Today I’ll dare you to start something. If you invested 30 minutes each day this week, and it would make you feel, happier, more fulfilled, excited and perhaps set you off on a trajectory that would change your life – would you do it?

It’s with that kind of anticipation I’m throwing myself into next week’s challenge, where we once more will face our fears, grow and move towards a life lived on our conditions. A life of freedom. Because by putting up weekly personal development challenges we make sure to gradually move towards that vision.

And this time it’s going to be all about pushing that ignition button. Putting in some time and focused effort into that thing you’ve been thinking about for so long, but just haven’t got around to do anything about. Starting – or even restarting –  a project. Whether it’s learning how to play an instrument, deciding to meet someone, building a homepage, starting a business – I’m sure you’ve got something in mind that just hasn’t been happening.

The thing is, we get caught in everyday life and reaction mood – acting on what’s screaming the most in front of us. But what we must remember is that these tickling thoughts and ideas floating around in the back of our heads are tremendously important to our wellbeing and sense of feeling fulfilled. Living purposefully.

But I don’t have time? Well, It comes down to prioritization, as Tim Ferris said, If you don’t have time, you don’t have priorities. We need to trust the benefit of investing time in something that might not have any quantifiable measurable outcome. Sometimes we just have to do the things that can’t logically be reasoned for. Or even if doesn’t seem like it at surface level, take a chance and risk our most precious good – time.

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.

Enough talking, the objectives of the week is going to be super simple and straightforward.

• At least on 30 minutes each day – Monday through Friday – sit down to work on your project. I could give a ton of general tips and ideas for how to approach this, but I think that will just overwhelm and have an opposite effect. So instead I’ll leave you with these three general tips.

1. SCHEDULE IT. 30 minutes each day, put it in the calendar and decide when, where and what you’re going to do! For me, first thing when I get home after work. Then reward – food.
2. Decide what kind of outcome you’re aiming for. Is it just practice time with the guitar, is it doing 5 tutorials for web design, or perhaps outlining a 6-month strategy – just have some kind of goal so you know in what direction to go for. And if the goal is to not have any goal and just have fun – then that’s your goal! It primes the expectation levels, and feeling good about something almost always have to do with what you’re expecting to get out of it.
3. FIND THE EXPERTS. Look to the experts and try to break down possible actions to the ones that give the most bang for the buck. YouTube ‘The Parreto principle’ if you don’t know what the 80/20-rule is. Spoiler – it’s golden.

So that’s it! For me this week is going to be all about relaunching my channel. Thinking through my strategy and plan for what i want out of this, and how I’m going to go about getting that. I can’t remember the last time I was this excited about something. Now, this -challenge is actually going to stretch over 2 weeks, because that’s the time I need for this to be done properly. But I’ll keep you updated with at least one video. 

Social commitment is golden – so let me know what you’re doing down there in the comments. AND if you do want any specific tips, let me know – I’ve got tons to give!

Have a great week,

/Alexander

The Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement Address VIDEO: https://youtu.be/UF8uR6Z6KLc

New week – New challenge! This week we’ll be focusing on having great. Deep and meaningful conversations. Now since I’m no expert, I’ll present 3 expert tips that gives the most bang for your buck when it comes to getting better at deep conversations. I will also outline a clear implementation strategy for the week ahead. YouTube how-to videos in all its glory, but it won’t magically transform you unless you put in some real effort, and a good strategy is half the battle.

But why all the effort? Just imagine yourself being able to truly connect with people, being so caught up in a conversation that time isn’t present anymore. I’m sure you’ve experienced it. If not, it’s about time. More to it, the better you get at this skill, the quicker will you be able to reach this state. Creating special bonds with people you’ve just met is kind of a thrill. It’s Almost addictive. Perhaps you have friends you’ve known your entire life, but never really got through with. Perhaps this will enable you to finally crack the code. Connecting and being more likeable and remembered will favour you in so many ways. Doors and opportunities you can’t imagine will open.

As an example, I can just mention what happened to me this morning when I was down at the gym. There’s a super nice lady that always works out the same time as me on Sundays. And a few week’s back I complimented her for always being so happy and dancing around while resting between sets. Gradually I’ve gotten to know her better, applying all these conversational skills. And this morning when I was about to say goodbye and leave, I told her to have a great day and keep making people smile. But before I had the  opportunity to leave, she asked me if I was single.. Pausing for a second before answering, trying to figure out if she was hitting on me or not ( she’s 50+).

“Yes I am”

She then said that she had a perfect girl she wanted me to meet, and invited me to a Sunday dinner a few weeks from now, where she will to introduce me to this girl. We’ll see how that goes, but the point being – if you’re able to have good conversations and just talk to people without any hidden agenda but because you enjoy it, it will give you so much in return. AND, you’ll start to enjoy it the better you get at it. I know because I used to dread conversations like these, bus as I’ve improved – I now crave them.

But deep conversations don’t happen without first establishing some rapport and progressively deepening the connection. If this is all distant to you perhaps you should go back and look at the previous two week’s challenges, since this is the third and last part of how to develop conversational skills. It started with approaching people and striking up that initial conversation, and we then moved on to more surface level conversation techniques, but still highly usable in a deep conversation context.

But so – just as last week – these tips I’ll be sharing are hi-jacked from Improvement pill’s YouTube channel. That means I don’t own any rights to the videos, I just use it for the purpose of education and don’t make any money out of it. I do recommend you to go check out his channel as it holds a ton of value. Link to the original video can be found here (LINK – Communication Skills – Deep conversations).

SO, IN ORDER TO HOLD A DEEP CONVERSATION THERE ARE THREE KEY THINGS YOU NEED TO DO:

1. SHARING – Share and be vulnerable, by opening first you will make the way for the person you’re talking to also share something deep. Link to where this is talked about in the video: https://youtu.be/eyA2uIMkAAk?t=1m35s

2. LISTENING – A key feature to be trusted with continues sharing from there part, is to make them feel that they really are being listened to and have your full attention. Link to where this is talked about in the video: https://youtu.be/eyA2uIMkAAk?t=4m38s

3. RELATING – Being able to identify what emotions the other person conveying, so that you can relate and follow up by sharing something similar. Link to where this is talked about in the video:

The objectives

Once a day, Monday through Friday, aim to have at least one conversation lasting at least 15 minutes to enable you to build enough rapport to go deeper. I know from experience that this won’t happen if we don’t plan and schedule it. Everyday life will happen, and yeah You’ll just “do it” tomorrow instead. For me, this means I’m going to schedule 2-3 face-to-face interactions, and have a long phone call or Skype conversation the other days. I’m going to shoot for 30 minutes. Important is to not jam it all into one day, daily is key for efficient progress so we can evaluate, tweak and improve while it’s still fresh.

Good Luck, and commit to me if you really want to do this!

/Alexander

In this week’s challenge we’ll be focusing in on developing our conversational skills. It’s the second week,  & video, with the focus of connecting with people. Last week was all about that initial first approach, and this one will take us one step further on the connection scale and building rapport. This will be done by implementing a few expert tips presented in this video. We’ll then practice one technique each day this week, and ideally putt ourselves in as many conversational contexts as possible. And next week we’ll finish off with a challenge aimed to improve our ‘deep’ conversational skills.

But so why should we give a whole week’s attention to this? Well, there are tons of reasons backed up by studies. But I chose to speak from my own experience, as the results of my increased ability to talk to people simply put have made me enjoy life so much more. What I used to dread I now seek out, with both strangers and people I know. What used to drain me of energy and result in social anxiety, now gives me energy, joy, happiness and a sense of belonging. Belonging to the people of this earth.

Now this may sound cliché or over the top, but I can’t help but to feel this sense of connection to something greater when I truly connect with someone. Now this occurs more during the ‘deep’ end of the conversations, but to get there, we first need to learn how to build rapport and get past that surface level acquaintance. Hence the focus of the week!

The tips that are presented comes from the YouTube Channel Improvement Pill. I don’t owe any rights to the videos, nor do I make any kind of money from them. I simply just help to structure an implementation plan for learning these skills. All rights to him!

And so, the objectives are to focus on one of these tips per day. Otherwise we’ll get overwhelmed. Now beware, we run the risk of this happening with tip 3 and 4 to. So Dumb it down and make it as simple as possible, think about the main principles, not all the examples and ideas that are presented. For instance with the statements, chose one kind to do.

The tips

Day 1 – [ Tip#1 – Be efficient with your speaking ] @ 2:13

Day 2 – [ Tip#2 – Use Pauses instead of fillers to emphasize ] @ 3:05

Day 3 – [ Tip#3 – Conversational Threading ] @ 3:35

Day 4 – [ Tip#4 – Use Statements instead of questions ]  @ 6:00

• Opinion statements

• Cold read statement

• Random/spontaneous statement

Day 5 – Implement them all, but rotate them for every new conversation you have. You can think of the Acronym  EPTS or perhaps this will make you remember; Efficient Pauses ‘Thrills’ ‘State-men’

Good Luck everyone, and let me know what you think of the tips or if you have any good ones of your own!

The last week’s videos:

The original video: Communication Skills – How To Improve Communication Skills – 7 Unique Tips! By IMprovement Pill