Personal Development Blog

The best leaders keep the world in perspective.  They see the bright side of things.  They can find humor in most circumstances.  They can laugh at the absurdity life often offers.  Humor eases tension and takes the bite out of tough situations.

A sense of humor draws followers to the leader.  It helps followers feel safe and energizes and activates their minds.  Humor also plays a larger role as an essential element of effective living.  Health professionals agree that those with a sense of humor have a greater sense of being and belonging.  That feeling gets communicated and creates the rapport that attracts others to the leader.  Some people say that humor must be limited within the serious business of work.  Yet people laugh most often about the things that are most serious to them.  Think of all the jokes you have heard about money, taxes, and even death. 

In Scott Young’s new blog at http://www.scotthyoung.com/blog he has an interesting writeup about why to pursue personal development (http://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/page/2/). 

He makes an interesting point about how an epiphany leads to this pursuit for many people, unfortunately I agree this is often what it takes for many people. I think what created my own interest was wanting to rise above mediocrity, and thinking about what separates the successful from the unsuccessful.  One of the early conclusions I came to was that too many people think education ends when school ends, and most schools never teach you how to “teach yourself”, keeping the power in the schools.  In my early career in the computer field, I saw that you only obtained the advanced knowledge if you went out and got it yourself, those that just waited around for someone to send them to training got nowhere.

Begin with an explanation of how the other person’s thoughts and feelings affect you.  Avoid blaming and being self-defensive as much as possible. Doing this initiates the crucial connection between another person’s private world of experiences and your own.

The objective here is not to analyze or pass judgment on another’s viewpoint, in which you worked hard to grasp to begin with, but to let them know how it influences your own thoughts and feelings.  If your reaction is strong, you will likely experience some temptation to blame the other person for any bad feelings you have, or jump into a self-defensive stance because you perceive their viewpoint as an attack on you.