Look within...thats where the answers are..

​Are you hungry for knowledge and learning? I worked with a young man today who is. He is a voracious reader of personal development books. He is learning about face reading, body language, persuasion skills, NLP, communication and everything else he can that he thinks will help him to 'work people out'. And while I think this is great, I read a lot myself, I can't help but feel he has missed the point. The point of learning all those skills isn't to work out everyone else. It is to work out yourself. 

It's true that you can learn skills to build rapport with others. You can learn how to influence others and the skills of persuasion. The thing is that people will sense that is what you are doing unless you truly know yourself. If you are coming from a strong, calm sense of self then it is much easier to build rapport. I'm sure most of you have met someone who seemed friendly, nice and seemed to be very persuasive. But you might have had a sense of it not being genuine. Think old school used car salesmen who say all the right things, look the part and yet you still don't feel right about doing business with them. This is what we discussed today. 

You have to come from a place of knowing you, of being OK with you and of wanting the best for the other person. If you don't know and like yourself then you can read and learn all the skills in the world and you will still give off an aura of not being authentic.

So yes read books, attend events, learn new skills and then use them to be the best version of you. From there you will develop rapport, trust and love from those you have contact with. While the books and skills will help you to understand others it's of little use if you don't understand yourself. 

have a great week.

Til next time

Sherry