How often do you say “I have to”? Do you say “I’ll try…”? I really believe that the language we use shapes our behavior. I wonder if you get the same impression. I hope that you’ll find my thoughts and tips on this topic useful.
Marcin, the way you ran the meeting was excellent. It was to the point, and everything was on time.
Marek, you prepared a great template. It’s so easy to use!
Andrzej, I heard how you handled that case with Grzegorz. I really appreciate the way you solved it.
Jacek, thank you for the report you sent me yesterday. It contains everything I asked for.
Kasia, your presentation yesterday was really interesting. I remembered a lot of details.
Marian, I really like your pants! You look great in them.
Guys, you did really well! The way you solved that problem was excellent. Everyone knows what
the issue was and no one feels resentful.
Yesterday’s dinner was really delicious. It was a pleasant to be your guest!
How often do you say similar things to your friends, employees, and colleagues? How often do you praise others and notice well-executed tasks? Probably not often enough!
Simple words that show that you notice something done well are priceless. They make other people feel appreciated and more confident, people want to continue to perform well.
She is the best in her role. She performs much better than average. She is told that if she wants to be promoted, she can take a managerial position. The problem is that she doesn’t like to manage people. She loves what she currently does and wants to develop in that area. Unfortunately, there is no career path defined for that area. And also, if she wants to earn more money, becoming a manager is the only way. So she becomes a manager, and she’s miserable in that role. She misses her old job. Sound familiar? Have you heard similar stories in the past?
Can pessimism be a virtue? My impulse used to be to say „no.” Now I know that’s not true. I got inspired to write this post when I was listening to an episode of This is your life podcast. The title of the episode was How to wreck your future. In that episode, its hosts discuss the hidden dangers of pessimism. I listened to the discussion and noticed that I kept repeating in my head “This is not fair! You can’t say that someone is a pessimist and assume all these things based on that!” I decided that I’d debate with the thesis from that podcast. Keep reading to learn why I don’t agree with this idea and why I think pessimism can be a virtue.
I like to talk to people. For me, talking to people is rewarding, and in most cases I learn a lot from each conversation that I have. If I know the interlocutor, starting a conversation is not a problem for me. But when I meet new people it is quite hard to begin chatting. Lately I’ve been attending a lot of project meetings, business dinners, and other types of business meetings, so I’ve had to come up with a strategy for starting conversations. If you have a similar challenge with speaking to new people, I have a few tips for you.
Please remember that what I am going to list below are just some ways to get chatting. Usually after starting a conversation you come up with so many interesting subjects to discuss that it isn’t a problem to continue. But it’s not about making small talk – it’s about starting a more meaningful conversation.
What do I do to prepare for a meeting with new people? Below you can find a few tips.
These are just a few ideas for what to do if you don’t know how to start a conversation (like myself). Remember, they’re just ideas to get the ball rolling. From my experience, I’ve learned that after a few sentences you learn so much about the person you’re talking to that you can easily continue and enjoy the conversation. As I wrote in the beginning, the most important thing is to start. Everything that follows is much easier.
What do you do when you meet new people? How do you start a conversation? Are you the type of person that can just talk to everyone immediately? Or maybe you wait for someone else to start? I am very interested to hear your stories. Please comment here or on Facebook – or, like you often do, just talk to me :)
