Chameleon Commucation: Six Ways to Flex to Facilitate Effective Communication

We all default to a particular approach to interaction, whether professionally or personally: We’re more or less intellectual, patient, advice-giving, interruptive, etc.

Of course, we’re more effective if we can be flexible. That’s important in most interaction but especially so in managing people and even more so for helping professionals. Because of that and because this is Psychology Today, I’ll use helping professionals in the six examples I offer on my PsychologyToday.com article today.

Is Assertiveness Overrated?

Not so long ago, the ideal deportment was seen as restrained, modest, not pushy. But recent decades have seen increased lauding of, indeed training of, assertiveness. We’re even seeing encouragement of rude aggressiveness, exemplified by such slogans as “I’m loud and I’m proud!”

From where I sit, neither of the extremes: “the meek shall inherit the earth” nor “I’m loud and I’m proud” are defensible. The question is, “Where in that broad middle should you aim for?” It probably depends in part on your predisposition: Some people seem hard-wired for assertiveness, others for compliance, eagerness to please. But some of our level of assertiveness would seem under our control.

Most people exhibit their level of assertiveness unconsciously. Per some of my previous articles, for example,Work More? and Give More to The Neediest or to The Higher Potential?, I believe it wise that we make such decisions consciously, after due deliberation. 

To that end, my PsychologyToday.com article today offers a debate between an advocate for moderate assertiveness and an advocate for moderate restraint. Perhaps it will help you get clearer on where you'd like to aim for on that continuum.

Getting Good at Almost Anything: A 4-step plan for tackling tasks

Have you ever met someone who seems good at nearly everything? Sure, they probably have a high IQ, which means they quickly learn, retain, and apply knowledge to solve a wide array of problems. But IQ is relatively immutable, and the validity of pop-psych concepts such as "Grit" and "Growth Mindset" have been found to have less utility than their conceptualizers had claimed. See, for example, this regarding"Grit." See, for example, this regarding "Growth Mindset."

My PsychologyToday.com article today offers a more likely approach to getting good at most things. I’ve developed this 4-step plan for tackling tasks from my many highly successful clients and friends, plus, okay, from my own life. I present the plan via an example. Because it's in Psychology Today,  the example I use is a person who's trying to figure out how to deal with anxiety.

Burned Out: 22 questions that may help you identify baby steps up from burnout’s pit

You may think of the typical burnout as someone who’s been struggling to stay in the middle class. But burnout is an equal opportunity attacker. A number of my clients are seven-figure successful but felt burned out, empty, wondering whether all the effort was worth it. 

At the other end of the socioeconomic continuum, many people are burned out because they've been hold a job that sustains even a modest living and their personal life is equally dispiriting. 

Burnout can lead to undue sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll, and the sense that nothing matters, or at least is worth working hard for. Indeed, my Psychology Today article, I Don’t Care About Anything has received 270,000 views.

What’s a burnout to do?
Burnout tends to be so all-encompassing that it must be tackled a bite at a time. Perhaps the questions I ask in my PsychologyToday.com article today will help you identify your next bites

Out of Step: How much do you want to follow the crowd? A self-inventory.

Some people fit easily within societal norms, and life is easier for them. But what if you’re not much of a follow-the-crowd person?

My PsychologyToday.com article today offers three composite profiles, which present many ways a person might be out-of-step. Their purpose is to help you inventory the ways you are and aren’t normative and what, as we enter 2019, you might want to change...and not.

Know Who’s Molding Your Opinions

Most of society mind-molders are not science-and-math people. They go into the communication arts—journalism, filmmaking, teaching, novel and screenwriting, etc. This gives them a conscious or unconscious bias against science and technology. That bias doesn't serve you. I make the case in my PsychologyToday.com article today.

Moving Forward: A lesson from Holocaust Survivors

Being the child of two Holocaust survivors, I also got to know a couple dozen more. They taught me a lesson about moving forward. I share that in my PsychologyToday.com article today.