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It All Starts With You


SUMMARY

Do you find yourself the most challenging person to get along with every day?

Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Speaker and Trainer of the Year and Master Coach Trainer. Today I want to continue our conversation around the competency of Interpersonal Effectiveness by helping you to realise that it all starts with YOU.

Last week, we started a conversation about interpersonal effectiveness around getting on well with others. I talked to you about some of the challenges it can bring if you are not able to do that.

Today, I want to give you the foundation around this actual subject. You can jump straight in, and you could learn some effective techniques for being able to work with others.

It's not all about you -- it's about you and others. However, the root cause of issues in working with others stems typically from your identity:

What you believe about yourself and who you believe you are.

It also stems from who you believe you're not.

If you're unable to get on with yourself, then it's little wonder that you wouldn't be able to get on well with others.

So that's it for me for this week. Join me again next week as we continue this conversation around interpersonal effectiveness; we bring others into it and start looking at what we can do differently so that our relationships are more mutually beneficial and there's less conflict.

I'll see you then.

TRANSCRIPT

Do you find yourself the most challenging person to get along with every day?

Well, stick with me because, in this episode, I want to help you to be able to solve that problem.

Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Speaker and Trainer of the Year and Master Coach Trainer. Today I want to continue our conversation around the competency of Interpersonal Effectiveness by helping you to realise that it all starts with YOU.

Last week, we started a conversation about interpersonal effectiveness around getting on well with others. I talked to you about some of the challenges it can bring if you are not able to do that.

As we go on this month together, I want to chunk down these areas and give you a practical understanding of how you can incrementally develop the competency of Interpersonal Effectiveness so the results you get in working with others will escalate exponentially.

Getting on well with others was a major issue I had in my previous career. It didn't play well because I had these uncertainties and challenges I was working through. It held me back and wasn't good for me, them, or the greater good.

Today, I want to give you the foundation around this actual subject. You can jump straight in, and you could learn some effective techniques for being able to work with others.

But before you do that, you need to understand why most people find it challenging to use those skills.

To just go ahead and build those skills without building a foundation means that you'll only get a band-aid fix and you won't get the results that you want long-term.

As I said, at the start of the episode, you must realise that it all starts with you.

Yes, it's not all about you -- it's about you and others. However, the root cause of issues in working with others stems typically from your identity:

What you believe about yourself and who you believe you are.

It also stems from who you believe you're not.

That internal dialogue with your mini-me (the one I’ve talked to you about so many times) convinces you because you've trained it to, that being who you are right now is safe and stepping outside of that is going to be uncomfortable.

Let’s look at why this is the case and what you can do about it.

It all starts with working on your perception of yourself.

A lot of times, what you do is try and get from others what you’re not willing to give yourself.

You want approval from others, yet you added a position of self-approval.

You want people to like and trust you, but you don't like and trust yourself.

If your head's nodding right now, agreeing with any of this, if it's resonating with you, I want you to know that I understand.

The reason I understand is two-fold:

1. I'm a human being. This is a challenge that every human being has.

2. This was the major area I had to work on in my personal development before any professional development took hold and allowed me to move forward in my career. 

I’ve talked to you about how self-belief and beliefs about yourself are limiting and, in many cases, false. This is because past experiences are also forming those beliefs. What you've seen, what has happened around you, what people have said to you, and what you've made that mean about you.

On any given day, when I speak to groups of people, they tell me the same thing when I ask this question, and that is:

"Who's the most difficult person you find to get along with daily?"

The answer is themselves.

The answer is me.

This is a common challenge.

How you project yourself and think about yourself comes into play with how you work with others. That is the case because of the motive for the interaction changes.

We have three universal fears:

1. The fear of not belonging.

2. The fear of not being good enough.

3. The fear of not being loved.

Suppose those deep-seated fears are coming out in your thinking and behaviour. In that case, your interpersonal relationships will be affected because the interactions, even though they might have an actual purpose, are tainted by a need to overcome those fears.

My experience in my own life and working with others is that the more we try to stop those things from happening, the more we focus on them; therefore, our behaviour moves towards them.

So, if we don't want to be rejected, we can sometimes behave in a way that pushes people away.

I’ve talked to you about developing your personal power to lift that identity; that's the number one key.

The first person you need to have an effective relationship with is yourself.

To do that, you need to reverse the conditioning that's already taken place. You need to look at the things that you believe about yourself.

Remember we talked about in the performance trap:

“The performance is something that you do. However, your identity is who you believe you are.”

It's who you believe you are.

When the identity is eroded, the platform where you’ll be who you need to be to get the desired results is not conducive to getting those results.

So, step one is to look at any of those experiences in your life and look at the beliefs that have come out of them:

What did you make that mean?

For example, I've talked about situations where I saw two people over in the corner of a room and assumed that they were talking about me and that the conversation wasn't good. But in reality, they weren't talking about me at all. In fact, I wasn't even in the equation. However, because I felt I was not good enough, I thought that's what others would think about me.

So, as we identify these things, as you look at your identity and go, “Who is it that I believe I am, that's holding me back from who I need to be?”

You also need to shift those beliefs and look at those experiences differently and go, "You know what, I'm okay with who I am,” and get to a position of self-approval.

When you get to that position of self-approval, then the dialogue will change.

It's not just about how you talk to others; it's how you talk to yourself.

That internal dialogue, that self-talk, needs to be cleaned up, needs to be in a position where it's lifting you, not pulling you back, where it's reminding you of the good things about you, not of the things that you've failed.

So, identifying those false beliefs, retraining that mini-me, and shifting that internal dialogue, is what you need to do to have a good relationship with yourself.

Interpersonal effectiveness starts with you. It starts with who you believe you are and your relationship with yourself.

If you're unable to get on with yourself, then it's little wonder that you wouldn't be able to get on well with others.

So that's it for me for this week. Join me again next week as we continue this conversation around interpersonal effectiveness; we bring others into it and start looking at what we can do differently so that our relationships are more mutually beneficial and there's less conflict.

I'll see you then.

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