Tag Archive for: emotion

How Emotions Can Help You Succeed At Work 

 

 

You’ve probably heard it in the past: emotions have no place at work. Or, perhaps Donald Trump’s catchy “It’s nothing personal, it’s just business” line on The Apprentice stuck with you. But forget everything you’ve been told. Emotions and your business do work together – in fact, they work well as a team to help you achieve success. Just think of creativity. If you want to boost your company’s creativity to brainstorm exciting ideas, you need passion! There are many other reasons why emotions are important in business.

As with anything, moderation is key. If you’re letting your emotions get the better of you or cloud your judgement, they could be risky business. However, they can help you achieve your goals and encourage others to succeed, too.

They Help To Get Your Vision Across

Ask yourself: do you want to be seen as someone who’s difficult to read? You might think it’s good to lead from a distance, but what your employees will respect much more is if you’re open and honest sometimes – even if you have something negative to say. A study published on the Harvard Business Review found that 92 percent of respondents agreed with the statement “Negative feedback, if delivered appropriately, is effective at improving performance.” When you share your real feelings, without attacking anybody, you make it much easier for your employees to know what you want. You might also motivate them to work harder at your vision.

They Make You Empathetic

If you’re in tune with your emotions, you’re probably going to be tuning into your employees’ emotions – and that’s a really positive thing. If you notice body language, tone of voice, and how people say things, instead of just listening to their words, you can learn a lot from them, which can give you great insights into your company and what it needs. Remember, when your employees are satisfied, your business will succeed!

Research from Curtin University found that workers who claimed to be satisfied with their jobs earned lower than less-satisfied people. Job satisfaction is about more than money so don’t assume that your employees will be satisfied by their paychecks – how you treat them matters! As for you, you can’t have a thriving business without happy employees, even if you’ve got a great business idea that you know will attract people. You need your employees to make it happen, so treat them well.

They Help You To Resolve Conflict

Being open to emotions in the workplace isn’t just about expressing yourself and coming across as real to your employees. It’s also about having greater Emotional Intelligence, which gives you the ability to resolve conflict. When you’re reaching out to employees and showing compassionate, this can help you to heal workplace conflict and have a much more effective – and happier – working environment. Toxic workers, like the people who complain a lot or steal the spotlight from their co-workers can cost your business millions of dollars, but on the flipside they can actually be really productive. Working with them and using emotional intelligence to diffuse conflict they have with others can create peace, while also boosting their productivity so everyone wins.

They Create A Team

When you display passion and energy, it can be contagious! But it also fosters a team ethic. Researchers from the University of Queensland found that managers can boost productivity and prevent burnout by making employees feel part of a team. “Leaders who create a strong sense of ‘us’ and a sense of belonging within their teams help staff to feel more positive about their work,” Dr Niklas Steffens, lead researcher of the study, said. “This feeling translates to increased levels of engagement.”

Instead of leaving your emotions at the door when you enter work in the mornings, let them come inside! They have many benefits, such as building strong work relationships, helping to ease conflict, and contributing to your career success.

 

Author:  Jackie   Photo by Cristian Newman on Unsplash

, , ,

[Quick Public Speaking Tip] One of the Secret Ingredients that Create Memorability

ingredient

Memorability is important for us speakers, as it is for anyone building a brand, creating change, inspiring action, or wanting to be rehired.  

If you want your audience to remember your message, there are several wonderful ingredients you can add to the mix.

Today let's look at this one

... create an emotional connection. 

Maya Angelou is quoted as saying   “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” 

When you make an emotional connection, you open up the pathways in your audience’s brains that facilitate recall.  Whatever you associate with that emotion will be retained along with the emotion, in their memories. 

If you want to introduce a new way of thinking or doing for your audience to adopt, create an emotional connection.  Having already researched your audience, you should have some idea of what excites them, what they cry about, what their problems are.  And you can use that information to connect to their emotions.  Use examples that will push those buttons, appeal to what matters to them most. 

Tell stories that create an emotion.

Use words that heighten emotion. 

Use emotive verbs.  Rather than “she said” use “she screamed”, rather than “he went” use “he raced”.  Give your adjectives and adverbs the same treatment. 

You can watch your audience as you go, and get a feel for what moves them.

It is also a fact that while statistics and logic and facts and figures are useful in supporting a point, they will not have the power over your audience that emotion does.  People will make decisions (and give you their attention) based on emotions … and justify them afterwards with logic.

So create an emotional connection with your audience and mix it in and around your facts, statistics and testimonials to engage your audience, have them remember your message and be open to making changes in their lives. 

What Your Color Choice Says About Your Mood

 

We all make choices each day with regard to color. Most obvious is choosing the color of the clothes that we will wear for the day. Do you feel pink today or do you feel blue? The colors we choose have meaning behind them. Some of us are more color sensitive and aware of our choices than others. "Mood dressers" are people who are in-tune with their emotions and dress accordingly. When you dress today, see what your color choice says about your mood!

Wear Green - Relaxing and Tranquil Green is considered to be the most powerful healing color. Wear green when you want to feel more in-tune with Mother Nature. Green helps reduce anxiety and stress and helps you feel calm. Green represents Spring and new beginnings. Choose this color to wear whenever you are embarking on something new.

Wear Blue - Calm and Serenity Blue is especially calming and helps lower blood pressure and relaxes muscles. It is also associated with decrease of appetite. Blue is the color of peace and tranquility and is excellent in promotion of healing and spiritual meditation.

Wearing Gray or Black - Invisibility and Blending In Black and gray are fashion staples and pretty much go with everything. We all have the basic black pants or black dress that can be worn to a number of different occasions. Black is generally worn when you prefer to blend in and not make any statement. Wearing black will allow you to keep a low profile in social settings, not to mention look slimmer. Don't wear black if you want to stand out in a crowd. On the flip side, black can also represent class and wealth when accented by a power color.

Wear Orange - Energize and Lift Orange is a very high-energy color. Wearing orange is fun and can make you feel quite playful. Wear it when you want to lift your mood and physical energy. Orange is also connected with sexual energy. Because of its intensity some people cannot wear this color comfortably. Try accenting your outfit with a splash of orange instead.

Wear Pink - Feminine and Flirtatious Most people associate pink with babies, little girls, and feminine energies. Wearing pink conveys compassion, an open heart and is also a symbol of innocence and beauty. Whether male or female, a person wearing pink appears approachable and capable of loving others. It has a soothing effect and reflects romantic love.

Wear Purple - Unique - Non-Conformist Purple is worn to stand out in a crowd and is associated with royalty. Purple is the wrong color to wear if you want to blend in and go unnoticed. Wearing purple shows others that you feel special and unique and want to be noticed. If you want the world to know that you are one of a kind and do not desire conformity, then wear purple.

Wearing Red - Powerful and Confident Red is a very powerful color that stimulates and energizes. Wear red when you want to exude confidence and attract attention. Red also symbolizes love and passion and is said to increase the appetite. On the flip side, red is a color of dominance and can also draw opposition in others.

Wearing White - Fresh - New Beginnings White represents new beginnings, innocence, cleanliness and neutrality. Wearing white provides an opportunity to start the day with a clean slate and offers a fresh and bright outlook. Be sure to get rid of any dingy or stained white clothes and replacing them with brighter whites.

..............................................

Sydney Chhabra, Ph.D. is a seasoned Psychologist and Personal Life Coach with 20+ years of experience. Sydney has a very warm and personable style of communication and takes a very practical approach in life coaching. She is genuinely supportive and maintains a focused and solution-oriented approach. To learn more, visit: http://www.midlifecoachingforwomen.com.

, ,

Freedom From the Fear of Feeling Powerless

 

Real power isn't the ability to imagine and implement an endless series of new solutions to old problems, but to awaken the higher understanding that allows us to transcend the need we have to live with any painful problems at all. Which would you rather have: a big fire hose with a hydrant and a fire to put out every day, or a life without fires in them?

But what we have to examine here is the way we think! Most of us wouldn't know what to do if there wasn't something pressing us. Isn't it weird that we'll come up with a path, a solution, something that we're going to do, that once we do it we'll become whatever we've imagined? No more pressure, no more fear -- but then, the very thing that we set out to obtain, to make us fearless, to take the pressure out of our lives, becomes the source of a new fear and a new pressure! And then when that doesn't work, we do it again, and again, and again.

We have no idea of the power that we're created with. We are granted at birth the possibility of a freedom that has absolutely no contingencies whatsoever that can fall apart because the conditions in our lives do.

The kind of power I'm talking about is so simple. For instance, ordinarily we're trying to obtain things so that we can control or manipulate conditions, but we're not talking about that. Instead, how about the authority over our own negative reactions? That's a completely different kind of power, isn't it? To possess ourselves as opposed to trying to possess things or relationships through which we have a measure of security. The power to possess ourselves can't be granted by anyone or anything outside of us. It doesn't exist. No teacher, no book, nothing can grant us what it is that our heart of hearts actually longs for.

But something has gotten twisted up inside of us. We set out for life the minute we're born through family and tradition. We see our parents -- and every last person we meet -- striving for the power to achieve or protect. It never occurs to us that all we've seen and done in our lives has not produced what it is we're looking for. If we ever get far enough to even suspect the truth of that, then it turns the whole question on a dime.

What we then want to do is understand the nature of this illusion we have of being powerless in the first place! Because who seeks power? Who seeks power other than someone who feels powerless? That is the only reason that a person looks for power, whatever it may be. It is because something inside of us is afraid. So where did the whole notion come in this life that there is something that we're to live with that produces fear in us, and for the fear then sends us out for ways to find power to fulfill the end of our own fears?

The true powers put us in relationship with what grants us power instead of us looking for powers to control relationships as we presently do. There is a reversal that has to take place in our understanding. This reversal begins with the simple act of understanding what we've been talking about, which is: "I'm afraid of something... I'm going to go have dinner with someone in a few minutes," or "I have a meeting tomorrow," or "My health isn't what it should be..." What happens in the moment where the mind considers its own condition? It can't help but consider at the same time everything that it has collaborated with to make as perfect -- its expectations, "how things should be." The more it tries to keep what it wants, the more it refuses what it's been given. In other words, there are possibilities that are all the time being handed out to us that we simply push away because there is something in us that prefers the pain of trying to control problems -- while in reality they don't exist the way our mind imagines them.

Work to remember yourselves. Work to remember that at any given moment you don't have to be captured by anything that presently causes this compromise of your soul. Remember, there are always higher possibilities.

Excerpted from Seven Powers, "Freedom From the Fear of Feeling Powerless" by Guy Finley