about the next 3 seeds? What can you do to keep this momentum going?

Say you want to switch to a career in Machine Learning. However, your past experience and skills are not in this area. A possible seed you can plant is to take up a course in Machine Learning. I have a friend who is doing a two-year Masters course in Machine Learning for this very reason — to switch to this field after he graduates. 

If you have an aptitude for programming, you can self-learn with free materials online and tools like TensorFlow. You can develop open-source tools using machine learning, get user feedback and market results (e.g. X number of downloads, featured on XYZ magazine), and highlight these achievements in your resume as validation of your skills in this area. This is exactly what my husband did in the past year, though in a different field, and he’s now able to pivot and switch his career to this new field.

Or say you want to get married at some point. You are 35, single, and constantly tied up with work. Maybe a good first step is to draw some boundaries with work. Stop working all the time and create a cutoff. Set aside a few hours each week to meet new people. Examine if you have inner blocks to love, which is very common for long-standing singles, and engage a coach to help you address these blocks. Staying immersed in work, without opening yourself to others, will not help you get into your dream relationship.

Not all the seeds that we plant will blossom. Sometimes there are seeds that just don’t germinate. For example, when you reach out to a friend to build a connection, but it’s not reciprocated. When you want to build a relationship with someone, but he/she is not interested. When you start a project and put in the due effort, but it doesn’t turn out the way you want. When you try to help someone, but get a negative or lukewarm response. When you open your heart and trust someone, but he/she bites you in the head.

But that doesn’t matter. Not all actions will lead to results. But some will. The goal is to plant as many seeds as possible in pursuing your goal. To plant the right seeds by getting advice from the right people and sources, because these shape your day-to-day thinking and long-term direction. To create so many avenues and possibilities for success, that success is imminent. To never stop taking action.

So… what seeds do you need to start planting? Can you get started right away today? Because the sooner you plant your seeds, the sooner you water them and care for them, the faster they will germinate, grow, and blossom. And how your future will be, 10, 15 years down the road will be shaped by the seeds you plant today.

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Recently I was sharing a problem with a good friend over text. Not only did he respond right away, which I didn’t expect because it was late his time (he lives in a different timezone), but he was very thoughtful in his reply. Some things he did that made me feel better:

• He didn’t assume, but asked questions to understand my situation.
• He didn’t judge but understood things from my perspective.
• He considered the situation from various angles.
• He gave me helpful suggestions on what could work.
• He sought to share my feelings, which were unhappiness, hurt, and frustration, rather than dismiss or brush them away, which I find common when I share my problems with other friends.

I later realized that he had woken up midway through the night and saw my message, and seeing that I was in need, chose to respond rather than return to sleep. Our conversation ended up being over an hour long. Needless to say, I was very thankful and later texted him, “Thanks X. I really appreciate having you as a friend. :) “

How to Have Empathy

Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another person. Having the ability to put yourself in other’s shoes, and to relate and understand where they are coming from, even if you have not been in the situation before.

It goes without saying that being empathetic is an important skill. I have shared personal problems with friends before but got replies that made me feel worse, and made me deeply regret sharing my problem. I have also made casual remarks that people would pick up, which later turned into heartfelt conversations, like with my good friend above.

When you are empathetic towards others, you help them feel better about themselves. You let them know that they are not alone in their problems. You also strengthen your relationship with the person, because when you seek to share the feelings of the other, you allow thoughts and emotions to flow between the both of you.

So how can we be more empathetic? Here are 8 tips to be empathetic to our friends, colleagues and family.

1. Put yourself in the person’s shoes. It’s easy for us to comment and judge. We can say “This is no big deal” or “I don’t see why you feel this way” or “You’re over-reacting.” However, put yourself in the person’s shoes and walk a mile. Maybe they are undergoing great pain and difficulty. Maybe they are experiencing deep problems from other areas of their life. Maybe there are little issues that led them to behave this way. Without knowing the full details of a person’s problem, how can we make a conclusion? Imagine you are the person. Imagine going through this problem right now, and try to understand things from their perspective. This will allow you to connect with their emotions and perspective better.
2. Show care and concern. When someone tells you a personal problem, chances are he/she doesn’t feel well and needs your emotional support. Show care and concern. Ask, “How are you feeling?” to show concern. “Is there anything I can do for you?” is a great way to show support. If you are close friends, offering to talk on the phone or meet up, can make a big difference to them. If he/she is your partner, give him/her a hug and be there for him/her.
3. Acknowledge the person’s feelings. One of the biggest problems I find in communication is that many people don’t acknowledge the other person’s feelings. Acknowledging means to recognize the importance of something. So for example, someone says “I feel so frustrated with X.” Acknowledging this feeling means saying, “Why are you frustrated?” or “I’m sorry to hear that. What happened?”
   
   On the other hand, when you brush off or dismiss that emotion (e.g. “Relax,” “What’s the big deal?”), or you try to avoid the topic or say something irrelevant, you are not acknowledging — or respecting — their feelings. Think about emotions as the connecting point in a conversation. How you respond to an emotion is central to whether the person continues to share or closes off. When someone expresses an emotion, like “I’m sad,” “I’m angry,” or “I’m frustrated,” acknowledge the emotion. For example: “I’m so sorry that you are feeling this,” “This must be really frustrating,” or “What happened?”
4. Ask questions. Questions open a conversation. When someone gets the courage to share, especially a personal problem, asking questions encourages them to share more. Think about what the person said and ask meaningful questions.
   
   For example, say your friend confides to you that she just broke up with her long-term boyfriend. Asking questions like, “What happened?”, “Are you okay?” or “Why did you guys break up?” can help her open up. It also tells her that you want to hear more. On the other hand, giving nondescript remarks like, “I see, hope you can move on,” or “Breaking up is normal,” or “Rest well and take a break” are not only unhelpful, but shuts them from opening up further.
5. Mirror. A big conversation stopper is when someone types 10 paragraphs of text while you respond with one short line. Same when you respond to a deeply personal message with a mono-syllabic response, like “I see” or “Ok.” That’s because the person is being very open, while your response is closed off. You are not responding in resonance with the person.
   
   This is where mirroring comes in. Mirroring means to imitate someone’s nonverbal signals — gesture, speech pattern, or attitude  — to build rapport. In my opinion, NLP practitioners have made a bad rep out of mirroring. They teach people to replicate a person’s mannerisms from head to toe. But this misses the point — mirroring is about connecting authentically with others. The goal is not to “copy” someone’s mannerisms blindly, but to use it to build rapport.

   For example, if your friend shares a personal fact, reciprocate by sharing a personal fact of your own (if relevant). If they make eye contact, reciprocate by giving eye contact. If they look away, look away and give them some private space. Don’t copy every aspect of their body language without thought. Instead, adjust your behavior to match their tone and vibe.

6. Don’t run ahead of the conversation. A big mistake I notice people making when someone is sharing a problem, is that they simply jump to the end point of the conversation.
   
   For example: Someone tells you he just got retrenched. You reply, “I see. Hope you can get a job soon.” What’s wrong with this? Firstly, the person just got retrenched, so he’s likely feeling hurt and depressed. The more empathetic thing to do is to understand how he is feeling first. Secondly, the person may be retrenched because the job market is bad. Saying “Hope you can get a job soon” can feel like you’re rubbing salt into a wound, because it reminds them of the uncertainty ahead.

   What will help is to (a) connect the person based on their current emotional state, and (b) move them forward with forwarding questions. In the retrenchment example, a good way to approach the conversation will be asking the following questions, in this order: “I’m so sorry to hear that. What happened?” → “How are you feeling now?” → “What are your plans?” → (and if he wants to look for a job soon) → “What kind of jobs are you looking for?” Insert other questions in between, depending on the exchange.

   Another example: Someone just ended a long-term relationship. Saying “Cheer up and be happy” right away is insensitive as it downplays the person’s pain. Instead, ask questions like “How are you feeling?”, “Are you okay?”, “What happened?”, or “Do you want to talk?” to move them out of their pain. While you may have good intentions in telling the person to be happy, it doesn’t help as you are not acknowledging their pain. It’s the same as denying their emotion and trying to tell them that their pain is not real, or not justified. Put yourself in the person’s shoes and imagine how they feel (tip #1). Pace and match the person’s emotional state, rather than trying to rush the conversation to a specific end point.

7. Don’t judge. Judgment shuts off a conversation. This is the same for prejudgment, which means forming a judgement on an issue (or person) before you have adequate information. For example, say your friend gets into an argument with her boss, and you assume she is in the wrong because her boss is a manager. Or say, your friend scored poorly for exams, and you assume that he didn’t study — even though there could be other reasons like family problems. The best way is not to pass judgement. Give the person the benefit of the doubt. Everyone is struggling to do their best in life, so why judge and bring someone down?
8. Show emotional support. Last but not least, give emotional support. This means, give them your trust and affirmation. Encourage them. Let them know that no matter what happens, you have their back. A supportive statement I often get is from my good friend R is: “Knowing you, you always consider things very carefully. So whatever happens, I will support you.” Sometimes, what people are looking for is not answers. It’s also not solutions. Sometimes, all people are looking for is empathy and support. That in this big world of strangers, filled with fear and uncertainty, that there is someone here to support them, without judgement or bias.

How can you apply the above to your relationships today? :)

Read:

• 10 Rules of a Great Conversationalist
• How to Have More Best Friends: My Heartfelt Guide
• How To Give Constructive Criticism: 6 Helpful Tips
• Feeling Disconnected

Don Ritchie

How did he do that?

Don happened to live near The Gap, an ocean cliff at Sydney. It is a popular visitor destination which has gained infamy as a suicide spot over the years. It is estimated that about 50 people end their lives here each year.^[1]

The Gap, an ocean cliff in Sydney. It’s located at the entrance to Sydney Harbor. It is a well-known place for suicides in Australia.

As individuals walked up to the cliff, looking at the crashing waves below and wondering whether to jump, Don would approach them with a smile asking, “Why don’t you come and have a cup of tea?“

Accepting his offer, these people would be invited into his home where they would have a chat over tea. No counseling, no advising, no prying. Just one human being lending a listening ear to another. Some of these people had mental problems, some had medical illnesses, some are just people going through a rough patch in life. For many, a listening ear was apparently what they needed as they changed their minds about jumping after the chat, and turned back home.

As Don put it in this video,

“Over the years, whether it’s a 160 [people] or 260 or somebody talking about 400 the other night, I have spoken to many, many of them just that way, of [sic] saying, ‘What are you doing over here? Please, come and talk to me. Come over and have a cup of tea. Come and have a beer,’ or something like that. To get them away from their mind, away from going over [the cliff] while I’m there.

And that’s the selling of the idea of coming over and talk about it. ‘Tell me why, what are you worried about?‘

A big percentage of them came and talked to me.”^[2]

This was what Don did for almost 50 years. Talking to the people who walked up the cliff and were contemplating suicide. Extending a helping hand. Giving them a listening ear. And saving countless from suicide in the process. One woman whom Don and his wife saved would write back or visit about once a year, letting them know that she is happy and well.

In 2006, Don was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for “service to the community through programs to prevent suicide.” Him and his wife Moya were named “Citizens of the Year” for 2010 by Woollahra Council, the local government authority responsible for The Gap. He also received Local Hero Award for Australia in 2011.^[3] Don died in 2012 at the ripe old age of 86.

Don didn’t manage to save everyone in his time, naturally. Some were already gone by the time he rushed to the cliff. Some rejected his invitation and jumped. Sometimes he would climb over the fence and forcibly hold them while Moya called the police. Once it almost cost his life as the woman tried to launch herself over the side, with Don being the only thing between her and the abyss!^[4]

Yet, Don didn’t weigh himself down with those who were lost. He said that he could not remember the first suicide he witnessed, and none had plagued his dreams. He did his best with each person, and if he lost one, he accepted that there was nothing more he could have done.^[4]

What can we learn from Don’s story?

Sometimes, in our very busy life, we tend to forget about people.

The people who need help, who are just trying to do their best to get by, who are facing their own stresses and worries.

The people who are next to us, or are behind the computer screens at the receiving end of our email/message, or are donning official roles and titles but are people nonetheless.

We may sometimes forget that they are people. Sometimes, we may think of them as objects to help us get things done. Or we may think of them as people who have it altogether, and it doesn’t matter what we say to them or how we treat them — they can deal with their own issues and emotions as we have our own problems to deal with.

But that ain’t true. Every human being is a person. A person with feelings, thoughts, aspirations, fears, responsibilities, and commitments. Just as we’re struggling with our problems, the person next to us, opposite us, or at the other side of the world using the internet to communicate with us also has their own problems that they are struggling with. Just because people aren’t screaming about their issues or aren’t walking around with a tag saying that they are stressed or frustrated doesn’t mean they don’t have their problems.

So how about stopping to show some kindness to a fellow person? :)

• Send a simple text to check how a friend is doing
• Start a conversation with someone
• Give a smile to a stranger or service staff
• Give a hug
• Give a genuine compliment to someone who did good work
• Give someone a call to say hi
• Lend a helping hand to someone who has a problem. For example, if you have a friend who is trying to find a job, see if they need help with their resume, or if they need pointers on job search. Or if you know someone who just went through a breakup, see if they need a listening ear or want to hang out.
• Send a thank-you note to someone who made a difference in your life
• Give a tip to someone who gave great service

So the funny thing about today’s world is that when you try to be friendly and kind, some people may think you are crazy. Some may react adversely and push you aside. Some may be busy and not be able to take you up on your offer (though that doesn’t mean they won’t do a rain check).

But there will be some people who will need this care and love, right now, right when you show it. Perhaps they don’t even know that they need it. Perhaps they may push away your offer of kindness, only to take it up soon after. Perhaps they will react with shock as they never thought someone would care, and then gratefully reciprocate.

For these people, your small little act will make a world of a difference. You may think it doesn’t matter, but it does make a big difference to them. Just as Don’s little invitation for tea and a chat may seem inconsequential to practical people of the material world, such human touch and empathy is exactly what is missing in our world today.

You never know whose life you may change in the process. And perhaps in doing so, you may end up changing your life too. :)

Check out my kindness challenge, which consists of 14 tasks of kindness over 14 days: Kindness Challenge Overview

Other articles I’ve written on inspiring individuals:

• Barbie Thomas: Body Builder with No Arms
• 11 Life Lessons to Learn From Steve Jobs
• 7 Lessons I Learned from a Blind Stranger

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Do you hate to say no? Do you often find yourself saying yes because you don’t like to make others feel bad?

Well, I do, and I can relate. I used to be terrible at saying no until I realized that continually saying “yes” was digging myself into a ditch and led me with little time for my personal goals and relationships.

In this episode of The Personal Excellence Podcast, I share 6 tips to say no that I’ve been applying, along with personal examples:

• Tip #1: Know what you want to say yes to [00:57]
• Tip #2: Know that saying no is okay [04:43]
• Tip #3: Many little yeses to irrelevant things, or mildly relevant things, even if small, can deviate you from your main goal [08:26]
• Tip #4: Be honest about it [13:22]
• Tip #5: Give alternatives (if you like) [19:04]
• Tip #6: Do a life audit if you’re getting a high noise signal [20:04]

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Podcast Addict, Overcast, Castbox, or subscribe to the RSS feed.

The Personal Excellence Podcast

How To Say No To Others

Show Podcast Information

Read the transcript for this episode here.

If you find The Personal Excellence Podcast helpful, please take a minute to leave a nice rating on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to the podcast. Your rating makes a difference and will help spread the message of conscious living to more people out there. Thank you! :)

How To Say No [Transcript]

Welcome to the Personal Excellence Podcast, the show that’s all about helping you be your best self and live your best life. Now, your host, Celestine Chua!

Celestine Chua: Hey everyone! Welcome to The Personal Excellence Podcast Episode 6. I’m Celestine Chua from PersonalExcellence.co. Today’s topic really hits home for me. It’s about how to say no.

I don’t know about you, but I used to be really bad at saying no. In a way I still am. But I’ve learned to be a lot better at it. If you are someone who has difficulty saying no, today I want to share with you six tips that have worked really well for me and I hope you’ll find them helpful.

1) Know what is it you want to say yes to

My tip number one is to know what you want to say yes to. For me, when I just focus on learning how to say no as an action in itself, it becomes a hollow quest. Because my default self is to help people. I like to agree to requests as much as I can. And I like to be there for other people.

Obviously, this has its own implications. After countless situations where I just kept saying yes, yes, yes to every single person, request, and favor, I just didn’t have any time for myself, for my goals.

On the other hand, when I focus on the things that I want to say yes to, meaning my biggest goals and dreams, my Quadrant 2 projects, this helps me define this clear vision of the real big priorities in my life. Let’s say I don’t have this clear vision. Everything can simply be important. Yet, when framed into the context where we all have limited time on Earth, we all have certain ambitions to realize within our lifetime, then it becomes clear that we need to prioritize the things that we say yes to, and hence no to the other things.

For me, what I want to say yes to would be PE. All of you guys. Growing it, creating more content for you guys, creating more great courses. Just being there for all of you, through my content. And of course, my loved ones, my family members. And my own personal growth and health. These would be the biggest rocks I wish to say yes to. So these priorities will never change. They will just be there, till the day I die.

Knowing these key big rocks puts into context the things I should say yes to, and the things I should say no to. For example, let’s say someone may be asking for a favor or pitching a proposal or an idea that is not a good fit for my business. Then letting it drag on will not help my Quadrant 2 goals, and in fact, waste the other person’s time. It’s clear that I need to say no to the distractions, the things that deviate me from my mission, as well as time for my loved ones, my personal health, and sanity.

So my question to you is:

1. What do you want to say yes to?
2. What are your biggest goals and dreams?
3. What are your personal ambitions?

By having this clear idea in your mind, it helps you become more aware that — some of the things that you have been having difficulty saying no to? These are probably things that you need to say no to. By dragging on and saying yes to things that you may not be 100% committed to or passionate about, that’s not really helping you realize your highest goals and dreams.

2) Saying no is okay

My tip number two is to know that saying no is OK.

In the past, I felt that when I say no, I would be regarded as an asshole. That people would hate me. That I would just be seen as being ungenuine, just not being true to my mission. I didn’t want that because I just truly from the bottom of my heart want to be there for everybody as much as possible.

So I just kept saying yes to every single request, favor, that came along my way. In the end, even with giving up my own sleep and just working around the clock, I still did not have time for the goals that I wish to pursue, my own priorities, and my loved ones, and much less my health.

So I learned the hard way that saying no, not only is it OK, but it is very much necessary. For such a long time, I just tried so hard and tried my best not to say no to people. Because I felt that it wasn’t OK. But I learned that hard and painful way that this isn’t true and saying no is okay, and in fact necessary in many circumstances.

What I’ve learned from this episode is that when you say no, it doesn’t mean that you are being rude or you’re not being true. If anything, when you say no to something that you are not 100% committed to, and you’re really just saying yes because you’re afraid to say no? That is when you are not being true. You’re not being true to yourself and you’re not being true to that person you are saying yes to. Because you do not feel 100% committed to that cause or request or favor, whatever the other party is requesting.

Being true means that you are being honest and authentic in terms of how you feel. If it’s a no-go, or you don’t feel like it’s something you can say yes to, then just be honest about that. That is what it means to be truthful. You can’t expect everybody’s question or requests would always be 100% aligned with your own needs and expectations. Many times, they are just not going to be. This is especially so if you are in a position where you often get people pitching things to you, where people want your time and attention, or maybe you are a consultant that people would like your advice. You would probably find yourself in situations where there are things that are not aligned with your own priorities and needs, and you have to say no to.

When that happens, this is 100% okay and normal. You shouldn’t feel that you are an asshole, or that you are a negative person, or that you are in the wrong because that is not true at all. People say no all the time in this world, be in relationships or in business. Saying no is needed to let other people know that this is not aligned, this is not working out. Then they can move on to find the right person that would be a good fit for whatever they are requesting about.

3) Many little yeses to irrelevant things can deviate you

My tip number three is to know that many little yeses to irrelevant things, or mildly irrelevant things — even if these things are small, they can ultimately still deviate you from your main goal.

This is also something that I had to realize for myself. I always try to accommodate other people’s needs. I always want to make sure that everyone is happy, and there are no conflicts and so on.

So that means that oftentimes in the past, I would want to say yes. Sometimes when it’s a very clear-cut situation where it’s about saying no, I just say no. But then there are the situations where it is just something that requires a very small amount of your time. 30 minutes, two hours, one hour, whatever. It is just a small commitment of your time, and then you would be thinking, Yeah why not?

So doing that, I ended up saying yes to so many things. It could be a favor, a request, an invitation to something, an interview with X publication, meetups, and so on. Like everything! I just kept saying yes because I’d be thinking, Yeah why not? This looks like something I can allocate a couple of hours to. And I just genuinely wanted to be there for each and everybody who contacted me.

But after years of doing that, my agenda became flooded with people’s requests, wants, and needs. Even though each request would take maybe 30 minutes, an hour or two or three, when added together, it became a huge load on myself. It got to a point where I was going crazy. I would be staying up late every day, replying to emails or fulfilling certain things that I had agreed to in the past. And because I always wanted to put my best foot forward — I don’t believe in agreeing to something and then just doing it shabbily. I always feel like if I’m agreeing to something, I want to put my best foot forward to that. And I did. So Ken would be seeing me sleeping so late every day, and he would always be expressing concern. I realized that I really need to be more watchful in how I allocate my time because we don’t have unlimited time on Earth.

This tip is really about being discerning of the things that you say yes to. Because even if it’s just one small thing that seems mildly relevant and takes a little bit of your time, when you say yes to a lot of these things, ultimately you will get deviated very far from your main goal.

During this whole period where I just kept saying “Yes” and “Why not?” to all of the little things that were mildly relevant or that I thought I could offer a bit of my time to, this resulted in me neglecting my overall Quadrant 2 goals for PE, be it content creation, article writing, and so on. That just made me feel miserable because in trying to say yes to every single little thing that was mildly irrelevant, in the end, I ended up saying no to this huge thing which is so crucial to me and impacts so many people on a large scale.

This links back to tip number one about knowing what you want to say yes to. Because when you’re just saying although yeses to all of the little things, ultimately you’re just saying no to that big thing you wish to accomplish.

The question to you is: Is this what you want? Would you rather be spending your time doing little things that are mildly relevant to your dreams, your goals, your life? Or do you want to devote your energy focused on doing those one, two, three big things that would give you that maximum fulfillment when you realize them?

Well, the question is to you. I know I want to choose the latter. That’s because when I do the latter well, I will impact a lot more people on a much bigger scale. That gives me a lot more meaning, fulfillment, and happiness in life.

4) Be honest about it

My tip number four is to be honest about it.

I know we can be really tough to say no and communicate it to someone. Of course, we feel like we would be hated and we would seem like we are nasty folks when we are saying no. Some people may not take that well.

But that is not a reason not to say no. If anything, it helps to just communicate that reason directly now, so that the other person can know how you truly feel. As opposed to living in the charade and living behind pretenses.

Actually, most of the times, you wouldn’t even need to give a reason if you’re not exactly close to the person. But if there is some strong preexisting relationship, and if you just want to be honest, then you can just give the reason if it makes you’ll feel better.

Example: When I said no to a request

So a couple months ago, I received a request from someone and he was inviting me to join his company on his board of advisors. This was a high honor. And this is someone who is very important and of high status. And I did consider that.

But when I thought about what I truly want to say yes to… As what I mentioned just now, what I want to say yes to, like my big yes, would be to develop PE further, to create all this great content for you guys to help you in your growth. And to be there for the community. I’ve known from my past experiences that PE takes up a fair level of my time. If I were to allocate my time elsewhere, it would just be diverting my time from what truly matters to me. It would be the kind of nice-to-be-involved project — like things that I kept getting a lot of over the years and that I’ve said yes to countless times, but in the end it took up so much of my time and energy and left me drained at the end of the day with no time for my health, relationships, and my most important goals.

So I realized that I needed to say no, and it was about communicating that no. So then I replied to the email and I drafted it out. I thought about how to best present my stance without offending this person. (I didn’t offend him.) I certainly didn’t want want to burn bridges.

And then I just typed my e-mail and then deleted some stuff, and then typed some more. Left it there for a couple of hours. Came back later to look at it with fresh eyes to see [if there was] anything that needed amending. In the process of typing that e-mail, I decided to be honest as opposed to coming up with random excuses.

So yeah. I just wrote honestly about how I feel that as an honor, but I don’t feel like I can be involved in this because to do so would take away time from the most important goals and projects in my life. If I want to be involved in something, I want to be involved in it 100%. But I don’t feel I’m able to commit 100% to this thing, and because of that, I need to say no. And then I clicked send.

After that, I was a little bit anxious because I was worried that I might offend him.

Well, in less than a day, I received an e-mail reply from him. He said he read the e-mail with a smile on his face and not even to worry about it because he wasn’t offended in any way at all. And he just wished me all the best. That was that! So in my mind, I was worried about whether I would be offending him, and I was spending a few days thinking about how to articulate my reply. He just replied in less than a day and just said, don’t sweat it!

A lot of times our worries about saying no, it may well just be in our mind, you know? We may be worried about how people may feel, may think, and so on. And that’s with good reason obviously. Because we don’t want to be nasty people. We don’t want to be rude to people. We don’t want to make people feel bad if we can. I totally understand that.

But sometimes, maybe certain people are really just articulating a request or suggestion. Maybe they are doing the same thing to other people as well. Maybe they’re not even thinking too much about that.

So as opposed to putting the weight of the world on your shoulders, maybe what really helps is just being honest in your communications and not to worry or think too much about something until it has happened. Because as the saying goes, over 90-95% of the worries that we have, tend to be just in our minds.

5) Give alternatives

My fifth tip is to give alternatives.

If it makes you feel better, you can suggest alternatives. This is an optional tip. You don’t have to do that because you can’t possibly be suggesting alternatives to every single thing that you say no to, especially if you often need to say no.

But, as and when you feel appropriate, you can give some alternative suggestions that the person can consider. Let’s say someone wants you to get involved in the particular project and you can’t. Then you can suggest someone else if you can think of someone who would be suitable.

You don’t necessarily have to do that but if you feel like it’s something that can make you feel better, and you can offer it without significant cost on your end, then you can give alternatives.

6) Do a life audit

My sixth and last tip is to do a life audit if you’re getting a high noise signal.

What do I mean by that? I have found that for every request, there’s always an evaluation process where you are thinking, Should I engage in this? Should I not? What are the trade-offs? What will it cost? What do I need to put in? What could potentially be the outcome from this?  

This is known as cognitive load. Cognitive load is that load on your mind when you’re processing a decision. When you’re dealing with just one request or two requests, that cognitive load isn’t apparent. But when you’re dealing with a high volume of requests for an extended period of time, you probably will feel drained after some time — yet you can’t really understand why.

So you could be not doing much, but you still feel a load on your mind. That would be cognitive load at work.

Let’s say you’re getting so many requests that require your mental energy to process, to think through, and to weigh the pros and cons. That would be very draining. Ideally, you want to cut down the number of requests that you have to process and to increase the hit rate. Hit rate is the chance of a request being compatible with what you wish to do.

If you are getting a lot of requests that aren’t a fit and that you need to continually think about how to reject, then this is what I call a high noise signal. High noise signal meaning that there is a high ratio of requests that are incompatible and hence the term “noise.”

So over the years, I’ve been receiving a lot of requests. Initially, in the first few years, it was manageable. After a while, it started to weigh down on me. It wasn’t something that was immediately apparent. This was something that just started building up over the months and years.

Just a few months ago, I started thinking, What am I doing? In that, I was feeling so weighed down by this high noise signal. Unfortunately, there’s just so much noise on the Internet these days. Just by the corollary of having an Internet presence, that also means that you get a very high volume of spam and random requests from people not reading the instructions on the contact page. So I dealt with that problem for quite a while, and then I hired my assistant last year who started to be involved in helping me manage my email and that helped me tons.

But ultimately, whether it is email processing done by me or my assistant, the whole situation just didn’t feel right. In that, a very very small minority of the e-mails that were coming in were a fit for what I wish to pursue. Especially as I got more clarity on the important projects that I wish to be involved in, which would be scale-based activities like creating content, working on online courses at PE, just building the community at large. It was so little like I think last year out of the thousands of e-mails that came in, less than five were a fit for what I wish to pursue.

With this revelation, I realized that I needed to review the communication channels on my site.

• I needed to say no to 1-1 coaching because this was not a fit with the scale-based direction that I wanted to go into. Like I really enjoy 1-1 coaching. But it was no longer feasible to keep taking on 1-1 coaching clients because it was taking my time away from other scale-based projects.
• It also meant saying no meet-up requests which I would get a lot off because those were just taking up a lot of my time and energy as well.
• It also meant removing my email from the PE contact page because a lot of people were abusing it and sending things that were not relevant to whatever I mentioned on that page.

Doing that helped clear out a lot of the noise.

So as opposed to taking up all this time to think about which e-mails were worth pursuing, which e-mails to archive and so on, all this energy can then be spent and invested into a more constructive use. Like improving the overall platform. Creating new material for all of you guys and so on.

That is just one example. When there’s a high level of noise signal in your life, that suggests that something is misaligned and it’s something to look into.

A totally different example: Let’s say you are single and you’re dating. You’re looking for your ideal relationship. But perhaps you’ve been getting so many different date requests. A lot of them tend to be low-quality dates. Low-quality dates in the sense of dates that are not compatible with you, your values, and the kind of person you’re looking for.

If that’s the case, it helps to do some audit. Maybe you are just going to the wrong places to meet people. Maybe the dates that you’ve been getting, maybe they’re coming from a particular channel, like a particular dating app or dating website, and maybe the audience profile on these sites or apps are just not a good fit for the kind of person you are and the kind of person you’re looking for.

This is assuming that your dating picture, your dating profile, that everything is already optimized and true to who you are and how you want to present yourself. Then perhaps there’s something to be reviewed. Maybe it’s about going to a different place to meet new people. Maybe is about exploring different channels, different apps, different dating websites. Basically changing your approach as opposed to perpetuating that cycle.

So the end goal is to continually improve the processes in your life: the way that you’re doing things, how you’re communicating with people. The ideal scenario is to get a healthy volume of requests that are a great fit for what you wish to pursue that you can readily say yes to. And there would be a high hit ratio.

Closing Note

I hope you’ve found today’s podcast helpful. For more on how to say no, check out my article on how to say no, at personalexcellence.com/blog/say-no/.

Every podcast takes a lot of work to create. If you’ve found The Personal Excellence Podcast helpful in any way, I would truly, truly appreciate it if you could take a few seconds of the time to leave a positive rating on iTunes. You’ll help spread the show to more people out there, and to help others in their journey of growth.

So thank you so much for listening. And I look forward to speaking to you guys in the next episode. Bye guys!

Endnote: Thanks for listening to The Personal Excellence Podcast! For more tips on how to live your best life, visit www.personalexcellence.co

Related Resources:

• How To Say No To Others
• How To Say No [Manifesto]

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I thought these 5 questions serve as a great self-reminder to always share the most positive and inspiring comments with others. While it’s not possible to adhere to these 5 criteria all the time (especially if we’ve never given second thought to our words before), constantly asking ourselves these 5 questions will make it second nature over time.

Here are examples of how to apply each criteria in our daily life:

1. Is it true? Make only comments that are true — true to what you feel, true to your beliefs, and true to what you know about the world. When everyone communicates in truth, it allows us to forge connections in openness and trust.
2. Is it helpful? Always give the most helpful comments, especially when someone is asking for your opinion/advice. That’s because the person may heed what you say, and giving someone badly thought-out or random advice would lead the person on a wild goose chase, in turn wasting their time. “Helpful” here includes helping the person feel better, helping them gain clarity, helping them take action, and/or helping them reach a decision.
3. Is it inspiring? There are 2 ways to trigger people into action — first by force (fear), second by power (love). The first is done through manipulation, coercion, negative triggers, and/or punishment. The second is done by inspiring people to their true potential and power. The inspirational way is the most powerful way as that’s when you help others discover their true power from within. Being “inspiring” doesn’t have to come from making big statements or promises — it can be just simply speaking from your heart and speaking with the intent to uplift others.
4. Is it necessary? What is necessary is subjective. For me, necessary means something that I feel the person must hear, that will add value to the person’s life, and that will further the conversation. (It doesn’t include gossip, overt focus on formalities (rather than the connection), or tactless remarks.) When you focus on the necessary, conversations become more meaningful; people also appreciate what you have to say because they know there’s a reason behind everything you say.
5. Is it kind? As we live in a digital age where everyone is quick to make knee-jerk reactions and criticize vs. appreciate, being kind is more important than ever. With every comment you make, online or off, strive to be kind. Don’t speak with the intent to hurt or wound; but rather, speak with the intent to connect and love.

So before you speak the next time… remember, think! :) As it may be a handful applying all 5 values at one go, I recommend applying them one day at a time. Apply each of the 5 values for the first 5 days of the week, then apply all 5 together on the 6th day. On the 7th day, review how you’ve done. The next week, rinse and repeat.

When all else fails, just remember — be kind. That usually takes care of the rest. :)

Read:

• How To Give Constructive Criticism: 6 Helpful Tips
• How to Make Small Talk in 5 Easy Ways (Examples Included)
• 10 Rules of a Great Conversationalist
• How To Stop Being Sarcastic

Today, I address reader Mel’s question on how to deal with backstabbers. Watch above! And I’m giving away a Happiness Mug; watch till the end for details!

Believe it or not, I recorded the entire video four times before I got the final take! First it was the camera cropping that was off; then it was loose hairs that I was only able to see when reviewing the video on my computer; then it got down to my delivery and content where I felt I could do better. The 4th time was the charm.

Have you dealt with a backstabber before? How did you handle the situation? Share them in the YouTube comments section!

For more on dealing with backstabbers, read: Backstabber Guide: 8 Tips To Deal With Backstabbers

(Music: Getting There (YouTube Library))

Dear everyone, welcome to Day 9 of our 15-Day Affirmation Challenge! :D

Here is the overview of all the posts for the challenge so far:

• Affirmation Challenge announcement and signup details: 15-Day Affirmation Challenge | Nearly 460 Participants!
• Affirmation Challenge Day 1 [New Beginning] | 75 Comments
• Affirmation Challenge Day 2 [Self-Love] | 79 Comments
• Affirmation Challenge Day 3 [Ability] | 84 Comments
• Affirmation Challenge Day 4 [Setbacks] | 54 Comments
• Affirmation Challenge Day 5 [Gratitude] | 59 Comments
• Affirmation Challenge Day 6 [Self-Worth] | 65 Comments
• Affirmation Challenge Day 7 [Opportunities] | 71 Comments
• Affirmation Challenge Week 1 Review | 37 Comments
• Affirmation Challenge Day 8 [Physical Looks] | 41 Comments

Even if you are just reading this now, you are still more than welcome to sign up and join us in today’s task, while working through week one’s tasks in parallel. Remember to share your results too — there are still participants working on Day 1’s task and sharing their results even today!

Now, let’s move to today’s task, which is on…

Day 9: [Relationships]

 Today’s affirmation: “I’m in conscious relationships that elevate and support me.”

(While today’s task is on “relationships,” I use “relationships” as an encompassing term that refers to any connection in our life (including familial connections, friendships, professional connections, and romantic connections), as opposed to just romantic connections.)

What kind of relationships do you have today? Would you say your relationships are conscious and elevating you? Or would you say that your relationships hold you back and prevent you from being the best you can be?

The best way to know the answer is to evaluate your relationships by these two factors:

1. Are you able to openly share AND discuss your goals, dreams, life purpose, and values with the people around you? Or do you feel that you have to dial yourself down and talk about mundane topics just to relate to each other?
2. Do you feel that the people around you support you to becoming the best you can be? Or do you feel that they hold you back from being your real self?

If your answer for both points is the former, then congratulations — your relationships are supporting you in your life’s journey! If not, then suffice it to say, your relationships are probably holding you back.

I often talk about how important it is to surround us with the right people. In my article, You Are The Average Of The 5 People You Spend The Most Time With, I share the now-famous Jim-Rohn saying, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” What the saying means is that you are, in a big way, the product of your relationships.

Say you often hang out with negative, critical people. In fact, the five people you interact with the most  — your colleagues Jane and Jenny, your high-school friends Jack and Jill, and your dad — are often gossiping about other people, complaining about their problems, or sometimes even… putting down your ideas. How would you feel? Not only will you feel irritated, you will also gradually “absorb” their negativity and become negative yourself. You may not notice it, but slowly you’ll become jaded, skeptical, resistant to change, critical about others, and disinterested about your future. You essentially become a reflection of what you didn’t like about them in the first place.

Now, even if you are in such relationships today, it doesn’t mean that you’ll be stuck in such relationships forever. Take it from someone who used to be surrounded by largely negative people, and is now in conscious and relationships that elevate her. We may not be able to change how people think, but we can choose the people whom we foster relationships with, and subsequently create conscious, meaningful connections.

Today, your task is to identify the kind of relationships you want, and then to create action steps to make them happen!

Your Task Today

1. Identify your ideal relationship. (Remember, here we are using “relationship” as a broad term to refer to any connection, as opposed to specifically romantic relationships.) What is the ideal relationship (be it friendship, family relationship, professional relationship, or romantic relationship) to you?

   For example:

   • Someone whom I can talk openly to, and who openly shares anything and everything with me
   • Someone whom I can be myself around, without having to put up pretenses
   • Someone whom I can share all my life goals and dreams with
   • Someone whom I can discuss said life goals and dreams with, and even give me ideas on how they can be better!
   • Someone who shares common life goals as me, such as X, Y, and Z
   • Someone who supports me in everything I do
2. Identify places where you can find such people. (With the exception of our family which we can’t change,) Where can you find the kind of people who matche what you mentioned in Step #1?

   For example, say you have an interest in healthy eating and you want to be a chef. Places where you can find people to support you in your dreams can be say, healthy living meetup groups (via Meetup.com), healthy cooking courses (where you can find people who desire to learn about healthier cooking methods), chef culinary conferences, and even, cooking competitions!

   Get more ideas on meeting new people: Cooped Up Indoors? Get a Life with These 7 Tips.

3. Identify action steps! Based what you’ve written in Step #2, what do you need to do to start meeting such people? Identify specific action steps, and include deadlines where applicable!
4. Say today’s affirmation. Close your eyes. Visualize yourself surrounded by a large group of people, all of whom you have conscious relationships with. Imagine yourself chatting, laughing, smiling, and spending time with these people, as you walk hand-in-hand with everyone, through the journey of life. Feel the warmth, happiness, and excitement in your heart. As you do, say the affirmation:
   

   “I’m in conscious relationships that elevate and support me.”

   (If you think it’s silly to say this out loud, you can say it silently in your heart.)

I encourage you to write down today’s affirmation so that you can always see it and commit it to your heart. Repeat it every day to yourself, for as many times and as long as needed, until it becomes part of your default thinking.

Affirmation Wallpaper: [Relationships]

Today’s affirmation wallpaper, for download:

Download (right click and save): [1366×768] [1600×900] [1920×1080]

Further Reading

• You Are The Average Of The 5 People You Spend The Most Time With
• Live a Better Life in 30 Days, Day 19: Create Your Success Network

Tips on how to meet new people:

• 10 Useful Tips To Make New Friends
• How Do I Meet Like-Minded People?
• Cooped Up Indoors? Get a Life with These 7 Tips
• How to Make Small Talk in 5 Easy Ways (Examples Included)

Tips on how to make meaningful connections:

• The Secret To Meaningful Social Relationships (How to Remove Social Anxiety)
• How to Have More Best Friends: My Heartfelt Guide

Share Your Results!

Share your results, check out other participants’ responses, and interact with each other in the comments section! Remember, this challenge is a community effort: by openly engaging in the discussion, not only will you help others, you’ll also help yourself.

If you think today’s affirmation has benefited you, do share it with your friends and family.

Once you’re done, proceed to Day 10 here: Affirmation Challenge, Day 10 [Love]

(Images: Flower, Girl on hill)

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“Hi Celes! First of all, I’d like to thank you for the great posts on PE; I’ve experienced tremendous growth in the past few months.

My question is, how can I encourage my friends to become more conscious human beings, just as I have? I feel like there is so much potential inside of them, but they refuse to acknowledge it. I’ve tried introducing them to various personal growth blogs, including PE, and they brushed them off as ‘cheesy’ and ‘boring.’ Whenever the conversation between our group shifts to a more serious topic, they try to shift it back to the topics that we’ve always talked about (‘my new high score on Flappy Bird!’).

What should I do? Thanks!” — Anna

Hi Anna! That’s funny that your friends would brush off personal growth blogs as “cheesy” and boring.” I can understand why though; personal development can be quite dry and theoretical for people who are not into conscious growth; a lot of personal development blogs out there tend to rehash the same advice over and over again. At PE, I make self-help different and relatable through real-life stories, but someone who doesn’t read PE at all would probably lump it with other self-help material out there.

Your predicament reminds me of myself years ago. From my late teens up until I started PE (I was 24), I would always find ways to push my friends forward. Whenever I was with them, I would throw questions like, “What are your goals for the future?” and “I’m working on XX goal at the moment. Do you want to pursue it together?” I had a best friend then, K, whom I would actively encourage to set goals and take action on his life as well.

For what it’s worth, I wasn’t too successful. Most of my friends then were just not interested in self-improvement or conscious living. With my reflection questions, some would shirk uncomfortably; most would give a half-hearted “Oh, I haven’t thought about what I want to do” or “I’ll see how it goes” response. One time, I had a friend flat out tell me that she didn’t believe in setting goals or planning for the future! With my best friend K, we had to part ways after 10 years of friendship because our friendship was no longer supporting us in our growth: I was growing very quickly while he was constantly putting off his goals, hence creating a gaping hole between us.

Eventually, I learned that you can’t make people grow when they don’t want to or aren’t ready to. They have to realize it for themselves, in their own time and place. By intervening in their path before this happens, you may prevent them from coming into their own, thereby preventing them from self-actualizing.

For example with K, despite the copious amount of time and energy I invested in his growth, he would always slip into inaction. He had his own issues that were holding him back, while I had my own hopes that I was imposing on him. During the later years of our friendship, I got extremely frustrated; we were constantly having lengthy talks over his inaction.

After we parted ways, I realized that maybe K has a different life path — one that doesn’t involve actualizing his own goals. Maybe his path is to support other people — a role in the world that is ancillary — though doesn’t mean it’s automatically less than others’. Maybe he will want to pursue his goals at some point — just not now. Whatever it is, me pushing him to realize his goals — before his time — was probably preventing him from coming into his own.

For my other friends who would complain about life, play Candy Crush, and what not, I came to realize that perhaps these are just reflective of their current life phase. During my adolescent years, I spent a good chunk of time working on my then-websites, playing and immersing in the world of video games, and watching animes and dramas. I had ambition, just not expressed in my studies. It was only during university that this changed. I sought to do well in my studies, gave serious thought to my future, and subsequently contemplated on  the meaning of life (something I shared in Two Important Things that Led Me to Discover My Life Purpose). This then led me onto my life path today.

Now, if someone had pushed me during my adolescence to think about my life purpose and what not, I probably wouldn’t have been very receptive. I would have heard the person out, wondered what was up with him/her, and returned back to whatever I was doing.

It was precisely because I came to my own realization that I want to live consciously and live my best life, that I became so proactive about living. If someone had cajoled me to do that, I doubt I would have cared much. It was by first deciding that I want to live consciously that I then began to live consciously.

Net-net, what I’m saying is that everyone has their awakening moment when they decide to grow or turn their life around. You can’t force this to happen; forcing it usually brings about little to counteractive effects.

It’s like… imagine you are given a seed to grow. What’s the best way to grow it quickly? Do you plant the seed, flood it with water, drown it with fertilizer, place it in a room with highest-concentration oxygen, and then manually split the seed yourself with a knife, hoping that a tree will sprout overnight?

No, of course not! The seed will die right away! A seed needs water, warm temperature, and oxygen to germinate, but giving it extra quantities of each wouldn’t accelerate its growth — it may well kill it. Beyond planting the seed in good soil and ensuring it has favorable conditions for germination, what the seed needs is time and space to grow. In time to come it’ll germinate, take root, and grow its shoots.

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So what does that mean for you and your friends?

It means that rather worry about your friends’ growth,

1. Know that everyone has their time and place to grow. Forcing your friends to grow when they aren’t ready wouldn’t bring about much change; it’ll probably implicate their path. Your job is not to be responsible for their growth (that’s their job), but simply to support them when the time comes.
2. Give them space to be themselves. Different people have different life paths; no path is “better” or “higher” than another. Sometimes your friends may make choices that you don’t agree with (e.g. spending all their free time playing Candy Crush and working in a job that they hate). Beyond voicing out your disagreement initially, respect their choice if that’s what they want to do. You don’t have to “agree” with it; you just have to respect it by not putting them down. This will give them space to be who they are meant to be. Read: What Can I Do If I Want To Change Someone? and How To Be More Accepting of Others
3. Support them when they need you. This means: If a friend is frustrated with his/her job, then help him/her sort out his/her job issues. If a friend is experiencing relationship problems, then provide a listening ear. If they don’t need you, then don’t interject. Be their anchor, their support pillar in life.
4. Offer guidance where appropriate. If there are times when you feel your friend is heading in the wrong direction, interject and give constructive guidance. For example, if your friend is sticking out in a job that he hates, then ask him if that’s what he really wants to do. Maybe he doesn’t know that there’s another path out there! Share ideas of what can be possible and provide resources (say, relevant articles of PE and self-help books) to point him/her in the right direction. Read: How to Give Constructive Criticism in 6 Steps.
5. Be a living example of what you preach. There’s no better way to showcase the value of your teachings than through yourself. As Benjamin Franklin once said, “A good example is the best sermon.” What are the lessons that you want to inculcate to your friends? Uphold them in your life! For example: If you want to preach the importance of taking action on your goals, then work doubly hard on your goals. If you want to preach the importance of living consciously, then be conscious about the decisions that you make and exercise them.
6. Live an awesome life. As an extended version of Step #5, live such a great life that people can’t help but wonder, Man, what is she doing?? How is she living such a great life??? Slowly, people will start paying attention to you and taking heed to your advice; curious friends will start to consult you and get your help on various things. As you raise your consciousness level, the people around you will naturally be positively influenced and be inspired to do the same too.

I hope that helps, Anna! :D Do read as well:

• Should I Tell My Friends/Family About My Interest in Self-Help? — Another Ask Celes question on a similar issue
• Why I Parted Ways With My Best Friend of 10 Years — The full story of my friendship with K and how we came to part ways, plus how to move on from a friendship that isn’t working out anymore

For those of you reading, do you have friends who refuse to grow despite your encouragement? How can you deal with it using the tips in this post?

What was worse was that the manager being shamed manages a team of people, and some of his staff were there, listening to their manager being put down by his boss.

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Was it really appropriate to shame that manager, much less before his own staff? I thought it was a bit too much.

Being put through the Singapore education system, I was exposed to a strong shaming culture where teachers were authorized (and at times even encouraged) to publicly humiliate and shame students. I believe this was the case for many schools in Asia as well, as caning, shaming, and authoritarian-forms of discipline are generally accepted in the region.

Shaming In My Primary School

Back in my primary school, I remember students who talked during assembly would be asked to stand outside the hall as punishment.

The “pain” of the punishment was never the ache from standing but the shame of before the entire school and gaining the implicit label of a “bad” student. I remember being terrified of talking or even opening my mouth in my lower primary years during the assembly period. I was afraid that being seen with my mouth open, even if I wasn’t talking, would warrant the teachers/prefects the right to punish and call me out to be shamed. (I became a prefect in my upper primary years, so I no longer had to sit through assembly period and face the fear of being called out.)

In class, students who didn’t complete their homework would be made to stand outside the classroom. Teachers and students who walked by would see these students and know that they were being punished, hence feeling either disdain or sorry for them. This was to make said students feel ashamed and deter them from not committing the offence again.

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This never happened to me, but it made me scared of doing anything wrong because I would be called to stand outside class. I didn’t want to be openly shamed like this. I would also feel very sorry when I saw students punished this way.

Such punishment was a form of ostracization, since the students in question would be deliberately segregated from their classmates and denied from being part of the class activities for their “wrongdoings.” It was as if these students were deemed “unworthy” of attending the class and “lesser” compared to the other pupils just because they didn’t do their work like the others did.

During class, I remember this particular routine a teacher made us go through whenever we went through our assignments: Whenever we got a question wrong, she would make us stand up from our seats and slap ourselves in front of the class.

This slapping was never meant to hurt us (my teacher never derived any pleasure from seeing us hit ourselves; she was a good teacher and a good person), but for us to remember our mistakes and never commit them again.

It worked fairly well because I grew up being very meticulous about details, very sensitive to mistakes, and always cautious not to make any mistakes. Because in my mind, I had associated a physically, emotionally, and mentally negative outcome with mistakes — even the tiniest of them. It was clear that mistakes of any sort were not tolerated in school — especially the careless ones — and there was absolutely no room to make any of them.

Then… Came Secondary School

Then came secondary school. The shaming culture didn’t get worse (it couldn’t have actually; it was the worst in the primary school I came from), but it didn’t get much better either.

I was in a secondary school where we had an infamous disciplinary master nicknamed “Tiger X” (I’m replacing his real surname with X for anonymity). Why that name? Because (a) he was fierce like a tiger and (b) his surname is X. He would be nice when he was a good mood, but he would be irate when he flared up. Shouting, scolding, and punishing were all part of his disciplinary arsenal.

I don’t remember if physical punishment was in the mix too, but I once saw Tiger X kick my friend in his butt — REAL HARD — during morning assembly. Why? Because my friend was talking and being naughty overall. I was standing right beside him when it happened and felt really bad because… which growing, self-respecting teenager would want to have his butt kicked (literally) in front of his friends?

I didn’t think it was appropriate treatment at all regardless of how naughty my friend was; I thought the teacher could have been less harsh in how he handled the situation. At the very least, something that didn’t involve kicking and shaming.

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University: End of Shaming

It was only when I entered university that I stopped being exposed to a shaming culture. For the first time in my life, I was in a school where students weren’t treated as a sub-species.

While we were still expected to respect the professors/teachers as students, we were finally treated as as actual humans with rights, not lesser individuals. To be honest, it was a nice and refreshing change to be able to walk around the hallways freely and not in fear that some teacher was going to come screaming at you all of a sudden for some wrongdoing you were not even aware of.

Then… Something Totally Different

And then when I started my first ever internship in my ex-company, I became exposed to a totally different culture.

There was no shaming and no punishing at all there. Instead there was… praising.

That’s right: Rather than have your mistakes continuously pinpointed/corrected, be endlessly criticized about your behavior/personality/worth as an individual, live in fear of getting called out in meetings for your wrongdoings, or get publicly humiliated/shamed for anything you do that’s “incorrect,” there was frequent praise, appreciation, and commending for the things you do right.

Don’t get me wrong: It wasn’t like no one ever got criticized in there as healthy and constructive criticism was a norm. It wasn’t like all the managers in the company were civil and kind, for there were a couple of dictator-like personas who would openly scold and shame subordinates in public. (And when I say public, I mean literally in public, like in a restaurant. This happened between a general manager and a director in the company.)

But the overall culture in the company was one of praise and celebration. No one was seen as sub-par to another; everyone was equal. Managers would work with their subordinates as equals and partners as they brought the best out of them. Vice presidents would speak to interns like they were of the same level when they were really 15 years apart in their ages, life experience, and job experience.

A Life-Changing Experience

In entered my then-manager.

My manager then… he wasn’t just a regular manager. He was a manager who was highly gratuitous and open with his praises, often acknowledging me for the littlest of tasks that I didn’t think much of.

These were tasks which I considered non-tasks and would do as part of my natural self. For example, creating a report in accordance to his needs, doing a well-structured analysis, and following through with what we discussed in previous meetings.

His praises weren’t like “not bad” or “nice work” type of “non” praises. He would repeatedly say things like, “Excellent!! This is really excellent work, Celestine!!”, “Okay, now we’re talking!” (referring to how great he felt my work was), “You really exceeded my expectations,” and “This is fantastic. Terrific job Celes, really amazing work.”

Me and my then-manager during my internship. Mosaic-ed his face to protect his privacy.

Shock… Then Something Else

So when I first heard his gratuitous and open praises — especially over seemingly trivial stuff (to me) — I was thrown off-guard.

I thought, Wow, seriously? Is he joking or what? I thought perhaps he was mocking me or something!

But then I looked at his face, which was filled with excitement and joy. No fakeness, no pretense, and no falsehood. It was hard to think that a corporate professional and someone as senior as him would be childish to give fake praise too.

So then I said, “Err…. okay, but this is really nothing. It’s just a simple thing.”

To which he responded, “Well, you would be surprised how many senior people my level (and beyond) can’t even do something like this right. This is really great stuff. Great job, Celestine. No, EXCELLENT job.”

This was the starting point when I thought, … Really? Excellent job… this? … Me?

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Being… Inspired To Be Better

My encounters with this manager marked the start of my shift towards self-acknowledgement, self-appreciation, and self-recognition.

While I had never doubted my personal ability nor potential before, I never thought that anything I did had serious merit unless I threw my entire life towards it and perhaps almost lost an arm or leg in the process. It was sort of a self-discounting mentality, where I would think there was no big deal about whatever I was doing, even if it might be a great piece of work which I invested tons of time in.

This was probably partly due to being raised in a culture where mistakes would always be highlighted and harped on all the time while good behavior was taken as the norm.

I became very motivated. It was not like I would have been any less hardworking nor committed if my manager was not him. I was already very self-initiated and highly driven at this point in my life (otherwise I wouldn’t have been chosen for my internship–perhaps more on this in a future post).

But I started to get motivation from an added source. Rather than just feel driven to be my best, I became… inspired… to be my best too.

And what’s the difference between drivenness and being inspired, you ask? Drivenness is sort of like the state of being pushed (even if internally within yourself) to do something, while being inspired is the state of being pulled, drawn, to do something.

It may sound like both are the same, and in a way they are because they both lead to the person taking action. But there’s quite a vast difference between the two, in that someone who’s driven is constantly pushing him/herself forward in a manner that may eventually lead to tediousness and a feeling of drain.

But someone who’s inspired… the possibilities are endless. His/her power is unlimited.

… The source has been activated.

Changing… for the Better

While my internship and encounter with my then-manager was only two months, but the seeds of change were planted.

Slowly, I became less worried about making mistakes and more open about being myself. I became less obsessed with following regulations and guidelines and more interested in understanding what was going on in the world and doing things that mattered. I became less fearful about entering a meeting and worrying that I might get pounced on by an authority figure for a mistake I missed, and more confident about my ideas, my worth, and my ability.

All in all, I began to find my footing and glow in my own light.

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If I look back to all the moments of and/or experiences with shaming in my childhood and the fear-inducing environments I was thrown into throughout my schooling years, none of them so much as inspired me to grow or better myself in the same way being acknowledged/recognized (by my ex-manager) did.

Even with my primary school teacher’s slapping ritual, it was useful in that it made me supremely cautious about not making mistakes and being immaculate in everything I do.

But… that was it. It didn’t inspire me to want to achieve greatness. It didn’t inspire to want to be better. All the shaming experiences and cultures I was put in only made me improve within the context of who I was, but not to rise above myself and become bigger than I really was.

Stop Shaming, Start Praising Instead

So what does it mean for us? It means that the next time you feel like negatively criticizing, punishing, or shaming someone (and this person can be your kid, your niece/nephew, your co-worker, your direct report, your friend, or perhaps even your partner), maybe praising is the way to go instead.

Five little steps to get started:

1. Pinpoint mistakes as you see them, but do it constructively. Read: How to Give Constructive Criticism in 6 Steps
2. Identify good points about the person. Compliment him/her about it. (PE reader Alice told me during the Edinburgh PE meetup that her friendship with her best friend started when she gave him a compliment to strike a conversation in doing the Kindness Challenge tasks for Day 5 (Give a Genuine Compliment to at Least 3 People) and Day 6 (Talk to Someone You Don’t Normally Talk To). How cool is that?)
3. See the potential in him/her. Let him/her in on what you see, so that he/she can be aware of this hidden potential in him/her too.
4. Building on #2, praise the person openly where others can witness it. Let others see the goodness of this individual too. There’s no reason why praise should only happen behind closed doors!More on being emotionally generous: Are You Emotionally Generous? and Day 10: A Day of Emotional Generosity of Be a Better Me in 30 Days.
5. If the person reacts adversely or uncomfortably to your praises, it’s just a reflection of his/her own issues. Maybe he/she doesn’t give enough credit to him/herself (like how I was in the past) and hence feel awkward by your praises. It’s okay; simply let him/her warm up to your compliments. Continue to praise him/her without reservations, and slowly you’ll see a positive shift in his/her behavior. :)

Between shaming and praising, the world can do with less of the former and more of the latter. Enough with trying to coerce people into action through force; my challenge to you today is to inspire people — whoever it is you want to inspire — into action by using your personal power (over force).

Have You Been Shamed or Praised Before?

Do you have any experiences with shaming and/or praising, be it in school, work, or home? What are they? How did you feel about them when they happened? Hopefully my 5 steps will help you better manage such situations. :)

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“Hi Celes! I was wondering about your thoughts on being open with what you do in terms of personal growth and self-help? I tend to keep my ‘self-help’ activities rather private; almost no one knows that I read several blogs on the topic, journal/mind dump, or even meditate… and I think I would be quite embarrassed trying to explain my vision board if someone found it! I get the impression many people think self-help is bogus, which is perhaps why I’m so private about it.

Is there any way I can be more open about this aspect of my life, without coming across as (what some might see as) a new age hippie?” — Alexa

Hi Alexa!

I hear you regarding keeping your “self-help” activities private. People who don’t understand would probably write you off as some lunatic or some new-age hippie; the fact that some Hollywood shows portray these new-agey stuff in an over-the-top manner doesn’t help too. (I just watched The Bling Ring on my flight to Scotland and Emma Watson’s character’s mom came across like a loony the way she kept going on and on about The Secret, law of attraction, and creating a vision board!)

Keeping Self-Help Activities Private

When I delved into self-help, from doing things like finding my purpose, discovering my values, and identifying my life goals, I kept these things private from others too. I didn’t see a reason to tell people about them; casual attempts to talk about them would sometimes lead to weird, unsupportive remarks.

Like one time I was chatting with a secretary in my then-company, and I expressed disappointment that my then-job — selling consumer goods like shampoo and skincare products — wasn’t as purposeful as helping people grow. I told her that I would like to quit my job one day to pursue my purpose to help others grow, achieve their highest potential, and hopefully work towards the end goal of oneness in the world.

Rather than empathize, she made a joke about how I sounded like a Miss Universe contestant, then began mimicking the way beauty pageants say “world peace” whenever judges pose them the question of what they want to achieve in this world. I just made a mental note not to raise such topics in front of her next time.

Yet, Realize There are People Interested in Their Growth

That said, while it is true that some people are ignorant of self-help or are simply not receptive to self-help tools like creating your vision board or writing down your bucket list, it doesn’t mean that they are not interested in personal development. They just approach their growth in a different manner compared to people in the self-help arena.

For example, even though I strongly believe in bucket lists, have a huge bucket list with over 100 items, and am continuously speaking in the media about the importance of bucket lists, my fiance doesn’t have one! He says he prefers not to have a list because he knows what he wants to do and he doesn’t like the idea of having a list he needs to constantly update and refer to. That’s not to say he doesn’t have goals and dreams; he just doesn’t pen them down the way I do.

Most of my friends would probably think I’m loony if I talk about self-help the way I do with you guys. They are very pragmatic people who don’t read self-help; if they ever check out my blog, it’s because they want to know what I’m up to rather than because they want to read about personal development per se.

Yet, they often talk about wanting a job with more learning opportunities or wanting to quit their jobs because they are no longer passionate about them. They may not use terminologies like “I want to be a better me” or “I want to discover and pursue my passion”, but they share similar intents.

Be Conscious in How You Express Your Interest

So given that there are many people with an interest in their growth, there is no need to deliberately conceal your interest in self-help. Rather, be deliberate in how you express it.

Tip #1: Test Waters

With the people you are unsure of, test waters . Use benign openings such as, “Have you heard of this blog XXX? It’s a blog on personal development…”, “Have you ever read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People? It’s an international bestseller by Stephen Covey. It talks about habits of effective people…”, or “Have you done a life wheel assessment before? A life wheel is…”

Tip #2: Share with Those Who Are Receptive

If the person says “yes” or says “no” but seems receptive to what you have to say, then share more.

For example, in my initial conversations with my fiance Ken, I didn’t speak much about self-help. My assumption was that he doesn’t know anything about self-help; after all, he knows that I run a personal development blog but he has never talked about anything self-helpish with me. I didn’t want to seem “hard core” by raising it in conversation; my experience is that men, especially insecure ones, get intimidated by such topics since they undermine their worth.

One time, I took a leap of faith and shared a self-help concept in our conversation because the conversation called for it. I half-expected that he would not understand it and would either brush my comment aside or “switch off”.

To my surprise, he responded with an intelligent response which not only showed a deep comprehension of what I just said, but also pushed the intellectual boundaries of the conversation. I later realized that he used to read up on personal development in his early adult years and he has a very sharp, intellectual mind, which enables him to discuss self-help concepts, even if he hasn’t heard of them before, with ease. I subsequently opened up more about my self-help knowledge to him, which paved the path for us to connect further intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually.

By taking a leap of faith and opening up about my knowledge and interest in self-help, I was able to connect further with this person who later turned out to be my soulmate and partner in life.

Similarly for you, by opening up about your knowledge and interest, you may find new areas to connect with people–new areas you never knew were there. For the people who respond receptively, talk more about your self-help interest with them next time. Update them on what you are up to.

For example, if you just updated your vision board yesterday, take some pictures and share them with your friends. If you recently read this interesting self-help article which you think may be of interest, pass it along. (Many PE readers do that. There is the convenient “share” button available at the top and bottom of every article in case you don’t already know.) If you recently uncovered an exciting insight during your journaling, talk about it the next time you meet.

In fact, social media tools like Facebook has made it very easy to sieve out like-minded folks. Share something related to your self-help interest on your Facebook next time (e.g. your vision board pictures, pictures of your inspirational room, a self-help article you like, etc.) and see who “likes” and/or comments on it. This gives you a clue as to whom you can speak to on self-help with next time.

Tip #3: Refrain from Sharing with Those Who Aren’t Receptive

On the other hand, if the person is not receptive at all, or is perhaps even dismissive (like the secretary I mentioned earlier), refrain from sharing with them. You want to build on your interest with like-minded folks who share similar interests or have an open mind, not combat with skeptics whose life purpose is to shoot you down. Read: 8 Tips To Tackle Naysayers

Tip #4: Share at a Regulated Pace

As for not coming across as a new-age hippie, simply ease into a comfortable pace of sharing. Don’t bombard your friends with self-help updates several times every day when you were never doing this. Start by identifying friends whom you can speak with about self-help, then open up little by little over the days/months. With each receptive response, share a little bit more the next time.

As long as you are not going around forcing people to create their vision boards and bucket lists like how some religious zealots run around the streets preaching their God’s will, you will be fine. :) No one’s going to think you are a hippie unless you act out of line, which you obviously wouldn’t from what I know about you! :)

Hope that helps, Alexa! Here’s are some related pieces:

• How Do I Meet Like-Minded People? 
• How To Deal With Unsupportive Friends and Family
• Ask Celes: Has Anyone Ever Discouraged You From Working on Your Blog?

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“How do you put your best foot forward when you have a short time to make a good impression? I’ve had times when I have to go to a new place and meet new people in workshops, competitions and conferences which are very short. I have difficulty doing things like public speaking — which I’m comfortable during other times! I start feeling nervous, anxious and pressurized. How do you keep calm and give a good impression during such times?” — Charu

Hi Charu! I understand the need to give a good first impression in work, social settings, and life. While I’ll share some tips below, I want to also share that we shouldn’t obsess too much about first impressions.

Why First Impression Isn’t as Important as You Think

It probably helps to know that in the larger spectrum of time, whatever impression people have of you have little to do with the first impression you gave. That’s because first impressions typically last as long as it takes for you to form a second impression, after which the person’s impression of you becomes a weighted average of the first two impressions. Add ten, to a hundred, to a thousand interactions to the mix, and you can easily see why first impressions aren’t as important as what one might think.

For example, I think well of many of my good friends today not because they left a stunning first impression. Contrary to that, some of them actually turned me off when we first met–I felt they were distant, even snobbish. Yet, my opinion changed for the better during our subsequent interactions. Our commonality in values drew us closer together over time and the rest is history.

On the other hand, I’ve met people who gave me a great first impression; however I was later disappointed by their character flaws like anger issues and dishonesty. I never stay in touch with them there after because these aren’t people I want to have in my life.

In my work as a trainer, I’ve had imperfect trainings before. My latest class on emotional eating had an unprecedented software hiccup which set the class back by 15 minutes (I then extended the class by 30 minutes to finish covering the material). While new participants might have gotten a bad first impression in the first 15 minutes, subsequent occurrences such as seeing the strong quality of the content in the two-hour class, my readiness to stay back to cover all material and answer participant questions, and strong endorsements by the regulars, probably helped allay concerns.

On the same note, while most of us may freak out about meeting people for the first time and worry about the impression we are going to make, the thing is most people actually don’t care, at least not to the extent we think they would. Let’s say if you make a bad joke during your first meeting with X. Perhaps X gets offended and thinks you are strange. But he/she is not going to think about this for the 10 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 day, or 1 week after that, because it’s not a significant thing in his/her life. He/she is going to brush it away, then get right back to what he/she was doing before he/she met you. In the end, the only person obsessing about your first impression is you, when others don’t even care at all.

At the Same Time, Impressions Still Do Matter

That said, it doesn’t mean you should not care about making good first impressions. Ultimately you want to put your best foot forward when meeting people for the first time (or other times), because it’s about being respectful to them for their time. This is especially so in romantic dates, business meetings, and public speaking. I’ve been abhorred by terrible first dates; business meetings where the attendee turns up late, frazzled, and unprepared (I’ve to admit that I used to be guilty of this); even email pitches where the person obviously sent me a template without bothering to customize his/her pitch and get facts right (such as referring to me as a “Mr.”).

For these people, I don’t write them off, but I also don’t pay special attention to them unless future encounters prove otherwise.

How to Form a Good Impression in Crunch Time

So how do we make a good first impression, especially when we don’t have the luxury of time?

Step 1: Give Your Elevator Pitch

Ever heard of the elevator pitch? It is a business concept which refers to a short summary used to quickly define a person, profession, product, service, organization or event and its value proposition. The name “elevator pitch” reflects the idea that it should be possible to deliver the summary in the time span of an elevator ride, which is approximately 30 seconds.

When making new friends in non-business settings, there’s no need to go full-on with some snazzy pitch; people will probably think you are crazy. Rather, borrow the idea of the elevator pitch, which is to showcase defining things about you in your first 30 seconds of introduction.

What are your top accomplishments which you are most proud of? What pet project are you currently working on? What are you most passionate about? What defines you? There are no hard and fast answers, but things you may want to highlight are successfully completing your PhD, recently quitting your job to pursue your passion, clinching a guest writing stint with a high profile news publisher, working in a prestigious company, raising a family of three kids, publishing your first book, traveling for the last three-and-a-half-months, and so on.

The point here isn’t to rattle about how awesome you are, but to share key things about yourself which you are proud of, which will give people a taste of how you are like as a person.

For example, say you are a full-time blogger and you quit your job last year to pursue your passion in travel writing. This is something you are really proud of. In your introduction, you can go, “Hi! I’m Peter. I’m a full-time blogger. I quit my job last year to pursue my passion in travel writing, and now I run a travel blog, Run with the Wind. It’s been six months but I’m pretty excited because the readership has been picking steadily. I hope to grow it double in the next two months. How about you, what do you do?”

Now, your simple 30-second introduction has already perked others’ ears without any effort on your end. Blogger? Full time? How? Travel blog? What URL? What countries has he covered before? So he earns money travel blogging? How does he do that?? These are probably just some questions flashing through the person’s mind in that half minute you were speaking.

The good thing about being so upfront in your sharing is that you automatically attract like-minded people who want to know you better and filter away those who don’t. So don’t worry about being forward; rather, focus on being true to yourself and letting your true self shine. :)

Watch out: Don’t go overzealous though and go on a 10-minute spiel talking about how awesome you are and why you are the king/queen of the world; that’s probably going to turn people off. Talk about the key things you are proud of which defines who you are, then use them as fodder to jump-start your connection.

Step 2: Adhere to the 50-50 Rule

Second step is to adhere to the 50–50 rule I shared before in 10 Rules of a Great Conversationalist. Ensure each of you take turns to speak, and that each sharing balances out the other’s. It’s okay if the other person is talking a little more or if you are talking a little more depending on the topic; the point is to ensure talk time is distributed between both of you. If you are with three or more people, then involve everyone in the chat where possible.

Why this rule? People generally like to share. Even the shyest, quietest people do too, if you ask the right questions. (All of us have things we are passionate about, be it our life partner, our job, our hobbies, our pet, our last canoeing experience gone wrong, etc. Quiet people are quiet only because you have not found what makes them tick.)

Also, by allowing people to share, you put them in the spotlight and allow them to shine. Most people talk too much and don’t let others take the stage–you don’t want to do that. Engaging people on a 50–50 level will certainly boost others’ impression of you because you are taking an interest in them where most don’t–and that highlights your kindness and sensitivity.

On the other hand, don’t go overboard and expect the person to share 100% of the time! That would simply be an interrogation! Besides getting to know the other person, you want him/her to know you too, and you can only do so by sharing as well. Take the stage with the person and he/she will realize that you are there to make a real connection.

Step 3: Be of Service to Others

Last but not least, find ways to be of service to others. Say this person is interested to write a book. Do you have any knowledge on book writing or publishing? Do you know any friends in publishing? Know anyone who just released a book? How about anyone who is currently writing a book? Offer your best knowledge, then point the person in the right direction.

One of my good friends today, Karl, struck me with a great first impression during our first correspondences up to the day we met. I was in New York City (by myself) back in 2011, and knowing that he was in New York too, I reached out to say hi. Karl was just a business acquaintance then–we had only connected via email when I did the Groupon Singapore interview on my blog; I was half expecting a non-response when I reached out.

To my surprise, he graciously followed up and even invited me to join him, his wife, and his friends for dinner that weekend. He invited me for brunch with his friend the next day and showed me around New York City that afternoon and evening, even though he didn’t have to. We subsequently met up again, kept in touch and became good friends.

What struck me about Karl then was his kindness; he didn’t have to show me around NYC or connect me with his friends but he did. Because of that, he left a striking impression which made feel that this friendship is worth pursuing and building.

So ask yourself, how can you be of service to others? Is there anything you can be of help to this person? What is this person working on now which you can assist him/her with? Is there anyone knowledgeable in the field whom you can connect him/her with?

You don’t have to offer help only when people ask for it; most people never ask for help because they are independent and nice that way. Extend a helping hand even if the person doesn’t need it, and you may find a new connection waiting to be fostered.

Final Words

These are three simple steps you can do even in encounters as short as 15 minutes. Pitch yourself, do a 50–50 sharing, and offer help where possible. You will definitely leave a lasting impression in many’s minds if you execute the steps right.

At the end of the day though, remember not to over-worry about others’ impressions of you. Rather, live your life based on how you can convey your values through your actions. Doing that will automatically lead to you making a good first impression in front of others, not the other way round.

I’ve written many more tips on making good impressions and connecting with people. Read the other pieces in my interpersonal communication series:

• The Secret To Meaningful Social Relationships (How to Remove Social Anxiety)
• How to Make Small Talk with Anyone in 5 Easy Ways (Examples Included!)
• 10 Rules of a Great Conversationalist
• Are You Keeping People Away With Your Body Language? (And 10 Tips To Improve Your Body Language)

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How can I stop feeling lonely? – Helen

Hey Helen, to stop feeling lonely, understand what’s driving your feeling of loneliness.

Contrary to popular belief, loneliness has nothing to do with whether you are single or attached. You can be attached and feel lonely, just as you can be single and not feel lonely.

For example, I have friends who were attached and felt highly neglected in their relationships. Even though they were with someone, they appeared worse off than when they were single. On the same note, I have friends who are single but feel perfectly at ease with themselves, never once feeling like they are in a place of lack. They do not feel lonely despite being alone.

Loneliness — A State of Being

So if loneliness is independent of one’s companionship status, what causes loneliness? I have come to learn from experience that loneliness is a state of being. It’s the result of an internal void that has yet to be addressed.

My Experience Dealing with Loneliness/Emptiness

For example, there were times in my past when I would feel a little empty; I wished I had someone in my life. I would watch movies and feel silent envy for the characters who find love by the end of the shows. I would think of conscious couples I know of in real life and feel happy for them, while wishing that I would meet someone for me at some point in the near future.

When I drilled into this wish, I realized that I was craving for love from another (the right guy, not just any guy). Going deeper, I realized that this desire, this craving, was a result of not loving myself enough. There was a part of me that was blocked off to love, which resulted in the emptiness feeling. I had hoped to fill the lack of love in me (an internal void) with love from someone else (an external entity).

Clearly, getting attached is not the solution. If I were to get attached to fill the emptiness, it would only create a disastrous relationship. Firstly, I would continue to feel empty whenever my partner was not around or when I feel that I was not getting the attention I want from him. Next, I would become dependent on him to feed me with love, resulting in a clingy, fear-based relationship, rather than being a complete individual living her life and becoming a better person through her relationship. Last but not least, the feeling of emptiness would resurface if I were to break up with my partner in the future.

Hence, it was more important that I resolve my internal void from within rather than get together with someone to fill the void, because the latter approach is not sustainable.

So, I worked on resolving this void. I delved into my lack of self-love, which included my body image issue and my poor self-image. I addressed these issues one at a time, as I had detailed in my body image series and my beauty article.

One thing I realized was that I was holding off from connecting with others because I was so immersed in my work and other life agenda. The heart part of me was starved. Rather than close myself from the world, I began to open my heart to others and get out there to make new connections with like minds.

I also recognized that there is no need to “find” love (not in the fear-based way), for love is everywhere around us—from a mother’s love for her child, to a couple’s love for each other, to a friend’s love for his/her friends, to a child’s love for his/her parents. I was unable to see this because I had been so one-tracked in my definition of love.

As I unraveled my self-love issues one at a time, I stopped feeling those moments of emptiness. While I might have an urge to get together with someone in the past, I became more grounded in my being. I began to see and feel completeness as myself, rather than look for romance to fill my void. I continued to be open to dating, not to fill a void, but to create a synergistic relationship with a conscious, compatible individual.

(More on synergistic relationships: How To Manage Between Your Goals and Your Partner)

Deal With Your Internal Voids

If you are lonely, ask yourself: “Why am I lonely?”

Chances are you will uncover voids to be addressed. These voids can be a lack of self-love, a lack of fulfillment in your life, or a lack of self-confidence.

Identify these voids, then take steps to fill those voids by adjusting your self-beliefs and/or taking actions to create your desired reality.

For example, maybe you feel a void because you lack self-confidence. Maybe you feel ugly because you are overweight. You feel self-conscious whenever you are out with people, especially thinner people. If so, create a healthy diet plan and exercise regime and stick to them; at the same time, work through your internal body image issues. (Read: How To Love Your Body (4-part series))

On the other hand, maybe your void comes from a lack of self-worth because you are not doing as well professionally relative to your peers. If so, take a proactive step in upgrading your work skills. Update your resume, talk to headhunters, and explore better career opportunities in the market. At the same time, know that your worth should not be tied to your professional success. Your worth exists independently as its own.

Or, perhaps you feel a void because you wish you have more confidants in life. If so, develop your social finesse. Expand your social circles. Make new friends and develop stronger friendships with your existing friends. Read:

• How to Make Small Talk with Anyone in 5 Easy Ways
• 10 Rules of a Great Conversationalist
• 10 Useful Tips To Make New Friends
• How to Have More Best Friends: My Heartfelt Guide

Whatever your internal voids are, know that they can be addressed. Why? That’s because you are a being of abundance. You are born with a never-ending flow of love, energy, and power.

The reason for your internal voids isn’t because you come from a place of lack, but because you have misguided notions about yourself/the world. Once you truly realize that this world is not one of scarcity but abundance, your feeling of loneliness will naturally dissipate. You do not need a relationship, any relationship, to complete yourself, because you are already complete.

Read:

• Are You Looking For a Relationship To Complete Yourself?
• Are You Living Vicariously Through Movie, Drama or Game Characters?