Are You Making Sufficient Eye Contact?

You may be wondering if you make enough eye contact during your presentations. The only way to know is to ask someone in your audience whom you trust to deliver the objective answer with compassion. Most people will tell you your presentation was great, even if they snoozed through it. Nobody wants to hurt your feelings, and they’re probably grateful it was you in the hot seat and not them.

This question comes to mind because of my experience with a delightful chef’s cooking class last week. He was attractive, energetic, funny and knowledgeable, but he wasn’t making eye contact, unless someone asked him a question.

It’s a bit awkward for the audience when the speaker doesn’t look them in the eye, especially if it’s not a huge audience. It’s like being in a conversation with someone who doesn’t look you in the eye.

If you’re speaking on television, or in a full auditorium, you can’t see anyone’s eyes so making eye contact is not a problem. In fact in those contexts, it’s impossible.

If you’re speaking to a group of 10 to 40 people, you definitely want to make eye contact. It’s expected. If you don’t make sufficient eye contact, your audience wonders if they can trust you.

It’s easy, you find a friendly face and start your presentation. Then move from side to side, making eye contact with one person and then another. That’s called “scanning” your audience.

If you start staring at someone, you’re probably distracted and certainly distracting.

Don’t forget that you audience wants you to succeed. They want you to engage them. They also want you to look them in the eye.

Where Does Communication Take Place, Really?

You may be mentally rehearsing what you’re going to say, or that great answer to an email, but you need to keep this critical piece of information in mind: Communcation does not happen in your mind; it happens in the other person’s mind.

You’ve probably had the frustrating experiencing of saying one thing, and that message being totally misconstrued, perhaps so far as to be interpreted as precisely the opposite of what you intended!

Well, probably there is something wrong, not with what you’re saying, but with the relationship. You know people who are hurt, angry, depressed, mad, and disappointed, tend to read the most negative interpretation possible of a message. The converse is also true; but a positive interpretation is probably the most helpful to you, even if some argue that’s not being “realistic.”

So, the next time you’re experiencing a frustrating “misunderstanding” — try to get to the bottom of the relationship issue. Ask the other person if something is bothering, or if that person feels offended for some reason.

It’s not what you say, it’s what the other person interprets that communicates.

You, the Business Warrior, Part II

This is the second half of David Cameron’s article, a bit of business zen, if you will:

There are a million things that a great person can do now that they [sic] could not do years ago. Why is that?

It is never those things that changed. What changed was the idea that this person had of himself or herself. Have you seen the movie The Matrix? When Neo changed his idea of himself, he was able to do the undoable. It is so with everyone.

Capability is nothing more than a shift in what you think you are. What You Really Are is a being with infinite possibilities. Everyone is. We are all literally an idea.

As such, success is not something we can chase and get, it is something that we attract by the persons we become. We become those persons by changing the idea of what we think we are.

The problem is not with the world. The problem, if there is one, is with your recognition of yourself and your world. The way you perceive and interpret yourself and your world is a system. Change that system, through seeking new truths, and you change your world. This is The Way of the Business Warrior.

Think now of a Karate dojo. In a dojo, the sensei gives you an opponent to fight with. But your opponent is not really an opponent. He or she is there simply to give you a framework through which to test yourself. In a dojo, you get to discover and learn about yourself, your flexibility, focus, potential, and so on. You rapidly do so using the illusion of having an opponent to beat, go back and train, so you can come back and beat.

But in reality, the dojo is merely a place where you can work on your inside. The externals, such as the opponent, merely give you a frame of reference to work on your inside. And the better you get inside, the more you master outside.

A business is the same. It is an inner work mirror, an inner training harness. Whatever successes you see in your business are a reflection of your inner state in that regard. Whatever challenges you face in business are a reflection of the illusions or fears you still hold and believe in. In fact, even childhood fearful events that you never resolve can show up in your business as negative business matters until you resolve them. The essence will be the same, but the context will change.

Carl Jung put it well when he said, “The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate. That is to say, when an individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner contradictions, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposite halves.”

And James Allen points out that “What you are, so is your world. Everything in the universe is resolved into your own inward experience. It matters little what is without, for it is all a reflection of your own state of consciousness. It matters everything what you are within, for everything without will be mirrored and colored accordingly.”

The Way of the Business Warrior is to look at all things in her or his business as fun challenges for inner work. The Business Warrior recognizes that things are not good or bad, blessings or curses, but all opportunities either for enjoyment or for finding new truths to break through to new levels. Even a really hard challenge has fruit hidden within it.

The choice is simple. You can either remain in the rat race or join the eagles. A rat and an eagle have different cognitive systems, different ways they perceive the world.

The Way of the Business Warrior is to change their cognitive system, for it is the only way to move from the rat race to the eagle’s open skies. It is a choice to go through to the end without retreat, detached and open, asking why at all turns, asking for help, being unstoppable by refusing to stop, and moving forward with nothing to defend. As Carlos Castenada says,”Every living thing has been granted the power, if it so desires, to seek an opening to freedom and go through it.”

“There is a science of getting rich, and it is an exact science, like algebra or arithmetic. There are certain laws which govern the process of acquiring riches, and once these laws are learned and obeyed by anyone, that person will get rich with mathematical certainty.” These are the words of Wallace D. Wattles.

You may have often wondered why some people seems to have all the luck and others do not, even though they may outwardly look to be more deserving. Now you are beginning to see that The Way does not discriminate. The Laws work precisely, no matter who applies them. All that matters, therefore, is to know The Way. And in that, from one Business Warrior to another, I wish you the highest possible achievements.

If you wish to know more about all this, click here.

Article written by David Cameron Gikandi. For even greater
insights into your quest for wealth and financial liberty and
ability, go here.

You, The Business Warrior, Part I

Back by popular request. This is a fantastic article.

A very different from “normal” business article by David Cameron.

What is The Way of the Business Warrior? If business is your game, get ready for the ride of your life.

First, let us begin with the obvious. In your business, you either make the sale, or you don’t. You do or you don’t, there is no try. You get the customer or you don’t, there is no try. Your business makes a profit or it doesn’t, there is no try. There is no in between. Why? Why do things work this way?

There is an order by which all things arise and work. Every moment is a moment of new creation. On and off states, called dualities, is what we experience in all of life, including business.

Here is a question for you. Do you think our moments arise by accident or as an exactly perfect outcome of a series of natural laws? Remember, there is no middle ground. It is either all accidental or all perfection, but not a mixture of the two.

If it was all accidental, none of the laws of physics would work,biology would not work, nothing would work. Therefore, it is all a precise outcome of set laws. The Way of the Business Warrior is the one that gets you on the path to discovering the truth behind what happens in your business.

Now you can make your life a glorious adventure financially by understanding the totality of experience and creation.

Michael Gerber, author of the best-selling business book, The E-Myth Revisited, says in that book that “Contrary to popular belief, my experience has shown me that the people who are exceptionally good in business aren’t so because of what they know, but because of their insatiable need to know more. The
problem with most failing businesses I’ve encountered is not that their owners don’t know enough about finance, marketing, management, and operations – they don’t, but those things are easy enough to learn – but they spend their time and energy
defending what they think they know. The greatest businesspeople I’ve met are determined to get it right no matter what the cost.”

Here is another interesting bit of information. Harvard Business School and INSEAD (the top European business school) have concluded from research that the two most effective new business tools for twenty-first century executives are meditation and
intuition. These are metaphysical subjects! Why?

Robert Kiyosaki, in his best-selling book Rich Dad, Poor Dad, says that money is just an idea.

In fact, money is merely an ‘energy exchange system’, a means of exchanging complimentary values built within any two participants. The Way of the Business Warrior looks under the hood to know how this all works, and uses that knowledge to
create exact outcomes, to create and thrive instead of react and survive.

Henry Ford once said, “Whether you think you can or you can’t – either way you are right.”

Everyone has things that they can do now that they could not do before.

You can now walk while as a child you could not. The ground never changed, but you did.

You can now read while you once could not. The English language never changed, but you did.

At one time, Bill Gates could not write software, now he can. The world did not change, Bill did.

At one time, Oprah Winfrey did not have the attention of millions of people worldwide, now she has. The world did not change, Oprah did.

At one time, Jesus could not perform miracles, and then he did. Miracles did not change, Jesus did.

At one time, the Buddha was not enlightened, and then he was. The ways of the universe did not change, the Buddha did.

As Deepak Chopra says, “Within every desire is the mechanics of its fulfillment.” And of course there is the famous quote by Jesus Christ that says, “If you can? Anything is possible for him who believes.”

Do you get the picture?

The second half of this article will be posted tomorrow.

Article written by David Cameron Gikandi. For even greater
insight, click here.

Your Personal Elevator Pitch

The “elevator speech” is a helpful and generative response to everyone’s hyperbusyness. It is a brief, carefully-constructed statement about the most important information about you (what you do best), your company, and your products, or the projects you’re working on.

Developing your elevator pitch crystallizes first in your own mind, and then for others, the most important information about your value or competitive edge into a well-organized, delicious sentence or two or three of compelling information for the people you want to reach.

The idea behind the elevator speech is that—by accident—you run into Ms. Big in an elevator on the 25th floor. She asks what you do. You have an opportunity to give it your best shot before getting to the ground floor where you both get off. When you arrive at the lobby, she now knows everything of importance about what you do for a living, and why it is valuable to her and her company.

If you think you can already communicate your sales message clearly and concisely without doing this exercise, try doing it your way with a disinterested third party, and see how you feel about it. Obviously, it’s not for you to share with your friends and co-workers who already know you quite well – it’s a tool of introduction.

The elevator speech is a very powerful because it’s concise and you’ve worked on it to refine your thinking.

Here are the six basic questions to address in your elevator speech:

What is your product/service/solution?

Who is the customer it is intended for?

What need or problem does it address?

What does it do?

How does it work and what are the benefits to me?

Why are you different and better than others?

What’s your elevator pitch? If you live in a rural area where there are no elevators, think of it as your “walk down the hall” pitch.