FREE E-BOOK: Motivating Your Mind Inspiring Your Spirit for 2017

1 January 2017 by Anne Riches

Motivating Your Mind - Inspiring Your Spirit for 2017 Anne is a contributing author to this e-book, compiled from the generosity of nearly 80 Australian, New Zealand, European, South African, Canadian, American, Asian and United Arab Emirates based authors, industry experts, Company Directors and business owners we have worked with or known in the MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, Events) industry starting in the early 1980s.

Together, these e-book contributors have over 1800 years of business experience and 3000 years of people experience. Some younger, others more experienced, yet all are exceptionally talented, intelligent and gifted in their areas of expertise.

Click here to download “Motivating Your Mind – Inspiring Your Spirit for 2017”

Destroy one fear, Change your life

15 February 2016 by Anne Riches Leave a Comment

spider on white table. macro view.

Scared of spiders? Performance reviews? Speaking in public?

Love this post by Shawn Hunter: Destroy one fear, Change your life.

It suggests that if you can conquer one fear, you can develop a mindset that will help you with others and change your life.

Worth a read even if simply for the reinforcement that it is possible.

Do you stress eat?

9 February 2016 by Anne Riches Leave a Comment

I like this TED talk on breaking a bad habit. It has a practical approach that I think could help.

Look at me when I’m talking to you

1 February 2016 by Anne Riches Leave a Comment

Talking one ignoring shutterstock_267892346

When I was growing up and my mother wanted to “point out the error of my ways”, I remember that she often prefaced her no doubt well-intentioned words of advice with: “Look at me when I’m talking to you!”

Depending on how much I wanted to hear her “words of wisdom”, especially if I disagreed with her or was embarrassed because I had been caught out in some way, I must have often looked away because the other phrase I remember was: “Don’t you turn away when I’m speaking to you!”

Why is it that, in our culture at least, we want people to look at us when we are making a point? When I am presenting at a meeting, conference or a workshop, I know that my amygdalae, our ‘fear factory’, are quick to generate a feeling of concern that I may have lost someone’s interest if I see them looking out the window, staring at their fingernails or into space.

But is there another explanation? [Read more…]

Less than 1/10th second to trust or not

19 January 2016 by Anne Riches Leave a Comment

Do you make snap judgments? Do you jump to conclusions?

When you’re at a party, a bar, deciding where to sit on a bus, serving a customer, interviewing someone, meeting your new boss, meeting staff as their new boss, watching new neighbours move in – how long does it takes you to ‘sum someone up’? What if you see the face of an alleged criminal on the television? And how long does it take when you meet your daughter’s new boyfriend or your boyfriend’s new girl? Two minutes? Ten minutes? Think again.

I am sure you would say you make a considered decision and don’t rush to conclusions. You might say: ‘I always give someone the benefit of the doubt’. But we all know it doesn’t work like that – and the science appears to back up what really happens.

What the science says

According to some research published in the Journal of Psychological Science by Professor Alex Todorov of Princeton University, it takes us less than 1/10th of a second to decide if we trust someone or not. We respond intuitively to faces so rapidly that our reasoning minds may not have time to influence our reaction. And our intuitions about attraction and trust are among those we form the fastest.

“The link between facial features and character may be tenuous at best, but that doesn’t stop our minds from sizing other people up at a glance,” says Todorov, “We decide very quickly whether a person possesses many of the traits we feel are important, such as likeability and competence, even though we have not exchanged a single word with them. It appears that we are hard-wired to draw these inferences in a fast, unreflective way.”

Trustworthiness and fear are connected

Why does this happen? Can we change our reaction? [Read more…]