What made me go for that seminar was the title of one of his books - 'How to handle not strangle difficult people!' - because I had problems with that sometimes!
Well, at that seminar I learnt quite a bit. Paul proved to be good at presenting his ideas, besides being comical at the same time. Paul started with what SUMO meant - Shut Up, Move On
It meant to let go whatever it was bugging us so that we could move on with our life or we would be stuck at that point and not be able to enjoy our lives to the fullest.
E+R = O
E = event; R = response and O = outcome
An event would be something that happens to you like perhaps a fire gutted your house. The outcome would be you lose your house and all your belongings; which is disastrous. However your response while it will NOT change the outcome, will influence it in some way.
Paul shared 4 SUMO principles on how to respond so that outcomes are influenced positively:
A. Develop "fruity" thinking
The T.E.A.R. Method
T = thinking, E = emotions, A = actions and R = results.
The person we talk to the most is ourself. Our thinking affects our emotions which leads to actions and produces results; in other words Thinking affects how I feel, what I do and the results that I will get in life.
ALL of us are MAD - making a difference - no matter how small that difference may be.
Paul cited the example of a training he conducted for the employees of a company. A receptionist said that she would make no difference because she was only a part-timer; however she was wrong because she was the 1st contact with a customer whether or not she was a part-timer.
Develop "fruity" thinking rather than faulty thinking.
Faulty Thinking
- The Inner Critic - would be your inner voice bashing yourself up each time you made a mistake
- The Broken Record - would be going through that mistake over and over again and telling people about it all the time
- The Martyr Syndrome - would be saying that you are the victim
- Trivial pursuits - in other words making a mountain out of a mole hill.
If we raised our left hand with fist clenched, and put our right hand over the clenced fist; it would figuratively "draw" the brain.
The left arm represent the primitive brain; the fist the emotional brain and the right hand, the rational brain.
The primitive brain is made up of:
a. fight or flee in dangerous situations
b. need for food
c. need for sex
these are unconscious, natural human responses.
The emotional brain controls our emotions, while the rational brain is what makes us think.
Sometimes we react using our primitive and emotional brain rather than our rational brain. Whether we use our primitive/emotional brain or our rational brain has a direct influence on the outcome of situations we are in.
"STRESS MAKES US STUPID" because we are not using our rational brain. So we need to take a time out to get back into rational mode.
B. Hippo Time is OK
Paul's rephrased 'time out' as 'hippo time' referring to the hippopotamus where the hippo wallows in the mud to keep cool. So it is OK for us to wallow when we are down BUT it is only temporarily so that we can MOVE ON. It is also the time to relax and play and to recover.
C. Remember the Beach Ball
A beach ball has many strips of colour on it - a person looking from one end will see different colours from another person looking at the other end. We see things with different perspectives. To have a good relationship we need to ask the following questions -
Question 1 - what is going on in their world at the moment?
Question 2 - what is important to them at this time?
Question 3 - do you listen to understand or listen to defend?
Listen to understand is NOT = listen to agree
We can agree to disagree.
Question 4 - have you clearly communicated your perspective?D. Cape Diem - Seize the Day!
Paul ended the seminar with the words 'cape diem' which is latin for 'seize the day'. He ended with the note that when the opportunity is available for us, we should take it and not have faulty thinking to stop us.
For those who are interested to know more about Paul and his SUMO concept please click here. Of course what I have blogged is only the 'tip of the iceberg' - you need to listen to Paul to get the full benefit of S.U.M.O.!
No comments:
Post a Comment