VIP LIFESTYLE

A System with People for

Creating Your Ultimate Lifestyle

Eduard Ezeanu
www.PeopleSkillsDecoded.com
Copyright

This book is copyright 2010 with all rights reserved. It is illegal to copy,
distribute, or create derivative works from this book in whole or in part or to
contribute to the copying, distribution, or creating of derivative works of this
book.

Copyright © 2010 Eduard Ezeanu, All Rights Reserved.

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Table of Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Chapter 1: Understanding the Formula . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Chapter 2: Not Letting Others Push You Around . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Chapter 3: Promoting Yourself in a Powerful Way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Chapter 4: Building Strategic Relationships with People . . . . . . . . . . 22

Chapter 5: Taking Things One Step Further . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

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Introduction

What do you want? To have lots of money, to be an expert in your field; to

have charisma? These are all instruments, not ends in themselves.
Although they may not be aware, most people want things like these
because they think these things will get them something else which is very
important to them.

They may want money to do all the stuff they like, they may want expertise
to get respect from others, they may want charisma to have rich social
lives, and so on. This is all part of a much bigger picture: creating an
extraordinary lifestyle. I call it a VIP lifestyle.

What is a VIP Lifestyle

There is no one size fits all, dictionary definition for a VIP lifestyle. Its exact
meaning varies from one person to another, depending on her personality,
tastes and context. A VIP lifestyle is simply what would truly be an
extraordinary lifestyle for you.

There are however common traits that different versions of VIP lifestyles
have. For the vast majority of people, living an extraordinary lifestyle
involves the 3 following things:

• Doing as much as possible of the things they enjoy the most;

• Doing as much as possible of the things they find the most
meaningful;
• Having the resources to pull this off long-term (time, money, vitality,
information etc.).

Just 3 things and endless variations. For some people, a VIP lifestyle
means doing a lot of travelling, seeing new and exciting places; for some
people it means leaving in luxury. For some people, a VIP lifestyle means
meeting new people, having interesting conversations and fun interactions;
for some people it means helping others develop and live better lives.

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Whichever are the specifics of your VIP lifestyle, it is the thing to aim for. It
is the Sun of your universe, around which all the planets revolve. And
choosing the right means to get it, in this largely misguided world, takes a
whole lot of wisdom.

Take a couple of minutes and think: how does your ideal lifestyle look like?
What would you be doing, how would you be living? Be honest with
yourself, think realistically, and think big at the same time.

Whatever your answer is, know that this lifestyle is possible for you.
Ordinary people all over the world are proving this right now, by living the
lives of their dreams.

Who is a VIP

I’m not talking here about movie stars, rock gods, supermodels, billionaires
or world leaders. I’m talking about everyday people, living extraordinary
lives. I’m talking about you and me.

Get this into your head: you are a VIP!

Think about it: what does VIP stand for? Very Important Person. Well, the
most important person in your life is you. How you live, how happy you are,
represent central themes of your existence. If you aren’t treating them like
that, it’s time you start to. This is what makes you, for yourself, a very
important person.

It’s crucial that you get this strong sense of entitlement. This sense that you
deserve a rich, happy and meaningful life, that you deserve an
extraordinary lifestyle. Understanding and assuming this, is the beginning
of creating a VIP lifestyle.

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Chapter 1: Understanding
the Formula

What does it take to have a VIP lifestyle? I’ve always been fascinated by
people who live extraordinary lives. In the last years, I’ve focused on
meeting as many of them as I can, getting to know them, studying them,
sometimes secretly experimenting with them, and understanding them.
Considering these people are scarce, this was a challenge.

There is no simple answer to the question above. I believe that creating a

VIP lifestyle for yourself takes a big dose of confidence, knowing your
strengths, good planning skills, a lot of action and perseverance. But I find
one variable in this equation to be particularly important: having cutting
edge people skills.

Why People Skills

We humans are social creatures. We’ve always lived in some form of

groups, and we now live in a hiper-complex social system. All your actions
will somehow influence others around you, and all their actions will
influence you. The dynamics between you and other people in this system
can be a big wall or a solid bridge in getting to the lifestyle you truly want.

This is why from my perspective, a very big part of creating your ultimate
lifestyle is about communicating and relating to people in a very effective
way, which is based on strong people skills.

I’ve been teaching communication and people skills for about 8 years now,
working with clients ranging from students to top managers. One of the
things which constantly amazed me (and it still does) is how much certain
people skills can increase your options and skyrocket your career,
relationships and life, while lacking them can sabotage you in a very cruel
way.

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Oddly enough, people skills are only superficially discussed in most books
and articles about lifestyle design. They seem to be taken for granted. You
will often see advice like “Get your boss to agree that you work from home”,
with little detail about how to achieve this. Like your boss is gonna happily
agree to this if you just tell him you want it.

The People Skills Triangle

Not all people skills are as important in creating a VIP lifestyle for yourself.
Researching this topic, I came to the conclusion that there are 3 major
people skills which are the main ingredients in this formula.

They create a sort of people skills triangle. And in this triangle lies most of
your power to create the lifestyle you want. Here they are:

1) Building strategic relationships with people;

2) Promoting yourself in a powerful way;
3) Not letting others push you around.

When these 3 major people skills are well developed, you have a system of
interacting with others which allows you to set certain things into place and
in motion, in order to create a rich, exciting life for yourself. I have seen
people do this over and over again. With this people skills triangle you can:

• Take care of your own needs in a better way;

• Do what is right for you, instead of what is expected;
• Enjoy social interactions and your social life more;
• Be more efficient in your job, work less and do more;
• Get more clients and partners in your business life;
• Make yourself heard and have a strong impact on things;
• Experience more options all around.

Pretty cool, ha?

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What’s with This Book

This short book presents my system with people for creating your ultimate
lifestyle. It is not a highly detailed presentation, but it will give you the most
important and powerful points. As you read the ideas presented in the next
chapters and consistently put them into practice, you will see real
improvements in your life.

When I first developed this system, I did it for me. I felt I needed a way of
interacting with other people which made sense and allowed me to create
the lifestyle I wanted. Putting it into practice and seeing some impressive
results, I quickly started talking about it to others and teaching it to others.
To my satisfaction, I have consistently seen those who followed it get the
same kind of results I did. I am sure that you will too.

Each of the next 3 chapters discusses one of the 3 major people skills for
creating an extraordinary lifestyle, in the order I see as the most natural for
learning about them. I recommend that you read each chapter slowly,
reflect on it and let the ideas sink in. The last chapter is about effectively
taking the development of your people skills one step further than reading
this book.

Finally, I cannot stress this enough: VIP Lifestyle is not a novel. It is a

practical guide and it is meant to be applied.

Now, buckle up…

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Chapter 2: Not Letting
Others Push You Around

The number one way most people sabotage their lifestyle is by letting other
people use them, one way or another. People ranging from colleagues,
friends and even family, to strangers on the street.

Your interactions with other people can be a source of enjoyment, learning,

connection and reciprocal help. But most of the time, this will not happen by
itself. You need to make it this way. And the first big step is not letting
others tool you.

If you wanna live and extraordinary life, you have got to look into this
fundamental subject, which our society often treats as taboo, and get this
area handled.

How Other People Use You

Cut the fairytale, I-have-good-relationships-with-others stuff. The majority of

people sacrifice their own needs, their enjoyment and their lifestyle, to get
scraps of approval from others. And when they eventually do get it, they
think it’s such a big deal that they call this having good relationships.

There are 2 basic ways in which other people can use you:

1) By getting your various resources, without giving something of

equal practical value in return, or
2) By getting you to repress various sides of your personality, which
makes you be less authentic.

In practice, these 2 ways of being used can manifest themselves in a bunch

load of dysfunctional social dynamics. Here are some examples:

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 • Your boss gets you to constantly work overtime, without any extra
benefits;
• Your colleagues get you to always help them with their projects,
while you get behind schedule with yours;
• Your wife gets you to go shopping or your husband to go to the
football game, even if you don’t really enjoy it;
• You abandon your business idea, even though you think it’s very
good, because your friends think it’s stupid and laugh about it;
• You watch every word you say at the Christmas family dinner,
because a couple of more sensitive family members could get
upset;
• You tip the waiter when you eat at a restaurant, even if you didn’t
like the service.
• You make a donation for a certain cause when someone asks you
insistently on the street, even if you don’t believe in it.

And the list could virtually go on forever. Are you starting to recognize some
of the examples above or similar ones in your life? If your answer is yes,
know that you are not even close to being alone.

Of course, if you don’t have a problem with sacrificing your needs for other
people, and you’re just that kind of a giving person, that’s fine. What I
discover however, is that this kind of voluntary altruism is actually pretty
rare. Most people get trapped in sacrificing their own needs, because they
give too much meaning to other people’s approval and they don’t think they
have any better options to get and not loose that approval.

But the fact is, that no matter how common being used is, or how used to it
you are, it doesn’t mean you need to tolerate it. If you do, you’re making
unnecessary compromises with your lifestyle.

Make too many compromises like these, and you end up broke, exhausted,
out of shape, uneducated, frustrated, but thinking you are a ‘nice person’.
Yuck!

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Think Boundaries

One of the most powerful concepts you can use to understand and change
these dysfunctional social dynamics is the psychological concept of
personal boundaries.

Personal boundaries are behavioral reflections of what you are and are not
willing to do, what you will and will not tolerate from others. Good
boundaries allow you to express yourself, pursue your goals and build
healthy relationships with others.

Think of boundaries as circular gates around us, with some doors in them,
which define and protect our territory. And we decide which people we
allow past which gates, through which doors, in which conditions, and when
we move them back behind a certain gate.

In nature, most mammals have various ways of marking their territory and
protecting it against trespassers. We humans also have our ways of doing
this, although our territory is not just physical, it is mainly psychological.
Unfortunately, a lot of us are out of touch with them and don’t know how to
use them effectively.

As a result, we allow others to treat us in ways we don’t like without doing

anything about it; we sacrifice our needs for theirs, we follow the rules they
decide for us, we hide our feelings or opinions. We don’t mark our territory,
we don’t defend it, we don’t set boundaries.

There are also people in the other extreme, who set very rigid boundaries,
which they don’t change for any reason. This is not effective either. Good
boundaries are also flexible, although moving them or changing them is
done for solid reasons, which make sense in relation with your interests.

For example, I have a rule about conferences and events. I will not accept
to speak at one unless I’m invited to it at least 2 days before it takes place.
This is one of my boundaries. It allows me to prepare for any event without
loosing nights over it, and it teaches the organizers that I’m not available
anytime they please.

But, if I get a late invitation because of what I consider a good reason,

which has nothing to do without not being valued enough as a speaker, and

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it’s a really important event which would help me a lot in promoting myself, I
will compromise and go. It’s a strategic boundary modification.

Setting boundaries is one of the most important things you can learn in life.
You don’t learn about it in school, people often discourage you from
learning it by encouraging you to compromise for others. In the next few
pages, I will help you understand the basic process of setting healthy
boundaries.

Know Yourself

The first big step in setting healthy boundaries is self-awareness. Personal

boundaries exist to protect your interests. So in order to set the right ones
for you, knowing your interests well is a must. Here are some key questions
to ask yourself:

• What do I want, what is important for me?

• What do I like, what don’t I like and to what degree?
• What are my ideas and core beliefs?

Listen to your inner voice and try to answer these questions as precisely as
possible. Ask them to yourself in general, and in relation to specific
contexts (like “What is important for me in the relationship with my
girlfriend/ boyfriend?”, or “What are my thoughts about veganism?”).

Like most people, it’s very possible that you can’t answer these questions
with a lot of precision at this point. You’re not used to them. On top of that,
your inner voice may be stifled because you are not very used to listening
to it either, and instead, you are more used to repressing it, while paying
more attention to what other people want, like or think.

Give the questions some real thought, and give yourself some time to
answer them. As you become more aware of your own needs, two things
will happen. The first is that you’ll get a strong sense of how much you’ve
let other people use you and you’ve been playing their game. This is all
good; it’s part of the progress.

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The second is that you’ll start to realize where you would like to set certain
boundaries, with certain people. So in a way, knowing yourself better will
make your personal boundaries surface.

Communicate Your Boundaries

Personal boundaries usually take the form of certain rules and policies you
have, by which you mediate your interaction with your environment. This
means that your boundaries can be put into words. And they sound
something like this:

• I say whatever I think It’s best for me to say;

• I don’t help people who don’t help me back;
• I go swimming at least once every week;
• I work 40 hours per week, no more, no less;
• I don’t pay for someone’s attention;
• I follow whatever path I think is right in my career;
• I don’t follow advice from someone just because he’s older than me.

As opposed to other mammals, who have to use more contrived ways to

signal their territory, you can communicate your boundaries in simple, clear
and powerful sentences. So, do this. Tell others:

• What you want and what you don’t want;

• What you do and what you don’t do;
• What you like and what you don’t like;
• What will happen if they cross your boundaries.

Of course, the point is to communicate to each person those rules you have
which are relevant for her. There is no real point in telling a colleague from
work that you don’t pay for someone’s attention; but there is a point in
telling him that you don’t help people who don’t help you back.

It is very common to get cold feet when you wanna communicate your
boundaries, and to either don’t do it, or communicate them in a vague and
indirect way. This is why I feel the need to stress this idea: it’s very
important that even if you’re afraid, you do it anyway. You clearly

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communicate relevant boundaries. With time and practice, it gets much
easier.

Protect Your Boundaries

Here’s a short story about boundaries. My cousin has a young daughter

called Roxy, who he constantly complains about being very spoiled. Once
when she was about 5, I was visiting him and I got a chance to notice this
first hand. My cousin and I were sitting in the living room, talking, while
Roxy was running around and playing in the same room.

At one point, Roxy started throwing with her bonbons all over the place. My
cousin quickly told her to stop that. She completely ignored him and
continued throwing. He told her again, talking in a louder voice, and again
he got ignored. Then, my cousin proceeded to telling Roxy that if she will
through one more bonbon, he won’t take her to the fun park the next day,
like he said he would.

Roxy ignored this warning as well, and continued throwing bonbons. My

cousin got up and firmly told her that because of this, she will no longer go
to the fun park tomorrow. But Roxy didn’t seem to care. And I found out
why: the next they I call my cousin, I ask him where he is and he says: “I’m
at the fun park with Roxy”.

An interesting thing is that spoiled children are not born that way, they are
made that way. And they are made because their parents and other
relevant people in their life, just like my cousin, fail to enforce the
boundaries they communicate.

They promise the child a certain consequence for a certain action,

consequence which does not happen. As this takes place repeatedly, the
child quickly learns not to take these promises seriously and to do whatever
he wants. Just like Roxy.

In the same way, you also create spoiled adults which do not respect your
boundaries. Communicating your boundaries clearly is important, but it is
not enough. You also need to show people that you stick to what you say.
And you do this by acting in alignment with the personal boundaries you
communicate.

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This means that you do what you say you will do and you treat others
adapted to how they treat you. As a result, people consciously or
subconsciously learn that certain ways to behave with you will have certain
positive or negative consequences, which encourages them to use them
more and respectively, less.

Enforcing boundaries you’re not used to enforcing is often not very easy.
Your need to please other and not loose their approval will be a constant
pain in the ass. Just like with communicating your boundaries, the more
you actually do it, the more skilled and confident you get, and the easier it
gets.

Boundaries are not about controlling other people. That is impossible.

Boundaries are about creating fair relationships, and setting the rules in a
way which encourages people to treat you in a positive, respectful manner.
This way, you take one big step forward towards your ultimate lifestyle.

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Chapter 3: Promoting
Yourself in a Powerful
Way

In the social environment we live, the person who has the most to gain is
the person who also has the most to offer. But it’s not enough to have a lot
to offer; other people must also know this. There are plenty of professionals
with extraordinary skills out there who barely make a living, because barely
anybody knows about the value they can provide.

This is where promoting yourself in a powerful way comes in. Although

many of us also promote our services or ideas, I will focus on promoting
yourself. Just know that most of the ideas in this chapter also apply for the
other kinds of promoting.

Effectively promoting yourself is what attracts the interest of other people in

what you have to offer, personally or professionally. The practical effects of
this can range from getting business, to advancing in the workplace, to
making more money with less work. And it all starts in your head.

Allow Yourself to Shine

A couple of years ago, when I was also doing some recruitment, I had an
interview with this guy, for a management position for one of my clients,
who would barely sell his strengths.

He would answer vaguely and give little details when I would ask him about
his strengths, projects, responsibilities and results. Even though he had a
lot of them. Eventually, after I squeezed every drop of valuable information
out of him, I realized he was actually a competent professional and I
proposed him for my client to see him.

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My client agreed, so I called the candidate to give him the news. I also used
the opportunity to recommend him to sell his strengths more incisively at
the interview with my client, by emphasizing his results. He replied to this:
“I’m a modest person. I don’t like to talk about my qualities, my results. I like
to let other people find out about them on their own, when they see me at
work.”

This kind of attitude may sound noble, but it will get you nowhere. As is
sabotaged this guy’s progress, it will also sabotage yours. There is a place
for talking about your strengths and selling yourself as convincingly as you
can.

The thing is, people will usually not give you a chance to show them what
you can offer, until you tell them about what you have to offer. And even
when you do show them what you can offer, you often still have to point
them the results to get them convinced. This as all promoting yourself. It’s
very important to be comfortable with talking about your strengths and your
results.

Sell When You Need to Sell

Selling your strengths, promoting yourself is in principle good, but there are
also limits. Promoting yourself is a context related behavior. You do it in
contexts where for practical reasons it’s relevant for you to prove something
about yourself. Not all contexts in life or business are these kinds of
contexts.

Consider the situations below:

• Talking about yourself at a job interview;

• Discussing with your boss at your performance review;
• Presenting yourself and your services to a potential client;
• Talking with people you’ve just met at a college party;
• Having conversation at an informal networking event;
• Hanging out with your friends.

In which ones of these situations, is it a good thing to promote yourself and

to show off a bit?

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If you chose the first 3 situations, you are correct. If you chose any of the
other 3, you may want to work on calibrating your self-promoting process to
your environment.

The first 3 situations are through their nature, situations where proving your
strengths and results will get you practical, positive effects. Like a job, a
raise or a client. Promoting yourself in these situations makes a lot of
sense.

However, things are fairly different in the last 3 situations. A college party is
mostly about chilling, having fun, not showing off. By talking a lot about
your qualities and all the great things you did, you just come of as insecure.
A networking event, especially an informal one, is a place to meet people
and build professional relationships, not to sell. And your friends, if they’re
really are you friends, you don’t need to impress them.

The last 3 situations do involve some value and power games themselves,
but they are much more subtle and they’re not based on what we would call
selling or promoting yourself in a direct way, in the strict sense of the
expression.

By not promoting yourself when the context is right, you miss a lot of great
opportunities. And by promoting yourself when the context is wrong, you
come off as desperate, needy and you pointlessly damage your
relationships with other people. This is why calibration can make one hell of
a difference.

Know Your Strengths

Through the nature of what I do professionally, I have asked hundreds of

people what are their top strengths. The vast majority of answers I get are
just clichés which tell me that those persons don’t really understand their
strengths.

Most people I’ve asked this describe themselves as ambitious, although

they live in mediocrity; and they describe themselves as honest, although
they lie at least a dozen times every day.

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If you wanna promote yourself in a powerful way, you need to reach a
much higher lever of self-knowledge than most people do. Ask yourself:
“What are my top strengths?” Whatever your first answer is, be willing to
doubt it and dig deeper.

There are a lot of valuable ways to get to know your strengths better. Here
are some of the things I encourage you to do:

• Observe you behaviors and the results they generate;

• Focus inward and do some introspection;
• Get a 360 degrees feedback;
• Use some quality personality assessments;

Combine these methods, analyze the data you collect, insist on getting to
know your strengths and it will happen. You’ll reach a level of clarity about
what you have to offer and about what makes you different which will give
you more confidence and more power in promoting yourself.

Connect Strengths with Benefits

Knowing and being able to talk about your strengths is an important part of
promoting yourself in a powerful way. But it is not a complete formula. At
the end of the day, a person will not show an interest in you or your
services because of strengths, but because of the benefits that person
gets.

This is why it’s essential for you to take things one step further, and
connect your strengths with the benefits it will bring the other person.
Sometimes, this connection will happen very naturally. Sometimes, the
other person will simply not see how your strengths will help her, and you’ll
have to spell it out clearly for her.

For example, I’m often described by my coaching clients as being very

open-minded. I talk about this trait with my potential clients, as being one of
my top strengths. But I have learned that very often, they will not see the
relevance.

This is why I then proceed to connect the dots: I tell them how me being
open-minded makes the client quickly feel comfortable and open up, which

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is a crucial aspect in getting powerful results from the coaching process. As
I’m talking about this, I will often see the other person’s eyes start to open
up.

I have noticed that top salespeople tend to very often talk about whatever
they’re selling in this way which always connects strengths with benefits.
They will say things like:

• “This software has a very effective spell-checking function. Instead

of spell-checking your documents yourself, you can use it and save
precious time.”
• “The training will teach your employees how to effectively manage
conflicts. This will help them work better as a team and make them
be more productive.”

You can learn to communicate like that. By understanding your strengths,

understanding your client’s needs, understanding the link between them
and constantly focusing on connecting the dots in your communication.

Don’t Just Say, Prove

Some people are too modest, but the world is also full of people who make
big statements. They describe themselves and their services using big
shiny words, they talk about your benefits like what they have to offer will
turn your entire life around, all for just $19.95.

Being bombarded with these kinds of statements, most have learned to be

somewhat skeptic about them. Famous American astronomer Carl Sagan
said that “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”. Well, in
promoting yourself it probably applies better than anywhere.

Don’t be afraid to make big claims about what you can offer. But makes
sure you can back them up with evidence. Whenever for example, you
invoke a certain strength you have, which would make you a good fit for a
certain project, continue by proving this strength. Don’t assume people
already know you have it.

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How can you prove your strengths, using words? Here are 3 major things
you can use, which I have seen provide top notch results and I often talk
about:

1) Responsibilities. The things you did, the projects you were

involved in. If you organized a conference with 500 participants for 5
years in a row, it makes sense that you have some pretty decent
organizing skills.

2) Results. The practical, positive effects you generated through your

actions. If the whole conference went smooth every time, with no
delays, no mess-ups and no complaints, your organizing skills are
probably very good.

3) Recommendations. If you have testimonials from 50 top managers

who participated last year at the conference, saying it was very well
organized, again this proves something very good about your
organizing skills.

Also, keep in mind that however you prove your strengths using words, if
you do it very well, you will probably be given a chance to also prove them
in practice. And it’s very important that you’re as convincing with actions as
you were with words.

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Chapter 4: Building
Strategic Relationships
with People

Just about every single person I know who is successful and has a happy
life is very good at building strategic relationships. These people seem to
have a way in relating to others and they’re able to attract the right kind of
people in their personal and professional life.

Relationships can and make all the difference in the world in creating an
extraordinary lifestyle for yourself. As a quite logical person, it took me a
while to get this more emotional part of success and happiness. But once I
got it and I understood the subtle logic behind it, I was hooked.

Why Relationships Matter So Much

There are 2 basic ways relationships with people are very important in
lifestyle design:

1) In a social and emotional way;

2) In a business and practical way.

The social and emotional way has to do with the fact that we human
beings have a strong need for social interactions and emotional connection
with other people. Even those of us who need a lot of alone time and enjoy
many single activities, still have a need to interact meaningfully with others,
to have fulfilling relationships.

In this way, building strategic relationships means creating for yourself a

social circle with very cool people, who accept and respect you as you are,

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which have a lot in common with you, and periodically interacting with
them.

The business and practical way means creating a professional network

that helps you grow, promote yourself and have great results as a
professional. Doing successful business has a lot to do with the day to day
interactions and the kind of relationships dynamics you generate around
you.

There are a couple of reasons for this. The most important one from my
perspective is about trust. You can tell a potential business partner, a
manager, or a potential client all you want about how cool you are and the
things you have to offer. He’s heard all of those six more times in that same
day. What makes you and your words believable is trust, which is a
relational component of business.

Another important reason is comfort. People universally prefer to work, do

business with and help other people that they feel comfortable with. People
who are friendly and positive, and don’t feel like total strangers. For quite a
lot, this is actually the main factor they use to make decisions, sometimes
sacrificing competency for comfort and likeability. It may not always be fair,
but it’s real.

How does this apply in practice? Here’s an example. Let’s say you work as
an account manager and one of your major accounts/ clients calls you and
tells you he urgently needs to sign a certain contract with the company you
represent, by the end of the day. So, you quickly call the legal department,
give them the details for the contract and tell them you need it that day.

“This is not possible”, you contact in the legal department says

immediately. “Standard procedure is to have a contract ready in 48 hours.
We need to get it signed, approved…” You explain him how important it is,
how the company could loose a major client if you don’t have the contract
that day, but the person at legal doesn’t really seem to care, and doesn’t
wanna go beyond procedures. Not for you at least.

Then you remember your friend Marc, who is in the legal department. You
first talked with him at the company Christmas party. He’s a really cool guy,
you got really well, you found out you both do martial arts, and you sort of

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remained friends since that day. So you call Marc, tell him about the
situation, and ask him for to help you out as a favor.

Marc wouldn’t do this for everyone, but because it’s you and because he
understands your situation, he pulls some strings in the legal department
and you have your contract by the end of the day. Thanks to Marc.

Well, it’s not really thanks to Marc, it’s thanks to your relationship with him,
which goes beyond pure business, which makes him more willing to help
you, provided the reasons are right. This is part of the practical power of
relationships.

What Strategy Has To Do With Relationships

It’s not about trying to build good relationships with all people, all the time.
That’s just being desperate and approval seeking. It’s about building
relationships with the right kind of people for you.

There is a very conscious, goal-oriented component to effectively building

relationships. Most people do not consciously build their social circle. Their
friends, their business network, even their lovers, are mostly the result of
chance, and these relationships often go on from inertia more than anything
else.

If you want more than people to kill some time with, if you want meaningful
interactions with others and powerful business partnerships, you need to
put some strategy into it.

Strategy starts with answering some relevant questions:

• What kind of people do you wanna have as friends, lovers or

business partners?
• What are the defining traits you want these people to have?
• Where can you find and meet these kinds of people?

The point is to clearly understand what type of people you want to add to
your personal or professional circles, for emotional and practical reasons,
how to reach them, and then to act accordingly. This will help you meet

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more of the right kind of people and interact the most with the best kind of
people for you.

Strategy doesn’t mean that you no longer socialize by impulse, that you no
longer interact with whom you simply enjoy interacting and tend to do it
naturally. This is also a big part of good relationships. What it means is that
you add a long-term, consciously planned component to the way you
interact socially.

Be Sociable

Being sociable is a fine yet subtle art which creates some impressive
results. It has a lot to do with social confidence, social initiative and
conversational skills. It is the foundation for building powerful relationships.
Being sociable is what helps you do things like:

• Approach people you don’t know at networking events;

• Use the people you know to meet people you don’t know;
• Make conversations with new people and get along;
• Make group conversation and get involved;
• Initiate other interactions with people you’ve met and liked;
• Escalate interactions and develop relationships;

Do all of these things and at the same time, calibrate them to the context so
you don’t come off as rude or weird (or at least not very often), and you
have a recipe for social success.

Being sociable is so important because it widens the range of people you

can meet, and the ways you can interact with them, thus increasing your
chances of meeting the right people and building the right relationships for
you. The majority of people fail at this game for lack of a strategy and
because they fail at being sociable enough.

Working with people on developing their networking skills, the biggest

challenge I see is related to social confidence. The vast majority of people
are social paranoids. They have this distorted, negative image about what
will happen if for example, they go talk to someone they don’t know, or they
call a person they’ve recently met and ask her out for coffee.

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Handling this involves conscious and consistent practice at being more
sociable. It also involves getting out of your head, noticing what’s really
going on, how people are really reacting, and changing your unrealistic
thinking patterns which stop you from having a high level of social
confidence.

Talk About Yourself

I don’t believe in miracle cures. But if one such cure would exist in the
realm of making conversation and building strategic relationships with
people, it would be talking about yourself: sharing your ideas on various
subjects, your experiences, your values etc.

A relationship is built when to people open up and discover commonalities.

The common ground is probably the most important thing for a solid
relationship. Now, you can wait for the other person to open up, and if she
does, open up yourself. But you’ll get marginal results. The much better
way to go is open up first.

As you open up and the other person gets to know you, the general effect
is that you’re encouraging her to do the same. I have seen this in practice
hundreds of time. The more you open up, the more the other person will.
Some immediately, some after more time, but unless they’re chronically shy
they eventually do follow your example.

Remember how when you were 5, you were told not to talk to strangers?
Practice this when you’re 35, and it will sink your relationships. It no loner
applies. However, most people seem to still have that message in their
head. They believe that talking about themselves is impolite, selfish or
dangerous in some way.

The most valuable thing you can do in this area is realize that talking about
yourself is a social skill as important as listening. It’s right there in the book
of socializing. It probably has an entire chapter dedicated to it.

This does not mean to talk non-stop about yourself, brag as much as
possibly or pour your heart out 30 seconds after you meet a person. Just
like initiating a conversation, talking about yourself does require some

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social calibration. But if you integrate this in your conversational style, you
will develop an impressive way of expressing yourself.

Socializing is like a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets. Get
out there, meet people, make conversation and build powerful relationships
with others. Add some focus on improvement to the equation, and your
social style will become smooth and powerful.

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Chapter 5: Taking Things
One Step Further

This is not over. You are just beginning a journey which can last for
months, years, maybe a lifetime. What you basically did up to this point is
open up some possibilities by getting the main view of how 3 essential
people skills for creating your ultimate lifestyle look like.

Now, your task is to take a good look at this picture, compare it with how
you communicate and relate to other people, and notice opportunities for
improvement. But really, this is not your main task. Your main task is to
consciously put all this awareness into practice. And with time, repetition
and consistency, you will develop some very sharp people skills.

Here are some ideas to help you put the information in this short book into
practice, go beyond it and get the best results possible.

Dig Dipper

If you feel that some of the information presented here is still to general,
that you need more details to do some fine tuning. Feel free to dig into the
topics discussed here. The good news is that there is a ton of information
available out there about a lot of this stuff.

Assertive communication, sales & persuasion skills, networking and

conversation skills, all of these are related concepts to what is discussed in
this book, concepts you can study to get a better understanding of what
good people skills mean.

There are books and trainings on these topics, and there are hundreds of
articles you can find and read for free on the Internet. The trick is choosing
the best resources and using them wisely.

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Start With the Simple Stuff

Each of the 3 major people skills I talked about is composed out of other,
smaller skills. Some of them have a complex structure and it takes months,
even years to master them, some of them have a much simpler structure
and they can be noticeably improved with a couple of weeks practice.

For example, not letting others push you around involves a clear, precise
communication style; something which working as a communication coach,
I know requires a lot of practice to develop. But it also involves the habit of
thinking about how you want to be treated in various situations you’re in,
something which if you practice a couple of times, will already start to stick
into your head.

If you want to create your ultimate lifestyle, you will need a wide range of
awesome people skills, complex and simple. But, you can get some big
improvements pretty quickly, by starting with the skills with a simple
structure. Believe or not, a lot of the simpler, easier to learn people skills
are responsible for a lot of the results you get.

Besides this fact, starting with the easy stuff and seeing real improvement,
will usually give you the momentum necessary to carry on with developing
the more complex people skills. Starting with the simple stuff is simply put,
a wise decision you can make in your personal development.

Work On Your Attitudes

It’s somewhat funny that I usually describe myself as teaching

communication skills or people skills, considering I spend more time with
my clients working on attitudes than skills. Because if there’s one thing I’ve
learned is that attitudes trample skills.

Your skills reflect what you can do automatically, and get good results.
Your attitudes reflect your beliefs system, your automatic interpretations of
events and your emotional reactions to them. Without the right attitudes in
place, you will often not develop the skills you want.

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You can learn theoretically how to talk about your strengths in a powerful
way, without coming off as bragging, but if you’re too afraid to put it into
practice because there is still a risk of coming off as bragging, you still
won’t develop the skills to talk about your strengths in a powerful way.

Attitudes have been a sort of recurring theme in talking about the 3 major
people skills. And for good reason: all of these skills also involve key
attitudes. A big part of why people don’t relate to each other effectively has
to do with limiting beliefs and fears like upsetting others, loosing approval or
not being accepted as they are.

This is why I believe it is essential to work on your attitudes as well as your

skills related to people. There is one method which I work with and I highly
recommend for its internal logic, its effectiveness and its scientific support.
The method is CBT (Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy), and its little brother,
CBC (Cognitive-Behavioral Coaching). Look into its principles and
techniques, and give them a try!

Consider Coaching

Last but not least, if you’re looking for top notch results and you wanna
make your growth process as effective as possible, I recommend working
with a coach.

If he has a good understanding of both people skills and the coaching

process, as well as a high motivation to help you grow, working with a
coach can save you months and years of trial and error, and useless
struggle.

Being a communication coach, I encourage you to consider my services as

an option. Working with me as your coach to develop your communication
and people skills can help you:

• See your blind spots and get accurate feedback about your social
persona;
• Identify and change your limiting beliefs and emotions;
• Learn communication principles and techniques tailored to your
needs;
• Plan and stay on track with your personal development process.

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For the last 8 years, I’ve been helping others put their best foot forward in
communication and develop their people skills. It’s an area I’m deeply
passionate about, in which I provide solid solutions for powerful results.

You can find out more about me and my coaching, view testimonials from
my clients, find out how we can get in touch and read periodical articles in
the area of people skills on my blog: www.PeopleSkillsDecoded.com.

I wish you awesome results in improving your people skills and creating
your ultimate lifestyle, and I hope to talk to you real soon.

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