relationships Archives - Page 30 of 54

How to Receive a Compliment Without Being a Self-Centered Idiot

November 29, 2007 by Liz

Most Folks Have Been There

It was a one-person project and one you fell in love with. You put your heart in it and delivered beyond expectations. The project was elegant. Every minute you worked meant every detail came together with the highest quality.

This morning you presented it to the executive team. Just now, the president of the company came up to you in front of your coworkers and said, “Congratulations, your project and your presentation were outstanding.”

Suddenly it seems as if all eyes are looking at you. What do you say?

You’re pretty sure that saying, “Damn right, it was!” is probably not the right thing.

How do you answer a compliment without denying it or looking like a self-centered idiot?

How to Receive a Compliment Without Being a Self-Centered Idiot

The idea of accepting a compliment has come up in conversations with Ann Michael, Phil Gerbyshak, and Allan Cox this week. The discussion with each of them centered on the dynamic of why people have a problem accepting a compliment and how to handle the self-conscious feeling that is often attached to the attention a compliment brings.

Receiving a compliment with grace and feeling good about it is easy if you remember to do three things.

Compliment: “Your presentation was outstanding.”

Don’t make it about you.
Example of a response to avoid:
Let me tell you about it. I was up until 3 a.m. every night this week. My computer crashed last night and my kids have the flu.

A compliment is conversation. A speaker tells a offers a listener information about his or her opinion in the form of praise. The content of a compliment — even when it’s personal in nature such as You’re a wonderful human being. — is simply a statement of a point of view. Keep yourself out of the response.
Don’t discount the speaker’s gift.
Example of a response to avoid:
It wasn’t much. I just threw something together.

The speaker has offered a personal thought in your favor. To deny it or discount it is to say that the speaker has made a mistake in judgment. Value the speaker’s words in your response.
Acknowledge the speaker’s words and stop there.
Examples of a response that works:
Thank you for saying that it means a lot to hear it from you.

Focus on the speaker and the value of the speaker’s words. That guarantees your response will be graceful, respectful, and not about you.

That sentence in Step 3 was my default answer for the first few tries. Now I no longer freeze when I hear a compliment coming toward me. So I listen, focus, and respond even more thoughtfully. I enjoy compliments now that I no longer make them about me.

It’s not a hard habit to develop these three steps in receiving a compliment. Try them once and you’ll most likely be ready to put them to use every time. The exchange that occurs is so much more natural. It’s normal conversation without the “spotlight” glaring in our eyes.

It’s nice to let someone know that you heard and value their compliment. Sometimes it even allows you a chance to offer an authentic compliment in return.

You’re irresistible. Thank you for stopping by.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Are You Making the Most of the Conversation?

November 28, 2007 by Liz

Which Conversations Are Important Too!

In the world of business, it takes an action to make something happen. Watching rarely gets anything done. A conversation is a great place to make things happen. Yet, many of us seem to be missing out.

Where do you fit in the conversation? Are you a lurker, a listener, or a participant?

If you’re a lurker, you’re getting the value of the information.

If you’re a listener, you’re also finding out who knows what and who’s a pretender. Listeners soon find out who’s connected to whom.

If you’re a participant, you’re making an impression. People are also finding out about you.

But this is only stage one.

Where the conversation occurs makes a difference. Are you only talking to the people you already know? When you move into a new network do you move down to the level of a lurker? I know that I used to do just that. Then I realized something important.

If we only talk to the same group of people, we’ll always be in that same group talking about the same things on and on.

Want to know, want to grow? You need to expand where you have your conversations.

In our circle of friends, we usually agree on the same ideas.

When we move out to a network of colleagues and acquaintances, we can share in new ideas and new thoughts.

If we want to move up and out, if we want to grow and become more, we have to get to know the folks who know what we need to know. That means reaching out of our personal network to explore many more networks — the networks to which those people belong — and letting those who need a hand up into our own.

Being part of a conversation is a step in the right direction. Using the conversation to reach out raises the bar. Are you taking the conversation as far as you might to grow?

–ME ‘Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

3 Easy Steps to Persuade a Quality Blogger to Link to You

November 27, 2007 by Liz

Linking Relationships

The blogosphere is a web of connections made by links from blog to blog. The strongest relationships and the links that last longest are those that are made between bloggers.

If you want a link from a blogger you’ve not yet met, you’re really asking for a vote of trust. The link I give to your blog or your blog post means that I’ve tied my name to yours. Naturally any blogger would be more inclined to give your link a home, if you show it will be in the blogger’s best interest.

Who wouldn’t want to link to you if your link improved their readers’ experience in some meaningful way?

3 Easy Steps to Persuade a Quality Blogger to Link to You

Choose carefully when finding home for your links. Hopefully, you’re starting a long-term relationship. You want to be part of a network of quality people. Let’s imagine that the blogger you want to link to is me.

Here’s how you might persuade me in three easy steps.

Do Your Homework

Get to know me and my blog. Make a a project of finding out who I am and what I write about. Study my blog and my readers’ comments. In other words, do a little homework.

So many people peddle their blog posts from blog to blog without even bothering to read the front page. You’ll stand out if when you say, “I’ve been reading your blog . . .” and what follows that shows that you really have. Chances are, if you show a real interest in my blog and your idea is off, I might suggest a new idea for you to try.

Plan a Link that Adds Value

No one needs a link on their blogroll. No one needs a random blog post that’s unrelated to a blog’s readership. Find a reason that your post that ties well to one I wrote. Show how your post expands on a topic that my readers have an interest in. Explain how the subject your content compliments mine or offers a point of view my readers might enjoy.

Persuade an Individual (not sir or madam)

When you send that email, be personal and gently persuasive. Don’t talk about yourself; talk about what you are offering.

Please be simple and brief. Realize that I wasn’t waiting with nothing to do until your email came and that I probably still have plenty to get done. Doesn’t everyone these days? I want to see a compelling reason for your using your link. I can’t say “yes” to everyone, but it’s not fun to say “no” either. It’s real luck when a clear thinker comes along — someone who knew exactly what to offer that really does add value for my readers.

You lose nothing if I refuse. Make a good case, and a friendship could be starting. If you researched the blog you want to link, you’ve probably learned a few new things.

If your post goes up, you’ve made a connection to a quality blog. Hopefully that blog will grow into old age with yours, sharing many links along the way. We’ll all meet to discuss how the bloggers who come asking for links never seem to do their homework, don’t show how they’ll add value or personally offer a compelling reason why we might want to link.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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You Have to Understand . . . No You Don't

November 27, 2007 by Liz

Who Am I Talking to?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot.

I’ve been listening to when I say,
“You have to understand.”

I’ve been listening to when other people say that sentence too.

You have to understand. . . . No, you don’t.

Truth is, no one “has to” understand anything anyone says anytime anyplace at all.

Yet, even more amazing is that often when the sentence, “You have to understand,” is being said,
the listener does understand.

Often the listener understands
better than the speaker does.

I’ve been listening to when I say,
“You have to understand.”

Maybe the person I’m trying to convince is myself.

I fight the hardest to convince other folks what I need to believe most myself.

I wonder if I understand myself, will I quit telling other folks that they have to understand what I’m saying?

You have to understand. I’ve been thinking about this a lot.

Well, no you don’t. No one does.
We don’t have to understand each other . . . but it works better when we do.

Maybe we start by listening to and understanding ourselves.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Personal Identity: Who Are You Really?

November 25, 2007 by Liz

I Would Agree

Last night at a gathering, I had a conversation with a woman who had decorated the condo in which we were enjoying the evening.

She said, “My passion is home decorating, but my real job is . . . ”

She saw the smile that crossed my face and asked about it.

I wondered back why she thought about herself and her life that way. I said, “Just because right now you spend more time and make more money doing what you call your ‘real job,’ do you have to let it define who you are?”

The woman leaned forward to listen more closely.

“What I mean is . . . when I came in, I was told you were the decorator who made this room look so beautiful. It was easy to agree that a home decorator is who you are.”

The woman sat visibly taller in her chair and smiled. “I see what you mean.”

I placed a finger of my left hand on the counter in front of us and said, “You are here. This is where you are spending less time at home decorating.” About 10 inches to the right of the first finger, I placed a finger of my right hand. “This is where you will be when you’re a home decorator full time. All you need to do is find the steps from one to the other.”

Her smile grew.

“Yep,” I said. “The whole thing becomes easy now because you can see. Every decision you make either moves you further down that path or moves you away from it. Just remember the path when you decide things and soon enough you’ll find yourself there.”

She was already redefining herself with the next words she used.

We really do get to choose how we define ourselves and how to get there.

Are you satisfied with who you say you are?

Who are you really?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Thanks to Week 109 SOBs

November 24, 2007 by Liz

Successful and Outstanding Bloggers

Let me introduce the bloggers
who have earned this official badge of achievement,

and the right to call themselves
Successful Blog SOBs.

I invite them to take a badge home to display on their blogs.

They take the conversation to their readers,
contribute great ideas, challenge us, make us better, and make our businesses stronger.

I thank all of our SOBs for thinking what we say is worth passing on.
Good conversation shared can only improve the blogging community.

Should anyone question this SOB button’s validity, send him or her to me. Thie award carries a “Liz said so” guarantee, is endorsed by Kings of the Hemispheres, Martin and Michael, and is backed by my brothers, Angelo and Pasquale.

Want to become an SOB?

If you’re an SO-Wanna-B, you can see the whole list of SOBs and learn how to be one by visiting the SOB Hall of Fame– A-Z Directory . Click the link or visit the What IS an SOB?! page in the sidebar.

–ME “Liz” Strauss