The Self-Awareness Guy

How Self-Aware Business People Communicate - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

How Self-Aware Business People Communicate

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Your communication style tells other businesses a lot about your level of self-awareness, your professionalism and what they can expect when they deal with you. A theme that frequently arises when I consult for leaders is how to communicate in a manner that invites other companies to want to do business with us. The following tips will help you put your best foot forward and communicate confidently:

  1. Listen actively. It’s amazing what you learn when you’re not talking.
  2. Say it briefly. Go with the approach that less is more in communication.
  3. Keep it professional. Business communication is not the appropriate time to vent about personal problems or delve into people’s private lives.
  4. Keep your temper in check. If you fly off the handle it not only shuts down communication but also reduces the likelihood that the other company will give you an opportunity in the future.
  5. Remind yourself that communication glitches aren’t a personal slight against you, they are just part of doing business.
  6. Practice excellent conflict resolution skills. Brainstorm with the other person to get some ideas on how to deal with the issue at hand and agree on a solution that works for both of you.
  7. Train everyone, starting with top leadership, on how to communicate effectively.

Other businesses judge us in much the same way our clients do. How we communicate says a lot to the outside world about the way we conduct business. Keep these tips in mind as you interact with other companies and you’ll be on your way to increasing your success exponentially.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and communicate positively?

Regards,

Guy

15 Benefits of Developing Self-Awareness - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

15 Benefits of Developing Self-Awareness

/ / Self and Self-Awareness, Self-Consciousness / , , , , ,

Here are fifteen benefits of developing self-awareness:

  1. You heal the hurts from your past.
  2. You’re in touch with your emotions, are able to feel them, and can use them to move in a positive direction. You’re also comfortable with other people’s emotions.
  3. You understand your strengths and areas for improvement.
  4. You treat yourself and others with kindness, empathy, and compassion.
  5. You do things to make the world a better place.
  6. You focus on the deeper things in life rather than living superficially.
  7. You get to know the real you and live your life accordingly.
  8. You let go of the need for power and control and focus instead on being the best person you can be without dominating others or having to win.
  9. People like you at home and at work.
  10. You don’t have the constant internal conflict of saying one thing and doing another.
  11. You’re generally happy and balanced, even in difficult situations.
  12. You understand why you feel, think, and do things.
  13. You learn and grow each day.
  14. You become a nice person.
  15. You enjoy life.

When you develop self-awareness you have a wonderful opportunity to move beyond all the garbage that creates conflict, chaos, confusion, and misery in your life and focus instead on living a kind, joyful, deeply introspective and fulfilling existence. When you’re fully self-aware, you no longer live day to day, reacting to everything, you get to be the real you and do what you really love in life.

Cheers,

Guy

Choosing Safety or Self-Awareness and Courage - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Choosing Safety or Self-Awareness and Courage

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Do you choose safety in life or self-awareness and courage? Your decision will have a major impact on how your life will unfold.

A lot of wonderful people don’t pursue their dreams because they’d rather feel safe than experience heartache and setbacks. Sticking your neck out and showing the world your talent, no matter what happens, is one of the most difficult things for anyone to do. It takes an amazing amount of self-awareness and courage to be who you really are and share it confidently with everyone, including critics and detractors.

If you live for safety you’ll always take the route that leads to maintaining a feeling of being comfortable, and that’s rarely a creative or fulfilling path. If you’re actively striving to make your dreams come true, you know that it can be challenging but at least you’re proving that you have the courage to keep moving forward regardless of what anyone says or any obstacle that presents itself.

The difference between safety and courage is that playing it safe keeps you stuck and unhappy, often for a lifetime. Thankfully, you can always choose to build up your self-awareness, understand your strengths and areas for improvement, and take action each day to make your dreams come true. What will you do to choose self-awareness and courage instead of safety?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness, Team Building, and Building Better Workplace Relationships - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness, Team Building, and Building Better Workplace Relationships

/ / Self-Awareness in Leadership / , , ,

You can’t build great teams if you don’t possess self-awareness and the knowledge to promote successful relationships. Even some of the most well-intentioned leaders who really care for their employees have difficulty building great workplace relationships because they don’t know how.

I’m a big supporter of clarity in workplace relationships, where everyone involved understands what’s going on in the relationship. It does away with assumptions, secrets, guesses, misunderstandings and frustration because every person is on the same page.

How do you increase clarity? You work on increasing your self-awareness and gathering more information. The next time you encounter conflict in any workplace relationship practice the following ideas to really understand what’s going on:

1. Each person talks without interruptions about how they see the situation.

2. Each person listens carefully without judging, rebutting or giving advice.

3. Each person asks open-ended questions to clarify what is going on.

4. The people work together and develop a plan to proceed.

Dialogue is very important to achieving clarity. Make sure to practice listening skills and ask questions that allow people to share their perspectives in a safe environment. Open ended questions are questions that don’t lead to a yes or no answer and allow each person to meaningfully explain their point of view.

This is a style of interaction that doesn’t require confrontation, it focuses on people listening to each other and sharing their points of view. Try it sometime to gain clarity on what’s going on in your workplace relationships. What will you do to improve your self-awareness, team building, and workplace relationships?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness Means Looking Inside Yourself - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness Means Looking Inside Yourself

/ / Self-Awareness, Self-Consciousness / , , , / 2 Comments

Self-awareness means looking inside yourself rather than relying on outside influences, entities, or events to make you happy in life. Countless people spend inordinate amounts of time living based on what some outside person or entity tells them to do, or reacting to whatever circumstance they find themselves in, rather than charting a course based on who they are deep inside and what they find meaningful and fulfilling. The key to being truly happy in life is being able to look inside yourself and:

  • Define who you really are.
  • Discover your true inner voice.
  • Determine what you really want to do in life.
  • Figure out what you need to do to live authentically.

When you do these things you’ll live life based on what’s inside you rather than always reacting to outside people and situations. It’s up to you whether you live life consciously or passively. What will you do to look inside yourself?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness Quotes - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness Quotes

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Here are a few quotes about self-awareness from some wise people:

Hide not your talents, they for use were made. What’s a sundial in the shade?
Benjamin Franklin

What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.
Abraham Maslow

Most of the shadows of life are caused by standing in our own sunshine.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Love not what you are, but what you may become.
Cervantes

There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.
Aldous Huxley

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.
Carl Jung

You can live a lifetime and, at the end of it, know more about other people than you know about yourself.
Beryl Markham

In the last decade or so, science has discovered a tremendous amount about the role emotions play in our lives. Researchers have found that even more than IQ, your emotional awareness and abilities to handle feelings will determine your success and happiness in all walks of life, including family relationships.
John Gottman

You’re cordially invited to browse this site to learn more about self-awareness.

Cheers,

Guy

Are You a Competitive or Self-Aware, Collaborative Leader? - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Are You a Competitive or Self-Aware, Collaborative Leader?

/ / Self-Awareness in Leadership / ,

There are many well-meaning, talented and skilled leaders who feel like only they have the answers. They don’t ask for help and their competitive instinct kicks in whenever someone offers assistance or suggests working on a project together. There’s nothing horrible about wanting to excel on your own but it can limit your organization’s ability to grow and make valuable connections. You get to decide what kind of leadership style you practice, and that will predict what kind of results you get. To see what might work best, let’s look at some examples of competitive and self-aware, collaborative leadership and how you might benefit from practicing the latter approach.

Signs You’re a Competitive Leader

  • Always strive to be the best, above all others.
  • You’re a pioneer and enjoy doing things on your own.
  • Hesitant to share information or resources with other organizations.
  • Decline receiving help when another organization offers.
  • Miss or don’t seek opportunities for collaboration.
  • Feel threatened when another organization offers the same services.
  • Working with other organizations isn’t generally on your radar.
  • You think twice before referring a client to another organization.
  • You dominate any collaboration with another organization.

Many strong and successful organizations function on this model and do great things. What they may not yet realize is that they can add one component to become even more successful, collaboration. Here are some of the qualities of collaborative leadership.

Signs You’re a Self-Aware, Collaborative Leader

  • You call on other organizations to help you.
  • You look for opportunities to work with others.
  • You don’t hesitate to refer people to other organizations.
  • You don’t feel threatened when someone else offers similar services, you look for ways to compliment each other.
  • You build mutually beneficial relationships with other organizations.
  • You want all organizations, including your own, to succeed.
  • You build a network to improve service delivery to clients.
  • You’re able to grow and address larger problems because you have other organizations backing you up.

Think about which approach most closely matches your leadership style. Being competitive can help you strive for excellence and build a strong organization. Being collaborative helps you join with other organizations to increase your ability to serve people. When you merge the two you become a collaborative leader, which helps you in the following ways.

Benefits of Being a Self-Aware, Collaborative Leader

  • Positive relationships with other organizations.
  • Pooling of resources.
  • Greater capacity to serve clients because of expanded network.
  • You don’t have to do everything on your own.
  • You have access to the brain power and insights of many more people.
  • Reduced duplication of services.
  • Other professionals seek you out because they know you’re a person who brings people together.
  • You create a sense of community.

The shift from a competitive to a self-aware, collaborative approach is a big one for many people, often because they haven’t had a lot of experience connecting with other entities. Leaders can make the shift anytime they want, all it takes is a desire to leave the castle walls and be open to working with others. The effect of collaboration is profound. It helps organizations move from being a single player to being part of a larger team working together to make a difference. What will you do to encourage self-aware, collaborative leadership in your organization?

Cheers,

Guy

The Self-Awareness Guy