Tag Archives: positive attitude

An Antidote to Negative Self-Talk

Coaching, Job Search, , , , , , , , ,

anxiety2A private client of mine, who I will call Tess, was like a soldier suffering from PTSD. She had been out of work for nineteen months and had failed in fifty-nine, straight job interviews at twenty-nine companies. She was very smart (MBA from the University of Chicago), accomplished, likable, and engaging, but she no longer believed in herself. A tape kept playing in her head that said, “Loser! What happened to you? Your career looked so promising. Why did you screw it up?”

Nineteen months of negative self-talk can make you a stranger to yourself. She no longer knew who she was, and she desperately needed to reconnect with her real self before she disappeared. So, we had a conversation:

Me: Are you smart?

Tess: Yes. I believe so.

Me: What makes you think that?

She looked at me a little surprised. My tone was challenging. I was saying, “Prove it.” She then said:

Tess: Well, I went to a distinguished undergrad program and did very well. I also did well in a post grad program at one the top universities in the country.

Me: Oh, so you have objective evidence that you are smart. This is a fact, not a fantasy, am I right?

Tess: Yes.

Me: Are you likable?

And so the conversation went. It became something of a game, and she would smile with each question. I finally ended it by saying, “When I tell you that you have every reason to be confident because you are smart, likable, and engaging, I am not saying things that aren’t true just to try and make you feel better. I’m sharing objectively verifiable facts. So will you please start believing me and believe in yourself.”

After our conversation she would wake up each morning and say, “I’m smart and I have objective evidence to prove it. I am likable and engaging for the following reasons….”

dreamstime_xl_19169606Her negative self-talk was now replaced by positive self-talk based on reality. A week later she interviewed with a company and was hired. Their salary offer was $20,000 more than her previous salary. This indicates she was able to transform their “need to fill a slot” into “an intense desire to have her fill this slot.”

The hiring authority can feel what we feel. Human nature was designed to have this capability through the mirror neuron system. When the hiring authority feels our anxiety, fear and a lack of confidence this can outweigh the objective reality that each one of us may actually be a great hire. So we need to regain our confidence and when we do, and the 60th opportunity comes around, this same person who failed the previous 59 times can hit the ball out of the park.

When I spoke to Tess after she received her job offer, I could feel what she felt: the pure joy that accompanies the end of a nineteen-month, brutal slog through a wilderness.

THE PATH TO JOB SEARCH SUCCESS:

The following link will take you to my eBook, The Path to Job Search Success: A Neuroscientific Approach to Interviewing, Negotiating and Networking. It details the system used to help Tess and others.

http://amzn.to/1dETvOC

An Authentic, Interviewing Voice

Job Search, , , , ,

Jobseekers face a difficult obstacle. The interviewing situation is pressure-packed and stress-filled, and feeling nervous before the interview starts is normal. After all, you want this job, but only one person is leaving this contest with  a job offer.

If feeling anxious and nervous before a job interview is normal, then we need a new normal, because our emotional state affects our communication in ways that can end the interview before we say a word. Here is how.

Our non-verbal behaviors (our facial expression, body, language and tone of voice) are subconscious expressions of our emotional state. If we feel nervous, then we will look nervous. We don’t have to think about it. Our expression follows automatically. When you are really happy you do not think about smiling, you just do. These non-verbal expressions communicate a great deal about who we are and weigh heavily in someone’s assessment of us.

We can consciously control our non-verbals for only a short period of time. For during the interview, our rational minds cannot stay focused on understanding the question being asked, formulating our answer, and monitoring and adjusting the subtle messages our facial expression, tone of voice and body language are communicating. Our conscious, rational mind’s processing speed is around 40 bits per second. It simply doesn’t have the bandwidth to control all of this. Then, absent conscious control, our non-verbals go back to expressing our emotional state.

THE INAUTHENTIC VOICE

Now what happens when we have confident answers (the verbal component of communication), but our non-verbals express an anxious lack of confidence? In emotional situations, when our words fail to match our non-verbal behaviors we tend to believe the non-verbals.

“Albert Mehrabian drew this conclusion from his research many years ago. In 1967 he wrote a paper entitled, ‘Decoding of Inconsistent Communications.’ His study found tone of voice and facial expressions were more influential than words when communicating one’s feelings or attitudes.

“Later, combining these results with another study, he produced the oft-quoted percentages, that weight the impact of the actual meaning of words as being only 7% of the message when communicating one’s feelings or attitudes, while tone and body language had a respective weighting of 38% and 55%.

“For our purposes, whether his ratios are accurate or not is unimportant. What is important is this: In high-risk, high-reward—emotional—situations, non-verbal behaviors are more influential than the words themselves, particularly when the two don’t match.” (from The Path to Job Search Success: Aligning Job Search With Human Nature, 2015, pp. 42-43)

When verbal and non-verbal communications don’t match we have an inauthentic voice. We are sending two conflicting messages, not a unified, consistent one. And what makes this so problematic is the way our minds have the ability to assess non-verbal behaviors in seconds.  If someone approaches with an angry face you are immediately wary. The rational mind was not needed to analyze this and sound alarm bells. That is because our other mental system, the cognitive unconscious, is much faster than the rational mind and it is continually assessing the world around it, including non-verbal behaviors.

So, what are we to do? We are to gain control of our emotional state, because that is what generates our non-verbal behaviors. How do we do that? By changing our brain chemistry. Here are two techniques that do that. Amy Cuddy’s power pose reduces the stress hormone, cortisol, which has an enormous impact on the brain (I recommend viewing her 2012 TED talk). And taking slow, deep breaths does the same thing. Practice the power pose in the hiring organization’s bathroom about ten minutes before the interview, and take a few deep breaths while waiting for them to fetch you for your first interview. Then speak with an authentic voice. It is a voice that inspires confidence, trust, and the belief that you are more than able to handle the job.

 

 

 

Coping Strategies: The War We Must Win Is Fought Within

Job Search, , , , , , ,

My radio coach, broadcasting legend Lorna Gladstone, told me which podcast of mine was her absolute favorite. It was this interview on coping strategies with Professor Michael Milco. The link to this free, downloadable podcast is:

http://bit.ly/1di96Rr

If you are struggling emotionally with this sometimes agonizing and deflating job search process, then you will want to hear this show. Prof. Milco, who has been counseling people for many years, was awesome.

Coaching Notes: Keep Fishing or Cut Bait?

Business, Coaching, , , ,
Problem solving is unlocking the secrets of the maze we are in.
Coaching is problem solving. Your problem solving approach can determine success or failure.

He was over sixty, very hard of hearing, spherical in shape… and LOSING MAJOR CUSTOMERS AND BEING BANNED FROM HOSPITALS. He was the first person I’d met who had been banned from hospitals, and the last person I would have picked to achieve this distinction. For he was kind, friendly, likable…what the heck was happening?

His numbers were never great before I came on board and now they were getting worse. At a company that seemed only to fire convicted felons, I was surprisingly given a green light to fire Joe. He was losing too many large, long-term, influential customers. But I didn’t want to. He was nearing the end of his career and I did not want it to be with me pulling the rug out from under him. So, I had one option. Coach him, make him better.

I have a simple coaching philosophy: Subtract the most egregious behavior, if there is one, and add the most important, missing behavior.

To locate what is missing and what’s needed you must keep quiet, let people do what they normally do, and watch like a hawk. The egregious behavior appeared quickly. A nurse asked a reasonable question and Joe responded, “Do you really think that would be a good idea?” I kept quiet to see where this was going. I thought his belittling response must have been an anomaly since it was so unlike him.

The next day he was asked a question by another nurse and he said, “Now that really doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it?” Now I had a pattern forming and the nurse’s visceral response confirmed I had found the bad behavior that needed to be removed.

After he was made aware of what he was doing, and its impact, he stopped doing it. I never heard of another problem about him.

As for the behavior that needed to be added I chose the most powerful sales technique I know: differentiation. [If you are interested in the subject of differentiation, please click on the following link  http://bit.ly/19jQ9Gy.] I taught him how to do it and–to this day it amazes me–he was an instant master of the technique. The very next day he delivered a differentiation presentation and closed a large piece of business. You could have knocked me over with a feather. Two years later I was delighted to present Joe with the Region Manager of the Year award. As I stated to all present at the awards ceremony, there was no one I was more proud of in the entire company than Joe.

Coaching can be tough for the coach and the person being coached, but there are few career satisfactions greater than turning a person around when everyone, including the coach, believed the company should probably cut bait.

Coaching Notes: A Teachable Spirit

Business, Coaching, , , , ,

When you start to coach a person you should have high hopes, because you can receive one of life’s most rewarding feelings when you turn someone’s career around. It isn’t often you get the chance to change someone’s life for the better, possibly forever, and coaching can provide this opportunity.

communication

However, understand this, there are some people who have unteachable spirits, who cannot be coached. Take your time before you categorize someone in this way, but if they have an unteachable spirit and do not want to learn, then they won’t, and your valuable coaching time is being wasted.

I once tried to coach someone whose soul was–and still is–set in concrete. He is the type who stubbornly resists all attempts from the world, reality, coaches, and anyone and anything else, from changing him. He offers this defense, “Hey, I’m comfortable in my own skin. If you feel the need to change, then do so. Me? I’m doing pretty damn good just the way I am.”

Depending on when you catch this person in their narrative, they may be doing just fine…for the moment. In his case it took about five years before his average skill level nose-dived into mediocrity; he refused to adapt in the face of technological change, customer change, etc. The company then matched his now, low-level skills with a suitable challenge. He was given all of the smallest accounts in the country and went from being a sales manager to being a customer service agent in all but name.

Here is the point. It is simple and important. You can’t coach everyone. It requires a teachable spirit. If you are coaching someone without one, then you might as well be pumping the Great Lakes into the Pacific Ocean to try and make it a fresh water pond.

A Culture of Appreciation

Business, , , , ,

A group of executives were called into a meeting to discuss budget cuts. Everyone was wary, fearful the cuts might include staff, bonuses, the ending of promising projects, things that hit close to home. The mood was dark and almost surly. It was the sort of atmosphere that was not conducive to achieving tough goals, but it was perfect for producing conflict, heightened tension and demotivation.

A tuning fork.
A tuning fork.

The CEO brought in a consultant to start the meeting. He said something like this, “The first thing I’d like to do is have every one of you tell us about something that went exceptionally well during the past week. It might not have occurred in your department, but you heard about it and you observed its impact.”

They looked around at each other wondering what this was about, and then somebody offered something. He was commended for sharing. Someone else offered another example of something that went well in his department. He was thanked for his contribution. Soon everyone was sharing and the mood changed dramatically. The focus was now on what was going right, the positive and not the negative. And it offered an opportunity to not only share examples of the contributions people were making, but to express appreciation to those who were making the contribution.

The work ahead was still going to be hard. Tough decisions would have to be made. But now the positive focus turned the threat into an opportunity to discover efficiencies, become nimbler, and possibly develop new processes and procedures that righted a ship that was listing.

Humans are emotional tuning forks. When a tuning fork is vibrating, other tuning forks pick up this vibration when they come into its proximity. Consultants can help change the tune of an organization, and the impact of this can be dramatic. A relentlessly negative outlook, fear, an inward focus concerned primarily about oneself, rarely produces the results an organization seeks and sometimes desperately needs.

[The above story comes from Professor Dalton Kehoe, York University, in his Effective Communication course found in The Great Courses.]

Radio Interview: Informational Interviewing with Marty Gahbauer

Job Search, , , , , , , , ,

If you want to learn about informational interviewing, then it helps to do so from someone who conducted over 100 of them and learned the nuances of this process. That person is Marty Gahbauer and my radio interview with him was a fun opportunity to go over many of the most important insights he shares during a much longer seminar.

The following link will take you to a site where you can download a free podcast and then listen to it when the time is right. That could be during your commute, at the gym, during a shopping trip, whenever. http://bit.ly/1gCrBlx

I hope you enjoy it and please share it with other jobseekers who could benefit from this approach. In a shameless plug, my book, No Medal for Second Place: How to Finish First in Job Interviews, has a chapter covering the subject.

My best,

Tom Payne

 

The Young and the Unemployed

Job Search, , , , , , , ,

This is not the title of a soap opera, it is where the U.S. finds itself and it is a dangerous place.

Almost 6 million young people, aged 16-24, are neither at work nor in school. That’s about 15% of this demographic. What makes this such an unsettling fact is the longer-term implication of a generation waiting for work and failing to develop those skills required for advancement. This isn’t about individuals being unable to climb a corporate ladder; it is about U.S. businesses one day needing talented people to compete globally and finding this talent in short supply, because it never had the opportunity to develop.

The U.S. Capitol Building
The U.S. Capitol Building

Who is at fault? President Obama? The Republican-led House of Representatives? The Democratic-led Senate? With respect to your current state of unemployment, it doesn’t matter. Furthermore, if the unemployed focus on assigning blame, then the struggle to find work will almost certainly fail. Why? Because it requires an incredible amount of energy to secure meaningful work in this environment and wallowing in the comfort of excuses, and blaming others, is a luxury the unemployed cannot afford.

The first step that must be taken by the young and unemployed is to steer clear of blaming the economy, politicians, or anyone else. Young or old, the mindset must be, “I am responsible for my current situation. Therefore,” the responsible jobseeker asks, “What am I doing wrong, and what must I do right, to change this situation?” This may seem like strong medicine, but until we take full responsibility for our current situation we will be distracted by excuses from focusing on what is important.

If you are serious about finding work, then assess your current job search condition with this simple diagnostic:

  1. Do you understand the value your strengths offer?
  2. Do you even know what your strengths are? (If you don’t, that’s okay, because most people don’t.)
  3. Can you articulate them to a hiring authority in a compelling way?
  4. Are you networking effectively? Besides your LinkedIn page, are you pursuing informational interviews to network your way into the hidden job market?
  5. Have you developed stories to share your unique skills in a memorable way?
  6. CTC ChicagoAre you taking advantage of professional help? Coaching? It may be within your financial reach and it will accelerate the growth of your job search skills in ways you cannot imagine. For example, I serve as a volunteer coach at the Career Transitions Center of Chicago and their three month program costs $300. Check your location for similar programs. They may be offered by churches or synagogues, Chambers of Commerce, University alumni programs, but they will give you another perspective which is invaluable.

There is much more to do than answering these few questions, but it is a start. It is moving in the right direction. It is acting responsibly and facing the challenge of this tough job market with a positive, focused, no-excuses attitude that will be far more productive than one that allows the crippling luxury of excuses.

The Cute Puppy

Job Search, Problem Solving, , , , , ,

The pet store owner told the parent, “Just take this puppy home and see if you want to keep it or not. And you are right. She is awfully cute.”

Cute-DogsWe know how this story ends. The cute puppy enters the house, the children adopt her, and there is no way she is ever going to leave. Sold!

One of the most powerful ways to promote yourself in an informational interview, or a job interview, is to create in the hiring authority’s mind the image of you already working for the company. There are several ways of achieving this.

For example, during an informational interview you begin with a statement that asserts the value you can bring to an organization:

“Hi Joe, I thought we’d begin this informational interview by me telling you a little about myself, because many of the questions I’m going to ask are tied directly to this.”

Joe, says, “Sure. Go ahead.”

“Okay. In previous positions I’ve demonstrated the ability to look at hundreds of obstacles, threats, opportunities, and the like, and filter out all but the most important task that deserves my complete attention. And then I focus on it until the task is completed. And this has produced outsized gains. For example, I saw the urgent need to develop a distributor sales training program and it took two months of focused effort, but it resulted in the doubling of revenue and growing our market share from a base of 25% to over 50%. How do you see these analytical, problem-solving skills, combined with creativity, transferring to the challenges in your industry?”

I’ve articulated my strengths, or presented my personal brand, and have now asked the interviewer to imagine these strengths working for him in his industry. I am starting to migrate from my side of the table to his. I continue this process with other questions.

“Some people who are between jobs view themselves as being a problem, a burden, and they are seeking a solution, or a job. But I think I am solution seeking some hiring company’s problems. So what are the most difficult problems you face?”

CuteThen, once they share these problems with you, you begin to ask what their approach has been to solving it, and if they’ve tried doing this and that. By doing this, you’ve assumed the role of an employee doing what employees are hired to do: Solve their companies problems, remove obstacles to growth and profitability, and the more you do this and demonstrate how you are a positive force, the more you become like that cute puppy who has just found a new home.

However, you are not seeking a job during this informational interview. It is an attempt to both get information, and more importantly, to network within a new industry. That said, when you have made yourself so desirable that the interviewer would hire you, if he or she could, then how much more willing will this person be to share with you the names and numbers of potential job sources?

Hope

Job Search, , , , ,

sunrise-freeJobseekers tend to psychologically relocate themselves during a job search. Hope, or the lack of it, determines the neighborhood they choose. The jobseeker without hope can become the psychological equivalent of a homeless person, a beggar who feels he or she has nothing to offer, and who is crippled by a sense of shame and despair. Meanwhile, those jobseekers who have hope realize that they possess inherent worth and offer genuine value, and by being able to express this they attract the help of others–complete strangers–and find the hidden job opportunities.

I am not speaking about false hope, whistling in the dark when a genuine threat is nearby. False hopes are for the deluded, but 99.9% of jobseekers can have a delusion-free hope. Why? Because their talents and skills can solve the problems afflicting employers. These jobseekers are the solutions who need to seek problems. They are not problems seeking solutions.

Today (10-1-13) I was speaking to Anita Jenke, who is the head of the Career Transitions Center of Chicago (CTC), and she told me how the CTC had to be careful who they allowed to interview them based on the slant of their story. They wanted to avoid giving any interview that fed the pessimism that is so prevalent, the hopelessness regarding the employment situation. Because, as she put it, hope is an essential element in job search; it enables jobseekers to remain positive in their job search and attractive to hiring companies. Yes, complete strangers will help you in your job search, but are less inclined to do so if you are crippled by bitterness or despair.

It’s true! When I went through the informational interviewing and networking process I thought in advance, “Dear God, shoot me right now.” I was fearful of rejection and being considered a burden to others. But after I started the process I found I loved it. I’m serious. I loved it. Because most people, people I didn’t know, wanted to help me. It restored what faith I had lost in humanity. That, by itself, was not a bad return for the time invested.

 

An illustration of the InfernGustave Dore's
An illustration of the Inferno by Gustave Dore

Dante understood the power of hope and had a sign above the gates of his poetic hell. It read, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” In other words, hopelessness is hell.

More recently I have heard the power of hope summed up as follows: You can live without food for around 40 days. You can live without water for about four days. You can live without air for around four minutes. You can’t live without hope one second, because once you abandon hope you abandon life.

Therefore, jobseekers, do not abandon hope. Do not embrace false hopes. Instead, dare to believe that you have value, and that others want to help you express your value in a career. Furthermore, because of the Internet, the ability to research companies and network your way to success has never been greater.