Tag Archive for: effective communication

Do You Hate Hallmark Holidays? Unleash New Passion on Valentine’s Day!

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Up the passion in your relationshipsIs it time to shake things up in your love life and create more passion, fun, and  intimacy?  Relationships can’t be sustained on past memories or with the same gifts year after year.  So step outside of the ‘Hallmark-Have-tos” and do something different this year!    

Tony Robbins® likes to say, “Your life is a direct reflection of the quality of questions you ask yourself every moment of the day.”  As an Executive Business Coach, one of the foundations of my practice is asking powerful, engaging questions.  So here are 3 simple questions that will unlock new passion in your relationship on Valentine’s Day this year.

Before Valentine’s Day, ask your partner these 3 questions and look for his or her response to each question.  Which one elicits a more emotional response? (Note: these are NLP-neuro linguistic programming based questions; use emotion!)

In order to know you are totally loved, is it necessary for you:

  1. To be taken places and bought things, or to be looked at in a certain way? 
  2. OR is it necessary for you to hear certain words or a certain tone of voice?
  3. OR is it necessary for you to be touched a certain way, held, or have some type of physical contact? 

Everyone has a preferred love strategy.  And the way to get your partner more motivated this Valentine’s Day is to make sure you love her in her way, not yours.  Relationships grow and real love happens when you give to your partner in their own “love language”. 

Based on your partner’s response, here are some simple tips:

LOOK:  If he or she responds more to being bought gifts, taken places, or being looked at in a certain way, focus your energy on going out to dinner, buying that special gift or presenting her with a bouquet of flowers.  Give him or her a visual representation of your love, whether it’s in the way you look at her all glammed up at dinner or in a physical reminder of how much she means to you.  

HEAR:  If on the other hand, your partner seems to care much more about your words, reach for your pen!  Your love note will hit its mark.  But don’t stop there.  Make a concerted effort to reach out throughout the day on that day and share your feelings. 

TOUCH:  If your partner is more of a touchy-feely person, you might want to skip the greeting card and reach for the massage oil!  In any case, make a point to connect with him or her in a physical way at some point in the day.  Snuggle first thing before waking up, hold her hand on the way to dinner, don’t keep your distance… Find a way to help her feel what she means to you.

Relationship Coaching to improve the passion in your relatiionshipsFor more ideas on loving your partner in their own Love Language, check out my other post on the 5 Love Languages. 

Stop the Hallmark insanity. Invest in your relationship and create your own passion this Valentine’s Day!  

…And guys, here is a coaching tip for you!  If “Talk” is her top Love Language, link a new habit with an existing habit.  Pick up a few extra cards, put them in your glove box and when you take your car for an oil check, they will be a reminder for you to create an impromptu Valentine’s Day for her. She deserves to be appreciated more than once a year!  

Avoid This Networking Blunder: Don’t Ask This Question!

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Have you ever been out networking, meeting and greeting, and towards the end of your conversation with someone, they ask you, “So, how can I help you?”  What’s worse, have you been asking that question to people that you meet?

That is a dangerous question to ask for a couple of reasons.

One, it might be a clue that you may have been making the conversation all about you. The general rule of thumb is that a good networking meeting will consist of discussing yourself thirty percent of the time and engaging the other person to talk seventy percent of the time. If a conversation has been going great and that question pops out, perhaps you have been talking more than listening.

Two, if that’s not the case and they have shared a good bit of information about themselves or their business, it indicates that you either don’t truly understand what problems they face, or you don’t have a clue as to how you can help them.  Either way, it’s not good.

In the first instance, not only can it totally breaks rapport, but it puts the person on the spot and places them in a situation where they’re supposed to figure if and how they fit in your business model, instead of you focusing on the problems they encounter, understanding their needs, and showing them how you might be able to help.

Alternatively, if you do understand the problems they face, but still ask them how you can help them, you run the risk of appearing like you don’t know how to tackle their issues which is not likely to foster trust and ruin your credibility as an expert in your field.

The reality is, if you have been asking questions, getting the other person to speak to you and been engaged, you should be able to get a pretty good idea of their problems and challenges. People more often than not, will tell you at least a couple of areas where they can improve something in their business.  From there, you can pretty easily determine whether or not you can help that person.

If it’s a good fit, fantastic, forge ahead, but if you see that you cannot or do not know how to solve their problems, add value by connecting them with someone who can.  After all, that’s what networking is all about!

Do you have some networking tips?  Share the wealth!  Comment below!

Improve Your Relationships – It’s All About Your Communication

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Hallelujah ~ Praise the Lord!

Have you heard the one about the priest who trained his horse to “stop” by saying “Hallelujah”, and “go” by saying “Praise the lord?”

He went riding one day and a snake spooked his horse. The horse became terrified and took off at a full gallop. The horse was so frightened that it didn’t realize it was headed straight for the edge of a cliff. As the priest yelled, “Whoah, Jesus, Stop” and a few other choice sayings to no avail, the horse just kept charging straight for the edge of the cliff. Suddenly, the priest remembered the command for “Stop” and yelled, “Hallelujah” at the top of his lungs. Miraculously, the horse stopped just in time to keep from plunging to certain death. Relieved, the priest exclaimed, “Praise the Lord!”

How often do we forget how important positive, productive, communication is to any relationship?

It can lead a relationship to certain death or raise it to the highest levels of emotional passion.

I have a saying, “In the absence of communication and knowledge, the mind has free reign to wander.” It is dangerous for the mind to wander because it is in that place that people start to ASS-U-ME things. And we all know that assuming makes an “ASS” out of “U” and “ME.”

Why don’t people communicate more? I think it is a lack of safety. In the parent child relationship, how often is the child encouraged to be expressive, to challenge an opinion, to share their different thoughts and emotions? As a kid, were you encouraged in that manner?

How can we provide more safety in our communications with others? How can we create an easy, warm, loving environment where speaking and communicating are encouraged?

My solution is to keep one simple component in mind. No matter how the communication is happening, whether you agree, disagree, yell, scream, talk silently, write it out on paper; never have the love go away.

How can we communicate and never have the love go away? Here are some tips:


1. Address the behavior and not the person. That person is not selfish, instead you have interpreted their actions to be selfish. The person is not their behavior.

2. Understand that the other perspective is just as valid as yours and try it on for size. Walk a mile in their shoes with their beliefs and understand where they are coming from. Be empathetic.

3. Agree to disagree if necessary and have it all be OK.

4. When you both disagree, find a win-win that is a compromise on both sidets. Never seek absolutes because then it becomes a power struggle.

5. Create a safe environment and rules for communicating if necessary. Create a talking stick, like in the Native American cultures, have a pair of safety chairs, and never threaten the other person during a conversation.

6. Pick your battles carefully. Don’t lose the war over a battle in the moment.

7. Stay focused on the real outcome you want to achieve. How many times at the end of an argument you find yourself forgetting what started the whole thing to begin with? Stay on track.

8. The solution/compromise will not be found until both parties feel understood, validated, and their opinions are respected. Solutions come second, understanding feelings, beliefs and perspectives come first.

9. Say it the way you want it to be.

Communication leaves a person in one of two places: it leaves us feeling closer or leaves us feeling farther apart.

Malcolm Forbes once stated, “It is always worthwhile to let others know of their worth.”

You don’t have to always have to agree with another person in order to find their value. I hope that you can continue to increase your levels of communication to a point where the other person always leaves knowing that even if you have disagreed, the love is always present.

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