COMMUNICATING WITH OTHERS -- WHAT'S YOUR STYLE?

PAUSE A MOMENT

COMMUNICATING -- CHANGING YOUR STYLE

Good morning and welcome once again to Pause a Moment. I'm Barrie Barkla. Tonight I'd like to spend my time with you sharing some ideas I have about how we communicate with each other. It seems that some people have a knack for getting through; while others fail miserably. Is the ability to communicate effectively a matter of talent, or chance, or is it a skill that can be learnt?

[We Don't Talk Any More – Cliff Richard]

One of the keys to success in anything is the level of your skills to deal creatively and effectively with others. Amongst the skills we all, including you, have is our ability to adapt our style of communicating with different and differing kinds of people in changing circumstances. We all do it, all the time. You don't interact with your boss the same way you play with a toddler child; you don't interact with your lover the same way you interact with a cop who's just pulled you over for a traffic infringement (at least, I hope you don't). 

We all have the ability; the skills and styles are learned. And anything that is learned can be unlearned and modified, if what we've learned is not serving us and we so chose to change. I know this from years of interacting with men and women who suffer brain damage, ranging from slight to deeply profound.

We all vary our personal styles according to the person we're with and the prevailing context, but very few of us do it knowingly, or deliberately. And those who don't do it knowingly invariably adopt a default style according to how THEY feel at the time, not in sympathy with how the OTHER person feels. It's no surprise to me that communication breaks down; rather it amazes me that communication happens at all! There is something miraculous about profound communication, but not impossible. Far from it. But you do have to get your head out of your own arse.

A first skill to improve the condition is to become an avid student of Possibility. I've talked about this before – many times, and maybe I will again, but not tonight. Let's move on.....

A second skill is your willingness and adroitness, on your own say-so, to take 100% responsibility for communicating clearly with others. That may seem odd, since we all think we communicate just fine; it's the others who misunderstand us – right? Of course right! Except it doesn't work, except sometimes, and that's not a good batting average.

Your average human being is a lousy communicator. That's a wild generalisation, of course, but assuming that we are good communicators isn't working, so maybe it might be a good idea to start from an assumption that we don't know what we're doing when it comes to getting an idea across to another, and see what discoveries we can make coming from that opposite assumption. Just for a few minutes. Are you willing? Good. “I'm not as good as I think I am”. Come with me.

Except under very rare, mostly accidental circumstances, human beings do not connect directly; they agree on a language and a few crude cyphers, and communicate in codes – the cultural and social languages of words, grammar, body, eyes, vocal intonation, posture.... It could be likened to attempting to discuss quantum physics using only pidgin English. And here's the joke – we don't even have the same code books – you woudn't believe how different they are! For example, you and I cannot agree on the experience of fear. We feel fear differently – very differently. We cannot possibly share the experience of fear. We can only talk about a feeling in abstract words about two quite different experiences that we both call “fear”. Where's the understanding? “He doesn't understand me!” people in relationship wail. Of course he doesn't – he's not you!

[Let's Call the Whole Thing Off – Jane Rutter]

So, if you really want me to understand you and really get where you're coming from, you have to be able to translate the substance, the context and the spirit of your communication into my languages. You've got some work to do. And don't fall into the common fallacy of completing your pitch and then just saying to me “Do you understand?” Of course, if I think I've understood you, I will nod and say “Yes”, but you have no idea of what it is I've actually understood. Later on, when I stuff up, you'll say to me “But you told me you understood!” and you will blame me, right? How often has that happened in your experience?

Putting the hoe now on the other foot -- if I want you to understand what I'm talking about right at this moment, and I do, I have to be a bit clever and skillful about it, and allow you to have your experience, an experience which is not the same as mine, but an experience that will be relevant and useful to you – hopefully. My ability to be able to tap into an emotional experience of mine and provoke the memory of a similar emotional experience with each and every one of you defines my effectivness as a communicator. But when it happens, especially on radio, it's mightily poweful, because you are having YOUR experiences, not mine. Such shifts can transform your life, and because they are YOURS, no-one can take them away from you. The Acts of the Apostles called it “speaking in tongues” – I call it “speaking in your language.”

[Words – Robin Gibb (A) – 3:27]

You'll get a lot further socially and career-wise if you get that effective observation and communication depends a lot on your ability to engage with others on their terms, rather than yours. Constantly gauge and calibrate the people around you. Recognise specific patterns each has for perceiving the world, examine under what circumstances you employ those same patterns and begin to notice if others have similar patterns. 

Through this approach you can develop a whole set of distinctions about people that can empower you in knowing how to understand and communicate effectively with each one of them.

For example, some people sort primarily by Feelings and others sort by Logical Thoughts. Only a truly club-footed salesman would you try to persuade a "feelings" person with logic and reason, or vice versa. A Volvo salesman sells you on family, safety, logic and reason; he won't get you all teary-eyed about the smell of embossed leather upholstery, or impressing the neighbours. Mercedes Benz, however, are all about status. Sure, they are beautifully built, but primarily, driving a Merc is something to aspire to, and once you have one, you're in The Club.

Some people make decisions based only on specific facts and figures. First they have to know if the parts will work– they’ll think about the broader picture later. Others are convinced first by an overall concept or idea. They react to global chunks. They want to see the big picture first. If they like it, then they’ll think about the details.

Some people are turned on by Beginnings. They’re most excited when they get a new idea off the ground, and then they soon tend to lose interest in it and go on to something else. Others are fixated on Completion. Anything they do they have to see all the way to the end, whether it’s reading a book or doing a task at work.

People sort by what's important to them. For example, I'm fundamentally  programmed by Curiosity and Caring to explore the mysteries of  Freedom and Universality. It has been that way since I was in the cradle. No matter how tightly Dad wrapped my up, I always found a way to wriggle out: it drove him wild. If you want to get my attention, flash a new idea or an opportunity to explore synergism, or deliverance from restriction at me, and I'll be all over it like a rash, then I'll spread whatever goodies I find to anyone who'll listen. I'm like the drunken stranger in the bar who has tales to tell of his travels all the way through to closing time. 

Some people sort by Food. That’s right, by food. Almost anything they do, or consider doing, is evaluated in terms of food. Ask them how to get someplace, and they’ll say, “Go down the road until you get to the Chinese takeaway, turn left, and then continue down until you get to McDonald’s and swing right, and then left again at Colonel Fried Duck until you get down to that chocolate-brown building.” If you ask about a movie they went to, they immediately begin telling you about how bad the candy bar was. Ask about a wedding, and they’ll tell you about the cake and the catering.

A person who sorts primarily by People will talk mostly about the people at the wedding or the characters in the film. A person who sorts primarily by Activities will talk about what actually happened at the wedding, or the storyline of the film, and so on.

[Reverie – John Williams]

In our quest for balance and consistency, we all follow one strategy or another for using particular patterns/styles, or what Dr. Deepak Chopra calls "Metaprograms". For some circumstances we may lean slightly more to one side than another. For others we may swing wildly from one strategy to another. I occasionally do that deliberately when I want to unbalance somebody – to dislodge them from a place where they're stuck. But there’s nothing carved in stone about any of those metaprogrammes. Just as you can make the decision to put yourself in an empowering state, you can also choose to adopt styles that help rather than hinder you. The more strategies you have in your armoury, the more flexible you will be in catching unexpected drifts in an interaction.

What any current background operating program (metaprogramme) you're on does is tell your brain what's important to you, what to disregard, what to discard as irrelevant, and what to delete from your attention altogether. So if you’re in a Moving Toward mode, for example, you’re automatically deleting the things you’re moving away from. If you’re moving Away, then you’re mindlessly deleting the things that you could be moving toward. To change your habit programs, all you have to do is become aware of the things you normally delete, and begin to focus your attention on them. That will get the ball rolling for you.

Don’t make the mistake of confusing your Self with your behaviors. You are you (and until the day you die you will always need to do more exploratory work there). You are you, and your behaviours are what you do, to see what they feel like and how they turn out. How many times have you thought, when confronted by somebody who's upset by something you've done, “Yes, but you don't know me. If you really knew who I am, you wouldn't be upset.” Don't make the same mistake of confusing any other person with his or her behaviours. You say, “I know Joe. He does this, this, and this.” Well, you don’t know Joe. You know him only through your interpretation of his behaviors. But your interpretations are based on your code book, not his; and he isn’t his behaviors any more than you are yours.

If you’re someone who tends to move away from everything, maybe that’s your pattern of behaviour. If you don’t like it, you can change. In fact, there’s no excuse for you not to change. You have the power now. The only question is whether you have enough logical or emotional impeti to motivate yourself to use more of what you now know.

Changing your style does not mean changing who you are, only how you express what you've decided to be in the present circumstances. If you're one of those people who feel threatened by a change of style, maybe you are one of those unfortunates who are all style and of no substance; you've decided a particular style is what you are. I leave that to you  to sort out for yourself.

There are two ways to change your operating habits. One is by Significant Emotional Events – “SEEs.” If you saw your parents constantly moving away from things and not being able to achieve their full potential as a result, it might influence the way you move when you grow up. You may copy their style because you see some other benefit from it; or you may resist the way they did it and decide “I'm never going to do it their way.” Then a sudden relationship crisis shakes you to your core (SEE), and suddenly you're all at sea with no liferaft. 

 

If you only sorted by Necessity and missed out on some great job opportunity (SEE) because the company was looking to someone with a dynamic sense of Possibility, you might be shocked into changing your approach. In my teens and early twenties I used to be a bit flexible about time, until I lost a very good job because I was late (SEE). I've been very time conscious ever since, and I always turn up early for appointments and commitments. If you, once upon a time, tended to move Toward everything and got taken in by a flashy-looking investment scam and did your dough (SEE), it would probably affect the way you look at the next proposal that comes your way. Maybe without realising it, as I did in the case of Time, you've changed a system of habits without quite realising it.

[Come Fly With Me – 101 Strings]

The other way you can change is by consciously deciding to do so. Most of us never give a single thought to our style -- which metaprograms we use. The first step toward change is to sharpen our awareness of what we're doing on automatic pilot. The next step toward change is recognizing the need and the timeliness for it, disengaging the autopilot and learning to fly our life manually once more, at least for a while. A heightened awareness of exactly what we are currently doing provides the opportunity for new choices and thus for change. Changes will feel odd, maybe scary, and maybe even "wrong"; that's a good sign. Evolution is all about letting go of things and ideas that are no longer of sufficient value.

Let’s say you realize that you have a strong tendency to Move Away from things you decide are “bad” for you. How do you feel about it? Sure, there are things you want to, and should, move away from. If you put your hand on a hot iron, you would want to move it away as soon as you could. But aren’t there also things you really want to move toward? Isn’t a part of managing anything -- from a cake stall to your life – making a conscious effort to move toward something desired? Don’t most great leaders and great successes move toward things rather than away? Don't they urge others to do the same? 

So you might want to begin to stretch a little. You can start thinking about things that appeal to you. Let them attract and excite you and actively move toward them.

 

You could also think of metaprograms on a wider level. Do organisations, companies, states and nations have metaprograms? Well, they have cultures and behaviors, don’t they? So they have metaprograms, too. Their collective behavior, many times, forms a pattern, based upon metaprograms of their leaders. Every one of the organisations I'm part of has metaprogrammes that are identifiable to anyone who knows what they're looking at. 

 

Australia for the most part has a culture that seems to move Toward. Our national frame of reference seems to be external, rather than internal – ie. We often seem to be looking over our shoulders to compare ourselves with what everyone else is doing, bending over backwards to please, and asking celebrity visitors if they like us. Here's a question for you - Does a country like China or Thailand have an internal or external frame of reference? From my experience, they are largely Internal = they do things their way, and you either fit in or bugger off. Maybe your experience is different?

An understaning and awareness of metaprograms can be useful on two levels. The first is as a tool to calibrate and guide our communication with others. Just as a person’s physiology will tell you countless stories about her, her metaprogrammes will speak eloquently about what motivates her, what gets her back up, and what frightens her off. It will also reveal a lot about how duality becomes duplicitousness, and suggest strategies for coping or dealing with it.

The second use for knowing your, and someone else's style is as a tool for personal change. Remember, you are not your behaviors. If you tend to run any kind of pattern that works against you, all you have to do is change it.

[I Guess I'll Have to Change My Plan – Stacey Kent]

GOAL-ING FOR GO-GETTERS

PAUSE A MOMENT

GOALING FOR GO-GETTERS

I'm starting tonight's Pause a Moment with the punchlines first –

• You will never change your fortunes until you change your mind.

• You can't score any goals, or runs, while you're sitting in the grandstand. You gotta learn the rules, find your best place within how it's done, and get into the game.

Hello, I'm Barrie Barkla, and this is Pause a Moment.

[Dream – Janet Seidel]

Are you unsure of what your dream might actually be? Perhaps because you are afraid to dream, or because there are just too many possibilities looking at you for you to be certain which is the one you came for, or because you somehow lost sight of your dream along the way? Well, it's not too late to change your mind and start preparing yourself to recover your dream by asking yourself four questions I'll give you in a moment. I invite you to do something in response to each question, something to put yourself in the best possible position to recognise which dream is the next one for you.

As you respond deliberately to these four questions, keep a dream in mind. No matter how vague the details may be, focus on how you'll feel when it materialises. You know that feeling already; you've experienced it before. Don't worry when or under what circumstances – just remember the feeling, and be grateful that you can still feel it. It's the feeling that will take you home. 

 

Right now it's important to cultivate that ground-bed of Gratitude. Allow it to grow and develop. As you do, keep this in mind: 'A dream is a realising of what you desire as you progressively discover for yourself what is possible.' A vision is not just a picture of what could be; it is an appeal to our better selves, a call to become something more than we presently assume we're capable of.

OK. Now, here are the four questions --

1. What can I do now to prepare myself mentally and emotionally? Read and research areas of your greatest interest. Imagine yourself in that picture. Get your body in optimal shape to pursue your dream. Grow your self-awareness and take the opportunity to clear up any emotional baggage that may get in your way.
2. What can I do now to get the experiences I'll need under my belt? Engage in activities in areas related to your interests. Volunteer if you have to, and learn from those who already have the experience. Find a suitable mentor. Do all you can every day to increase your awarefulness, and enjoy, as much as you can, the process of enriching your treasure trove of experiences along the way.
3. What can I do now to inspire myself during the hard days? Put up pictures of people and things that inspire you. Take time to be with those moments that engender the most pleasant feelings. Enjoy those now, for their own sake.
4. If my best and closest friend came to me now asking my advice on this, what would I say?

Today is the best day to begin... today is the best opportunity for a new destiny.

[As Time Goes By – Grady Tate etc]

If you believe that time has passed you by, that your best days are behind you, or that somehow you've failed too many times to warrant another chance, know that nothing could be further from the truth.

After his first audition, a casting director told actor Sidney Poitier, "Why don't you stop wasting people's time and go out and become a dishwasher or something?" It was at that moment, recalls Poitier, that he decided to devote his life to acting. He wasn't going to let someone else decide his life path. He was going to go out on a limb, to create a new path for himself and enlist supporters.

Get off the middle of the road. There's nothing in the middle of the road, but yellow stripes and dead lizard or three. Decide to do something now to make your life better, and be gratedul that you still have the desire. The choice is yours.

"My decision is maybe—and that's final." Is this you? Being decisive is essential for a successful life. If you deny yourself commitment, what will you do with your life? Every accomplishment, great or small, starts with a choice that morphs into a series of decisions.

David Ambrose remarked, "If you have the will to win, you have already achieved half your success; if you don't, you have already achieved half your failure."

The moment you definitely commit yourself, change begins. All sorts of things happen to help you that never would have otherwise occurred. Kenneth Blanchard observed, "There is a difference between “interests” and “commitment”. When you are interested in doing something, you only do it when it is convenient. When you are committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results." Commitment changes your hierachy of priorities -- right across the board. Lack of wilful decisiveness has caused more failures than lack of intelligence or ability.

Indecision often gives an advantage to the other person because they did their thinking beforehand. Helen Keller said, "Science may have found a cure for most evil; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all—the apathy of human beings." Don't leave a decision for tomorrow that needs to be made today.

Remember, don't be a "middle-of-the-roader" because the middle of the road is the worst place to try to go forward. Bertrand Russell is quoted as saying “Nothing is so exhausting for everyone as indecision, and nothing is so futile.” You can do everything you ought to do once you make a decision. Today, decide on your dream.

[Chorale No.1: Sleepers Awake – Jacques Loussier Trio – 8:27]

This place is a dream
only a sleeper considers it real
then death comes like dawn
and you wake up laughing
at what you thought
was your grief
A man goes to sleep in the town
where he has always lived
and he dreams
he's living in another town.
in the dream he doesn't remember
the town he's sleeping in his bed in.
he believes the reality
of the dream town
the world is that kind of sleep.
Humankind is being led
along an evolving course,
through this migration
of intelligences
and though we seem
to be sleeping
there is an inner wakefulness,
that directs the dream
and that will eventually
startle us back
to the truth of
who we are.

Inner Wakefulness

Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi (13^th C mystic)

Have you every seen the ABC telemovie “Cliffy”? It was fittingly re-run last Australia Day. The year was 1983. and the long-distance foot race from Sydney to Melbourne was about to begin, covering 875 kilometres! About 150 world-class athletes had entered, for what was planned as a six-day event. So race officials were startled when a 61-year-old man approached and handed them his entry form.

His name was Cliff Young, and his "racing attire" included overalls and galoshes over his—work boots.

At first, they refused to let him enter. So he explained that he'd grown up on a 2,000-acre farm, with thousands of sheep. His family could afford neither horses nor tractors so, when the storms came, his job was to round up the sheep. Sometimes, he said, it would take two or three days of running.

What was the key to Cliff Young's success? It goes by various names: determination, perseverance, persistence, tenacity. Or maybe it simply never occurred to him that he could not do it. Whatever the reasons, the key means keeping one's eye fixed steadfastly on a goal, and not stopping, no matter the difficulties or the obstacles, until that goal is achieved.

Keep on going. The chances improve with every moment of you discovering something really important, almost when you are least expecting it. So stay awake and aware.

You will never change your fortunes until you change your mind. And once you've changed your mind, get ready to change it again. Your mind is like underwear, and needs to be changed often -- for the same reasons.

And as they used to say on radio “Keep on keeping on....” What you want is chasing you, tugging at your conscience....... Look!!!

[Change Your Mind – Paul Kelly]

HOW TO BE UNDERSTOOD AND INFLUENCE OTHERS

PAUSE A MOMENT

LONE RANGER OR TEAM PLAYER?

I have a couple of questions for you, about you – questions you might usefully like to assume you do not know the full answers for – yet...

1. How well are you understood by others, and how well are you able to read what it is that others are trying (not) to tell you?
2. How well are you able to influence others to see things, at least temporarily, from your point of view.

Hello. This is Pause a Moment and I'm Barrie Barkla. Tonight it is my kindly intention to show you, if you're up for it, another way of looking at yourself and others, that may answer some of your questions about why things happen to you the way that they do. Are you interested? Yes? OK, let's go....

[All Come Together – Prinnie & Mahalia]

We’re looking tonight at one particular set of background operating systems that are chugging away right now in the basement of our minds. These operating systems filter our perceptions, govern our choices and decisions and determine the ways we communicate and attempt to influence our world. In particular tonight, we’re going to examine how people sort themselves by social orientation, and how knowing this stuff can help you function with others, happily and fruitfully.

The principles go back to some particular skills I learned as a farm boy on the backblocks of central Victoria, skills needed for building teams of horses so that they can work effectively together to get a big and complex job done. In later years I graduated from horses to people, but found many of the principles quite similar. 

For instance, I found I may have the right people in front of me on a particular project, but if I put them into the wrong slots, I might just have well have hired the wrong people – the consequences will be similar. On other projects, where I have no say in selecting the people, the question remains – “How do I assemble this bunch so that everyone gets their real needs met in the best possible way? Similarly, if you are applying for a position on a team, you may well have turned up to the right address, but if you're applying for a job for which you are not suited, or you are put in the wrong slot by some dickhead with ambition, degrees and diplomas but no actual ability or people-sense, you are not going to be happy and fulfilled.

Our Predominant Social Orientation

Sometimes interactions with another human being will be primarily in terms of what’s in it for me personally; what does this person want, and is it going to be good or bad for me? What do I want, and is this person/group going to be able to deliver?

Some other interactions happen in a climate of what I can do for others; still others fall into a looser, more fluid context of what I can do for myself and others.

So, in this we find ourselves on a triangular playing field – at one apex is Self/Process orientation, another apex is Other/Relationship orientation, and the third is a Self-and-Other mix of the two. 

Of course, people don’t usually fall into one extreme of the triangle or another. But for the purposes of illustration, if you sort only by Self, you can become a task-oriented, a geek or (negatively) a self-absorbed, self-important, egotistic psychopath. If you sort only by others, you become a Carer, mentor, or (negatively) a self-denying Sacrificer. If you sort by self AND others, you become a Sharer, or (negatively) an unfocused drop-kick. Of course I am generalising and over-simplifying here but, bear with me please -- I think you'll find this enlightening if you're trying to understand why some people have volunteers lining up to work with them while others find people looking the other way or have other commitments when the call goes out.

If you’re involved in interacting with people, wouldn’t you want to know where the person you're relating with fits on this triangular scale? Well, yes. But first you have to tell the truth to yourself about where you fit on the triangular scale. If you don't get that right, where others fit won't matter.

[Come Fly With Me – 101 Strings Orchestra]

Not long ago a major airline found that 95 percent of its complaints involved 5 percent of its employees. After profiling, it was found that these 5 percent sorted themselves strongly by Self; they were most interested in the processes, the nuts-and-bolts of their work, and looking out for themselves in the process, ahead of the effect they were having on others. They were more interested in efficiency and self-satisfaction than effectiveness. As others of us know when you're dealing with people, humans-being do not function efficiently, like robots; there are other forces that come into play. Does that mean that the Self-sorters were poor employees? Yes, and no. They were mostly smart, hardworking, and sometimes calculatedly congenial in what they were trained to do, but not very effective at actually connecting with people.

So what did the airline do? It replaced them with people who sorted by Others. How did they find them? The company did something very smart; they identified people who sort by Others through group interviews, in which prospective employees were asked in a group session to tell the group why they wanted to work for the airline. The employees thought they were being judged by the answers they gave in front of the group, when in fact they were being judged by their behavior as audience while others had the floor. That is, individuals who paid the most attention and gave the most eye contact, smiles, or support to the person who was doing the speaking at the time, were given the highest rating, while those who paid little or no attention and were in their own world while others were talking were considered to be primarily self-sorting and were not hired. The company’s complaint ratio dropped over 80 percent as a result of this transformation. I also learned that I can find out more about a person by watching them while they're supposed to be listening than while they're talking

[You Move Me – Shani Judd-Diehl]

How can you accurately evaluate a person's potential if you don’t know what motivates him? How can you match the job you have available with the correct person in terms of required skills, ability to learn, and internal makeup? A lot of very smart people spend their careers totally frustrated because they don't know themselves, and have chosen jobs that don’t make the best use of their inherent capabilities. That doesn't invalidate them: a valuable asset in one context can be a liability in another. This is the basis of what's known as The Peter Principle – the management theory which suggests that organisations risk filling management roles with people who are incompetent if they promote those who are performing well at their current role, rather than those who have proven abilities at the intended role. It is named after Laurence J. Peter who co-authored with Raymond Hull the 1969 humorous book The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong. They suggest that people will tend to be promoted until they reach their "position of incompetence". It happened to me once, when I was moved from Marketing Director (successful) to Managing Director. Big mistake. Fortunately, I learned from it and haven't (so far) fallen into that ego trap since.

[You Move Me – Chris Botti]

In a service business, like an airline, you obviously need people who sort by Others at the service desk and in your cabin crew. If you’re hiring an auditor, though, you might want someone who would sort by Self. I went to a doctor's surgery the other day to find the usual receptionist was away, and the bookkeeper was filling in taking care of the patients. It wasn't a pleasant place to be. But that really wasn't the bookeeper's fault.

How many times have you dealt with someone who left you in a confused state because he did his job well intellectually but communicated poorly emotionally? It’s like a doctor who sorts strongly by self (wickedly portrayed by Martin Clunes in the TV comedy “Doc Martin”). He may be a brilliant diagnostician, but his bedside manner is non-existent. Unless you feel someone like a doctor cares about you, he won’t be totally effective. In fact, someone like that would probably be better off as a researcher than as a clinician.

Putting yourself in the right job, and putting other people in the appropriate job remains one of the biggest problems in business. But it’s a problem that could be dealt with if people knew how to evaluate the ways that each job applicant processes information.

At this point, it’s worth asking, "Are you better off moving toward certain things rather than away from other situations?" Perhaps. Would the world be a better place if people sorted more by Others and less by Self? Possibly. But we do have to start dealing with life the way it is, not the way we wish it were. That hasn't made us any happier. For example, you may wish your teenage son or daughter moved towards things rather than away. But that isn't going to happen: the teen years are that scary time when “moving away” becomes an imperative, and it happens often without a solid sense of what to move towards. It's a time of experimentation to find out what works and what doesn't, for teens and parents both.

If you want to effectively communicate with your teens, you have to do it in a way that works, not in a way that plays to your idea of how it should work. Your children are not you; they are developing as independent beings, like it or not. The key is to observe The Person as awarefully as possible, listen to what he says, what sorts of metaphors he uses, what his physiology reveals, when he’s attentive, and when he’s bored.

People gradually reveal their inner programming on a consistent, ongoing basis. If you're committed to Awareness, it doesn’t take much concentrated study to figure out what people’s tendencies might be or how they are sorting at the moment. But if you're getting through your life in some sort of self-righteous trance in the company of similar zombies who'll be nice to you – you're just living out The Peter Principle for yourself.

[Wake Up! – Deni Hines & James Morrison]

If you want to know if certain people sort by Self or Others, see how much genuine, empathetic attention they pay to other people. Do they lean toward them and have facial expressions that naturally reflect concern for what others are saying (Other-oriented), or do they lean back and remain bored, blank, detached or unresponsive (Self-oriented)? Is their body langauge including or excluding? Learn to tell the difference between genuine concern of one person for another, and fake sympathy.

Look, everyone sorts by Self some of the time, and there are times when it’s important to do so. It's also important for you to know – a) under what circumstances you're most likely to go Self-ish, and – b) when you are doing it, and to become aware of how being self-centred is limiting your freedom to choose and perhaps respond more appropriately. The key to being effective in whatever you're doing is to know what style you do more consistently, and whether your default sorting procedure is enabling you to produce, or hindering you from, getting the results you desire. As Dr. Phil says – “How's it working for you?”

[Change – Kate Ceberano]

It's your story. Unfinished. Like any dream, you can change anything you like, when you like. Re-write it completely if you wish. Start now.

[Starting Here, Starting Now – Barbra Streisand]

WHAT'S IN YOUR C.V?

PAUSE A MOMENT

WORDS YOU MIGHT CONSIDER DROPPING FROM YOUR CV.

Good morning. I'm Barrie Barkla, inviting you once again to Pause a Moment. This morning, we're going to reflect on words you might consider dropping from you Self-Image, especially if you're selling yourself to a prospective employer.....

[I'm Different – Randy Newman]

Picture this: You meet someone new. "What do you do?" he asks.

"I'm an architect," you say.

"Oh, really?" he answers. "Have you designed any buildings I've seen?"

"Maybe," you reply. "We did the new library at the university..."

"Oh wow," he says. "I've seen it. That's a beautiful building..."

And you're on your way into a conversation. Maybe he's a potential client, maybe not... but either way you've quickly made a great impression.

You sound awesome.

Now picture this: You meet someone new. "What do you do?" he asks.

"I'm a passionate, innovative, dynamic provider of three-dimensional social sculpture concepts and design services who uses a collaborative approach to create and deliver outstanding customer experiences." 

The stranger will probably hightail it out of there, never to be seen again... because you sound like a pompous ass.

So if you wouldn't do it in conversation, why do you talk like that in your CV?

Do you--whether on your website, or more likely on social media accounts--describe yourself differently than you do in person?

Do you use hacky clichés and overblown superlatives and breathless adjectives?

Do you write things about yourself you would never have the nerve to actually say in normal conversation?

If so, it's time for a change.

Now the bottom-line question for you: “Why do you try so hard to appear to be what you already are?

Here's one for politicians listening – do you talk to your wife and children over breakfast the same way you talk to me the second a camera is pointed at you?

If not, then I wish to Murgatroyd you'd change the way you talk to me. And answer the questions that have been put to you. 

The first rule of writing effective CVs is “Read the Job Specification.” The second rule is “Address All the Requirements and Criteria. The third rule is “Read the Job Specifications – again. Have you left no doubts in their minds, and made it imperative for them to hire you?

Here are some words that are great when used by other people to describe you, but you should never use to describe yourself, especially in a CV:

[Gonna Build a Mountain – Buddy Emmons]

"Motivated."

I love Chris Rock's response to people who say “I take care of my kids!” – You're supposed to, your drongo! Then dd the word "motivated." – “I am highly motivated to look after my children” “I'm highly motivated to make a difference in the workplace.” No kidding! Motivated to do it, but will you do it? Or will you just try to do it?

Here's a hot tip about motivation from one who has read more CV's than he's had hot dinners – never take credit for being motivated to do things you are expected to do--or be. Just do them! Require a bit more of yourself than whatever just scraped you through yesterday. OK? That's called self-motivation.

"Authority."

If you have to say you're an authority or an expert on something, you aren't. Show your expertise instead. "I'm a presenter at XYZ-FM” or "I delivered the Keynote Speech at the Weather Bureau's Forum for news media broadcasters in 2010", or “I'm an accredited counsellor for Lifeline” indicates I have a level of authority in certain fields. Unless you can prove it, spurious froth like "social media marketing expert" just means you spend far too much time on Twitter.

[Show Me – Julie Andrews]

"Global provider."

I'm a global provider of uplifting radio programmes: big deal!! Thanks to the internet, the vast majority of businesses can sell goods or services worldwide; the ones that can't--like restaurants--are obvious. Only use phrases like "global provider" if that capability is not assumed or obvious; otherwise you just sound like a really small person trying to inflate yourself into someone really big and progressive. That's not what CV's are for, unless you're a phony....

[Buffoon – Freddy Gardner]

"Innovative."

Most companies claim to be innovative. Most people claim to be innovative. I'm innovative, sort of. Most are not innovative at all. That's okay, because innovation is not a requirement for success. Nor does innovation guarrantee success. “Innovator” is too often a desperate euphemism for “crackpot”.

If you are innovative, don't say it. Demonstrate it, and let others decide that for you. Describe the innovative products or services you've developed. Describe the processes you've modified. Show the previously unrelated ideas you've catalysed into something new and useful. Give us something real so your innovation is unspoken but evident... "unspoken" is always the best kind of evident to be.

And if you really must come across as “innovative”, avoid dead giveaway PC cliches like “at the end of the day” and “going forward” and “everyone knows” and “team-building”. There's nothing innovative about clichés, except when they're used in a startlingly different context. And the usual purpose of a CV is to impress and persuade, not to startle.

"Creative."

If I see particular words or phrases often enough they no longer make an impact. “Everyone agrees” is one of them; "Creative" is another one. (Go to LinkedIn and check out some profiles; "creative" will appear in the majority. Meaningless.

 I have a saying – “If you want to be a smart-arse, you'd first better be smart.” People who try to be clever for the sake of being clever are anything but. 

"Creative" is just one example of words to dump from your dialogue. Others include “extensive”, “effective”, “proven”, “dynamic”, “influential”, “team player”, “collaborative”... some of those terms truly may describe you, but since they're also being used to describe everyone else they've lost their impact. They are bubble-wrap padding.

"Curator."

This one has become popular in the last decade. Why? Museums have curators. Art galleries have curators. Sporting grounds have curators. If you tell me "I'm a curator of....." creates an immediate image in my mind of an overflowing In-tray. 

And tweeting links to stuff you find interesting doesn't make you a curator either... or an authority or a guru. It's more likely to make you an annoying nuisance facing a quick click to the Trash folder.

[Steam Heat – Fosse]

"Passionate."

“Passionate” has been used lately to describe/excuse people who vent their ill-temper on underlings, rort public money for their own gratification, run around sniffing office seats and generally act like spoiled brats. “Passionate” is not something I want to be described as any more, not in front of the grandchildren anyway. A principled, cranky old bugger will do, thank you. Say you're incredibly passionate about something and--to me at least--you sound a little scary. Smacks of anger or obsession. Same if you're passionate about developing long-term customer solutions, whatever that means??? Try focused, concentrated, or specialised instead. Save pure passion for your loved ones.

[Everything Old Is New Again – Hugh Jackman]

"Unique."

Fingerprints are unique. Snowflakes are unique. Bits of you may be unique – maybe, but not nearly as many as you'd like to think--and your business probably isn't unique at all. Don't pretend to be, because customers don't care about unique; they care about "better." Show how you're better than the competition // and in the minds of customers you will be unique.

[Do You Think I'm Sexy? – Benzedrine Monks]

"Guru."

Here's a warning for all wannabe holy-men: if you fancy spending your life on someone's pedestal, sooner or later you'll be knocked off it – nothing surer. If you want to be a holy ponce, fine. Join a church, do the hard yards and become at least a bishop with a psychology degree. Don't be a self-proclaimed guru, ninja, sage, connoisseur, guerilla, wonk, egghead or expert... it's awesome when your customers affectionately describe you in that way, but when you do it it's apparent you're huffing and puffing way too hard.

"Incredibly..."

Check out some random biogs and you'll find plenty of further-modified descriptors: "Incredibly passionate," "profoundly insightful," "extremely captivating..." isn't it enough to be simply “insightful” or “captivating”? Do you have to be incredibly passionate? “In/credible” means you are beyond belief – not a good place to be if you want to instil confidence in your self.

If you must use over-the-top adjectives to describe yourself, at least spare us the further modification. Trust us; we already get it.

Most self-promoters go over the top, then have to race like hell to catch up to their own legendary status, either that or cover up their misrepresentations. I learnt early on in my acting career – undersell yourself, and let your genius emerge in the course of events, as a pleasant surprise to those who matter.

Those who don't get how awesome you are don't matter.

Do they?

Do they?

Do they?

[It Don't Matter to Jesus – Emily Zuzik]

FOR WOMEN........

PAUSE A MOMENT

JUST FOR WOMEN

Good morning and welcome now to Pause a Moment – a kernel of truth around which the rest of our universe is expanding faster than the speed of light.

[Girls' Night Out – Gina Jeffries]

Tonight's show, as you may have guessed, is specifically for women, and right now this mere male is brazenly offering a superior being a simple suggestion. So how come I feel Brave enough to comment on an experience of womanhood? Simple. When women open up about their experiences, I shut up and listen. 

One female acquaintance of mine laments frequently, "Why am I always riding in the back of my own bus?" Good question? If this is your experience, too, let's stand in that question for a moment, then judge for yourself.

Novelist Kathleen Winsor wrote: “Most people are so busy knocking themselves out trying to do everything they think they should do, they never get around to doing what they want to do” – to which I add “either that, or they're lying about what they really want to do. They say one thing and do differently.” It's my suspicion that most folks do what they want to do most of the time, and then blame someone else if they don't like the consequences. We all have this amazing capacity to delude ourselves and lie about the choices we're making.

Let's assume, however, that you are very clear about your intentions and motives. I have for you --

A new Golden Rule: "We need to do unto ourselves as we do unto others."

[Do It To ME – Lionel Ritchie – 4:30]

Women often know what's good for them, but they often don't always do it for themselves. A nurturing woman knows what's good for her husband, but she isn't always kind to his wife; she obsesses about her children, but ignores their mother. She knows she should eat less and exercise more, but still she doesn't make healthy choices. She knows she needs to spend her time and money more effectively, but good time and money management elude her. She finds herself always putting others first, while neglecting her own needs and wants. She doesn't get enough rest or sleep and her endless to-do list hangs overhead like the sword of Damocles.

Women seem to be particularly prone to neglecting things they know are emotionally, mentally and even physically nourishing for them. Sometimes because they are so busy taking care of others that they neglect their own needs. The problem isn't lack of information—we have plenty of information about the importance of sleep, healthy foods, and exercise. The problem is how we prioritise our lives. 

It's partly nature and partly nurture. When a boy is born, he gets the soldiers, the Meccano set, the computer and the “What are you gonna be when you grow up, son?”; when a girl is born, she gets the pink pretties, the fairy dresses, the i-phone (also pink), the dolls' house with the kitchen utensils, and the dolls that cry and piss on her, and she has to clean it up. The message to the boys is – you can be what you want to be; the message to the girls is – you can play around with an education for a while if you feel you must, but we all know what you're really here for -- it's Sex & Service.

[Momisms – Anita Renfroe – 3:40]

Point made? OK, now let's drop the gender thing, and look at what's going on here from another viewpoint. 

Psychologists tell us that some people are Inner/Self-directed and some are Outer/Other-directed; we have spoken about this in some detail quite recently on this programme. That is, some people focus predominantly on their own internal guidance system for making choices about how to spend their time and energy. Also, their own self-interest ranks very high on their list of priorities. "What's best for me?" is a key guiding principle in determining where they focus their attention and how they make day-to-day decisions.

And some people are predominantly other-directed, which means that their primary focus is external, not internal. They are primarily concerned with relationships, especially with people they care about. "How can I help others?" is a key question in how they spend their time and energy. Building and nurturing relationships with loved ones, family, friends, neighbours, and co-workers is the guiding principle in their lives.

Research indicates that, in general, men tend to be a bit more inner-directed than women, while women tend to be more other-directed than men. But it's a tendency, not a distinction between the sexes, alright? There are exceptions, but as a group, male macho ego is very self-centred, while mature women are a bit more inclined to focus on other people. Men like to build things while women like to create and nurture correlation.

This generalised way of looking at the psychological orientation of the genders is limited, but I think it goes some way toward helping us understand why women often do such a poor job of taking care of their own welfare. Women will often run around filling others' lamps with oil, but forget to fill their own lamps. Little wonder that such ladies often end the day in the dark, exhausted, frazzled, stressed-out, anxious and/or depressed!

[Tired Of... – Beloved Elk]

The first step toward solving any problem is expanding your Awareness. Tonight's Pause a Moment is devoted to helping you acknowledge a possible imbalance in your life and understand some possible reasons for it. For example, look at how differently young boys and girls are socialised. I have been appalled to see some mothers of young boys on crowded public transport giving up their seats to their sons, while girls of similar age in same family stand, growing up to be women who put men first. Look at the values women have adopted in the past 50 years, beginning with the feminist movement—leading growing women to believe that men have it all, and that women likewise can have it all—all at once. Then explore the corresponding myth that we can DO it all. Life isn't long enough for that, and there are some things we just don't have the equipment for. For example, I so much wanted to be a doctor, but I've shaken so much all my life, my attempts at brain surgery would have outshone the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. In my experience, people who make poor choices often suffer from impoverishing education – a lack of awareness in the growing being that Conscious Choices DO have to be made, and no supervised practice in how to go about it.

But don't be discouraged. Life's challenges, including an over- or under-indulged, upbringing, need not paralyse you; that's not their purpose. Challenges are designed to dare you, to stretch you, to push you past your self-imposed boundaries, and reveal to you more of who you are, and what possibilities exist for you beyond your self-proclaimed limitations (“I can't”). And help is here. In the coming weeks we'll learn the opportunities to Choose and the times to Decide. We'll discover the value of directed doing, and the value of doing nothing. We'll learn in experience how to imagine and play -- again, how to balance Inner-referencing with Other-directing, and most important, how to ask for help.

[Help! – Tina Turner]