How To Communicate For Impact

ASSERTIVE COMMUNICATION
written by Ishola Ayodele (ANIPR)

Assertive communication is the ability to honestly express your thoughts, opinions, feeling, attitudes and rights with confidence in a manner that doesn't infringe on the right or honour of others.

This should not be confused with aggression.

Aggression: This involves
1. Forcing your opinions on others.
2. Bullying people to move in your direction.
3. Only your need matters.
4. always having it your way.
5. Becoming offensive when you realised you are holding unpopular view.
6. Always involve in win-lose relationship with others.
7. Always viewing your opinion is superior to others.
8. Always wanting to be understood without actually listening to what others are trying to pass.
9. Rooted in pride.

Assertiveness involves
1. Sincerely expressing your needs in a respectful way.
2. Considering the need of others as well as yours.
3. Communicating your thoughts, opinions or feeling clearly and honestly.
4. Accepting fault when you are guilty.
5. Willingness to drop your views or opinions for a more correct or update ones.
6. Always seeking first to understand the others' view before trying to be understood.
7. Focusing on problems and not position.
8. Always seeking a win-win situation when dealing with others.
9. Rooted in principle for right, justice and equity.

To be continued
Next will be looking at
1. Passive aggression
2. Barriers to communication.
3. Effective communication skills and strategies.

For more insightful thoughts and mind probing information visit
http://isholamindresources.blogspot.co.ke/?m=1

Please Click on post a comment box below to share your thoughts with me.

Ishola Ayodele is a Public Relations practitioner and a member of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations. 

He offers the following services for Large Corporations, SMEs and Individuals 

Result Driven Communication, 

Effective Crisis Communication,

Political Communication, 

 Reputation and Image management, 

WhatsApp 08077932282

When to Stop Being and Start Doing

THE HUMAN BEING SYNDROM
   (THE PRINCIPLE OF TAKING PURPOSEFUL ACTION)

I believe you are a human being, aren’t you?
Do you know what?

I am not a human being, All the achievers the world has ever known were not human beings as well.

I know this may sound weird to you and you may probably think I’m joking but you can bet your life I am dead serious and I mean every word I said because if not for my not being a human being I wouldn’t have been who I am today.

Let me break it down for you, you see the term ‘HUMAN BEING was only
appropriate to refer to mankind when Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden.

Then God provided them with everything they needed and all they were doing was being (that is existing) but after they had eaten the forbidden fruit and was sent out of the garden of Eden, they started doing things like vending for food, seeking shelter and looking for things to cover their nakedness.

They were not just existing or being any more but were actually seriously working for survival, they were not just being but doing. In essence, they were no more ‘human being’ but ‘human doing’.

And ever since then a man’s success has always been a product of his own
perspiration. A farmer must sow to reap, a man must work to earn, a man must give to get, every woman must go through the pain of child labour to enjoy the joy of motherhood.

In conclusion, to be successful in life you must stop just being a human being
 and become a full blown ‘human doing’

Let me ask you a question,

From the amount of information you have gotten so far, do you think or belief you are going to be successful with your biz or talent?

Will you like me to be candid with you?

The fact of life is that “everybody cannot be successful”.

What this implies is that it is not everyone that will be successful, this is not a curse but the truth of life.

However, it is also a great truth of life that “Anybody can be successful”. What this also implies is that anybody can be successful if he/she desires.

In case you don’t know, the difference between the everybody that cannot be
successful and the anybody that can be successful is nothing but the determination and persistence with which you act on all the information you have gotten here as your success in life or business does not depend on the amount of information you have but what you do with it.

I want you to know that it is not enough to stare up the stairs you must step up the stairs. Have you ever seen a man that climbs a mountain by just looking at the it?

Take action, I repeat take action and not just any action but a purposeful and useful action because the principle of Action states that “ Action will always be taken either consciously or unconsciously”

Even an idle man has taken an action to do nothing, a man who is not busy
working on his success is inevitably busy working on his failure.                        
This is the reason a philosophy like “ a man who fail to plan, plans to fail” is an
eternal truth.

 So, you see at every point in your life an action will always be taken by you but that is no more the question, the question will always be “Is this action leading to your life and business success or your failure and doom?”.

I hope you understand why you have to take a purposeful and useful actions now.

So, think creatively to produce an innovative product or service that will fill the need of the people or device a unique marketing strategy to sell a particular product or service, which serves the need of the people.

I can’t but call your attention to this wonderful product, which is the secret
of all the millionaires the world has ever known. This product is also creating millionaires out of some people as I am talking to you right now.

No body, I repeat nobody who ever engages in the sales of this product ever
dies poor. This product was what Michael Jackson, Michael Jordan, Bill Gates, Jimoh Ibrahim, Sony Ojaejbese, Ubong Essien and even I sold to become millionaires. This is the product I have also sold to lift myself out of the abject
poverty into which I was born.

Will you like to know this almighty product?

If you will like to know it let me see you rise to your feet. Tell the person on
the right “this product is mine for the taking”, turn to the person on left
and tell him or her “this product shall make me the next millionaire”
And indeed, there is no aota of doubt that this product will make you a millionaire.

Sit now and give me your total attention and concentration as I unravel to you this divine product, which you cannot find anywhere because it resides in you. This product is not produce by any company in the world but your company. But I don’t have a company you may think?

The fact is that you are created with your own company and all you need to
do is to discover your product and start producing. In case you don’t know you were created with your product and that product is what I prefer to call
“divine gift” which other people call talent or potentials.
   
It is one thing that you are gifted at, one thing you can do better than other
things. That particular thing that you can never get bored of doing even if
you don’t get paid for it. I call it divine gift because it is uniquely yours, it
suits your physical, mental and spiritual nature.

And it also holds the key to your unlimited financial success. If only you will look deep into your passion to discover this divine gift. A copy of my book titled “AWAKENING THE GENIUS IN YOU” will help you to discover, develop and will also exposes you to how you can polish, packaged and market this your divine gift successfully.

With your divine gift well packaged, everyone will buy from you whether
directly or indirectly because you don’t need permission to sell your creativity in as much as you have not violated the right of others.

See, the sales of your divine gift has been ordained by your creator because if you don’t have anything to offer to the world you will not have been born in the first place.

The fact that you were born is a testimony that your creator who gave you the product has already mandated the world to patronize you if only you will choose to sell this product.

Joshua’s product was ability to interpret dreams and he sold it to wealth.

Bill Gate’s product was computer software and he sold it to become one of the richest man on earth.

Michael Jackson’s product was pop music and he sold it to affluence.

Oprah Winfred’s product was talk show and she sold it to become one of the
richest woman on earth.

Thomas Edison’s product was invention and he produced so much that one
sixth of the American population was employed for the mass production of
his inventions.

Professor Wole Soyinka’s product was literature and he sold it to
international honour and laurel,

Aliku Dangote’s product was business and he has produced so many that he
has become the second largest employer of labour in Nigeria second only to the federal government of Nigeria.

Jay-jay Okocha’s product was football and he sold it with so much dexterity
that we have found it difficult to find a replacement for him.

Ubong Essen’s product was motivational speaking and he sold it to million.

My own product is writing and speaking and I am presently selling it to so many people that I have started counting millions.

Your own product also resides in you and it could be anything but what I
know for sure is that it will certainly make you a millionaire if you choose to
sell it because if you discover and express your divine gift, it will express
you and the world will build an expressway to your door step to express their interest to pay you.
Remember this always

“What you think, know or
belief counts for nothing what
count most is, what you do”

Please click the post a comment box below to share your thoughts with me. Thanks

Ishola Ayodele is a Public Relations practitioner and a member of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations.

He offers the following services for Large Corporations, SMEs and Individuals

Result Driven Communication,
Effective Crisis Communication,
Effectual Political Communication,
Reputation and Image management,
And Impactful Presentation Coaching.

He can be reached on 08077932282
WhatsApp 08077932282,
BBM 58ED6030,
twitter handle @ishopr 

An Habit To Avoid

MULTITASKING

How we do more, Achieve less and Damage Our Brain                        

  Ishola Ayodele (ANIPR)

What is multitasking?

Multitasking is the act of performing more than one task at the same time. That doing a task while simultaneously doing another task.

Although, some people mostly ladies and women would claim they are capable of actually multitasking especially during cooking. This is wrong assumption as what most ladies or women do during cooking is performing a task within the break of another task.

For instance, 

While waiting for the water to boil she is washing the fish.

Multitasking would be for her to pound the yam while stirring the soup at the same time.

In essence, when someone does two things that require different attention at the same, we say “he/she is multitasking”

For instance,

Chatting while having a conversation, 

Reading while chatting or conversing, 

Driving while chatting, 

Having a conversation while browsing, 

Reading while watching TV, 

Listening to lecture while listening to music, 

Watching TV while listening to Radio or reading a magazine, 

Playing computer game or phone game while having a conversation, 

Receiving calls while driving, 

Conversing while driving except it is to help the driver with the driving.

Some people will argue that actually they can do two or more tasks at the same time. Research has proven beyond doubt that the brain can’t multitask. What you are doing is switching from one task to the other but because your brain is doing it at a very fast millisecond you get that impression that you are multitasking. Neuroscience had made us realized that, “While the right and left sides of the prefrontal cortex work together when focused on a single task, the sides work independently when people attempt to perform two tasks at once”.

A research at the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM) in Paris led by Neuroscientist Etienne Koechlin discovered this when they asked study participants to complete two tasks at the same time while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

When the scientists told the group they would receive a larger reward for accurately completing one of the two tasks, they found that nerve cell activity increased in only one side of the prefrontal cortex. However, when the greater reward was associated with the other task, the other side became more active. The findings suggest that when there are two concurrent goals, the brain divides in half, says INSERM neuroscientist Etienne Koechlin, who led the study.

Another research by Ophir, Nass, and Wagner discovered that people who reported multitasking more frequently (heavy multitaskers) were actually more prone to being distracted compared to those who reported multitasking less frequently (light multitaskers).

Heavy multitaskers tend to have a hard time filtering out irrelevant stimuli from their environment, and are distracted by the multiple things that they’re trying to allocate their attentions to.

In essence, heavy multitaskers may be “sacrificing performance on the primary task to let in other sources of information” (Ophir, Nass, & Wagner, 2009, p.15585).

What Experts said about Multitasking?

According to Koechlin, “the ease with which we juggle tasks depends on just how engaged the prefrontal cortex is. For instance, natural activities such as eating or walking place less demand on the prefrontal cortex compared with activities like reading or driving. This is why it’s easier to walk while eating”.

Another neuroscientist John Medina said, “When we juggle complex tasks, we are not multitasking. We are simply switching the focus of our attention back and forth between tasks that we are attempting to track. When we switch, our brains must take a moment to reload, remind, and recalculate. In his book “Brain Rules”, he calls this cognitive switching penalty.

A recent Harvard Business Review post said multitasking leads to as much as a 40% drop in productivity, increased stress, and a 10% drop in IQ (Bergman, 2010).

Many studies have found that driving while distracted (being on the phone or texting) is actually more dangerous than driving drunk.

10 Interesting Facts About Multi-Tasking

1. Put simply, multitasking leads to as much as a 40% drop in productivity, increased stress, and a 10% drop in IQ (Bergman, 2010).

2. Your brain is only capable of storing between 5 and 9 bits of info at any given time. If you’re trying to jumble around more, you’re going to get lost somewhere along the way. You’re much better off focusing that attention on 1 or 2 related bits of information.

3. When you are interrupted by a task such as checking your email or someone stopping by to chat, not only are you not multi-tasking but it can take you up to 15 whole minutes to get your mind refocused on a task. This can be not only annoying, but also costly if you’re depending on your ability to focus and get the job done.

4. Perhaps there is no better example as to why multi-tasking can detrimental than to look at driving while distracted. Studies that have been conducted in recent years have found that driving while distracted (on the phone, texting, deep in conversation, etc) is more dangerous than driving while intoxicated (but please don’t do that either!). 

5. The estimated cost of interruptions to the American economy is nearly $650 billion a year. (Jonathan B. Spira, chief analyst at Basex, a business-research firm). 

6. Multi-tasking isn’t impossible however. In fact, there are some people who can actually multi-task effectively. Unfortunately, they only are comprised of 2% of people so the odds are not in our favor.

7. On average, those individuals who use a computer for work (assuming near constant use) are distracted around once every 10.5 minutes. In an 8 hour work day, your average employee might lose up to 2.5 hours to distractions – that’s a lot!

8. Even watching television, which seems like an engrossing activity, 42% of individuals will browse the internet, 29% will talk on their phones, and 26% will text or instant message someone else about an entirely unrelated topic.

9. Although we feel accomplished when we have a tv on, a book open, and are seemingly getting things done, we are actually accomplishing less than if we focused all of our attention to just one of the tasks at hand.

10. For you music lovers out there, don’t worry – Stanford Professor Clifford Nass reassures that “In the case of music, it’s a little different. We have a special part of our brain for music, so we can listen to music while we do other things.”

    

Here 5 dangers of the many dangers of Multitasking

1. Attention spans are decreasing. We have multiple sources of input at any given time. According to one study, there is a tremendous increase in media used. But the increase in media usage—internet, television, video games, smart phones, text messaging, email—decreases the amount of attention paid to each device. 

2. Mental interruptions are increasing. Media’s power to interrupt is growing exponentially. In one study a group of Microsoft workers took an average of 15 minutes to return to serious mental tasks (writing reports or computer code), after responding to incoming email or instant messages. Microsoft researchers were surprised by how easily people were distracted, and how long it took them to get back to the task. If it’s bad at Microsoft then you know it’s having an impact in other organizations.

3. Challenging work is more difficult to continue. The average worker is interrupted four times an hour. The more challenging the work, the less likely they are to go back to it after the interruption. In other words, our most important work is hit the hardest. The effect is the same as a person who goes to work high or drunk, yet thinks they are being productive.

       4. There is a cost when activities              are switched. There is a term called        “switch-cost.” The world of finance           uses this term to describe the                     recovery time associated with each         switch. The same principle applies           in “switch-tasking”. Every time you         switch rapidly between activities             you lose some precious time and               loss of attention. In other words,               there is a switch cost in switch-                 tasking. It might be time, or money,        focus or everything and this add up        to lost in productivity.

    

    Take-Away Message

                                      

Think of attention as the beam of a flashlight. Try as you will, you can never shine the light on two separate objects simultaneously. What you are doing is rapidly switching the beam back and forth between the objects.

1. People who multitask are less productive or efficient than those who simply concentrate on one project a time.

2. We don’t actually “multitask” because our brain simply switches rapidly between handling one task and then another.

3. If this switching from one task to another persists it might lead to an inability to focus on a task as we become easily distracted. 

4. Priorities your tasks and focus on a task at a time.

5. To help you focus you may have an emergency number or email where you can be reached in case of a crisis or urgent and important information. This done you can switch off your telephone. 

6. Simplify your life and your tasks. Do fewer things — better.

 

If this article has helped you in any way please leave a comment by clicking on the post a comment box below.

Ishola Nasirdeen Ayodele is a Public Relations Practitioner, An author and an effective leadership communication coach. 

He is on hand to provide you, your association or business the following beneficial services:

• Effective Communication Strategies for Outstanding leadership success, Unprecedented Political triumph and Exceptional Marketing breakthrough.
• Thought provoking and action propelling motivational speeches.
• Impactful Presentation Coaching. 
• Reputation and Image management. 

For enquires or booking call   08077932282 or  email: isholaayodele77@gmail.com  

           

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