Whether you are married, single, a manager, a parent, a student… whatever you are, the program will make you a powerful individual who communicates in a way that builds a strong connection with people.

At the moment I am putting the finishing touches on the program, which is where you come in.

I want to make sure I’ve covered everything about charisma and persuasion in this new program. I want you to be a powerful person who is in control of your relationships with people important in your life.

Please explain below the biggest challenge you have in these areas of your life. If it helps, feel free to tell a story of your situation to help explain the challenge. Provide as much detail as you can.

Simply use the form below to send your comment. Thanks in advance for your help!

This is a review of Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen’s Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss what Matters Most.

Have you ever struggled to negotiate something important to you like a pay raise? Have you ever felt anxious about talking something over with your partner? Are there issues in your life that you ignore because you’re too afraid to talk it over with someone? If you ever have talked about something difficult, are you sick of arguing, feeling ignored, and getting no where in the conversation? Difficult Conversations is the solution to these problems that you have been looking for.

Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen have studied situations described by the above questions at the Harvard Negotiation Project. Their findings come from diverse fields of study like cognitive therapy, social psychology, and communication theory. After analysing, developing theories, and testing conversations that we find difficult to effectively communicate in, the end result is Difficult Conversations.

The complete framework of the book is made up of three separate conversations we have with ourselves and the other person, during tough conversations:

1. The “What Happened?” Conversation is about learning people’s stories of what occurred.
2. The Feelings Conversation is about discovering and expressing (not venting) emotions during the conversation.
3. The Identity Conversation is about finding how people attribute themselves to the issues being discussed.

Each of these three conversations are discussed in-depth as the authors advise you what to focus on, common mistakes made, and general pieces of advice you will find directly speak to you. One particular piece you will find speaks to you is the assumption we know the truth. In this assumption we think the other person is wrong and we are right. The problem is the other person is thinking the same thing – a sure formula for destructive conflict. When you shift to a learning conversation as you explore the three conversations, you will overcome these limiting views.

The last chapter provides a complete dialogue between two people as one of them uses the entire Difficult Conversation’s framework. This is followed by a convenient summary of all the book’s main points (an excellent quick reference for when you need it). Overall, the language used is simple and easy to understand. You are shown conversations of what went wrong, what went right, and why it is so to help you talk about difficult issues.

Difficult Conversations is the leading book for learning how to talk about tough issues (though you may also want to check out my review of Susan Scott’s Fierce Conversations because the books are related but do not overlap). I highly recommend you get it because we all have, and will continue, to experience situations where we must confront people, solve the problem, and keep each other’s sanity in tact. You can grab your copy from Amazon by clicking here today.

Let me tell you an interesting story which you no doubt will relate to. One day I was walking the golf course, caddying for my older brother Nathan, a professional golfer, who was playing a regional qualifier for the Australian Open. He started the day strongly with a few shots under par, but the turning point came on the eleventh hole when he hit a bad two-iron from the tee on a par 4. Being a left-hander, he pulled the golf ball left where it ended out-of-bounds. Following that eradicate shot, his quality of play did not improve for the rest of the day.

At the end of the round, he had fail to qualify for the national tournament by two shots. In the clubhouse where we had a drink, we talked about what he did well and what he could have done better, “I was surprised by the quality of your chip shots and game around the greens.” I remarked. “Everything went within 2 meters of the pin.” Not to concerned about the disappointed day, Nathan replied, “Yeah, you’re right. My wedge game was strong today. Just…” to which I interrupted and said, “The eleventh 2-iron.” He echoed my words, “Spot on, the eleventh 2-iron.”

I let him continue to talk as his words almost perfectly described the words in my mind. Something happened between our minds. It was like a magic trick taking place. A mystical cable was connecting our minds which lead to strange psychological phenomena.

It seemed we had almost psychic powers. I wasn’t just reading his mind, he was also reading mine. There was a shared connection, a relaying of thoughts exchanged between minds. The distance between two brains was removed as two minds overcame physical boundaries to connect with one another.

There was no two persons trying to talk to one another frustrated in their misunderstandings. There was no interpretation, judgments, or confusion about what each other meant. We were so attuned to one another that we did not even have to say a word and we would have understood what was on the other person’s mind.

What happened here? Was it just a fluke, a lucky break? Were psychic powers at work? How does psychology explain this? How can you use this information to read someone’s mind?

We Were Born to Connect: We Have Innate Psychological and Physiological Connections

In 328 BC, Aristotle said humans are social animals. Nowadays, more and more evidence is showing that humans are born to connect with one another. There is much fascinating research on psychology, sociology, neuroscience, and child development which is slowly revealing how we connect with others in our relationships.

From birth, a baby prefers his or her mother’s voice, sight, and smell than that of a stranger’s. The mother is more connected to the baby than an outsider. As the baby grows, other attachments form. Should a babysitter come over to look after the toddler as the mother leaves the house, the toddler experiences separation anxiety and clings to the mother’s leg. (The anxiety is important for survival and avoiding dangerous situations.) The child can be joyous 10 seconds prior to seeing the babysitter, but the sight of the stranger creates fear in the child and leads to large amounts of distress.

As the mother leaves the house, she feels her child’s anxiety. The child may say no words or cry no tears, yet the mother is able to mind-read her child’s emotional state. She is able to feel exactly what the child is feeling. There is a mind-to-mind and mind-to-body connection taking place.

Interpersonal communication is not just about direct channels – the channels like verbal and nonverbal communication which is obvious to people. We are often well aware of people’s words and body language. Reading someone’s mind goes to the next level. When you know another person well enough, you pick-up on indirect channels that give you hunches about the other person. Nothing needs to be said or expressed nonverbally; it is your intuition, almost a sixth sense, that tells you what the person is thinking.

We do not just connect through words, we connect at a biological level. Our bodies can adjust to match someone else’s body. When we are so deeply connected to someone during a conversation, our posture, movements, and heart rate match each other. This power gives us the ability to control another’s mood. A mother can relieve her distressed baby with her soothing voice. While our psychology influences our physiology, and vice-a-versa; our psychology, as well as our physiology, can affect someone else’s psychology and physiology.

Social and emotional intelligence expert Daniel Goleman is a leader in the mind-to-mind, and mind-to-body, connections we share with each other. In a New York Times article, Goleman discusses the powerful connection we share with one another. He refers to one study which measured a female’s anxiety, and holding hands with someone, prior to receiving an electric shock. When the female held hands with a stranger, she remained distressed. However, when she held her husband’s hand, she was able to keep calm. Brain scans confirmed little activity in the emotional parts of her brain when the wife held her husband’s hand.

You Have Superpowers

“Think twice before you speak, because your words and influence will plant the seed of either success or failure in the mind of another.” – Napoleon Hill (1883-1970), author of the classic Think and Grow Rich!

“The greatest reward is to know that one can speak and emit articulate sounds and utter words that describe things, events and emotions.” – Camilo Jose Cela, Spanish writer and recipent of the 1989 Nobel Prize in Literature

“The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy.” – Meryl Streep (1949-present), American actress

Because we were born to connect with one another, each of us has innate abilities to connect with others. Believe it or not, everyday we are reading each other’s minds. Whether a friend is asking for your opinion on their clothes, a boss wanting your input on a coworker’s performance, or a child asking for a gift, you receive what feels like sixth sense signals that tell you how to respond. When a friend asks for your opinion on their clothes, you can almost determine what they are thinking. You have memories, empathy, and gut-feelings about the person’s thoughts that tell you how to respond.

You already have “superpowers”, an ability to determine another’s state. If you did not have such abilities, you would fail miserably in your relationships; you would fail to intimately connect with your partner; you would struggle to persuade others as your negotiation skills would be insufficient to determine what the other person really wants; you would not be able to sense when someone is manipulating you. Without this “superpower” to read someone’s mind, we would struggle to cooperate and connect with people.

Unfortunately, the less time you spend with someone and the more distanced you are with them, you become less able to read a person’s mind. As I’m sure you know, we don’t have perfect abilities to cue into another person’s thoughts. If it were that perfect, there would be little reason to communicate as we would know exactly what everyone is thinking. The assumptions we have get us into trouble.

It seems that a couple intimately connected to one another should know what their partner is thinking because time in a close relationship helps build the individual’s mind-to-mind connection. Married people might be laughing at reading that. Too many married couples can recall many occasions when their partner did not have a clue as to what they were thinking – yet alone, what they were thinking when they tried to explain themselves.

William Ickes, a psychologist at the University of Texas at Arlington, is the leading expert in empathic accuracy. Ickes says misunderstandings in marriages occurs from a lack of insight into their partner’s way of thinking. While you may be motivated to understand your partner early on in a relationship, during the first few years of marriage most people’s empathy for their partner decreases because they become overly confident in understanding their partner says Ickes.

It may seem contradictory, but assumptions destroy your ability to read someone’s mind. Reading someone’s mind is not about guessing or making-up information to come to a conclusion of what the person is thinking, it is about being immersed in the present as you allow yourself to be absorbed by the person’s reality. You come to act as the person acts, feel as the person feels, and think as the person thinks. Assuming you know this information destroys your human powers to read someone’s mind.

Becoming a Better Superhero: Mind-Reading Tricks

“The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them, inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.” – Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), third President of the United States

“In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), famed German writer

“Every reader, if he has a strong mind, reads himself into the book, and amalgamates his thoughts with those of the author.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

You can smile and the whole world smiles with you. That is the magic of “emotional contagion”, a term created by psychologists to describe the infectious nature of emotions. If you frown as you walk around at work, you will infect coworkers with your sour mood as you make them feel a little more miserable. This connection we have with one another is there for a reason: it connects us! Emotional contagion plays a very important role in connecting people together.

Without emotional contagion, we would be separate to each other; we would have little concern about other people’s feelings; we would be unable to read into another’s mind. The more you get infected by someone’s emotional state, the better mind-reading skills you will have with that person. Taking on the person’s reality by allowing yourself to become infected with their emotions, gives you the ability to infer their thoughts. Some psychologists allows the transference of emotions to take place which gives them the ability to peer into their client’s inner world. This gives them the ability to discover a thought or feeling their client is not yet aware of.

In Goleman’s Social Intelligence, he discusses the amazing mind-to-mind connection, a connection that transcends physical boundaries. When a couple are highly engaged with one another, Goleman says, “Such mental intimacy bespeaks an emotional closeness; the more satisfied and communicative a couple, the more accurate their mutual mind-reading.” The intimacy of our communication controls the degree we can connect with others.

The intimacy of our communication that creates a psychic connection has a neurological explanation explains Goleman in his book, Social Intelligence. It is not some unexplained magical power, but neurological adjustment. As we communicate with someone and experience what other people experience, our neurons form pathways. These neural pathways unconsciously direct messages to form our sixth sense that gives us gut-feelings about what people are thinking. “Our trains of association run on set tracks, circuits of learning and memory.” says Goleman. “Once any of these trains has been primed, even by a simple mention, that track stirs in the unconscious, beyond the reach of our active attention.”

Intimate communication that shapes the brain can only be achieved by intimately sharing another person’s reality. Quietening your inner dialog makes you more able to detect another’s emotions. Without inner silence, empathy becomes a difficult task because there is no two-way communication. Think back to a time when you were really angry with someone you were talking to. Your anger was illogical as it caused you to do things you later regretted. You did not care about what the other person felt, you were just concerned with releasing your anger and telling him or her how you felt. (The 10th chapter on emotions and logic in my communication secrets program can solve this problem for you.)

You need to manage your self-awareness and emotions, through emotional mastery and meditation, to stabilize yourself so that you can better connect with people. Better emotional management helps your mind-reading skills and improve your relationships. Four researchers in a study titled Physiologic Correlates of Perceived Therapist Empathy and Social-Emotional Process During Psychotherapy found that therapists and patients who felt the same had a more positive relationship. Having similar feelings is related to a better relationship.

The researchers from the study say that talking uses a different part of the brain than emotional responses. Being a blabber-mouth kills your ability to emotionally connect with people and read their mind. Listening plays a huge role in connecting minds. By talking too much, we block-out our biological ability to feel what another person feels, and hence fail to build a connection akin to mind-reading.

As you quieten your inner dialog so you can tune yourself into the person’s emotions, be aware that their thoughts and desires will not be the same as your thoughts and desires. Psychologists call this a “theory of mind” where we determine people’s mental states and acknowledge the differences to our own mental states. Body language and other cues helps us achieve this seemingly psychic power.

Annie Murphy Paul, in a Psychology Today article titled “Mind Reading”, says that body language cues such as facial expressions are a good way to tap into people’s thoughts. “We tend to focus on others’ eyes, and that helps us.” says Paul. “The many surrounding muscles make eyes a richer source of clues than other parts of the face: downcast in sadness, wide open in fright, dreamily unfocused, staring hard with jealousy, or glancing around with bored impatience.”

While the eyes play an important role in determining someone’s thoughts, as does other nonverbal signals like voice, “it’s the content of speech that contributes most to our success at mind reading” says Paul. Meaning is not always directly in words, but words give us insight into people’s way of thinking. It is next to impossible to read the mind of a person who is speaking another language.

Another trick you can use – which is one of the biggest tricks – to read a person’s mind is to keep learning about communication, personal development, and human psychology. As you learn more about yourself, you learn more about other people. You come to understand what people feel, how we act, and what we think in certain situations. It is crazy how good I am now at digging into someone’s mind and knowing what is going through their minds in a conversation. I know how people react to many statements, the feelings one has during certain moments, and how to shift all this around to make it work for me.

Because of our power to look into someone’s mind, there needs to be a word of warning about your mind-reading superpowers. Before you go out and use the magic tricks of mind-reading, a series of techniques that use our innate ability to connect with one another, use your powers wisely. Empathy expert Ickes, with his academic partner Jeffry Simpson, advise people against the surprising dangers of empathy. “Empathic accuracy and understanding can be bad for relationships.” writes Ickes and Simpson in their study Managing Empathic Accuracy in Close Relationships. “While accurate understanding should be good for relationships as a general rule, too much understanding in certain contexts may have deleterious consequences.”

Diagnosing is one such example of a poor application of mind-reading skills, which is discussed in my communication secrets program. We diagnose others when we express people’s intentions as we try to act above others. You can try to mind-read your partner by diagnosing them (“You’re just jealous”, “Why do you always try to argue with me?”, or “Liar, I know what you really mean”) and hurt the relationship as a result of your diagnosis.

As you learn more about communication, you may be tempted to use the communication barrier of diagnosing because you will understand the human mind more than before. Just as a partner in a marriage gets into relationship-trouble by assuming they understand their partner, the same happens when you are overly confident about understanding how our minds work.

The sad thing about diagnosing is it does not matter how accurate you can diagnose someone. Merely assuming or revealing their intentions makes people defensive. Your superpowers and all the tricks you’ve been given to read someone’s mind that are suppose to connect two people together, ends up separating them.

We were born to connect with one another. Each of us innate abilities that enable us to read each other’s minds. The advice in this article can help you fine-tune this natural ability into great power, but as with any power comes responsibility. Use your mind powers wisely young Jedi. Know when to get into someone’s head and when to stay out. It is not the power to read another person’s mind that will give you great power with people, for that is a skill we all have; rather, having the skill to keep on understanding people is what will give you power. After all, understanding is the purpose of wanting to peer into someone’s mind.

This is a book review of Napoleon Hill’s all-time international classic Think and Grow Rich!. It is the original version, restored and revised by Ross Cornwell, and fully annotated and indexed.

A simple Google search with “Think and Grow Rich” shows millions of results. Since publishing the book in 1937, when the Great Depression was at its strongest, Napoleon Hill has impacted, or rather created, personal development as we know it today. That is why I am reviewing the book: because its teachings are powerfully fundamental to any type of personal development.

Think and Grow Rich! is an accumulation into Hill’s studies of 500 of the world’s most successful people over a 25 year period. Hill studied, and was fortunate enough to develop relationships with many of, the likes of Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Gandhi, William Wrigley, Wilbur Wright, Theodore Roosevelt, Elbert Hubbard, Franklin Woolworth, John Rockefeller, Charles Schwab, and Alexander Graham Bell. Such a powerful study alone should be enough reason to buy the book. To tap into the minds of men who pioneered many things we have today is an irresistible opportunity.

Hill’s book is similar to Dale Carnegie’s classic How to Win Friends and Influence People in that they both are classic books shaping many self help teachings today. These are books over 70 years old, that have been reshaped by the author’s family and other experts, which get mentioned in nearly any personal development book. If the book is not directly mentioned, its principles are mostly likely discussed in an indirect manner.

The most mysterious thing about the book is what Hill calls “the secret”. The secret was revealed to him by Andrew Carnegie who gave the secret very subtly without giving it a name. Hill provides half of the secret, but tells the reader it is up to them to figure it out. In the author’s preface, Hill says:

“The secret to which I refer is mentioned no fewer than a hundred times throughout this book. It has not been directly named, for it seems to work more successfully when it is merely uncovered and left in sight, where THOSE WHO ARE READY and SEARCHING FOR IT may pick it up… If you are READY to put it to use, you will recognize this secret at least once in every chapter. I wish I might feel privileged to tell you how you will know if you are ready, but that would deprive you of much of the benefit you will receive when you make the discovery in your own way.

There is a real interesting seven minute video on YouTube I recommend you go watch where Napoleon Hill discusses the secret. The video captures rare footage of Hill, someone who has shaped personal development today, so I do recommend you watch it, if not to learn about the secret, then to just see Hill.

What is fascinating about the secret is that some people cannot discover it – even after reading Think and Grow Rich! 15 times. This is not a problem on the person’s part, it is merely an indication that they are not ready. As Hill says, the secret is obvious to you when you are ready.

The secret reflects Think and Grow Rich! principles: you can read the book and overlook powerful lessons because your awareness is not ready to gather such lessons. Like Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People, by reading the book one time every year you experience powerful new realizations because your awareness and experience you have at the present time is not enough to completely grasp the principles in these classic books.

The 13 steps to riches, which form the books chapters and most of its contents, are as follows:

1. Desire
2. Faith
3. Autosuggestion
4. Specialized Knowledge
5. Imagination
6. Organized Planning
7. Decision
8. Persistence
9. Power of the Master Mind
10. The Mystery of Sex Transmutation
11. The Subconscious Mind
12. The Brain
13. The Sixth Sense

The chapters on desire and the master mind were the most compelling to me. The master mind section is about gathering a group of like-minded people together. Wealthy individuals often thank Hill for bringing this success principle to their mind because even though you may not have the knowledge or expertise in an area, the master mind gives you connections with like-minded people to gather the information you need for success.

There are a lot of Think and Grow Rich! versions out there, so why should you get this version by Ross Cornwell? Simply put, from my experience and many other people’s experience, this is the best version out there. Ross Cornwell has included a lot of useful material that other versions released after 1960 exclude. In the back of the book is Bruce Lee’s application of Hill’s “Definite Chief Aim” where you write down your goals using the self-confidence formula. Lee’s definite chief aim was found in Hollywood and later matched his success of being the highest paid Oriental star in the United States. As the book’s front page states: “The version of TGR! that makes all others obsolete.”

Go to the following link I’m about to give to you, and take a few minutes to read some people’s life-changing stories. Because the book was released many decades ago, there are people who share their story on how exactly Think and Grow Rich! changed their life. The 13 steps to riches given to you by Hill have great power in changing you to be who you want to be. If you do not already have a copy of Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich!, you must grab your copy now from Amazon by clicking here.

This is a book review of Dale Carnegie’s The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking.

Dale Carnegie’s name is synonymous with How to Win Friends and Influence People. He is said to be a contributor to the start of self-improvement. Though The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking is not as popular Carnegie’s all-time classic, possibly because of its narrower market in public speaking skills, I believe it lives up to the author’s name. (If you have not read Dale Carnegie’s all-time classic How to Win Friends and Influence People, with over 16 million sales, you are missing out.)

Originally called Public Speaking and Influencing Men in Business in 1931, Dale’s wife, Dorothy Carnegie, revised the book, and renamed it The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking, in 1962 with Dale’s notes and suggestions before he passed away. With many improvements made possible from the couple’s speaking experiences and the Dale Carnegie Organization, this book is a great primer in public speaking.

Having taught public speaking for 40 years, Dale Carnegie has transformed public speaking into a skill anyone can develop. He has seen what works, what doesn’t work, and what works brilliantly. He has helped thousands of people overcome the fear of public speaking and present exciting speeches that hook the audience’s attention.

The book has 5 parts with 14 chapters and starts out with the basics of public speaking. You learn how to choose a topic, express yourself with excitement, and improve your speaking skills. Other bits of advice to improve your speaking skills include how to: let others know your thoughts, cut-down the number of points in your speech, and sincerely appreciate your audience.

The most repeated point made in the book is to choose a topic that interests you and get excited about it. Convince yourself that what you have is worth sharing and you will convince the crowd to listen attentively to you. Choosing a topic that excites you will make you talk with interest, vocal variety, and good body language because 93% of our communication comes from nonverbal communication when we discuss our likes or dislikes. This could very well be the secret to effective public speaking.

This book has the same style of writing as How to Win Friends and Influence People. There is many stories, easy-to-read language, clear advice, and most importantly is the practical simplicity of the advice. While it takes time to develop public speaking skills, the advice given is the easy way to effective speaking because it leverages our natural abilities and knowledge.

A brief review of the table of contents is below for your convenience:

I have left out in-depth detail of parts 2, 3, 4, and 5 because there is too many points to list here. It would take-up too much room. A full summary of each part can be found conveniently at the end of each part for quick reference so you can revise and easily memorize what you have learned.

In my opinion, the advice offered on how to give an impromptu speech (a speech where you are given the topic on the spot) is the best part about the book. I have always struggled to think quickly on my feet by speaking smoothly on a topic I was just given, and the advice given is powerful. I am quickly improving, becoming more confident, and talking longer – and these improvements will continue because you learn how to continually improve your speaking skills.

I highly recommend you get this book to improve not just your public speaking skills, but to also improve your conversational skills, remove self-consciousness, and boost confidence. Public speaking has the effect. If you have not already got yourself a copy of Dale Carnegie’s The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking, you need to go grab your copy now from Amazon by clicking here.

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou, poet and actress

“Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary.” – Mark Twain, highly quoted writer

“You can close your eyes to the things you do not want to see, but you cannot close your heart to the things you do not want to feel.” – Anonymous

“I am involved in all of mankind.” – John Donne, 16th century poet

One midnight, I had just finished another shift at a job I didn’t like so I was alive with energy. I smiled, my eyes were open, I felt good about myself. I said my usual goodbyes to a friend and sprung into my car. My friend reversed his car just before I had the chance to leave my car park so he had beaten me this time – it was an unspoken game that took place each time we left from work. I waited for him to get out of the way before I reversed to make my way home.

As I was leaving, the open car park gave me an invitation to have a little fun with my car. If landscapes could talk, this one was whispering into my ear that I should spin the wheels. “Besides, it’s late at night. No one is around and you’re feeling great. It’s an open car park with no danger. Do it!” said the persuasive voice. Like a vulnerable teenager succumbing to peer pressure, I accepted the invitation.

The car became an extension of my body as it began to mimic my ecstatic mood. I put my foot down hard on the accelerator as I spun the wheel left around the first corner. As the rear tires lost their stability and the car went side-ways, I entered the next turn and spun the wheel right. The sound of screeching tires was like water fertilizing my increasing smile. Smoke filled the rims of my tires and a shot of adrenaline filled my body.

Following the consecutive drifts, I straightened the car and approached a set of traffic lights on the main road that would take me home. Had this been during the daytime, about seven cars would be in front of me before the upcoming traffic lights. I decided to keep complying with the road’s persuasive voice as it told me to “be a little adventurous” so I decided, or rather I let the road decide for me, that I should turn left instead of my usual right turn. Not exactly an Indiana Jones adventure, but it was different.

My friend who had left before me had just gone through the traffic lights a few seconds before me so the lights were still green. Keeping in the mood, I put my foot down on the accelerator to catch the green light. I would make it. I turned around the corner with a soft screech of the tires and there, 20 meters in front of me, on the side of the road were two police officers beside their vehicle.

They pulled me over. Opposite to what you might be thinking, I was not concerned. I was still in my elevated state. I wound down my window and an angry officer came charging at me, yelling, “What the hell are you thinking? What the hell is going through your mind?” I paused momentarily, unaffected by his aggressive state. I said smilingly, “I’m just happy, I guess”. Not a smart response.

It just hit me that I was out of it. I knew I should have said something else. I gulped. My mind rushed to think of some communication techniques I could use as a life boat to save me from drowning in the conversation. The moment was intense and all that came to mind were some techniques on getting out of a speeding-ticket. I thought to myself that I’ll give the techniques a shot. After all, I had annoyed the officer enough already.

As I was thinking how to approach this difficult situation, I was still happy of course. My happy mood seemed to pour fuel on his already raging fire. “Bloody hell mate! I could just give you a ticket right now!” My smile began to lower. I no longer made eye contact with the officer. The officer’s raging mood began to infect me and cause me to feel angry. It was as if my body had been overcome by an emotional virus the officer had given me.

I thought of the techniques to get out of a speeding-ticket and realized I was already beginning to use them. Well, it was too late to make the officer feel safe as he approached the car, but I needed to no longer act oblivious to my mistake. I needed to show respect as officers are in a clear position of authority and often experience disrespect throughout their day that only makes them more determined to convict guilty citizens. “You’re right.” I replied. “I was stupid and careless.”

The officer was still enraged and continued to threaten me with a ticket. I knew he could easily write me a ticket, but he wasn’t writing one possibly because officers hate the paperwork created from citizens breaking the law. I kept myself aligned with the officer’s reality by remaining in a “Yes I’m wrong, stupid, and shouldn’t have done that” mood. I continued to play psychological judo, and match my mood with his own, until two minutes later he said to drive off. And oh, I got no ticket!

I drove off – though feeling pleased I had beaten a reckless driving ticket – in an irritated state. The officer had destroyed my happy mood. It took two minutes of talking with the officer to completely transform my happy state into a joyless, gloomy mood. All it took was two minutes to convert my mood and there I was, in an unhappy state for the remaining two hours until I went to bed.

The story I just described is probably a perfect depiction of your reality with emotions. Everyday you are interacting with people at different mood levels. Sometimes you’re happier than people you are talking to, other times they are happier than you. Whatever the case maybe, emotions are being transferred to various people. This is a fascinating peculiarity with emotions. Have you ever noticed how we feel in our interactions is not just dependent on our internal state?

• How did you feel when someone really annoyed began talking to you? You became more annoyed.
• How did you feel when someone unhappy began talking to you? You began to be unhappy.
• How did you feel when a charismatic person talked to you? You felt his energy and you began to feel happier.

Psychologists call this phenomena “emotional contagion”. It is a psychological and physiological process – a transference of emotion that can occur from mimicking body language. Elaine Hatfield, a professor at the University of Hawaii, in a study with John Carlson and Christopher Hsee had college students watch a videotape of a man describing two very emotional experiences: his life’s happiest and saddest events. While the college students watched the tape, they were taped so the researchers could record the students’ emotional responses. The students were also asked what feelings they experienced for each story at the end of the video. The researchers found that students showed and expressed the recorded person’s emotions. The student’s felt happy when they watched the person describe his happiest event and sad when they watched the person describe his saddest event.

Hatfield and her two colleagues, John Cacioppo and Richard Rapson, in their co-authored book Emotional Contagion, say the psychophysiological phenomena occurs from automatically matching facial expressions, vocalics, postures, and movements. Hatfield says, “People tend to experience emotions consistent with the facial, vocal, and postural expressions they adopt.”

When you are empathetically listening to a friend, true empathy puts you in their shoes so you experience the events they are talking about. The friend describes the argument with their ex-partner, the yelling, the misunderstandings that took place. You can vividly see what your friend is talking about. From this experience you come to feel how your friend feels. As you empathetically listen to a friend discuss a painful event, you will experience a similar pain. Well-known psychologist Albert Bandura says the shared experience results in a shared feeling. That is the price of listening: not only can you catch a cold, but you can catch an emotional cold.

Mirror Neurons: The Mind’s Mirror

There is a scientific explanation behind how our emotions – an experience of mind and body – transfer over to somebody else. In 1980s, three Italian researchers made what is said to be one of the greatest neuroscience breakthroughs in recent times: discovering the mirror neuron. In an experiment, the three researchers had electrodes attached to a macaque monkey’s brain which enabled the researchers to determine what movements caused the neurons to light-up. As the monkey reached for food, the researchers took note of single neurons being fired. When the researchers were handing the monkey some food, they unexpectedly saw the monkey’s neurons fire. By accident, the researchers discovered that when they picked-up a piece of food, the monkey had the same neurons light-up as if it were picking-up the food. They came to name these neurons “mirror neurons” because they were like the mind’s mirror.

Mirror neurons get triggered from an action or observation of someone who is doing the same action. It may not appear as a significant finding, yet the breakthrough discovery has lead to a better understanding of autism, empathy, altruism, and general learning because the mirror neurons are responsible for tuning-in to another person’s behavior. The neurons are responsible for an awareness and shared-feeling between two people. One neuron is responsible for the significant role of learning, understanding, and feeling.

An amazing, almost mystical link, takes place to connect the brains. A signal sent from either individual in the psychological connection travels via the link to similarly affect the recipient. Hatfield says, “We reflect what they feel.” Smile at a baby, or almost anyone for that matter, and the baby’s mirror neurons will be fired to trigger an automatic smile. That is why the age-old saying, “smiling causes the whole world to smile with you”, is true. Not only is emotional contagion a replication of another’s emotions, but it is a biological dance – a shared physical connection. It is an interlinking of mind and body.

The biological dance is an important part in group dynamics. Janice Kelly, a professor of psychological sciences at Purdue University, says emotional contagion causes people to converge into an affective homogeneous group. In other words, group members begin to experience the same emotions overtime as their fellow members. Kelly says that people with highly expressive body language are more able to impose their emotions on others. The distinctive nonverbal signs allows individuals to pick-up on the person’s emotions and become infected by their emotional state. Here we see another age-old saying, “Monkey see, monkey do.” is real.

Another age-old theory of staying away from toxic people – because they will pull you down with them – is now a physiological and psychological fact. Being around suppressing or uplifting people directly affects your body and mind. We were born for interaction and connection with one another. We are a social animal.

You’ve heard that you should make friends with wealthy people if you want to be wealthy because the technique works. If you want to be happy, you make friends with happy people. If you want to be confident, you make friends with confident people. If you want to be funny, you make friends with funny people. Being around people you want to be like is a secret of self-transformation to stimulate that emotional desire needed for growth. Athletes are able to play their sport better upon watching superior athletes excel in their sport through the magic of transference. Observance creates transference. You come to pick-up the characteristics you see in others because they infect you with their style, knowledge, and emotions.

Whether you intend to be infected by someone or not is irrelevant because mirror neurons are responsible for imitating other people. You don’t make a choice as to what you are exposed to that causes your mirror neurons to fire; it’s an automatic process. Our parents told us to avoid hanging out with the wrong people for a reason. “People are like dirt.” said the classical Greek philosopher Plato. “They can either nourish you and help you grow as a person or they can stunt your growth and make you wilt and die.” It is reality that you come to absorb the characteristics of people you observe.

Put yourself in a group where the individuals are depressed and you will become depressed. Put yourself in a group where the individuals blame others and you will come to blame others. Put yourself in a group where the individuals are prejudice against blacks, and you will come to be prejudice against blacks. Or in my case: do something stupid on the road in front of a police officer to make him angry so that you become angry.

Mirror neurons are not all bad news. Mirror neurons do not have to be the only source of influence on your mood or way of thinking. You can still be with depressed, blame-filled, or prejudiced individuals without taking on their characteristics. Therapists, social workers, and doctors are just a few people who need to work with people in the “don’t infect me with your emotional disease” category. Even so, people in such professions and positions will have a harder time in making themselves immune from emotional diseases because mirror neurons are a part of the brain every moment of our lives.

Even though you and I will always be around less-than-optimal people, we need to put ourselves around people who have the characteristics and emotions we want to take on. We naturally gravitate towards these people. They have a set of likable characteristics that draw us into them to bring out the best in ourselves. As Mark Twain said, “Really great people make you feel that you, too, can become great.”

The Brain’s Low Road and High Road

While emotional contagion is an important part in transforming yourself to who you want to be, it is important that you don’t rely on other people to make you feel good. Letting the emotional parts of your brain – mostly the almond-shaped amygdala, which is located near both sides of your temples – roam like a child on the streets is dangerous. Neuroscientists say that you can control emotional responses – to a certain extent.

When our ancestors were faced with a dangerous predator, they had to make a quick decision, an emotional response void of time-consuming rationalization that puts the person’s life at risk. Their eyes would widen and pupils dilate to visually take-in more information. They receive a shot of adrenaline to increase the supply of oxygen and glucose to muscles for strength and speed. Unnecessary bodily functions like digestion becomes suppressed. Additionally, the brain detours the slow responding high road – taking the low road to produce a quick response. Going straight to the more primitive amygdala produces reflexive, unconscious decisions. It is these primitive parts of the brain that neuroscientists say is difficult to change.

One low road response could be your reaction to a loud bang. The loud sound causes all the adrenaline responses mentioned earlier – such as widened eyes, dilated pupils, increased supply of oxygen – in the first few milliseconds you hear the sound. You quickly look towards the sound to rapidly figure out if the sound is a signal of danger. If you can’t see the sound, you rely on social proof as you look at people’s faces to see their reactions and how you should respond.

In a low road response, the sensory signals bypass the cortex and go straight to the amygdala to produce a reflexive response. If your brain puts too much emphasis on the low road in everyday living, you would live spontaneously and quickly destroy your life from poor decision-making. If you screamed and sprinted away each time you heard a loud bang, you would be an emotional wreak. This is where the high road, a neurological path in your the brain, comes in to better control your emotional responses.

As the first few seconds – or even less – pass after hearing the loud bang, you transition over to the high road as you begin to analyze the situation. While the low road is responsible for reflexive decisions beyond your control, the high road can jam a cognitive wedge in the low road to better adapt and survive.

The high road is a slower response path that uses parts of the brain like the frontal cortex and the hippocampus (your memory) to respond appropriately to stimulus. These parts of the brain are vulnerable to neuroplasticity, physical changes of the brain. Over time your brain physically shapes itself as it learns that all loud bangs are not dangerous. A cooking saucepan dropping on the hard kitchen floor doesn’t automatically make you run to the neighbors for help. (I recommend you grab Daniel Goleman’s Social Intelligence to better understand the neuroscience behind emotions).

Shaping Your Emotional Responses

While some neuroscientists say it is impossible to control all emotional responses, due to the brain’s low road producing a quick response for survival, you can better utilize the high road. Thinking about an emotional response uses the prefrontal cortex of the brain to override the signals received by the amygdala. This is where neuroscience meets personal development. One of my favorite techniques to do this is reframing. In reframing you are changing your initial interpretation, often a quick-response, in a situation to produce a response that is beneficial to you and your relationships.

One of the most powerful reframes I describe in the second edition of my communication secrets of making people like you program is positive intention framing. In positive intention framing, you identify the positive intention relevant to the limiting situation. Let’s say you are in a serious argument with your spouse. Most people in such an argument let: 1) the low road control the argument as they react impulsively and later regret the things they said during the heated disagreement, and 2) emotional contagion infect themselves with a negative mood for hours following the argument. You can have a degree of control over impulsiveness and emotional infections by reframing.

A positive intention reframe could identify your spouse’s yelling at you as their need to be heard, understood, and received; instead of a personal attack. Alternatively, you could positively reframe your spouse’s yelling as a welcomed release of their frustration so you can listen to what concerns him or her. The purpose of this type of reframing is to help you better utilize your mental resources without having them work against you. The reframing helps you use your prefrontal cortex to take the high road and interpret the situation in a way that lets you act in a resourceful manner. Because of this, reframing is proven by research to be one of the most effective anger management techniques.

Happy people are the experts of reframing. They may not have learned reframing techniques from a book or online article, but I guarantee you they use the technique. Happy people are logical people. They are logical in the sense they reframe, interpret, and use their prefrontal cortex to take the brain’s high road – and live a more fulfilling life. What happens outside of them does not matter as their mental attitude is what matters. “Happiness doesn’t depend on any external conditions,” said Dale Carnegie, “it is governed by our mental attitude.”

Let’s say an aggressive person is talking to someone with effective communication skills. The effective communicator is able to defuse the aggression through their communication style even though the emotional aggression is still received. A good communicator feels the aggression, but they reframe their response which enables them to control their emotional contagion and destructive low road reaction. They see it in frames such as, “Oh, he’s just trying to get me to understand him.” or “I enjoy the problem coming to surface instead of it remaining hidden where it eats away the relationship.” From these frames the effective communicator is able to use his or her own mental resources very efficiently.

When you express anger, you give it a pathway to infect your relationships and escalate the emotional infection. Expressing your anger gives it to someone who gives it back to you in a greater quantity. Happy people get angry; but their anger is a momentary feeling, a function of the low road which is later controlled by the high road. Happy people reframe their anger instead of expressing it and letting it grow.

In terms of depression, emotional contagion and reframing is no different. Depressed individuals seek isolation to feel better about themselves. The isolation compounds their depression – an ironic effect. Those with depression are better off forcing themselves to interact with other people who are more happier than they are in order to beat depression. They need to reframe their negative states to put themselves into an empowering state. Similarly, they should make mirror neurons benefit themselves by smiling – even if it feels artificial – as it forces the person’s body to feel happy. Emotional contagion can work for you or against you if you let it.

Shaping People’s Emotional Responses: The Emotional-Leveling Technique

We see that reframing controls our responses to the situation, but what about other people’s responses? Are we suppose to let other people react in whatever way they happen to react? Is there a technique we can use to uplift other people and have emotional contagion help our relationships?

Generally, you do not need to worry about people’s responses because your response is what matters. Worrying is a powerless concern for the future. That isn’t to say that people’s responses and emotional states are irrelevant; because they are vital as you will soon see. You need to observe people’s emotional states and adjust yourself accordingly instead of worrying about people’s behaviors that are beyond your control.

How do you shape a person’s emotional response? You maybe thinking that if negative emotions can be injected into people to spread into further harmfulness, is it just a matter of being positive to decontaminate individuals from negative emotions?

In many cases, positiveness and forcing your emotions on an unhappy, negative, or angry individual is more counter-productive than useful. When I was happy and smiling to the angry police officer, he became more infuriated. Seldom does positiveness alone overrule negative emotions. The next time someone around you is angry, look them in the eye, smile, and tell them what a beautiful day it is. Their anger will be overpowering to your mood – making the technique unsuccessful and possibly increasing their anger. They will likely become more angry saying something like, “It’s a disgusting day”, with an even unhappier face.

Other times your happy attitude may change their unhappy perspective, but the technique does not create a reliable solution that you can depend on because anger builds on itself. Anger is like a good investment that builds on itself, though of course, it’s a harmful emotion. What is an effective communicator to do when emotional contagion is working against him or her?

Let’s review what occurs during emotional contagion so we can convert it for our own benefit. Emotionally destructive conversations all start out with one person injecting a state into their conversational partner. When the conversational partner is a poor communicator who reacts impulsively, letting his mirror neurons mimic the person’s harmful state, the two individuals experience intensified emotions. The newly infected person becomes a carrier, reciprocating the infection to the original carrier who’s emotional disease worsens. Once the emotional infection has become too much for the individuals, they leave the conversation only to contaminate other people. A simple disagreement escalates into a large – sometimes life-threatening – conflict with innocent people. An emotional infection outbreaks.

You can probably think of other scenarios in your relationships where one person injects a bad emotion into the relationship. The partner becomes infected and the relationship goes downhill. It’s a downward spiraling cycle that damages relationships. On one level you need to prevent yourself from becoming a carrier, while on the other level you need to prevent other people from becoming carriers. Doing these two things will control emotional contagion to build happiness, power, and healthy relationships.

When talking to a friend in need, on one hand you are faced with the challenge of empathizing with your friend’s pain. This involves drawing yourself into your friend’s struggle, feeling the same pain, and allowing yourself to be infected by their emotional state. Other times, you will need to shape your friend’s pain into an emotionally empowering state. You will need to emotionally lift-up another person from their destructive state. Being focused on personal development and bringing out the best in yourself everyday, means you are faced with these mood challenges.

Reframing minimizes the likelihood of becoming a carrier of a dangerous emotional virus, while a technique I call “emotional-leveling” helps you to prevent people from remaining carriers of destructive emotions. The emotional-leveling technique firstly adjusts your emotions to reflect the other person’s harmful emotions, followed by slowly raising your emotions – and simultaneously their emotions – until the person reaches your desired level.

To decontaminate harmful emotions in other people with the emotional-leveling technique, you firstly connect at their level. This is opposite to immediately imposing a positive state on someone in a negative state. If the person is aggressive or depressed, you should not reciprocate their aggression or depression, but have a lower emotional level to build empathy and help them feel more understood. Verbally fighting back at a person isn’t going to do anyone any good.

For an aggressive person, if they are walking around, you should also be walking around. If they are talking fast, you should also talk at a fast rate. For a depressed person, you can show you are also feeling depressed without really developing depression. Be slower in your movements, speak softer, and have similar facial expressions as the person. Your goal is to enter their state without escalating the problem.

Once you have connected at the person’s level, begin to raise your emotional state. Make a joke or use a reframe on the situation. Because you are in the person’s emotional state, your reframe will not be rejected! If you were happy and told an unhappy person who recently experienced a break-up that they should lighten-up because their break-up is not that serious, they will reject your reframe and hate you. On the other hand – and this is where the power of emotional-leveling comes in – if you are also unhappy after talking with and listening to the person such that the person knows you share the same emotional state with them, they will accept a reframe like, “I see now that break-ups are a part of life. It’s not like everyone stays with one partner for their entire life.”

Being at a person’s destructive emotional level allows you to bring them out of their emotional hole. Instead of reaching down to pull them out of their emotional hole – only to have them reject your assistance – you are jumping in the hole and letting them stand on your shoulders to climb out.

Combining the reframing technique and the emotional-leveling technique will have you in control of your own emotions and thoughts, as well as helping other people get in control of their emotions and thoughts. These two techniques are great for bringing out the best in people, but they should only be a sample of an array of conflict management techniques in your communication bag. Having these skills will help you remove emotions you do not want infecting your relationships.

Knowing how to decontaminate poor emotions in your relationships will give pathway to positive emotions. Effective communication skills will present you with a profound ability to further destroy poor emotions in your relationships. Adjusting your body language and words to empathize with the other person and using other effective communication techniques is a great way to improve the emotional outbreaks that damage your relationships.

Emotional contagion is a fascinating topic. You can make it work for you instead of being a victim of it everyday. Interact with people that you want to be like. Make other people’s mirror neurons come to mimic your rising state and their biology will force them to become like you. Do the same for yourself and you’ll be more happier. Once you know how to adjust yourself to fit the person’s state and use powerful reframes, you’ll be well on your way to mastering emotions for better relationships and happiness. When you do this, you’ll be amazed at your control over emotions and thoughts. It will seem like magic.

This is a review of Carol Fleming’s The Sound of Your Voice, an audio program created to improve your voice.

What better way to improve the quality of your voice than to listen to a speech expert teach the skills she has learned for several decades. Since 1968, Carol Fleming as ran her private speech communication consultancy in the San Francisco Bay Area. Having earned her doctorate in communication disorders from Northwestern University, she has made her vocal techniques available in her entertaining audio program.

You can buy books on improving your voice, such as Renee Grant-Williams’ Voice Power, but until you hear a good voice and are able to break it down into specific reasons why it is good, you will be speaking in hope that your technique is correct. Understanding what is a good voice, the qualities of a good voice, and being able to transfer this understanding into your voice through practical exercises is vital – all things covered in The Sound of Your Voice.

The program isn’t a boring dictation of a book. It is an entertaining, well produced, free-flowing program. Fleming is the primary speaker accompanied by Wesley, a Brit with a soothing accent. I’m not particularly fond of British accents, having an Australian one myself “mate”, yet it is enjoyable to hear the two talk about speaking. Moreover, the program is not two people conversing about talking – it is a well produced program that contains real-life examples, entertaining sounds, and many speakers with diverse voice qualities that Fleming dissects. It is a lively program.

You won’t be caught up in technicalities when doing the program. It is a simple, effective, and teaches what Fleming has studied, practised, and taught for many years. The program will show you:

• How to add vocal vitality to your voice so you are not boring. Men especially struggle to remove their monotone voice and speak with vitality.
• How to speak in a powerful, mature manner. While men struggle with a monotone voice, women sometimes struggle to convey power in their voice.
• How to eliminate or change your accent.
• Breathing exercises to support your voice.
• How to removing annoying content from your speech like filler words and superlatives.
• How to speak clearly and smoothly articulate each word.
• What to do to get your voice ready for speaking.
• And plenty more.

The vocal exercises in the program is what took my voice to the next level. I have always struggled to understand resonance and getting my voice to vibrate clearly from the front of mouth for better articulation, and a simple exercise has helped me to do just that.

If you want to improve your voice, Carol Fleming’s The Sound of Your Voice is the way to go. It is the best voice program I have come across. You can grab your copy from Amazon by clicking here today.

This is a review of Renee Grant-Williams’ Voice Power: Using Your Voice to Captivate, Persuade, and Command Attention.

Have you ever wondered why some people can grab people’s attention and make them listen to their every word? If your voice isn’t as powerful as you want it to be, you can learn to make it resonate with a powerful clarity. Renee Grant-Williams will show you how in Voice Power.

Having worked with celebrities and singers such as Garth Brooks, Faith Hill, Tim McGraw, and The Dixie Chicks, Grant-Williams has established herself as an authority on improving the human voice. You don’t need to be a singer or even a public speaker to improve your voice – having a better voice will help you whenever you say a word. Whether you’re disciplining children, motivating employees, seducing a partner, or teaching a workshop, a better voice helps get your point across and make it stick.

Voice Power isn’t about getting you to speak loudly. In fact, volume was mentioned rarely in the book. It is more about creating the support and resonance for a commanding voice that comes with little effort. The basis behind the book is good breathing. When we were babies, we naturally breathed well. We lost good breathing habits when we were taught to puff-out our chest and hold our heads high – two techniques that bring tension into a voice. The breathing techniques will have you relaxing, improving your balance, reducing stress, minimizing muscular tension, and improving your voice.

Using powerful consonants where you elongate important consonants is yet another powerful piece of advice that goes against common knowledge of elongating vowels. Saying “Ssstop it nnnowww” is more powerful than “Stooop it nooow”. I think you’ll find many things clicking in your mind, that previously didn’t make sense or proves other advice wrong, with the author’s simple and effective teachings in the book.

Other central techniques in the book include silence, rhythm, and volume. Grant-Williams describes a musical beat to speaking that is extremely valuable – especially for when you prepare a speech. Elvis Presley’s singing technique, posture, and body positioning is used to demonstrate and breakdown a beautiful sounding voice.

The last section in the book deals with voice care. Getting enough water, eating well, exercising, using a humidifier to keep the air moist are a few of the tips shared by the author. The author also discusses some common problems with unhealthy voices such as reflux and nodes to ensure you don’t have a health ailment limiting your speaking abilities.

Overall, it is a great book on powering-up your voice and making it sound richer. I found myself pulling many pieces of advice and techniques from it. Make your voice count because it has so much power in making a good impression on others. Make your voice an asset that shows you’re a confident and powerful by getting a copy of Voice Power. You can grab your copy from Amazon by clicking here today.

This is a book review of Daniel Goleman’s Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships.

Neuroscience is quickly discovering that humans are wired to connect. Goleman in his groundbreaking books says that the neural linkages between humans influences the brain, and hence the body. These invisible bridges give us the ability to change people’s moods, emotions, and health, as these people can do to us. Relationships not only shape emotional states and general psychological experience, but also the very physiological matter that makes our body. Our interactions with people influences our immune system, circulation, hormones, and breathing for example.

Our ability to connect with fellow humans influences us in deep and immediate ways. Unlike emotional intelligence, social intelligence focuses on this intimate connection between two human minds. Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence focuses on skills and capabilities within the individual. It deals with self-motivation, self-awareness, handling anxiety, and reading social cues. Social Intelligence expands from the one-person psychology within an individual to a two-person psychology that looks at the connection shared between individuals. More specifically, Goleman defines social intelligence as: 1) social awareness, which comprises of primal empathy, attunement, empathic accuracy, and social cognition, and 2) social facility, which includes synchrony, self-presentation, influence, and concern.

Goleman says many theories of social intelligence are narrowly defined to a cognitive context. Social intelligence tests ask participants what they would do in specific situations – a process that uses the brain’s high road, cognitive functions within our awareness. Goleman’s model of social intelligence seeks to include the brain’s low-road, the neural circuitry hidden from consciousness that functions at incredible speeds, because awareness of what people are thinking or feeling does not equate to healthy conversations. Social intelligence is really beyond the intelligence quotient (I.Q.) and emotional intelligence.

Drawing on hundreds of studies, Social Intelligence looks into altruism, primal empathy, attachment, rapport, and compassion to name a few topics that are emerging from this new field of study. From the amygdala and prefrontal cortex to spindle cells and mirror neurons, like Emotional Intelligence, Goleman once again digs deep into neuroscience and vast numbers of studies. Again, he provides plenty of interesting anecdotes to demonstrate his principles in action, which to me gives the book more power for its application.

Chapter one reveals the emotional economy, a term that describes the give-take process of emotions. It discusses how a smile makes you happy, a worried looking face makes you unsure, and the biological process of how emotions transmit through people like a virus. Emotional contagion is an example of a low-road functioning beyond our awareness that can contaminate people’s state.

The fourth chapter looks at the human instinct for altruism. While it touches on worldly altruistic behaviors seen through people like Mother Teresa, it focuses on empathy in small-scale relationships. Like animals that have instinctive compassion to assist a fellow member of its species in trouble, we have instinctive compassion to help people in our relationships. It is through attention and empathy that we are able to bring forth this innate characteristic of love.

The last chapter I would like to mention in hope of motivating you to buy the book is chapter fifteen which looks at the male and female brain, and the connection they share. The research in this chapter, like all chapters, is amazing and provides insight into attraction, sexual desire, libido, narcissism, and more intimate – or not so intimate – topics. You’re sure to gain a lot of advice about the opposite sex, as well as your own gender.

Without the jargon all too common in professors’ books and within emerging fields of study, Social Intelligence is a free-flowing read made easy by Goleman’s enjoyable writing style. Just like my review of Emotional Intelligence, I recommend you read Social Intelligence if you are after a book that provides very interesting research and insights into human interactions; not if you are after vast skills to use in your interactions. It is a book Goleman says that aims to lead social intelligence and its understanding. Nonetheless, the emerging field of social intelligence has amazing dynamics and is definitely worth learning more about. You can grab your copy of Daniel Goleman’s Social Intelligence from Amazon by clicking here today.

Videos

Goleman discusses his book, the foundations of social intelligence, and a few discoveries social neuroscientists have made in finding that we are wired to connect.

Poor email etiquette. You’ve been a victim of it and perhaps you’re even a guilty criminal. From unknown abbreviations, forwarded chain emails, and unwanted messages, we’re all bound to be affected from bad email etiquette both socially and in the workplace. You can’t reach through your computer cables to retrieve a sent email, so you need to follow good email etiquette, commonly known as “netiquette”.

A USA Today article in April, 2008, reveals that Microsoft has 256.2 million users with Yahoo! not to far behind with a total of 254.6 million users. Additionally, with Google having 91.6 million users and AOL having 48.9 million users, it’s obvious the majority of people with Internet access use email as a way to communicate. Now for the real shocker: Tim Sanders, former Chief Solutions Officer of Yahoo!, estimates that 90% of business communication is email based and that 10% of email users receive adequate training. So chances are, your workplace and business is suffering from poor email etiquette.

While I never try to be overly professional in emails, because too much formality and jargon can destroy good communication, there are some rules and tips you need to use. These tips for good email etiquette are not limited to business and the workplace, but the majority of tips apply to general everyday emails. Following the rules I’m about to give you will ensure you benefit from clearer communication and your emails get the proper understanding they deserve. From sitting down to sending an email, here’s the most important netiquette rules you need to follow:

1. Emotional emails. Don’t send an email when you are angry. Not only will you say things you later regret, but the receiver of your little outburst will be able to keep a record of your emotionally-filled email. Too many careers have been destroyed from angry emails. In fact, I recommend you reread your email to check for sentences, phrases, and words that can be possibly interpreted another way than what you intended. A simple joke that you think is funny may be offensive to someone else simply because they misinterpreted the joke. The lack of nonverbal communication in email makes it a poor medium for communicating emotions.

2. Unnecessary information. Most people waste too much time browsing their inbox the way it is without having to read long messages. Do people a favor and keep your emails short. Provide the necessary facts. The less you say, the better. Having said that, you still need to provide all the information upfront if you can. It’s frustrating and time-consuming to have to email back asking questions for information that should have been provided in the initial email.

3. HTML. You don’t need to know what exactly HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is, but basically it is used to make websites look pretty. Making text bold in email uses HTML. When you copy and paste emails from websites, you may also unknowingly copy the HTML code across. The HTML in the email you send does not always look like the email someone receives. Funnily, the message sent is not the message received. Some email programs are not HTML compatible so when they receive HTML emails, weird HTML code might show and other formatting issues may occur.

Simply provide a website link if you’re going to copy an entire web page. If you want to copy snippets of information, not only do you risk breaking copyright laws, but at your discretion you can copy the text across to a text file program (such as Notepad, not Microsoft Word) and then copy the text from there into your email program. Copying the text to a text file program, such as Notepad, removes HTML and prevents weird formatting issues.

4. Reply to all. It’s frustrating receiving emails from group members who simply say “Yes, I can come.” or “No.” when you do not need to receive them. Stop being lazy. Please take the small amount of time to address your email to the specific people you’re email is intended for.

5. Forwarding to all. I’m a big victim of this email mistake! When subscribing to my newsletter, I advise the person to add me to their address book or whitelist to ensure my emails reach them. Having an email list that contains tens of thousands of people, I’m in many people’s address book. Often, subscribers receive an email and forward it to everyone in their address book. The result for me is a daily cleanup of forwarded emails, which often contain attachments that clog data efficiency. Chain emails are so annoying! The next time you get an email with a poem, story, or series of images you love, keep them to yourself. A story about patience that you think is lovely, and end-up forwarding to your friends may infuriate them.

6. Making people’s email addresses known. It’s considered rude when you send out an email to several people making their email address visible in the “To” box. Unless the people know each other and are comfortable in sharing their email addresses, you need to avoid this bad mistake. You can use the Bcc (blind carbon copy) function of emails to hide recipients’ email addresses.

7. Removed message thread. Here’s another email etiquette mistake that I’m a victim of everyday: Not having the replied message in the sent message. Not having the replied message in the sent message is almost the face-to-face conversational equivalent of being bashed across the head and forgetting what was discussed in the conversation. Based on the hundreds of emails I receive everyday, I’d estimate 10% of people do not ensure the message they are replying to is attached. As someone who can have discussions going on with many people at the same time, I don’t always remember what was sent in an email someone has replied to.

Make it easy for people to know what you are talking about by ensuring their message you are replying to is attached. Google’s email service, Gmail, is great at keeping track of past messages. Be sure to change your email settings so that messages you reply to get included in your reply.

8. Use of abbreviations. Friend to friend or family member to family member, abbreviations can be fine. It’s entirely up to you. But problems arise when abbreviation usage in emails carries over into the workplace and other areas where professionalism is needed. Here’s a useful video on email etiquette that I thought you might find interesting:

A three minute Fox Providence presentation discussing email etiquette. It focuses on professionalism by avoiding abbreviations.

9. Unknown abbreviations. AFAIK 404 but I’ll POAHF because I TILII. Don’t know what that means? Very few people do. It means: As far as I know I have no clue, but I’ll put on a happy face because I tell it like it is.

Good email etiquette involves avoiding the use of unknown abbreviations. Though you can get away with abbreviations when emailing friends for example, because it is an efficient technique after all, communication problems occur when the receiver doesn’t know the abbreviation! What may seem apparent to you is not necessarily apparent to someone else. How would you like it if a friend sent you an email with ADO, YOOAD, WWMT, and other weird abbreviations? (I just made up those last few ) You’d feel annoyed at having to clarify something the person should realize in the first place.

10. Poor subject heading. Leaving the subject field empty or simply putting “Re:” is avoiding an important function of email communication. When someone receives an email, they usually quickly scan the subject heading of each email to see what emails need to be firstly addressed. Your goal in personal emails isn’t to write the most captivating subject heading so people open your email. Write an honest and specific subject heading that reflects your email message. Instead of writing “HELP!!” to your telecommunications company, you could write “Help Needed With Phone Wires”. Sometimes, if I think a subject heading is important for personal emails, I can take up to a minute to come up with a good subject.

11. Poor sent time. Be weary of the time you send your email. This mistake is dependent on a few things. Firstly, with the worldwide connectivity and never-ending discussion available over the Internet, it doesn’t matter what time you send an email to someone living in a different time zone. Secondly, some people just don’t care what time you sent your email as they only care about reading what you have to say. You do however, need to be careful of the time you send emails to some people such as coworkers, managers, and clients for example. A job candidate’s email containing a resume sent to the human resources department at 3am will not look good as it sits in the inbox. It may possibly jeopardize the job candidate’s chances of working with the company. Send an email at another time if you think the recipient will judge you poorly based on the time you send it.

12. Excessive Capitalization. IT’S CONSIDERED RUDE TO TYPE IN CAPITALS. Typing in capitals is the digital equivalent of yelling in someone’s face. Hopefully, you wouldn’t yell in someone’s face so don’t do it digitally. On the other end of the spectrum, don’t type all your text in lower case. It’s simple grammar.

13. No spell checking. I’ve been guilty of this a few times and have been pulled-up by the grammar police for teaching communication and misspelling words (apparently I’m not allowed to misspell words!). For the more formal type of email, it helps to spell check your email. Most popular email providers should provide the option of spell checking.

14. Poor use of attachments. Any email attachment over one mega byte (approximately 1000KB) is pushing email etiquette rules. Not everyone has broadband or cable, and these people do not want to spend 5 minutes downloading an unnecessary file. For large attachments, you’re better of using file upload services such as Mega File Upload and 2shared. Another rule for email attachments is considering the format of your attachment. Not everyone will be able to make use of a file that has a .odt extension.

15. Requesting delivery and read receipts. For me personally, there are two people that come to mind who always use this option. Perhaps you know a few individuals who always request a delivery and read receipt? This is an unreliable and annoying way of checking to see if someone has received your email. If you need to check whether your email was received or not, ask the person in your email to reply saying that they got your message. If your message is really that important, which it rarely is over email, you should phone the person. Don’t blame the recipient of your email for a problem you can control.

16. Write. Send. Edit. That’s in the wrong order if you are using good email etiquette. Obviously. We sometimes think about editing our email once we’ve sent it. Get this common email mistake in the right order: 1) Write, 2) Edit, and 3) Send. Wow! Submit. Done.