Being people friendly helped me get the position

I have been working in one of the most technical industries [IT] for over 12 years. I’ve observed and experienced firsthand how being able to deal competently with people gives you an edge. I’ve also spent the last few years deliberately improving my life. One aspect of this process has been overcoming my shyness. And overall, this has improved my self-esteem and self-confidence.

When I had a job interview in July 2015, I was a different person than in 2010 when I got my previous position. With my improved set of interpersonal skills I was able to navigate the recruitment process more effectively. My professional skills had not improved as much in the past five years, but I was able to impress my new employer with my new found self-confidence. I was hired for a team leader position even though I had no relevant experience.

This is the natural order of things. A job interview is a process too condensed for anyone to be able to check your knowledge thoroughly, especially when someone is hired for a technical position. Also, people from HR departments always have a say in the hiring process. For them, it’s important how a candidate behaves; how firm is his handshake, does he smile, was he on time and other such small but relevant details.

These assessments, and other, similar nuances during an interview have very little to do with how the new employee will handle his technical duties. You can learn from my experience: your people skills will multiply your technical skills and experience during the hiring process. This means that even if your technical skills are just ‘average’, you may make a better impression during a job interview than an introverted ‘expert’ who clearly feels uncomfortable in such situations. I can imagine that the importance of people skills only increases when it comes to non-technical positions.

But getting hired is only the opening of a door. Once employed, you show yourself to be a better worker, if your communication skills are better. Your people skills determine in a big way your chances for career advancement and a salary raise. Compared to an introverted genius, you simply know how to show up on the radar of your managers and how to conduct a conversation with them about a salary raise when the right time comes.

Here’s a handful of the most impactful people skills

Conversing

So many people have trouble with this basic human communication tool. Introverts—roughly half the population—like to be left alone. The other half of the population loves the sound of their voice all too much.

The most important conversation subskill is active listening: asking questions and listening to answers, instead of preparing your own lines while paying little attention to what the opposite person in saying. It’s great for introverts, because it’s less taxing for them. It’s beneficial for extroverts who tend to talk too much and think too little about the viewpoints being expressed by others. Conversation skills can be developed. Are you a shrinking violet [like I was a few years back]? Then begin by making eye contact and smiling at others.

Negotiation

This skill is part of not only business life, but social life in general. You can bully your kids a few times into doing household chores, but it is so much better to negotiate some ‘deal’ with them.

I restrict my teenagers’ time in front of the computer; their machines are password protected. They know that they have to keep order in their rooms, help with chores and do their schoolwork. I’ll only type in the password once they have contributed as we’ve agreed.

Persuasion

Many times there is no clear “something for something” situation, but you need the final output nonetheless. Persuasion is also a universal tool, for work, business and family life. People work much better when they are convinced they’ve chosen their path themselves and were not forced into it. A leader needs sometimes to exercise persuasion, but not manipulation. There is a thin line between the two and it takes empathy and emotional intelligence to recognize on which side you stand. A manager isn’t effective without being a leader as well. It takes so much less effort when people follow you willingly, instead of waiting to be coerced into action

Appreciation

Speaking of “working better,” do you know the number one motivating factor for employees? It’s appreciation of their work.

The same goes with parenting. I know all too well, that physical and social evolution has primed me to search for my children’s faults and correct their ways. It was natural in prehistoric times, when humans lived in caves and dangers were all around. If you didn’t protect kids from their mistakes, their errors could prove fatal to them. So pointing out their mistakes comes naturally to us. However, praising and appreciating them may require a conscious effort. This applies are work place too. Look for the good things in people and communicate it to them.

Integrity

Integrity is a private and internal quality, yet simultaneously it is the ultimate people skill that binds all the others. Integrity breeds trust. When people trust you, arguments are fewer, persuasion is easier and when you praise them, they know you mean it. Integrity is saying what you think, and doing what you say. It’s very easy to start cultivating it, even if you have zero inclination to be social. You don’t need to reach out to others, either; integrity starts in your own bubble.

Keep your promises, especially those made to yourself. Let your actions follow your declarations. You don’t need to toot your own horn; people notice integrity when it shows up.

Conclusion

If you want to develop people skills, start studying them. And then dedicate yourself to practice. It’s well worth the effort.

The post Do you have these 5 essential people skills? appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

The tragedy is that despite knowing this fundamental truth, we continue to allow this turgid emotion to rule and destroy our lives. We allow our anxieties and traumas to keep us away from happiness, bliss and joy. We allow the decimation of celebration and laughter from our very existence.

Why do we do that?

The simple answer is ignorance. Ignorance of what causes stress in the first place. Not being aware of the root causes of anxiety, we continue to live a life of mindlessness and neglect. These are the principal causes of one of the biggest killers ever known to mankind.

In my Kundalini yoga classes, which deal primarily with the elimination of negative emotions and blockages, I have seen numerous souls easily reconnect with their inner vibrations and blossom like flowers from a bud. All by simply following a few basic principles elucidated below.

Not being aware of the root causes of anxiety, we continue to live a life of mindlessness and neglect

Don’t get attached to the outcome of your actions

When we work hard at something, a project, an examination or in our professional lives, we do it to excel and there is nothing wrong with that. The problem is when we get attached to the outcome of that endeavour.

The best possible reward of doing something is to do it with love and passion. That by itself is immensely satisfying as well as gratifying. It is by attaching ourselves to the applause, success and fame of our actions that we commit the folly that gives rise to that ‘sick feeling in our gut’ when we fail.

Do what you love and love what you do

In keeping with the first principle, it follows that we should do what we love to do. A surprisingly large number of individuals have the luxury of not doing what they don’t love to do. I have known professionals who at the age of 40 and 50 have changed their professions to follow their passions.

A lawyer I know became a professional wildlife photographer. A student of mine gave up her lucrative family business of wealth management to take up painting ceramics, something that she loved since she was a child. These are examples of just two beautiful souls who decided to take charge of their lives and not be governed by their fears and insecurities. To live happily ever after!

The best possible reward of doing something is to do it with love and passion

Decode the Matrix

Know this—this life as we know it isn’t real. We are trained from our very childhood to fail and to be unhappy. We are taught to love success, fame, achievement and greatness. The most important thing that we are never taught is how to be happy.

The Hollywood movie The Matrix is a perfect portrayal of this problem.

This life is structured to be controlled by a few who get richer as you grow unhappier. I have a friend who owns 16 Birkin bags and the unhappier she gets the more she shops. [The price range for a Birkin is $10,500 to $150,000—that’s between six and 95 lakhs a bag!]

The day I became happy in my life, I stopped shopping. I did not need anything at all to make me happy. I was already there.

This illusion and fake world that has been created for us has to be left behind to pursue a world of beauty, nature, music and love.

It is only the latter that can get us to shed our anxious, unhappy and stressful lives and allow us to live a life of bliss and joy.

Stop lying

Every time we lie, we create the vibration that is going to cut into our aura. Each time a truth is violated, we take a step closer to stress. Radiant people who have a glowing aura are remarkably truthful and honest people who do not lie, cheat or hurt anyone by their words or actions. The very act of being dishonest makes our subconscious minds hate ourselves and we move a notch lower on the spiritual path.

Integrity on the other hand makes us strong, gives us a powerful aura and blesses us with success and abundance.

The most important thing that we are never taught is how to be happy

Eat well

This cannot be emphasised more upon. You have to understand the relationship between what you eat and what you are. By dumping junk into our body, we allow the rot in our intestines to infect our brains and our thinking patterns. In fact, this is such a huge subject that entire books have been written on it.

Suffice to say that a sattvic and nourishing diet makes you ebullient and optimistic whereas a tamasic and junk food diet paves the way for a depressed and confused state of being.

Sleep well

Probably even more important than eating well is getting our requisite quota of sleep every single day. Sleep deprivation is one of the principle causes of stress and stress-related diseases prevalent today.

Sleep is the time when our body as well as our mind rejuvenates and repairs itself.

Some people believe that only the number of hours that they sleep is important and that their sleep timings don’t matter. They assume that if they go to sleep at the unearthly hour of 4am and wake up at noon the next day, they are fine since they have managed to get eight hours of sleep. Nothing can be further than the truth.

Integrity makes us strong, gives us a powerful aura and blesses us with success and abundance

Our body needs quality sleep, which is best between 9.30pm and midnight. After that, the quality of our sleep changes to being less beneficial and healthy. So the ideal time for you to go to bed is between 9.30 and 10.30pm. The first tangible benefit that you derive from such a practice is that the number of hours you need to sleep goes down. So if you could sleep for 9 hours when you went to sleep at 2am, you may now need only 6 – 7 hours.

The need for quality sleep in our lives cannot be overemphasised. Those who alter their lifestyles to incorporate healthier sleeping patterns shed stress, anxiety and depression to a great extent.

Meditate

If we can learn and train ourselves to cut out the noise, the chatter and the clutter from our minds, we can live better, richer and stress-free lives. The act of sitting silently in meditation has more benefits that can be explained and catalogued.

Meditation heals, de-stresses and creates equilibrium in your mind that is an apt foundation for a perfect life devoid of anxiety and stress.

Meditation re-wires your nervous system back to the state of calm and silence that you are born with. It helps you to connect with your soul and opens your heart to love and joy.

In this busy, dog-eat-dog life of ours, if we can just take 20 minutes to commit ourselves to silence and to travel within, it would be a giant step taken towards peace, calm and serenity in our lives.

Love

This is saving the best for last!

The energy of love and compassion is healing and nourishing for those who are generous with the amount of love they share with others in their lives. Those who love generously and unconditionally are the ones who are radiant, healthy and happy.

Please remember, it is not how many people love you that determines the love quotient of your life. Instead, it is the number of people that you love.

So it is obviously best to open up your heart—to give and share love and when you are done doing that, share some more.

See the difference it makes in your life.

All of the points mentioned above are not meant to be just de-stress mantras that you need to implement to control your blood pressure, cholesterol or your anxiety. Rather, they are pointers to a way of life which is the only way to be. These eight sutras should be inculcated as part of a lifestyle and mindfulness that is not limited to just reducing stress or healing ailments. They should be lived, breathed and spread to not only live a happy life yourself but also bring happiness, cheer and joy to this world.

To make this world a better place to live in.

The post 8 principles for a joyous and stress-free life appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

It seems simple when we see it in other individuals, but everyday, we can all find ourselves doing the same kinds of things out of basic character problems. Here are two most common examples:

• Emotional investment in some other reality
• Fear of dealing with the ramifications

Basic pride, omnipotence, arrogance, grandiosity, or narcissism—this is the person who sees himself as above others, better than everyone else, knowing all things, and in touch with all reality. To admit he is wrong about something does not even come up on the screen.

A truthful orientation

When most people think about being a truthful person, they think of someone who does not lie. And that is true. But that is a very elementary level of being oriented towards the truth. Having a truthful orientation means that one lives in truth, period. It means that they see it, understand it, want it, seek it, and benefit from it. It is holistic, a life about, and “in” the light. Ultimately they succeed because that is where the good stuff is, in reality, instead of fantasy or deception. If you want love, you have to find “real” love, not fantasy love. If you want success, you have to find “real” success, not pipe dreams. So, real fulfillment only comes to those who live in reality. And that is a lot more than just “not lying.”

But… we have to start there. No one who is an intentional liar ever discovered deeper reality. So, if you want to have the kind of character that succeeds, you must put all deception away from you, in any form.

Usually, the consequences of lying are worse than whatever was lied about. When people are honest about what is wrong, it is usually fixable, but the covering up is what ultimately does them in.

When people are honest about what is wrong, it is usually fixable, but the covering up is what ultimately does them in

Whatever the fears or reasons, it is about someone’s basic makeup. An orientation to the truth is a stance that people take in life. It is the way that they are on the planet or, as existentialists said, their way of “being in the world”. They lean into the truth and reality as a direction of life, the way a compass points north. It is the way they are.

This seeking of truth tends to be balanced in three directions, also. First, they seek it about the external world. They want to know what is true around them, in their company, in the market and in the universe. They want to be intimate with the ways that things are. They know that that is the only way to ultimately succeed, and they have given up the pride of “already knowing what is” in exchange for the profit of finding out what truly is.

As Peter Drucker says in The Daily Drucker: “One constant theme is, therefore, the need for the decision maker in the individual enterprise to face up to reality and resist the temptation of what ‘everybody knows’, the temptations of the certainties of yesterday, which are about to become the deleterious superstitions of tomorrow. To manage in turbulent times, therefore, means to face up to new realities. It means starting with the question: ‘What is the world really like?’ rather than with the assertions and assumptions that made sense only a few years ago’”

Second, they seek this kind of feedback about themselves. They don’t only wait for others to give them feedback, they also go after it themselves. They desire it and see it as an opportunity to grow.

I was doing an executive retreat one time with a small group of CEOs who had gathered for three days to process things. One of them was an up-and-comer in the industry, a rising star. The rest of the group had been around longer and were much more experienced. On the first night, they all went around the group and shared where they were, what they were up to, how they were doing it, and what they needed from the group.

When he finished, one of the more experienced guys looked up and said, “Want some feedback?” He said it in a way that led you wondering whether he was going to give sage advice or rail at the young man for being out to lunch in some way. There was just no way to tell from his poker face. But I will never forget the young superstar’s immediate response: “By all means. Give me a gift.” He saw the feedback, whatever it was, as a gift because it could give him some reality he did not know. I remember thinking, “We will be watching this guy’s accomplishments for a long time.”

Seeking reality, not flattery

The good ones want to know the reality of who they are and are in tune with the fact that we do not see ourselves accurately. They “seek” out this knowledge in a variety of ways. Some commission 360-degree feedback projects to see how they are doing. Others submit themselves to a mentor, accountability group, therapist, or someone else who has a good view of them. But, when they do, they are not looking for flattery. They are looking for reality. They ask others to tell them what they see.

If you want to know your comfort level in this matter, think of going to the people you are close with and give them 100 per cent permission to be totally honest with you in answering this question:

“What is it like to be on the other side of me?”

Some of you will get exhilarated at the prospect of finding out more about themselves, while other will get nervous even at the idea. The one who is a seeker is usually excited by the prospect, seeing that kind of reality as a friend. Even if it means facing up to some painful news, he or she sees the result as a positive one.

Only through finding out this kind of reality do we know our true strengths and weaknesses. Top performers rely on such knowledge. They major in their strengths and protect themselves from their weaknesses. But without knowing the reality about ourselves, we often don’t even know what those are. And knowing one’s strengths and weaknesses can be the difference between success and failure.

The swimmers are the ones who know themselves accurately and can build on that knowledge. They can utilise their strengths and manage their weaknesses. In my view, these kinds of weaknesses are not character issues, but areas of non-giftedness. Character is always to be both managed and “fixed”. But all along that path, we are growing toward wholeness; we really need to know the truth of “what is”. The more we know about ourselves, the stronger our position.

Less self-awareness = more dysfunction

When you think about it, it is the people who have little self-awareness who are the most dysfunctional. It is a paradox of life that the less we look at our shortcomings, the more others do. The extent that we are in denial is usually the extent to which others are staring at us, saying, “What is his [or her] problem?” The less we look at ourselves, the more others have to.

The extent that we are in denial is usually the extent to which others are staring at us, saying, “What is his [or her] problem?”

The key here, though, is that human nature is to “not look”. From the fig leaf in the story of the Garden of Eden, to Freud’s concepts of the “false-self,” hiding the truth from ourselves is a trait of humanity that no one really disputes. As Shakespeare put it, “The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool” [As You Like It]. The fool is out of touch, not only with his own foolish parts, or “weaknesses”, but with his strengths as well. The natural human tendency is to not face ourselves as we really are. But, a wise person with wisdom as a character trait does face himself or herself.

Herein lies the problem: If we delude ourselves, how then shall we see ourselves, since the “observer [us] is deluded? The answer is in this character trait of “seeking” truth from outside. The most successful and the happiest people always ask. They hire people to help them see it. They have friends who ask the hard questions. They value feedback from others about themselves, even when it is hard to hear. They know they have blind spots that others need to point out to them. For instance, it’s possible you may see yourself as shy, but from the perspective of others you are seen as aloof, or disengaged. Until you seek out information from a different perspective, you will not receive information like this and will continue living unaware.

What do you fear about your character?

If we are afraid of the truth about ourselves and have a character “stance” to hide, then we are headed in the wrong direction, away from reality. Think of the character issues that get in the way and create this kind of fear:

• Fear of seeing that I am wrong or have faults that are ugly. Those lead to guilt, or fears that I may lose love, approval or standing, with the people I care about.
• A fixed view of myself from past experience, either positive or negative. Our early relationships give us a view of who we are, and to look at new input means challenging those views, which leads to anxiety.
• A lack of skill or resources to deal with what I find. If I open Pandora’s box, what will I do with it?
• A need for a total redo of a life plan or script. What if my parents made me believe that I was gifted in some area or should be able to do so and so, and the reality is that I am not? Now what? Or if this was my own dream, but I am out of touch with my true areas of giftedness?

The character who seeks reality about himself or herself has the courage to embrace whatever reality he finds. When we talk about “character that meets the demands of reality”, part of that is meeting the demand of the truth about ourselves. The promise of that pain is that when we do that, we can meet the demands of the external world even better. The one who is true about himself or herself is the one who is most able to negotiate things outside of himself or herself as well.

The last 10 per cent

There is a wellness organisation in Chicago, IL that was studied by Harvard Business School as a result of it’s incredible growth culture. From small beginnings, it has now become one of America’s largest wellness centres, with over twenty thousand attendees, and its leadership conferences have been host of presidents as well as highly esteemed business leaders in America. If you spend much time working in their culture, you will hear the phrase “give me the last 10 per cent.” That means they know three things.

First, people tend to hold back on feedback that might be difficult for someone to hear and do not always express their full critique of someone’s performance. They might, for example, say, “It was OK, not your best, but OK.” But the part they are holding back, the last 10 per cent, is “OK, if I am totally honest, you need to go back to the drawing board and start over.” Or: “Before you ever do that again, get some help.”

Second, we need the last 10 per cent to be the best that we can be. I am convinced that one aspect of their huge success in reaching their goals has been to develop a culture of characters who desire to hear the last 10 per cent.

To do that requires characters hungry for the truth. Not only negative, but positive and neutral as well. The real issue here is that character of integrity has a hunger, an appetite, to know the truth about itself. And that has to come from reaching out to outside sources and being open to hearing it.

Sometimes it is even positive. Sometimes people ward off positive reality about themselves because it would mean a lot to take responsibility for. “You have some gifts and some abilities that you have not been using, and we are going to promote you to head a division” may be frightening news for some. And they might ward it off or not see it, unless it breaks through from the outside. Left to their own self-appraisal, they may never take the growth step needed to become the person they can be. We avoid the truth sometimes in both directions, positive and negative. The winners seek both, even the kind that would stretch them out of their comfort zone.

And third, they seek the truth about other people. Not only do we avoid seeing the reality about ourselves, but also sometimes because of past experience, and sometimes to keep our own internal stability we do not see others in the reality of who they are. Many problems in life come from our inability to accurately see other people. From the lonely individual who falls in love with a nutcase, even when his or her friends are saying, “What are you thinking?” to people who make bad hires in business or forge bad partnerships, our tendency to distort others is a big part of how we run into trouble.

Sometimes because of past experience, and sometimes for our own stability, we do not see others in the reality of who they are.
Many problems in life come from this inability

Why we distort others

We typically do it for a few reasons that have to do with our makeup.

The first reason is that we are blind to correctly seeing others who somehow remind us of unresolved figures from our past. You have heard this referred to as transference. It is our tendency to see others through the lens of people from previous experience. In a good way, it can cause us to be more attuned to things that others might miss, in that we can be vigilant in seeing hurtful patterns that we may have grown up with. But, if we have never worked those through, it can cause us either to be blind to them or to overreact when we are faced with them.

Almost everyone can relate to this experience, in that we have more difficulty with a certain kind of person than others. Yes, other people may just experience that person as having a quirk and are able to work around it. But it gets us off course because of unresolved hurt or issues with a person like that from our history.

Second, we distort them out of our own needs. Imagine the lonely person who needs a relationship so badly that anyone looks good. Or, if we are feeling overwhelmed, for example, we might idealise people who present a lot of strength. They give us a secure feeling in all of the chaos. What we miss is that they might be bulldozers and insensitive to people’s needs. The love for the strength wears off and we are left with a jerk. Or, the opposite can happen. If you have recently been through a period of getting beat up by the bulldozers, then you are really drawn to a person with some sensitivity. But, you miss the fact that in their niceness they are overly passive, and you lose respect for them soon after the initial relief wears off.

Third, we distort them sometimes because we are not in touch with something about ourselves. I remember a client of mine one time just railing on irresponsible people and deceivers. They just drove him crazy. And some of the people he would label that way were really not that bad. They might have a few quirks, but they were not irresponsible or deceptive. But he labelled them that way. I remember thinking that he was seeing them in such a distorted way, and yet when I would confront him on it, he would have nothing to do with what I was saying.

After a while, though, others who worked around him came forward with some truth about him that he has not been disclosing: He was not paying attention to many of his responsibilities and was deceiving people all along the way into thinking things that were misinterpretations. In psych parlance, he was “projecting”. He was projecting onto others what he was blind to in himself. As a result, he was not seeing reality in them and was missing a lot of good people along the way. He could not see their good parts because he was projecting onto them his own faults.

I remember one leader who was about to give away the store to hire a guy because of this guy’s “amazing strengths” in a particular area. When I interviewed the second guy as part of coaching him, I could not believe how the leader had idealised this guy’s strengths. He was nowhere near as awesome as my client has described him to be. But what was more surprising was that the very abilities that my client was seeing in this guy and was about to pay dearly for, were abilities that he himself had, but could not own. They were not part of his self-image. He projected his own strengths onto this other guy because he was not owning them. He did not need to hire him at all. He needed to see that he was capable of doing everything he was about to hire someone to do. He needed to take a growth step past that self-image that he had developed in a relationship with a father and a brother who always put him down.

Immature people put themselves, others and the outside world into categories of “all good” or “all bad.” As a result, they cannot negotiate reality very well. If someone fails them, or they fail themselves, they see that person or themselves as “all bad.” They do not see the person’s strengths or value. So, they miss out on that person and on resolving the relationship. They label a child the “black sheep” of the family, or see an employee in a negative light instead of being redemptive.

Likewise, the opposite is true as well. They get enamoured with a person, idolise that person, and cannot see their faults. So, they can get into trouble by avoiding negatives and being blind. They can do the same thing about a deal that they fall in love with, not seeing the problems or the downside, and then disaster comes and the investment is lost.

Be a seeker of reality

In contrast, people of integrated character tend to delude themselves less about others. They see the world in a balanced way. They understand that all people, even the best ones, are not perfect, and can deal with them and help them. They have worked through their own issues and distortions about other people to a degree that they can see pretty clearly. And, as a part of that, they seek to know more. Wise people are “cautious in friendship”, as the proverb says. They seek to get to know a person clearly, as the person truly is, before they hire him, marry him, become partners with him, or divorce him, fire him, or not go forward with him.

People of integrated character tend to delude themselves less about others. They see the world in a balanced way

We can be off in either direction, and the complete character is always asking, “Is this me, or him?” They are checking to see where the perception is coming from and trying to find out what is true. We have all heard both “I underestimated her” or “I overestimated her”. People who have integrated their character tend to do both of those less because they are seekers of reality and desire to see it, even if it is going to be uncomfortable or make them deal with some things.

Remember, reality is the only place where we can succeed. The rest is fantasy. So the challenge is to find reality, always, no matter what the cost. Build into life the kinds of feedback loops with others that will tell you the truth. Evaluate your performance in a 360 degree fashion. And, always study and learn about the world you are trying to operate in, instead of assuming you know.

The post How living with integrity can transform your life appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

During a senior management meeting of a multinational corporation, the executives were encouraged to ask questions and share their views. Akhilesh Kumar, the head of supply chain, raised his hand and volunteered to share some of his views on various aspects that were discussed in the meeting.

After the meeting, Akhilesh went to meet Manav Behl, the CEO, and asked him what he thought of his comments and whether it was appropriate of him to have raised them in the forum. Manav told him the truth—that although the content of his message was relevant and his views were valid, the way he had conveyed them was a little negative. Akhilesh didn’t take kindly to this feedback and told Manav that henceforth he will simply keep his opinions to himself because it seems that the management didn’t really care about his viewpoint.

Most of us prefer to avoid reality, much less seek it proactively. How often, instead of welcoming insight about ourselves, we treat it as a reason to feel offended? Rather than viewing it as an opportunity to look within and see if we need to change something about our attitude or behaviour, we consider negative feedback as criticism that is best avoided. Many a relationship—personal and professional—go sour due to such poor response to sincere feedback. On the other hand, positive feedback too is viewed either suspiciously or not given much importance because we prefer to live in the bubble of perceptions we have created for ourselves.

But not actively seeking and receiving feedback constructively keeps us from those truths about ourselves which only others can see and point out. And unless we see ourselves—our strengths, our weaknesses—without bias, we will not be happy.

In this month’s lead story, a clinical psychologist tells you why proactively seeking reality can help you expand your awareness about yourself, others and your world. Dr Henry Cloud, best-selling author and acclaimed leadership expert, tells us that armed with this heightened awareness, we can improve all aspects of our lives. Using examples of real people, he illustrates how seeking honest feedback from others is the key to success and happiness. “The good ones want to know the reality of who they are and are in tune with the fact that we do not see ourselves accurately. They ‘seek’ out this knowledge in a variety of ways,” says Dr Cloud as he explains that integrity is all about wanting to know the truth, no matter what the cost.

I find Dr Cloud’s ideas thought provoking; they have made me reflect on my attitude towards the feedback that I receive from others. Also, I have begun to see tremendous value in actively seeking out reality as I am sure you will too, once you finish reading the cover story.

I encourage you to put what you’ve learned into practice right away, like I am doing now by urging you to send me an honest feedback about how we’re doing at Complete Wellbeing and how we can improve. I’ll be grateful for your efforts and your insights.

Write to me directly at ma**********@***************ng.com

The post April 2016 issue: Seeking reality appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

His interview coach helped him script his story to make his work history look much stronger and coherent. They crafted perfect albeit not-quite honest responses to the most likely interview questions. He memorised them and then practised giving the answers in a way that didn’t reveal that they were prepared in advance. He and his coach worked all the way down to deliberately inserting “ums…” to make Rahul’s answers seem natural. The coach video-recorded his performances and gave Rahul feedback on when he wasn’t sounding natural or otherwise could polish his act.

Desperate jobseekers

When you really want a job, it’s tempting to do whatever it takes to sell the employer on you. In such a situation, it’s difficult to remain ethical and rational and think, “I’ll reveal my real self—beauty marks, warts and preferences alike—so the right employer will say yes.” But disclosing that ethical rationality is what I’m asking, no, begging of you to do.

You must think of your role in a job interview this way: You’re trying to facilitate a wise match between the employer and candidate.

Your obligation to be ethical

Why an obligation? First, you do have an obligation to yourself. If you accept a job for which you’re a poor fit, you’re more likely to be unhappy, unsuccessful or even fired. And then you have to explain to subsequent prospective employers why you were dumped.

I recall a woman who was eager to work for a website that aggregated articles for women over 50. A job in that company’s IT department became available and although her IT experience was very light, she applied, exaggerating her IT competence. She prepped very hard to sound perfect in the interview and got the job. She struggled on the job, indeed screwing up the website on a number of occasions. Finally, six months later, she crashed the entire site, at which point she was fired. That’s when she came to me for career counselling. She had had quite a time trying to explain her previous six months to prospective employers.

You also have an obligation to others; for example, to the more worthy applicant that would be denied the job. So many of my clients experience righteous indignation when they learn of far less competent people getting hired for a job while they, having searched honourably for a job, sit unemployed.

Then there’s the obligation the job seeker has to that prospective employer and the co-workers who would be saddled with a worse employee than necessary. Imagine you were that boss and you later found out that the candidate you hired had been less than honest in his interview, and you had plenty of other candidates you could have chosen.

And you have an obligation to society, too. When a wrong employee is hired, the company’s customers might, at least in a small way, have to endure worse products or services. Just think of how you feel when you must deal with an incompetent sales or customer service person.

And, although this is an abstract concept, you also have an obligation to the cosmos—to do that which serves justice.

Ask the right questions

To facilitate a good match being made between employer and employee, ask questions early on in the interview such as, “In the end, what will be key to doing this job well?” If the employer’s answer makes you doubt you’re the right person, you have an obligation to explain the basis for your doubt. For example, if the employer makes it clear that the ability to troubleshoot Oracle’s multiplatform supply-chain software is a big part of the job, then you should ask what’s involved and then explain what you know solidly, what you may be able to muddle through and what you would need to learn from scratch.

Of course, some keys to being a well-suited employee go beyond the hard skills and even the intelligence to do the job. Success often depends on the employee’s personality matching with the boss’s and workgroup’s style. Let’s say you’re laid-back, work slowly and steadily, and prioritise work-life balance with an emphasis on the ‘life’ part. You’d obviously be a poor fit for the typical high-tech company in which long, hard-driving workweeks are expected. So, in the interview, you must ask questions like, “Tell me a little about the organisation’s work culture. What are the working hours like, how much training and feedback is given, how autonomous do you expect employees to be, how central is teamwork?”

I, for instance, dislike being on teams—I must force myself to not dominate. I also get impatient with low-performing team members. So, if I were looking for a job, I’d stipulate up-front that I enjoy and do well when given even an intellectually demanding project with a tight deadline that I can tackle by myself but that I’m typically unhappy when the work is mainly to be done as a team.

What about your career wart?

What if you have a career wart that would likely eliminate you immediately from consideration? Case in point, what if you’ve had a gap in employment bigger than the Taj Mahal? Make that evident in your application but if you haven’t, mention it at the beginning of the interview—get the bad news out of the way early. Say something like, “If that’s a deal killer, I wanted to let you know now before we waste each other’s time.”

I’d make a similar disclosure if I had a handicap that would require the employer to make significant accommodations or tolerate something that would impede my performance.

Or in an extreme example, let’s say I just spent the last five years in prison for robbery. If I disclose that, even with a compelling promise to be committed to an ethical life and  that I’m willing to start at the bottom, most employers will reject me. But a right one, a person who perhaps himself has been given a second chance, will hire me. And that’s the sort of person I want to work for anyway.

In sum, many employers will reject you for your honesty, but a right one will consider you. It’s worth taking longer to find a job in exchange for landing one based on legitimacy than on deceit.

How answering honestly is both ethical and pragmatic

Integrity is also important when answering questions. If you don’t know an answer, rather than lying, say so. That yields pragmatic as well as ethical benefit. Not only does that show you’re honest and comfortable enough in your skin to admit not knowing something, your brief answer [“I don’t know”] results in a larger proportion of the interview spent talking about what you do know than about what you don’t.

How to end an interview?

At the end of the interview, it’s often wise to ask, “So, based on what I’ve said—and as I think you can tell—I’ve tried to be scrupulously honest in my answers—do you think I’d do a good job in this position?” That encourages the employer to raise an objection, which you may or may not be able to counter. In either case, it facilitates both of you making a wise decision: whether s/he should offer you the position and whether you should accept it.

Job interview as first date

Think of your job interview not as a sales pitch but rather as a first date. You’re both trying to figure out if you should get involved with each other.

Thinking in the cosmic scheme of things

There is one other motivator for maintaining integrity as the number one priority. The employer will likely be impressed with your candour, an attribute that is all too rare, and so will believe your claims of strengths. As a result, if you don’t get that job, when a more appropriate position becomes available within that company or at another one that the employer knows about it, you’ll likely be seriously considered and more likely to be successful at that job.

And that’s not only to your betterment but also to that of your employer, co-workers, and customers. Besides, it’s good karma.

 This was first published in the March 2015 issue of Complete Wellbeing.

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