How do you feel emotionally when you are told “no?” If you’re like me it takes a moment for you to get past the feeling of frustration and many times anger, depending on what “no” is about. Do you realize that social science research shows that by the time a child is five they have heard the word know over 40,000 times! As many of you understand as do I, this is necessary for the child’s safety and the “no’s” are well intended. The key is that in the same period that same child will hear “yes” only about 5,000 times! So my question becomes, “where are all the yes’s?” Information like this might help to better understand why it’s so easy to tell someone “no”, but it sure doesn’t do much as far as my understanding of being told “no”!

STRATEGIES

As someone who has been a student of human behavior and human needs psychology, I have learned to better respond to being told “no”, but for many this “no” can be devastating to them while in pursuit of a goal or dream. Now I want to be clear, I’m not talking about saying “no” to someone who may be asking you for a direct response to some random question, which requires a “yes” or “no” answer. I’m much more interested in you or I being told “no” if we feel that doing something can help us achieve something, or the same goes for you telling someone ”no” who feels the same way that you do about their possible achievement. I strongly believe that if anyone, including your parents took time to understand a little more about what type of language you respond best to, because early in life our personality is forming, and as Dr. Paul Meier states from his extensive research, that 85% of our personality is formed by the time we are six years old! With that in mind can you see how important it is for someone to be there for us, up until our personalities are formed, to help guide us on how to best respond to language and better communicate with others. I find it much more encouraging if you can find ways to say “yes” at the same time you may have to say “no”. Now don’t get me wrong, sometimes you have to say ”no”, but many times if the solution to the problem is presented to me in a way that I can say “no”, instead of being told “no”, those feelings of resentment or frustration quickly go away. This approach may even inspire a better solution by working together, and how different would that be, than just being told “no”. To me this approach is huge! I happen to love the way Mel Robbins, in her book, “Stop Saying Your Fine”, describes how the”powerful you” needs to step up, versus the “chicken or jerk” you. The powerful you is always in conflict with the chicken or jerk in you, especially when it comes to responding to someone who tells us “no”. While the chicken or jerk ends of reacting and many times over reacting to being told “no”. By explaining your ”no’s” and responding appropriately to being told ”no”, you will go a long way to designing a more successful life. This is where I have developed, over the years, the ability to turn many “no’s” into yes’s. It’s not about changing the outcome, although many times you begin to look at a situation differently, but it’s about you not being irritated or angry about the situation and creating the same negative feelings in someone else.

LOVE LANGUAGE

Once I had a better grasp about understanding someone’s “Love Language”, as presented by Gary Chapman in his awesome book, “The Five Love Languages”. It really helped me to inspire or teach someone, even if I was telling them “no”. The key was not communicating in a way that was important to me, but was important to them. I strongly believe that if I want to encourage someone, the more I understand how to communicate with them, in their Love Language, the better chance for success I have. This has been illustrated by someone who has been very close to me in business over the past 15 years, my CPA. Many times I would take some crazy idea to discuss with him. The reason I could do this was because I felt I was in a safe environment. He has a way of speaking with me that many times, as I discussed earlier, I tell myself “no”, or we come up with a better path. His strategy is simple, all he does is sit back in his chair and make the following statement, “let’s think about this.” Like I said simple! But those four words have done more to put me at ease through three successful businesses and tough times when the economy wasn’t so good. Caring enough to learn someone’s love language will do more to open up the communication process, than just about anything else. When you combine that with the skill of being able to “personality profile” someone, now you have created a great environment to design success. I want to be clear, learning these things because you want to better control someone or the situation, is not what I’m talking about. It’s still about being able to tell someone “no” or being told ”no”, and having the skills to respond in a way to move towards the goal, not reacting in a way that many would define as resentment or anger.

TRUST

Behavior over time. Have you heard that before? That is how I define trust. This is the most important ingredient in my world, whether business or personal. When you take the time to develop relationships where you have the opportunity to develop trust, you will be amazed at how much easier it is to say “no” to someone that trusts you and knows you care about them. Because you have created this trust, they are most likely going to give you the benefit of the doubt, which means they will listen and hopefully respond, instead of reacting. Along with trust, if you develop the special skills of learning how to communicate respectfully to someone, and have a better idea of their personality, this is a formula for success, in both business and life.

My question to you is, the next time someone tells you “no”, depending on the situation, how will you respond, or will you react? At this point the choice is yours, because by developing skills to first change the way you feel about being told “no”, will make you much more effective when telling someone “no”. I believe your business and personal relationships will change forever by implementing the ability take a “no” and give a “no”. Starting today, make a decision and design an awesome life!

Have you ever had one of those weeks when a lot of crazy stuff was happening, both good and bad, where you had to emotionally deal with both highs and lows? I’ve recently had an opportunity to use many of the strategies that I teach others, in my own crazy world. This is what inspired me to write on the concept of coaching and mentoring. I was inspired because of some events that happened to me, as I ran into someone I would consider a mentor, although he wasn’t a mentor until I asked him to be one. He had what I was looking for in the health care business, and he seemed happy to bring me into his world and share his knowledge. This event was followed by hearing about a young high school athlete who was experiencing some physical and possible mental issues. I heard about him through one of my coaches. I decided to put myself right in the middle of his world, involving his coaches, parents, doctors and my own staff. The funny thing is as of the posting of this blog the vision I presented to him the first day, playing in the “Big Game” was achieved as he will be playing in the biggest game of the year.

WHAT IS A COACH?

Being a teacher and a coach for so long, many of the skills that a “Coach” needs to possess come very natural to me. Over the last decade the coaching business has exploded as individuals discovered that “A Coach” could work with you in any area of your life including your business that needed work. It was no different than a physical trainer who specialized on the body. All you had to do was find a specialist in the area of your interest. The key was not only finding someone who you could relate to, but who could inspire you to achieve your goal(s). I believe in many ways being a mentor is the same as a coach. A “mentor” is there to give advice, similar to a “Guide”, they can lead you through things that you have not experienced before. They can advise you and show you where all the pitfalls are located. Where I believe a good coach will dig deeper in order to move you towards your goals, using well thought out strategies, many times moving shoulder to shoulder towards your vision. A good coach is capable of seeing you do things before you actually do. There are also those who would consider someone to be a trusted advisor, someone who could offer advice to get you through your mission. Then again others might just call this individual a trusted friend. The big picture is that if you have enough trust in someone and that the person has the skills to help you achieve something important to you, that has great value to you. This individual, whatever you might call him, from “Coach” to “Friend” has value, how much is another story.

THE EDGE

So, can having a Coach give me the edge? That becomes the question. As you evaluate your life, which will involve your job or business, relationships and your health, you need to honestly ask which of these areas would give me an edge if I could improve them. This is where you would decide what is it worth to me, to improve. For example, let’s take your relationships; can you see how by learning strategies to deal with people at work, to help you get that promotion or land that big contract, could have tremendous value to you? What if you were single and you had guidance on finding your soul mate, what would that be worth to you? These are just a couple of the questions you could ask. You also will have to determine whether this is something you can do on your own. Before “Coaching” we must remember that most just relied on a trusted friend or advisor. Many times a mentor was someone you also could go to. The key was that the more someone was allowed to get into your world, as a Psychiatrist or Psychologist would then the more the potential cost for their services.

THE TEAM

Have you ever heard that life is a team sport. Do you believe this? If you believe the game is always on then it might be to your advantage to buy into the team approach. Through many years of failing and trial and error, mostly error I realized how important it was to have a team. It didn’t matter if it was business, your personal life, including your health or any other aspect of your life. Having people around you who would add value to you would make you better. The key with your team was having people that you could trust. Which means if you were always worried about how they would perform, would you want them on your team? Let me relate a story that illustrates this point historically. The movie 300 depicted 300 Spartan Warriors who had to trust each person with their life. If but one person could not do the job then the entire battle structure would fall apart. When I help people put their team together the same type of trust must come into play. If not then you must separate from them quickly. I call this your “wedge.” The key is that if you are focused on your dream or vision, you can’t be constantly checking on those on your team, or as I’ve found out, you will be turning in circles. You must have people you can trust who are focused on getting you to where you want to go. When this happens your “wedge” becomes a fast moving arrow moving toward your target! Another wonderful point about your team; when you find the players or coaches whom you trust, you need to ask the question, “how much information about me should I tell them?” “How much do they need to know?” In reality a good coach needs to know whatever is necessary to get you to the goal. Remember if you are reluctant to tell them something; you may have the wrong person on your team. You have to be able to work as one. Almost a seamless connection must be developed.

BOTOM LINE

What I have come to realize over the last few years is that trust continues to be the most important factor in getting you or someone else to that next level of success. This becomes that hard fought territory that we all must get through if we want help or we want to help. My advice is to constantly be looking for those special people to put on your team. Start moving towards your dream to see how they respond. Also be looking for those special opportunities where you can be on someone’s team. This is a great way to build your confidence, as you help someone achieve their goal. And one last thing, all of us can be a mentor, we have to be willing to reach out to someone, let them know your there and you can help them cross that river by showing them where not to step. Be bold and create an awesome life!