UNDER THE INFLUENCE
Let’s look at an example on a different scale. Silicon Valley, California, has produced more entrepreneurial companies than any other American city in recent decades. Is it because there’s something in the water supply? No! It’s because individuals who have been close to and learned from their coworkers or bosses then go on to start their own successful companies, and a domino effect takes place, and still others follow suit. Monkey see, monkey do. In this particular instance the influence was good, but it can also work in the reverse.
This dynamic exists at every level of human interaction, whether it’s among family members, colleagues, friends, or fellow churchgoers—basically anywhere you have more than one person sharing space. And it’s an extremely valuable tool in human interaction. So how do we use it to our advantage?
Easy. If there is a person you are interested in, someone who you think can teach you something or help you in some way, put yourself in their orbit. Go to the same gym they do. Sit next to them at the cafeteria. Hang out with the same friends. Join the same clubs. Basically get up in their grill.
Conversely, if there is someone around you who has a detrimental effect on you, put as much space between you and them as possible. You may feel daunted at the prospect of kicking assholes out of your life, but it’s really quite simple. By removing yourself from their space, you take away their ability to affect you.
Remove yourself physically from places you know they will be. If they commute on the same train as you, take the bus. Avoid the restaurants or bars they frequent. If you’re stationed next to them at work, swap offices with another coworker to gain space, or consider a job change. I’ve known people who have moved to a different city to get away from an unhealthy relationship. With any luck you won’t have to go to such extremes. But in “pursuit of happiness,” it is imperative that you remove unhappy, discouraging, or destructive dynamics from your world.
Although traditionally this applies to physical space, cyberspace has become equally as real and impactful, so you must remove them from those means of contact as well. “Defriend” them on Facebook. Change your e-mail address. Protect your tweets. Block them on AOL Messenger. Change your phone number.
The bottom line is that savvy, ambitious people know how to use physical space and proximity with others to their advantage. They use it to enhance interaction with influential people and get to a point of collaboration, and to distance themselves from negative influences at all costs. (Okay, not all costs. I guess I would draw the line at, you know, murder. Though I sure am tempted sometimes …)
GET A LITTLE CLOSER
You’re probably wondering how to get closer to people you admire or want to learn from. Let’s be honest—there’s a fine line between striking up a learning relationship with someone and stalking them. The key to keeping this productive (and legal) is your intentions and your actions when you meet the person. Your goal is to gain access, make a good impression, and ultimately build your system of learning and support. There are a number of ways you can interact with people you want to get to know. Maybe they belong to clubs, maybe they take part in certain activities, maybe they socialize with a certain set in certain places, maybe you can friend them on Facebook—in this day and age the possibilities are endless.
I got to know Suze Orman this way. I’d always admired her, and I’d gotten to a point in my career where I really wanted to meet her, pick her brain, get her feedback and advice. Having built a super brand with integrity and purpose, she’d done with money and finance what I wanted to do with health and wellness. So Giancarlo and I looked on her website and noted down every single one of her speaking engagements for the entire year. He then started calling these places and offering to have me speak for free. I didn’t want payment, I just wanted to get close enough to meet her and strike up a conversation. It worked, sort of.
As I mentioned earlier, the conference where we were both scheduled to speak was canceled, but we bonded over that, and the rest is, as they say, history. She took me under her wing and has been invaluable in helping me advance my career and get my message of health and empowerment to a wider audience.
See? Meeting the people you want to meet and building your social network is not that hard. Can it be scary? Definitely! I realize that it can. We all fear rejection, we all have egos, so this step can be very challenging. That said, it’s time to suck it up. (Sorry, but it is.) If a person rejects you, it won’t result in death. A little bruising to the ego maybe, but no one can hurt your feelings unless you let them. Ultimately, if someone rejects you, you can look at it as doing you a favor. Remember, “rejection is God’s protection” (cliché number 1,578). They’ve shown you who they are, so you can move on and find a better fit.
Getting close to someone is, of course, only half the battle. Once you get close, what do you do with that proximity? You know how quickly you form an opinion of someone. Be honest, you know, or you think you know, within minutes whether you like someone’s vibe, whether they are polite, and whether they are to be taken seriously or not.
I can speak personally from both sides of the equation. Not only have I sought people out to help me advance and develop, but also now that I’m successful in my field, young trainers seek me out, hoping for advice on how to build their business or improve their craft. Now, I’m not exactly a tough person to engage. You can communicate with me on my website, follow me on Twitter, go to one of my speaking engagements around the country, and so on. It’s easy enough to meet me, but I can’t help every trainer in the business, so the people who make an impression on me are the ones who have done their homework. They’ve educated themselves about me and my philosophies, so they’re able to open a dialogue that engages me, which leads to a natural furthering of the relationship.
This is how Brett Hoebel became the new male trainer on Biggest Loser for season eleven. He got in my space and really impressed me. He was talented, passionate, and articulate, and he’d done his homework. I began taking capoeira lessons from him, and when the time came for the show to cast some new blood, I lobbied passionately for him to get the job.
Before you gain access to someone who can help you, you will need to have mastered some of the basics of high-level communication. Powerful, effective communication is one of the best weapons in your arsenal. I’ll give you three guesses what we’re going to talk about next.
CHAPTER TWELVE
MASTER COMMUNICATION
FIRST RULE:
PLAY WELL WITH OTHERS
Most of us spend the majority of our waking hours interacting with other human beings, talking to or listening to them, working with or next to them … you get the picture. So it’s pretty much guaranteed that other people are going to play a role in your success or failure. Your ability to talk and listen well, not only to communicate but also to cooperate and collaborate with others, is just as important as all that personal growth and emotional development we talked about in Steps One and Two.
Eleanor Roosevelt, one of my heroes (in case you hadn’t figured that out), put it beautifully: “Nobody ever really does anything alone. For every achievement in life it’s essential to deal with other people.” In other words, no man, no woman, is an island. And who the hell would want to be? Interaction with others is how we grow and develop, both personally and professionally.
Professionally, communication skills are crucial. You can’t succeed in a vacuum. The most successful people in the world are those who understand the power of social capital, which is really just a fancy term for networking. You can’t achieve anything if you don’t risk anything, and when taking a risk, it helps to be able to draw on a network of support to minimize that risk. Building social capital is key to almost any professional scenario you can imagine. It’s what you know and who you know that bridge the difference between success or failure. But how do you build that all-important capital? And why is it so important? Let’s take a look.
Having good social capital
helps you:
Learn the ropes. If you are new in a job or have recently moved up or to a new position, you’re going to want to jump in and hit the ground running. So you’re going to need to reach out to more experienced colleagues to help you figure out how things work.
Expand your business. Connections in business are critical, whichever business you’re talking about. In order to expand that business, you have to be able to attract people, draw them to you. Strong communication skills will allow you to court potential business partners with grace and aptitude.
Climb the ladder. If you want to be first in line for a promotion, you need to impress and earn the respect of your boss. Doing good work and having good ideas is essential, but on their own they’re not going to propel you to the top. The impressions you give off to others will be key. You need to be a strong advocate for yourself by communicating your good ideas in a way that guarantees they’ll be heard. Do your homework so you can speak up intelligently in meetings. Listen to the feedback you get so you can incorporate it and improve your game. Communication—both talking and listening—is going to help you put your best foot forward every time.
Improve customer service. If you have your own business, then you know that companies live and die by their customer service. Listening to the wants, needs, frustrations, and aspirations of your customers is the golden rule of most any endeavor, retail or otherwise. By the same token, you also have to be able to sell your product, which means communicating in a convincing and trustworthy manner. Connecting with your customer in these ways will set your business apart from the rest.
Avoid blind spots. In business, knowledge gives advantage, and often what you don’t know can sink you before your ship even sets sail. Since you obviously can’t know everything, it helps to align yourself with people who may know more than you or have different areas of expertise. One of the keys to my success so far has been surrounding myself with people who are smarter than me. I’m serious. I did this with my business partner, Giancarlo. He fills in all my blind spots and helps me avoid pitfalls. I would be nowhere today had I not surrounded myself with smart, creative, talented people. They all enhanced the quality and integrity of our (Giancarlo’s and my) company. There’s only one catch: to recruit this kind of support, you need to check your ego at the door and cultivate a true team mentality by being willing to listen to and collaborate with others.
Do I need to go on? If you plan on succeeding, you should have a network of people you can turn to for expertise, as well as a network for support. Period. And to build them you need to master the fine art of communication. And it doesn’t stop with business.
In our personal lives, the same principles of collaboration and effective communication are vital to maintaining strong and healthy relationships with friends, family, significant others—basically anyone who shares your life in any capacity at all. Here are some examples of how essential communication skills are to helping us avoid pitfalls and to improving the overall quality of our lives. They help us:
Disable enablers. Often, when we look closely, we will find that some of the people around us are contributing to our problems by taking on the role of enabler or disabler.
When I was shooting Losing It, I would see families constantly playing out this dynamic of enabling and disabling. One family member would start losing weight, then another would feel threatened by that and attempt to sabotage their progress. It’s not necessarily conscious or malicious, but it has a negative effect anyway. Knowing how to communicate your concerns, your needs, and your dreams, to cocreate solutions and move through conflict, is vital to the health and happiness of your relationships.
Manage misunderstandings. Misunderstandings are toxic, especially in your personal relationships. Conveying your message to others clearly and without judgment while receiving the information you are given is key to maintaining harmony and equality in your relationships. I can’t tell you how many times someone has misconstrued something I’ve said, written, or done, thinking that I was angry or upset when really I was just kidding around with good intentions.
We are all different! We don’t think or behave alike. And this is a beautiful thing. That said, it means you have to keep your communication as unambiguous as possible. Express how you are feeling clearly—don’t let things fester or resentment build. You can help the other person do the right thing by telling them how you feel and what you need. Conversely, if someone is telling you how they feel, listen with an open heart and try not to be judgmental or defensive. This allows you insight into the other person and how best to get along with them.
Become better at compromise. People disagree all the time. It’s part of life. But as a result, so is negotiation to reach a healthy compromise. Whether our disagreements are small or huge, over time they can wear on any relationship, unless we handle them with diplomacy, patience, and a spirit of compromise. You know exactly what I’m talking about. He wants Mexican, and you want sushi. He wants to go to Vegas for a romantic weekend getaway, while you want to go to Cabo. He thinks the kids should be in public school, you want them in private. Navigating these kinds of issues is impossible without strong communication skills. Life is not about winning or losing—it’s about developing the ability to find solutions. And communication is what’s going to get you there.
SIGN OF STRENGTH
These are just a few examples of how essential communication skills are in our lives. For those of you who get it, great—skip ahead to “Listen Up.” For those of you who feel it’s weak to express your needs and feelings, or that you don’t need any help, get over it and stop being an idiot.
Expressing your feelings and being vulnerable are signs of strength. Another one of my favorite quotes says it perfectly: “You can only know as much happiness and joy as you can know vulnerability.” It’s from Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet—again. Can you tell I love that book?
Think about it. Seriously. If you don’t ask for the promotion, someone else will, and they’ll probably get it because they’ve spoken openly and honestly about their ambition. If you don’t tell your significant other when something hurts your feelings, the silence will erode your relationship over time, and resentment will spread its poison, until what was once a small grievance becomes something much bigger. If you don’t ask for it, you won’t get it. And if you don’t talk about the problem, it won’t get resolved. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. So all right already: speak up!
We all need help from time to time, and those of us who feel worthy and secure enough to ask for it are the ones who will reap the spoils. People who don’t ask for help, or who fear letting others in on collaborative efforts, may do so for many reasons, ranging from self-esteem issues to ego. Here’s the bottom line: if you can’t communicate with other people, you’re fucked. Sorry for the foul language, but if you meet this description, you needed to hear it, and now you need to go back to Step Two and work on whatever it is that’s holding you back.
Enough digression. Now, it’s time to learn a thing or two about successful communication. The tools that follow will help you perfect the art of communication with other people so that your life is smoother and more peaceful and you feel more fulfilled. We’ll work on listening, speaking, and negotiating, and other basics of human interaction along the way.
Communication is, obviously, a two-way street. So I’m breaking this next section down into two topics: listening and speaking.
LISTEN UP!
Listening is the foundation of any productive conversation. A conversation is kind of like a dance. It requires a flow of interaction, a rhythm of give-and-take, a balance of expression and understanding. Often we can be so intent on getting our point across that we forget we need to listen. And I’m not just talking about shutting up for a second. I’m talking about listening, not just with the intent to reply but with the intent to truly understand.
It’s easy to fall into a pattern of projecting our own issues and experiences onto other peo
ple’s words. We read into things people say based on our own inner dialogue, and we try to figure them out based on what we know of our own motives. We reply and give advice based on our own frame of reference, but that isn’t necessarily what’s called for in every situation. Unless we are really listening, our conversations can turn into nothing more than two people giving speeches as opposed to creating dialogue.
I was invited to appear on the Dr. Phil show once. The topic was “The Fat Debate.” The National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, a group of obese people who were aiming to stop discrimination against fat people, were fighting for “society” to make certain concessions based on their weight. So the “fat panel,” comprising three obese women, was one side of the debate. I was on the “fit panel” along with another trainer wearing a T-shirt that said “No Chubbies.” (I’m totally, 100 percent serious.) His mother had been overweight and blamed him his entire life for making her gain weight during pregnancy. The third person on our side was a nutritionist whose entire family had died of obesity-related disease. The show went down pretty badly. Every time the obese ladies would speak, the other trainer and the nutritionist would wait for them to finish, then pounce on them, attacking them for being lazy, judging them for making excuses, and so on.
This led the fat panel to become defensive and distrustful of the motives behind the advice being given to them, and they couldn’t accept it. What they wanted and needed was to be treated with respect. They weren’t saying they were healthy, but they were trying to explain that they were engaged in lifelong struggles, and that the cultural judgment and discrimination they experienced only made it worse.
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