It seems like I go through a major mid-life crisis every 5 years or so. It’s cool, I think. I mean isn’t that the whole point of personal development? I know. Some people will say that personal development is all about getting better and living a happier life.
True. But then again isn’t personal development about changing and changing for the better? I have found that anything worth having never comes easy. Hence every 5 years or so I find myself going through a mid-life crisis—or better I experience…
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Posted: September 24th, 2009
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On October 22, 1844, sun rose in the morning and set in the evening. Things didn’t exactly go the way William Miller planned.
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Posted: August 28th, 2009
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I sometimes like to look for inspiration for life lessons in film. And today it happened. Last night I was watching one of the great film classics, “Dumb and Dumber.” And I got to the part where Harry (Jeff Daniels’ character) is talking about why his old girlfriend broke up with him. And he says this:
Yeah I called her up. She gave me a bunch of crap about me not listening to her, or something. I don’t know, I wasn’t really paying attention.
As my friend and author Steve Harper likes to say, we have two ears and one mouth and we should use them proportionally. I agree with this 100%. But the movie got me thinking: Harry obviously listened to his girlfriend (he has ears, doesn’t he). But is listening itself important? Or is it how you listen that’s important? And is listening the same thing as paying attention?
The truth is we listen to people every day. And a ton of books tell us how we have to be good listeners. But can we take a cue from Harry? If Harry had just “paid attention,” would his girlfriend had felt like he had “listened” to her?
Actually, there are many different types of listening. In today’s post, I will talk about five of them.
Appreciative listening
Appreciative listening is where you listen to simply enjoy the listening experience. This is the way we tend to listen when we are at a concert, club, or other fun venue. Here you are listening for the joy of listening itself. However, if you’ve ever talked to someone and it looks like they have “lost interest” in what you are saying, most likely they are utilizing appreciative listening. Mostly likely they no longer “appreciate” what you’re saying. This is what Harry was doing in the movie. Obviously, he did not “appreciate” what his girlfriend told him.
Empathetic listening
Emphatic listening is when you are listening to support the person speaking. We’ve all done this. When our friends or spouses vent about their problems and we just listen to it, we are using empathetic listening. We are showing how much we care when we listen like this.
I get the feeling that when Harry’s girlfriend talked to him about her troubles, she might have been looking for him to listen like this.
Comprehensive listening
Comprehensive listening is listening to organize the information given by the speaker. When you re listened like this trying to apply the information to your personal experience. Some examples might include taking directions, trying to figure out what to do next, etc.
Discerning listening
Discerning listening is listening to gather information. With discerning listening, you are listening to find the main message. An example might include going to a seminar and trying to find out what the whole point of a speech is about.
Evaluative listening
With evaluative listening, you are listening in order to solve the problem of the person speaking. For example, if someone is telling you about their annoying co-worker, the evaluative listener will problem offer up different ways in which the person can deal with the co-worker.
Evaluative listeners are typically in problem-solving mode.
Now, how does this all apply to you? Surely it can apply in more ways than I can talk about in one blog post. But consider this:
You are venting to your friend about your bad day looking for a little sympathy, and your friend starts telling you about ways in which you could have made it better. How does it make you feel? Do you think your friend is really listening to you?
He is, just not the way you wanted him to.
So, keep these things in mind. Try to see how you are listening to others. And be aware of how others are listening to you.
I’d like to give a brief plug for Tim Ursiny’s book, “The Coward’s Guide to Conflict” that introduced the ways of listening to me.
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I feel a little embarrassed when I first get to the meeting. I wonder if maybe I don’t belong here. All these people from different backgrounds. Most of them don’t seem like me at all.
I almost walk out the door before the meeting starts. But I know I have to be here. I knew I had a problem. And I knew it was affecting everyone and everything around me.
In turn each person spoke, saying their names and admitting the problem. And now it was my turn. I mustered up the courage and said…
My name is Carlon Haas, and I’m…
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While Bono is out there saving the world, he has also come to the aid of this blogger. No, I’m not saying that Bono is omnipotent, but music has a way of getting under your skin and sparking revelations–even 17 years in the making.
Yep, 17 years is all it took for me to get the meaning of this U2 song. But more importantly, the lesson I learned from the experience of finally “getting” the lyrics is something I think everyone should learn.
Take a listen to this podcast to find out what U2 taught me about listening to others.
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Posted: January 9th, 2008
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Today, I celebrate 5 years of being smoke-free.
To celebrate, I bought a nice bottle of wine and decided to write this New Year’s post for all of you. You see, for many years I tried making New Year’s resolutions. And just by chance, I was going to make a resolution to quit smoking on January 1st, 2003. The problem? A friend of mine sent me a carton of Korean cigarettes. So, I felt obligated to smoke them and said I’d quit as soon as I finished.
And I did…one week later…January 7, 2003…the last time I ever smoked. But let’s move to 2007.
2007 is over.
How was your 2007? Did you do the things you wanted to do? Achieve the things you wanted to achieve? And on New Year’s Eve, amid a vast array of booze and indecent party snacks, did you make your New Year’s resolution?
Well, if you did, my advice is to…
…take it back and resolve NOT to make any New Year’s resolutions ever again.
New Year’s resolutions hardly ever work (just ask the gym people who sell memberships right after New Year’s). And I think it’s because most people don’t know that resolution, at its root, contains the word resolve. When you resolve to do something, you are determined to do it. Nothing should stand in your way.
But how long does it take after New Year’s for your resolve to fail? And let’s not just stop at New Year’s. How often do you see the beginnings of your resolutions fail because you lost the resolve, determination, and perseverance to make it work? It’s happened to me often enough.
How often do we look for instant results instead of plodding through? Plodding is boring, but the results tend to speak for themselves. If I think about myself, I have managed to get healthier after 6 months of working out regularly at the gym. The results weren’t instant, but they last,
Maybe it’s because a lot of us feel like we don’t have time to do anything. But I’m a big believer in putting in time to get results. Without any results, you can waste time. It’s like the guy who asks a woman to marry him on the first date and when she refuses says, “Well, she must not like me because she doesn’t want to marry me.” Sounds silly, but this is exactly how many people approach self-development—marriage on the first date.
And this is why I’m telling you now…
…throw out those New Year’s resolutions.
You can make those resolutions ANY TIME YOU WANT but make them only when you have the resolve to see them through.
I’m not just telling you this because I read some stupid self-help book or watched some movie that changed my life. It’s all from my own experience. That’s how in 2006, I stopped biting my nails. And how I quit smoking. You see, movies and books (or blogs for that matter)don’t change lives …
…people do.
And the person change starts with is you. No movie or book worth its salt has ever told me anything different.
Don’t let anything hold you back…
…especially yourself.
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For those of you who know me, here is something you might not know. I LOVE flying. Yep, I love flying. I like taking off, landing, and I even like the crappy food. In fact, I sleep like a baby when I fly. I find the whole experience calming and relaxing.
But there’s one aspect of flying that took a little getting used to. And that was…
…turbulence. But a funny thing happened on one flight I took with my then 1 year old daguher. When we hit a patch of turbulence, my daughter started squealing and bouncing up and down. It seemed that turbulence had made the flight fun for her.
Well, since then turbulence and I have gotten along better. In fact, I just took a flight last week and we hit a rough patch of turbulence. Of course, we did this right as I was on my way to the bathroom.
So, I thought to myself. “Now what?”
The way I saw it, I had 2 choices: go back to my seat and wait it out, or enjoy the ride.
So, it is in life. Recently, I have been going through a particularly turbulent time. And there are turbulent times up ahead for me. But I have a choice. I can either sit back and whine about how hard things are for me, or I can enjoy the ride.
I’m choosing to enjoy the ride. In fact, it might just be fun. I have found that the times your life experiences turbulence are the times that can define you. They are the times that can shape who you are and who you will become.
Turbulence comes whether you want it to or not. It’s how you deal with it that makes the difference.
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There is a particular cultural faux paux that I constantly break here in Korea.
You see, the other day I was sucking on some horrible (I mean REALLY horrible) cough drops for my sore throat.
And I was chatting with my friend, knowing that I should be at least offering her one even though she doesn’t have a sore throat. But I didn’t.
Yesterday, I finally got a hold of some kick-butt, great-tasting cough drops. And as I was talking to my friend, I offered her one, which she readily accepted. Though she did make a comment as to why I wasn’t offering her any before. Good question, really. I mean I know I should do so here in Korea. And it is generally the polite thing to do wherever you go, I think.
So, why didn’t I just offer her the other one to keep my usually impeccable manners?
It boils down to this: I just cannot offer someone something that I personally do not like and that I think is not good enough for them.
Let me explain. The first cough drop I was eating was simply terrible. I couldn’t stand it, and I didn’t want to subject my friend to this horrible stuff. She may have accepted my offer and then been forced to eat the terrible cough drop just to be polite to me. No way!
But when I have something that I enjoy or love, I want to share it with others. Like the good cough drop, I offered it to her not to be polite but because I wanted her to have the same pleasant experience I was having.
And if I discover a great new restaurant, I drag my friends to it and pay for their meals. The reason again is that when I discover something wonderful, I want to share it.
All of you may have noticed that I have only been posting a couple of times a week these last couple of weeks instead of my usually 3-5 posts. It’s not because I haven’t written enough posts. I’ve written plenty. The problem is that they ar not very good. I’ve been incredibly busy lately and I feel that the quality of my posts was declining.
So, I simply did not post. Some might disagree with this, but this is my philosophy. When I care about people, I want to give them my best. I want them to eat the good food I eat. I want them to read the best things I have to write. In short I want to share with others the best that I’ve experience.
Some might argue that what I like others may hate. That’s true. But I just can’t knowingly share things that I hate on the mere chance that others might love it.
That is me. And I hope that all of you out there will go out today and share something wonderful with someone close to you. It can be a small thing (like my cough drop). Or it can be a big thing. No matter what, sharing the best of our experiences makes the experience itself more valuable and even more wonderful.
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A while back, my fried and author Steve Harper blogged about Michael Jordan. He wrote a great post about how Michael Jordan always took the big shot. And Harper went on how we should take the big shot like Jordan.
I commented on that blog post. But to be honest, I don’t identify with Michael Jordan at all. Michael Jordan is someone who is larger than life. A person who personifies greatness. One might even say that as far as basketball goes, Michael Jordan personified perfection as a basketball player.
How many basketball players have matched Jordan’s athleticism, basketball smarts, and the mental mindset that all the greats possess? The truth is Jordan was born with it all. Of course, he developed those skills by working hard but a guy like Michael Jordan doesn’t do it through sheer will. He’s born with a lot of it.
And that is hard for any of us to match.
But while it’s easy to look up to people like Jordan, it’s hard to emulate him. There were commercials of “Be Like Mike” but I for one was never going to get close. Because it’s just so darn hard to match the skill level of a Michael Jordan.
But I do identify with another player. Someone who we can look at as a role model
The basketball player I think of instead of Jordan is Robert “Big Shot Rob” Horry.
Why him?
In the regular season the guy’s a glorified bench warmer. But in the playoffs in the last few minutes of a game, the turns into something else. He is not afraid to take the big shot. I remember watching him kill the Spurs when he was with the Houston Rockets and the LA Lakers. And then when he joined the Spurs, I watched a playoff game when the big stars (Duncan Ginobli) looked petrified down the stretch. I kept screaming “just give it to Horry, he’ll take the shot”.
And what happened? Horry got the ball and drilled the big shot over and over.
I once saw an interview with Horry and he said something that I thought was telling. He said something to the effect of when he gets the ball he is not afraid of missing. And then he goes on to say that if he misses 20 shots in a game no one will notice. But if he hits the big shot, everyone remembers.
Now, this is what we can do in our lives. WE can develop a “big shot” mindset. And the truth is no one will remember our misses. They’ll only remember your hits.
The key is to not be afraid to take the shot. The fear of missing (we can call this fear of failing or fear of rejection as well) is what stops us. But honestly, we are the only ones who remember our failings. Succeed once and that’s all anyone will remember.
Step up and take the shot. You don’t need to do it all the time. Just when it matters most. And don’t be afraid to miss.
No, not all of us are Michael Jordans who can carry a team by ourselves, but I think each of us has a little “Big Shot Rob” in them.
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A while back, I pulled a lat muscle at the gym. Now, if you’ve never pulled a lat muscle, let me tell you something:
You are lucky!
It hurts like heck. You use your lat muscle to lift, while you’re sitting, and it hurts every time you twist your body.
Well, after taking it easy for a few weeks (treadmills are boring), I was ready to get back to some weight training.
But not wanting to take any chances, I was pretty much on light weight training (and for full disclosure, my gym activities do NOT include lifting heavy weights…I have no intention to be the next wannabe Schwarzenegger.)
How did it go?
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