So the latest research shows that the youngest of my generation have now developed a disdain, among other things, for leaving and receiving voicemail. The argument is that the voicemail is time consuming to retrieve, antiquated in general, and really serves no purpose. I couldn’t disagree more. I’ve heard more than one person say that if someone really wants to reach them, they’d know how, ie text, tweet, Facebook message etc. I’ve also heard other millennials say it simply takes too much time and is inconvenient to listen and/or respond. These could all be good arguments if one small fact didn’t exist: the world isn’t filled with just millennials! The fact is that the same marketing strategy does not work for every product in every situation. As an “etiquette guy” I find it distasteful for those I just meet to randomly send text messages. If that mode of communication has been established prior to then I’m fine with it. However, I wouldn’t just meet someone for the first time and then have them start texting me. That’s a more intimate, far less formal manner of communicating that leaves much to be desired in many settings. I went to college with a guy who had one of my all time favorite voicemail recordings: “If you don’t leave a message, you never called.” What about when you’re looking for a job and a potential employer calls and you don’t even know how to check your voicemails! Or one of my biggest pet peeves: a full voicemail box! To me, nothing screams “UNPROFESSIONAL” more than a full voicemail box. What about using voicemail, especially when you leave a well thought out brief and well done message, how it can actually encourage a call back on the other end where maybe there was no intention before. I also don’t know about anyone else, but I still screen many of my calls and I judge the seriousness of the call by one basic criteria: whether the individual leaves a voicemail or not. We must also keep in mind that voicemail is now becoming more and more special, so we can also all use that to our advantage. Remember the days when people...
Read MoreI hear people all the time getting upset when they hear someone was discriminated against because of some external style or fashion or grooming choice that person made. These external styling idiosyncrasies that we all have are just that: choices. There are other deeper more permanent characteristics, that while some may seek a way out (Sammy Sosa), they are with us for life. And there’s no real need to go into those for we have no control over them. But now for my thought. Does having purple hair or wearing bright red tights or a pink suit make you an independent thinker? Or posed another way, what does us wanting to look different have to do with actually being different? After careful study and analysis i.e. writing this, I have come to the personal conclusion that one doesn’t have much to do with the other. In fact, some of the lowest self-esteem owners purposely align themselves with “anti” movements of the world, simply because they want to be associated with something perceived as anti-establishment or anti-conformist, but really are conformists themselves. Conversely, some of the people we can silently judge from afar as being homogenous scaredy-cats are actually free to think and study and muse on many things due to the anonymity their perceived conformity has afforded them. I think this is one of the Lord’s best ironies at work. The current hipster movement is a readily available example of many young people subscribing to a particular style outwardly but not having done the necessary research to determine the underlying beliefs many of the earliest “hipsters” promulgated. If there was a hipster to hipster conversation, some of the hipsters might not make it out alive! The same can be said for some religious dress or those who feel the need to outwardly express themselves through exaggerated garb and bombastic speech. Some of these folks are struggling most with their faith, beliefs and attitudes. Whereas, again, some people who are a bit more reserved on certain topics or a certain manner of outward demeanor might be more fortified in their thinking than casual observers would give credit. Critical thinking and original thought both have their roots, in my opinion,...
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No I’m not going to tell you what my two things were but what I can tell you is that they scared the heebie jeebies out of me. I liked it so much because I knew I needed to do them so badly and procrastinated so much until these two things were ever-present on my to do list and eventually began to scare me. So today I did them. Knocked them right off and it felt so good. This feeling today illustrated a few things to me that I actually already knew, but we tend to forget what’s not happening to us everyday, so we all need a reminder. The first thing is that procrastination is the devil. You can put something off so long you actually start to justify why it’s not that important or why it can wait, until finally it gets pushed off and around so many times we actually decide (after writing it down originally) that it simply does not need to happen. When this happens, a little piece of us dies. A small piece of our goal will never be fulfilled, and this could be deferring our dreams in a worse way than we realize. Therefore, do not procrastinate. Do it right now, and your dreams will thank you. The second thing is that fear is very real. But you can use this fear to actually help guide you to be more productive in your traditional to do lists. Today when I awoke I had a pretty challenging list and, as most people do, I went right for the low hanging fruit, the “easy” items I could’ve easily done later, and in the process, pretty much skipped all the weightiest items. Why? Because they scared me, and I felt it. But today I used that fear factor to literally direct me to exactly what items I needed to rank as A priority (both urgency and importance) and I knocked those out in the first hour. When I tell you my personal confidence in me went through the roof and I ended up having one of my most productive days in sometime, I tell you that is exactly what happened. And to think, it’s all because...
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For many people the act of being ‘nice’, or what is many times perceived as nice, doesn’t come as easily. I hear from people who attend our workshops or who have read my book, that “I’m just not that outgoing or personable” (which usually isn’t true) or from people who might be more outspoken and affable that sometimes “I just don’t feel like being nice today.” Have you felt this way before? I know I have. This is an especially common feeling for those who have a profession or job that keeps them in the spotlight a large portion of the time. It can also be true for those in supervisory or leadership positions. Or you could just be the leader amongst your peer group, the person to whom all others look to for guidance, direction or just the uplifting word when they are feeling down. For this group of people they often ask the question in the title of this piece, “What if I just don’t feel like being nice today??” I’ll answer the question by giving you the one word opportunity that you now have whenever you get this feeling: authenticity. Whenever you don’t feel like putting on the biggest smile, or saying hello with the most oomph that morning, understand that when you own this realization, you are at your most genuine, authentic state. It’s when we deny our feelings that we become disingenuous. It is when we own those feelings that we become authentic. I point to three years ago when my father passed away. It was an extremely tough time for me, and for those who know me personally, know that I wasn’t my normal happy, outgoing, talkative self. I became much more reserved, thoughtful and emotive. So to deny these true and genuine feelings, would have been to deny a part of myself, which is never healthy. Instead of the common “fake it ’til you make it” wisdom, I embraced my somber state, at least for a moment, and in turn, had some of the most meaningful conversations I’ve ever had in my life, sometimes with people I had never had that type of interaction with. Many times being ‘nice’ or its first...
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Every time I go into a fast food joint (which I need to stop altogether anyway) and just observe — everything from the body language of the workers, the cynical dialogue between coworkers to the seeming disdain of the employees every time they take an order — it points to our culture being raised on and sustained through a steady and unnecessary diet of sarcasm. I’m as guilty as the next person of being an avid Seinfeld fan, where so much of the humor is steeped in essentially making fun of the flaws of the next person, to their face, and for some reason expect them to not “get it” has become so prevalent I think it’s actually damaging us. I think so many of the day to day practitioners of this brand of humor actually expect a laugh track to be cued up at their every jabbing quip and sharp retort directed at above mentioned teenage fast food worker, or whoever may have incurred their wrath this particular moment. Where did this come from? What is this hiding? And most importantly, how do we balance ourselves back out and stop thinking it’s so cool to be a jerk. I honestly think that sarcasm is one of society’s most readily accepted and unchallenged defense mechanisms. It’s also one of the most commonly and readily accepted forms of rudeness. It’s also a convenient way to not have to deal with disappointment, frustration or any other normal hurdle, because to seem en vogue with our reaction and appear as if we are unaffected by the very emotions that make us human, is somehow easier. Isn’t it easier, less risky and more comforting by just behaving in an aloof manner? The short-term answer is yes, but what happens as we continue this little act? The short answer to the short-term effect is that we never really open up because we are fearful that some other bottled up, master of sarcasm will make us feel less than for showing we actually really do care about something. Instead of being harsh with each other as human beings, why not commend one another when we take a risk or do something beyond our own...
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[WORDS By: Sadiq Ali] We hear the older generation say all the time, things like “the younger generation doesn’t care” or “these kids today________(insert derisive negative here)” or one of my favorites, “when we were growing up…..”; or many others that point to alternate meanings that equate to a lack of drive, passion, or even intelligence. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The truth is the generation today does not know a world without cloud computing, the internet or iPhones, and they have no interest in nostalgic musings about such a place. I’d actually have to agree. They have more information at their fingertips on an afternoon than, as some noted technology experts have been quoted as saying, all the content created in the history of language prior to about 2005. This means the pool of knowledge that today’s youth can pull from to help form opinions and consequently shape their vantage points is vast, deep and growing by the minute. Someone who has read only 5 books and then is asked to write their own, will undoubtedly create a composite work of those other five books. It is simply the way our brains work. However, if the same person reads 500 books, the laws of mathematics and probabilities dictate the new work will be virtually unrecognizable to the reader as the previous 500 pieces of those other works will have been combined, recombined and then reconnected in new and beautiful ways. This is how I view the youth today. Only again, some experts say they have access to the equivalent of probably 500,000 books and are asked to construct a single volume. The older generation has no clue what the subsequent work is, and in some cases, don’t even know how to open it! How do we reconcile this disconnect of communication, output, generations? I’d start by saying that the issue is not that there is too much information available, because there isn’t. And if anyone believes that now, today, in 2014, just wait because in about 5 years there will be approximately double or triple that, and then in another 2 years double or triple that. Instead, it is my opinion we simply need to suggest, instruct in...
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