Forever Transform how you are Experienced by others.
Do this experiment with everyone you interact with and you will be astonished at the magic of being other-centric.
In matters of communication, there’s an undeniable truth at play every single time we interact with others. We “occur to others” depending on how “they” are treated.
Being willing to be accountable for what others see, hear and feel when we communicate with them is not usually a skill we pay attention to. From a simple chit-chat to a full blown speech, we typically don’t focus enough on whom we are addressing, how we are addressing them and what we mean to communicate to them.
Rather, we pay attention to what we want to say next and the reason we do it is that we are more self-concerned or self-absorbed than we’d like to admit. As I have always repeated to the point of sounding like a broken record is that whatever you focus on, owns you!
What it means practically is that by changing your focus from inward to outward, a whole world of credibility and effectiveness opens up. This extraordinary aptitude is a radical game-changer and every great speaker and communicator knows that. To become other-centric no matter what will always generate the attention and respect of others.
Things are going faster and faster in life and it seems to accelerate exponentially. There are so many focuses to handle in a day, who has time for one more? Yet, the moment you switch your focus from “your inner dialogue” to “an outer perspective” of who is in front of you, your ease and credibility goes through the roof—instantaneously!
This other-centric communication style leads to the expansion and development of personal freedom and personal power without you lifting a finger. After all, it’s just a change of focus not the reinvention of the wheel.
As you master your focuses, what gets revealed is properly-distilled effectiveness and a new kind of awareness. Interactions will bear more fruit and you will leave behind superfluous data exchange.
Indeed, successful communication does not happen just in the cold exchange of information per se but, rather in the atmosphere being generated by the person(s) doing the talking. It is also true with public speaking.
These atmospheres are generated as a function of your focus. It is curious how little attention we pay to our focus at any given time. As a rule, a self-concern person is very easy to spot. It makes people shrug, turn their heads or worse…run and tell everyone what a negative or insignificant experience they just had.
In matters of communication, self-concern or self-focus shows up as arrogance and feels patronising to others.
Atmosphere is everything!
A great meeting, dinner, gathering, event, play, seminar, ceremony, wedding, etc., is first and foremost an atmosphere such as warm, welcoming, smart, fun, elegant, instructive, open, graceful, and so on…or it can be uninviting, aloof, tense, somber, self-centred, cold, uptight, weird, false, irrelevant, etc.
The perception and interpretation of the information and behaviour presented to us at any moment are both outcomes of the moods we generate. They are all dependent on the focuses we activate.
Atmospheres or moods always dominate the scene — regardless of their quality.
Try telling a losing team to cheer up right after the final results are in or try telling a great joke to the person next to you at a funeral.
The lesson: a focus away from yourself triggers moods and atmospheres which attract and carry the potential to empower, excite, inspire and touch people.
A focus is a direction in space, so you can switch easily from inward to outward. It is literally a mechanical move but a life-changing process.
You begin by focusing on seeing whom you are speaking with and no longer seeing yourself in relationship to them inside your mind. The latter would be very similar to watching yourself make love instead of being in communion with the energy of your partner.
Funny how in some situations in life, we instinctively know where the right focus is. Perhaps because we instantly feel how badly things go when we don’t :) Nobody likes that! Well then, if you aim at making a difference, take the focus away from yourself. It’s that simple.
Do this experiment with everyone you interact with this week and you will be reminded of the magic of being other-centric and how rewarding it becomes.
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