Enhance Your Lifestyle With NLP+© Series: Part 9

By: Shantanu Das Sharma, Sr. Associate Editor-ICN Group

Quick recap of what we have covered in Part 8

Accepting Absolute Responsibility Provides YOU Absolute Power

Providing Excuses and Blaming Others Takes Power Away from You

How Do So Many People Choose to be Victims?

Accept Responsibility for How YOU Feel

KOLKATA: The key elements that drive our actions and results are the emotional states we experience. When we feel excited and motivated, we are more likely to take action that will lead to great results. But when we are upset and depressed, we rarely make good decisions or do anything productive. Unfortunately, these are the common scenarios. ‘She made me angry’ ‘My divorce is really depressing me’ ‘My kids are driving me crazy’ ‘My work load and unappreciative boss is driving me to a nervous breakdown’. As long as we cast blame outside ourselves, our states will be out of our control. This is how when most people allow their emotions as predominant drivers to operate their lives, the result is that they end up feeling helpless and powerless.

Instead Choose Taking Responsibility for How You Feel! You will then Have the Power to Put Yourself in the Most Empowering Emotional States.

When you are upset, you are choosing to be upset. When you are excited, you are choosing to be excited. Remember, no one can affect how you feel unless you allow them to. The moment you recognize this, you can choose to feel differently. Successful individuals choose to feel empowered and positive even in the direst of circumstances. That is how they feel constantly motivated to improve their situation. For example, if you get fired unfairly, you can choose to feel depressed and wallow in self-pity. You can also choose to feel all fired up to go out and make a success of yourself, to make your ex-company regret their decision! In fact, some of the greatest companies in the world were built by men who were motivated to get back at their ex-companies for firing them.

One of the most famous example is what Lee Iacocca did when Henry Ford II fired him (a personality clash). He simply went and joined a rival motor company (Chrysler), turned that ailing company around, and built it up to rival Ford. Or look what Ivana Trump did when real estate magnet (currently elected President of the United States of America) Donald Trump dumped her for a younger woman. Instead of drowning her ‘loss’ with alcohol, anti depressants and wrecking her health, she made herself even more glamorous and publicly announced to other wronged wives, “Don’t get mad, get even!” and proceeded to wrest a mega settlement from him.

In subsequent articles in this series, we will explore in greater depth how to take total control of our thoughts and our emotional states.

How do You Become a Master Communicator!

The power of communication is one of the most important tools we have as human beings. In fact, your ability to achieve your goals almost always depends on your ability to communicate and influence other people. As a salesperson, your ability to communicate your product benefits will determine whether you get that sale.

In your leadership role as a business owner, your ability to inspire your staff, attract new clients and investors is determined by your power as a master communicator. To be an effective teacher or a parent, you must be able to enthuse, inspire, convince, build rapport and sell ideas to your children or students. So, do you want to become a master communicator, someone who is always able to influence others in a powerful way? Again, the key is to take responsibility for the way you communicate, and the results you are getting from it. This way, we attain absolute power over the effect of our communication. Whenever we communicate with someone, do we always get the response that we want? When we attempt to inspire our staff, do they always respond by getting inspired? When we sell an idea to someone, do they always buy what we say? Does the meaning of our communication always get across the way we want it too? You know that the answer to all of the above is a flat No! So what happens when we do not get the response that we want?

Again, we have two choices! We can choose to blame the other person for not being receptive, for being unreasonable, close minded, and stupid etc. But you know what? By doing this, there is nothing more we can do about it! We have shut the door on them.

Let’s hear what traditional communication theory says about successful communication. It theorizes that when two people communicate, both have an equal, i.e. 50% each way responsibility, for the success of the communication.

In other words, say A is talking to B and attempting to sell B an idea. A can do his best to communicate, but 50% of the success of his communication lies with B.

If B has a closed mind and does not want to listen, the communication can never be successful. So B is to be blamed for the unsuccessful communication. Unfortunately, people who buy this theory never become effective communicators. Why? Because by accepting this theory, we will always be limited as communicators. We will not always get the result we want! In fact we will seldom get the results we want. Does this happen to you? You motivate your staff to work harder, but they don’t respond positively, so you give up! You try to motivate your children to study harder, but it doesn’t work, so you say, ‘What’s the point? They are just lazy.’ You do your best to sell a product to a group of prospects, but they don’t buy, so you say, ‘I guess they are just not interested in this product.’

Take 100% Responsibility for the Success of Your Communication

A study of the most influential and impactful communicators in the world, revealed that what set them apart was that they always took 100% responsibility for the success of their communication. If they (A) communicated an idea to another person (B), and B did not respond successfully, then they would not blame B. They would take responsibility and accept that their own communication was not effective. By doing this, they have the power to change their communication, until they get the desired response.

Such great communicators hold the belief that the meaning of their communication was the response they got, regardless of their intention. For example, if they attempted to communicate their sincerity, but the other person felt that they were insincere, they would take responsibility that the meaning of their communication was ‘insincerity’, even though they intended to be sincere. It could be their tone of voice or body language that made them seem ‘insincere’. They would then change their communication strategy until they got the response they desired, i.e. being sincere.

The Meaning of Your Communication is the Response you Get! Keep Changing your Communication until you get the Desired Response!

We must understand that different people perceive the world differently. Everybody has different internal filters. When you tell a joke, a group of people may laugh while another group does not think it is funny at all. It is not that the second group does not have a sense of humor. It is just that they perceive humor differently. As a great communicator, we must take responsibility for it and change our communication (joke) until we get them to laugh. So, taking responsibility and having extreme flexibility is the key to being a master of influence.

(I facilitate Thought Leaders, Change Makers; Professionals & Business Owners translate NLP concepts into actions to achieve and elicit personal excellence. I conduct NLP Lifestyle Coaching Certification programs for individuals, corporate and celebrity clients. In the next article, I will share about ‘Words, tonality and body language’ and how you always have a choice and after that you will come to know in subsequent articles, how you can utilise concepts of NLP+ in all walks of your life to replicate the success blueprint of a winner mindset to win through life.  So, stay tuned every Monday & Saturday and fasten your seat belt to ‘Enhance Your Lifestyle With NLP+’)

My #1 Amazon Best Selling book ‘Awaken The Incredible Within – Incredible Is The New Giant’ is available at Amazon in English at  http://bit.ly/Awaken-The-Incredible-Within

Shantanu Das Sharma, Creator of the concept NLP Lifestyle Coaching with NLP+, Founder of Neuromind Leadership Academy is an Amazon #1 Best Selling Author, NLP Lifestyle Master Trainer & Coach, Clean Language Facilitator & Strategic Interventionist.  

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