Life's Moments to Savour

It's not every day when your child comes home from school and presents you with a fresh coconut. My 10 year old daughter proudly announced that she had found it underneath a coconut tree at the Green School and that it was a present for me. Having been brought up in the Black Mountains of Wales, where spruce trees are more the norm, I haven't got a clue how to open a freshly fallen coconut. My only recollection of coconuts in Wales was at the funfairs I used to go to as a child, where you could win a dying goldfish in a plastic bag, attempt to eat a big candy floss that would stick to your face like a spider's web and then win an ancient, shrivelled brown hairy coconut. It used to be hard enough cracking those exotic things that came from some far away place! When my daughter presented me with this green shell, it felt like being given a box of chocolates in an unbreakable safe. Like chocolate, I adore fresh coconut, but this gigantic, green, avocado shaped nut that had another nut within it and was the weight of a cannon ball, was going to be a tough one to crack. This unexpected moment did make me chuckle though and it is definitely one to remember and remind my daughter when she gets older. There are not many international schools where your child returns home with freshly fallen coconuts and so is something else to admire about the Green School!

Another couple of moments to savour over the last week have been to do with my work.  I ran a Presenting for Leaders workshop with a group of private bankers and then a team development session using the Myers Briggs Type Indicator with a bunch of lawyers from across the Asia Pacific region. Lawyers and bankers? Not necessarily renowned as perhaps the easiest groups of people to work with (apologies for this stereotyping and if you happen to be a banker or lawyer reading this). These talented people, however, turned out to be great fun to work with, highly participative and appreciative.  From both groups I received excellent feedback which was a huge boost for my morale and I was made to feel so welcome by both groups, I instantly wanted to become a banker and lawyer!. These moments of appreciation, interested participation and good feedback are what makes me enjoy my work and life even more.

The vital ingredient to making all these moments all the more enjoyable was by me being in rapport. I could have so easily carried on looking intently at my computer when my daughter presented me with a coconut at my work desk. Instead, I consciously moved away from my computer and desk and showed an interest in what my daughter had proudly brought home for me. By doing this she felt even prouder about her coconut and this made me feel good. With the group of bankers and lawyers, the vital technique again was building rapport. It was good for me to be interested and connected with them for them to be interested in me.

As Maya Angelou said:-

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

Whether you are talking with a child, no matter what age, or with an adult no matter what age; whether they are your work colleagues, family or customers, it's how you make people feel that is most important. The best and only way to make you and them feel good is to be in rapport.

What can you do to build better rapport with others around you? You will notice that your communication instantly improves by taking some little extra time to be in rapport and you will be rewarded with good feelings / life moments to savour.
 
Janet

Discover more about the powerful techniques of how to be in rapport by joining our next 7 day NLP Leadership Programme NoLimits NLP

For more information about NoLimits personal and professional development, coaching and recruitment services, contact info@nolimitsasia.com +65 6232 2466