“If you want to get somewhere in life, my thinking is that you should consult with those who can see down the road for you and guide you to the right fork in the road.” -Jesse Petersen
I am a coach because I can tell someone rather early on some pivital life information. I am an answer man, and I’m often approached by people with problems with a wide array of disciplines. I can tell someone what needs to be done and whether or not I think they can do it. Notice that last part, because this is where people often end up not liking me. I tend to rub people the wrong way because I’m very honest, although I don’t think I an unneccessarily unkind or blunt. Maybe a tad blunt, but not rude.
Think of Simon Cowell, if you have watched enough American Idol to at least respect his opinion. I don’t always agree with his delivery, but he is truly being helpful to people by telling them the truth. Sometimes the best advice (if it is correct) is to tell someone to look to do something else rather than struggling at something that they will not be able to do as they envision.
Here is a personal example so maybe you can relate. When I was growing up, I kept coming back to reading about the military, weapons, planes, and fighter jets, specifically. I played flight simulators on our computer, nearly exclusively, every night from the age of 7 to 14. I could put the difficulty on high or realistic with all of the safeties off and land by instruments, malfunctioning parts, and on aircraft carriers at night. My favorite TV shows to this day are military/tech-related.
One day around the 8th grade, my dad told me that soldiers need to have 20/20 vision or better to get into flight training to even get a chance to become a pilot. I’d been wearing glasses since kindergarten and was barely able to see past the end of my nose without corrective lenses. I was crushed. I immediately looked it up and Dad was right. As it turned out, I was not eligible to join any branch for other reasons, but at least I didn’t keep that dream alive clear through high school thinking that I knew what was going to happen with my life. That would have hurt a whole lot more.
Did he tell me the right way? I dunno, but it was helpful. This is where my wife says I am not an encourager. I will not help someone in something that I see as a lost cause or a waste of time. With that said, what remains is whether or not it is better for you to get the truth (as lovingly as possible) or to have a good time.
How do you influence people? Are you an encourager, advocate, or do you simply listen and be a sounding board?
I am quite a bit like you. I am honest about what I feel people will be able to do in given situations. I am sometimes brutally honest about the chances of certain people to excel at their chosen task or job. A lot of it comes from experience with those people or the task at hand. We are the culmination, everyday, of the experiences we have had our entire life up till that point that we make judgements. Those judgements are based upon passed events and knowledge of the given scenarios.
I have a wierd status in most of the circles I have been apart of. I have been the sounding board for as long as I can remember. I am the naysayer, not pessimist mind you, I just set people up for the disappointment. I then can be there if they do fail, but more importantly be there when they succeed and prove me wrong. Sometimes having and not having encouragement is the key, the little extra something that pushed people to excel where no others believed they would.
I am that kind of person that will tell you straight up that I don’t think you could do something, then shrug it off when you do, while inside I gauge how much influence my negativity had on your progress or completion of task. I am for lack of a better way of explaining, a social engineer. I can at a glance tell whether I will like a person, after a meeting, know whether I can have a work relationship/freindly aquaintance. I can also tell what type of person people will be given certain stimuli and use questions and statements to gauge what I would need to say to a person to elicit certain responses. With freinds it becomes easy to know what needs to be said to get a reaction to change moods and outlooks. With strangers it becomes a way to push them away or draw them in to a deeper relationship.
This gets me into trouble a lot with my wife.
I ofcourse only use this power for the good of mankind…..evildooers beware!
I am quite a bit like you. I am honest about what I feel people will be able to do in given situations. I am sometimes brutally honest about the chances of certain people to excel at their chosen task or job. A lot of it comes from experience with those people or the task at hand. We are the culmination, everyday, of the experiences we have had our entire life up till that point that we make judgements. Those judgements are based upon passed events and knowledge of the given scenarios.
I have a wierd status in most of the circles I have been apart of. I have been the sounding board for as long as I can remember. I am the naysayer, not pessimist mind you, I just set people up for the disappointment. I then can be there if they do fail, but more importantly be there when they succeed and prove me wrong. Sometimes having and not having encouragement is the key, the little extra something that pushed people to excel where no others believed they would.
I am that kind of person that will tell you straight up that I don’t think you could do something, then shrug it off when you do, while inside I gauge how much influence my negativity had on your progress or completion of task. I am for lack of a better way of explaining, a social engineer. I can at a glance tell whether I will like a person, after a meeting, know whether I can have a work relationship/freindly aquaintance. I can also tell what type of person people will be given certain stimuli and use questions and statements to gauge what I would need to say to a person to elicit certain responses. With freinds it becomes easy to know what needs to be said to get a reaction to change moods and outlooks. With strangers it becomes a way to push them away or draw them in to a deeper relationship.
This gets me into trouble a lot with my wife.
I ofcourse only use this power for the good of mankind…..evildooers beware!
Social engineer. I like that. Thanks for your input, Mind.
Social engineer. I like that. Thanks for your input, Mind.