Friday, January 15, 2010

Speak Easy Note #17 - "What Noise?" - More Bahamian Wisdom

Last week I wrote about living in the Bahamas and learning the importance of demonstrating respect in every communication.  I described how much I learned from living in Nassau.  A great deal of the wisdom I absorbed there came from my friend, Leo.

Leo and I met when I first moved to Nassau and began taking tennis lessons. I had always loved playing tennis and knew that living in this wonderful warm climate year-round would be the ultimate setting to transform my mediocre tennis skills. Leo was the ideal tennis pro for someone like me. So many coaches constantly yell commands from deep on the other side of the court while you are in the process of concentrating on hitting the ball correctly, causing public humiliation and disrupting any ability you may have to accomplish that goal.  Leo always watched and waited and then walked to the net to meet me and tell me quietly and privately one small detail at a time to concentrate on to lift my game. We quickly became very good friends.

Leo was, for me, the best possible tennis pro. He was patient. He inspired me to my best. He instilled dedication to hard work. He led me to self-awareness without ever criticizing me or judging me.  He was never condescending.  Leo’s wisdom and emotional intelligence far exceeded his level of formal academic education.  In addition to all that I learned about how to play tennis from Leo, he taught me how to see the world from a different perspective.  I will always treasure his friendship and consider him to be one of the most influential people in my life.

One evening, after having lived in Nassau for almost a year and a half, my entire family including my parents who were visiting from Virginia, were out together for dinner at The Poop Deck, a local place that few tourists would find or frequent.  Leo was with us that night as we were in the stage of preparing to leave soon to return to New York.  We were enjoying the wonderful casual local atmosphere when I kept feeling uncomfortable about the loud voices coming from a table on the other side of the room where two American women were sitting and practically screaming their conversation.  Somehow being the only other Americans in the place gave me a sense of connection to or responsibility for this loud, ill-mannered behavior.  I made an embarrassed comment to Leo about the noise the women were making and he said to me, “What noise?” so I repeated my comment again and he again replied, “What noise?”. After the third time Leo said simply, “What noise?”, I finally realized what he was teaching me. I broke into laughter and said, “Oh, Leo, thank you for that gift. I am going to take that back to New York and make sure I LIVE the essence of what you have taught me as I deal with life and pressure in THE BIG CITY."

There have been many instances over the years when I have used this valuable lesson.  I have shared this story with countless cab drivers as together we have laughed over, “What traffic?”!  Believe me, it is much harder to take this approach living in New York City  than it was that night in Nassau. If you think about it though, it is always the same proposition. How you see any situation becomes your reality. And you are the only person who can control that perspective.

Thank you, Leo, for your supreme and treasured gift of the value of perspective. Thank you, Leo, for the gift of friendship that exceeds all material possessions one could ever have. Thank you, Readers, for being with me on this journey and reading my words each week.

Here are some brief excerpts from detailed sections in SPEAK EASY available through Word Craft Press that look at the importance of perspective in communication:


Our underlying attitudes and judgments add so much to what we communicate and to how our communications are received.  Starting with self-awareness, we can open our eyes and bring a new sensitivity to how we interact with people. Additionally, we will want to examine the risks involved in communicating in new ways.

It’s up to each of us:
-To adjust how we experience and respond to negativity around us
-To be the primary source of our own well-being
-To be our own best friend

And we must do these without:
-Acquiescing to abusive power
-Condoning inappropriate communication
-Thinking it’s easy to ignore negative communication and behavior

Let’s remember the childhood saying, “Sticks and stones can break your bones but words can never hurt you.” so that we can become stronger and stay intact when we experience negative emotions or reactions in response to what someone has said to us.

If we could gain some distance and perspective to examine the whole of our individual lives from beginning to end, surely the importance of a single person’s negative behavior, in the grand scheme of who we are, would take on an entirely new perspective and be relatively insignificant. When we give others the power to destroy our well-being and our ability to communicate effectively, we’re actually feeding the monster.

This is similar to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s quote, “The only thing we have to fear is fear, itself.” People can’t terrorize you verbally without your participation on some level.

The more dependent you are on getting approval and recognition from others so you can feel good about yourself, the more likely it will be that you will lose your sense of well-being in life without external reinforcement. Everyone thrives on praise. In the feedback I collect about managers that describes what they most need to change, a frequent response is the request to hear more praise. Wanting recognition for good work is a healthy desire yet quite different from being dependent on praise to gain a strong sense of self and to obtain satisfaction in life, which is a formula for disappointment and disaster.

Wanting Recognition = Healthy Desire
Dependence on Praise = Formula for Disaster

Feeling good about yourself and what you do is the primary key. This requires communicating your passion and dedication rather than depending on praise and reinforcement from others to validate who you are.

****************** Speaking of perspective ...

CECK OUT THIS LINK!:
"Lost Generation"


Until next week,
The Wordsmith

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