7 Essential Habits of Happier People

Happiness: everyone wants it, yet relatively few seem to get enough of it, especially those in their early forties. (That's about the time many of us start thinking, "Is this all there is?")

Maybe that's because approximately 50% of your "happiness set-point" is determined by personality traits that are largely hereditary. In short, half of how happy you feel is basically outside your control. (Bummer.)

But that also means 50% of your level of happiness is totally within your control: relationships, health, career, etc. So even if you're genetically disposed to be somewhat gloomy, you can still do things to make yourself a lot happier.

Like these:

1. Make good friends.

It's easy to focus on building a professional network of partners, customers, employees, connections, etc, because there is (hopefully) a payoff.

But there's a definite payoff to making real (not just professional or social media) friends. Increasing your number of friends correlates to higher subjective wellbeing. In terms of how happy you feel, doubling your number of friends is like increasing your income by 50%.

And if that's not enough, people who don't have strong social relationships are 50% less likely to survive at any given time than those who do. (That's a scary thought for relative loners like me.)

Make friends outside of work. Make friends at work. Make friends everywhere.

But above all, make real friends. You'll live a happier and longer life.

2. Actively express your thankfulness.

According to one study, couples that expressed gratitude in their interactions with each other resulted in increases in relationship connection and satisfaction the next day -- both for the person expressing thankfulness and (no big surprise) for the person receiving it. (In fact the authors of the study said gratitude was like a "booster shot" for relationships.)

Of course the same is true at work. Tell a coworker she did a great job and you both feel better about yourselves.

Another easy method is to write down a few things you are grateful for every night. One study showed people who wrote down 5 things they were thankful for once a week were 25% happier after ten weeks.

Happy people focus on what they have, not on what they don't have. It's motivating to want more in your career, relationships, bank account, etc. but thinking about what you already have, and expressing gratitude for it, will make you a lot happier.

And will remind you that even if you still have huge dreams, you have already accomplished a lot... and should feel genuinely proud.

3. Actively pursue your goals.

Goals you don't pursue aren't goals, they're dreams -- and dreams only make you happy when you're dreaming.

Pursuing goals, though, does make you happy. According to David Niven, author of 100 Simple Secrets of the Best Half of Life, "People who could identify a goal they were pursuing (my italics) were 19% more likely to feel satisfied with their lives and 26% more likely to feel positive about themselves."

So be grateful for what you have... then actively try to achieve more. If you're pursuing a huge goal, make sure that every time you take a small step closer to achieving it you pat yourself on the back.

But don't compare where you are now to where you someday hope to be. Compare where you are now to where you were a few days ago. Then you'll get dozens of bite-sized chunks of fulfillment -- and a never-ending supply of things to be thankful for.

4. Do what you excel at as often as you can.

You know the old cliché regarding the starving yet happy artist? Turns out it's true: artists are considerably more satisfied with their work than non-artists -- even though the pay tends to be considerably lower than in other skilled fields.

Why? I'm no researcher, but clearly the more you enjoy what you do and the more fulfilled you feel by what you do the happier you will be.

In The Happiness Advantage, Shawn Anchor says that when volunteers picked, "...one of their signature strengths and used it in a new way each day for a week, they became significantly happier and less depressed."

Of course it's unreasonable to think you can abandon your career and simply do what you love. But you can find ways to do more of what you excel at.

Delegate. Outsource. Start to shift that you do into areas that allow you to bring more of your strengths to bear. If you're a great trainer, find ways to train more people. If you're a great salesperson, find ways to streamline your admin tasks and get in front of more customers.

Everyone has at least a few things they do incredibly well. Find ways to do those things more often. You'll be a lot happier.

And probably a lot more successful -- which should also make you feel a little happier. (Here's a great example of what it feels like when you're succeeding.)

And keep in mind you don't have to start out loving what you do for it to make you happy.

5. Give.

While giving is usually considered to be unselfish, giving can also be more beneficial for the giver than the receiver. Providing social support may be more beneficial than receiving it.

Intuitively we all know that since it always feels great to help someone who needs it. Not only is helping those in need fulfilling, it's also a reminder of how comparatively fortunate we are... which is a nice reminder of how thankful we should be for what we already have.

Plus receiving is something you cannot control. If you need help -- or simply want help -- you can't make other people help you. But you can always control whether you help someone else.

And that means you can always control, at least to a degree, how happy you are -- because giving makes you happier.

(Want to know if you're a relatively giving person? Check this out.)

6. Don't single-mindedly chase 'stuff.'

Money does a lot of things; one of the most important is to give us choices.

But after a certain point money doesn't make people happier. After about $75,000 a year, money doesn't "buy" more happiness.

As the authors of the linked study say, "Beyond $75,000... higher income is neither the road to experience happiness nor the road to relief of unhappiness or stress. Perhaps $75,000 is the threshold beyond which further increases in income no longer improve individuals' ability to do what matters most to their emotional well-being, such as spending time with people they like, avoiding pain and disease, and enjoying leisure."

And if you don't buy that, here's another take: "The materialistic drive and satisfaction with life are negatively related." (Or in non-researcher's terms, "Chasing possessions tends to make you less happy.")

Think of it as the bigger house syndrome. You want a bigger house. You need a bigger house. (Not really, but it sure feels like you do.) So you buy it. Life is good... until a couple months later when your bigger house is now just your house.

All too soon, new always becomes the new normal.

"Things" only provide momentary bursts of happiness. To be happier, don't chase as many things. Chase more experiences instead.

7. More than anything, live the life you want to live.

Bonnie Ware worked in palliative care, spending time with patients who had only a few months to live. Their most common regret was, "I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me."

What other people think -- especially people you don't even know -- doesn't matter. What other people want you to do doesn't mater.

Your hopes, your dreams, your goals... live your life your way. Surround yourself with people who support and care not for the "you" they want you to be but for the real you.

So make the choices that are right for you. Say the things you really want to say to the people who most need to hear them. Express your feelings. Stop and smell a few roses. Make friends, and stay in touch with them.

And most of all, realize that happiness is a choice. 50% of how happy you are lies within your control, so start doing more things that will make you happier.

 

7 Traits of Truly Sensational Startup Employees

While you might think a great employee is a great employee no matter where she works, what matters in a small, growth-oriented startup is often very different from what matters in a huge, stability-oriented corporation.

For one thing, the ability to successfully navigate politics-filled waters is usually a lot less important in a startup. Plus, since the organizations tend to be flatter, standing out is often more a matter of what you accomplish than of whom you know.

(But then again I love startups and I love startup cultures… so I’m probably biased.)

I've been in an around startups for a long time and known some great startup folks (including many that work at HubSpot). I think I have a sense for what makes for truly sensational people at a startup.

Here’s my (partial) list:

1. They would much rather act than deliberate.

I've only written one business plan in my life. It was while I was in business school, and it was required. Generally, I think business plans are pretty useless (but the planning process can be quite useful).

The problem with business plans is that things change so quickly in the startup world. Before the ink is even dry on that 100+ page business plan as it shoots out the printer, things have already changed and "the plan" is already outdated. Stuff happens: Good stuff, bad stuff -- and every now and then, amazing stuff.

Very few startups I know – or companies I’ve invested in – resemble their original business plan. (And that’s a good thing, because it means they’re shaping their businesses to meet the needs of their customers.)

Great startup employees are the same way. They think a little and then do a lot. And then they adapt and modify.

The best companies often don't start with a brilliant idea, they iterate into one.
It’s hard to learn from thinking. It’s much easier to learn from doing.

2. They don’t care about what’s behind the curtain.

In some corporations, offices – and the perceived status that come with them – are everything. A corner office makes you better than someone with a hallway office. A hallway office makes you better than someone in a cubicle.

(At my company I don’t have an office – I’m not sure what that makes me.)

Startups generally avoid politics. Instead of obsessing who has the bigger desk/office, they obsess over the customer.

Sensational start-up employees understand calories are best spent making a real difference for customers. Every business has finite resources. The key is to spend as much of those resources as possible on things that matter to the customers -- or, at least genuinely matter to the team. Fretting over trivial things doesn't help anyone. It's just a waste of energy.

3. They don’t see money as the solution to every problem.

Sure, capital-intensive ventures that require extensive investment may need significant cash to get going, but most businesses require little funding to get started. (A quick glance at the Inc. 5000 list shows just how many startups were founded with relatively little funding.)

One of the key lessons first-time entrepreneurs need to learn is resourcefulness. How do you take limited resources and turn them into something remarkable?

That’s also true of the best startup employees. They're remarkably resourceful. They're not looking to build an army of people to do their bidding They're not looking to spend thousands on advertising to avoid the hard work of writing a blog. They're constantly looking for creative ways to make the most of the resources they have.

In short, they throw brains at problems, not money. And the solutions they come up with are almost always better. And, the connections built between people from solving problems creatively are some of the strongest connections that can be built.

4. They see every customer as an individual that deserves respect.

Maybe you have hundreds or thousands of customers. If so, that’s awesome – but that also can mean you face the danger of thinking of your customers as a nameless, faceless group of revenue-producing entities.

But no matter how many customers you have, each is an individual. The day you start thinking of them as this amorphous “collection” and stop thinking of them as people is the day you start going out of business.

Great startup employees never lose sight of the fact that every customer is a person: a person with hopes, dreams, expectations, needs… and a person who ultimately wants to be treated as a person. Yes, they worry about the "market" and work to build a business that can scale as it grows. But, that's shouldn't be an excuse for not caring about customers.

Great startup employees solve for the customer – and in so doing, they solve for the business.

5. They love a meritocracy.

Sensational startup employees hate politics. They hate hidden agendas. They hate the “good old boys” network.

They’re willing to succeed on their own merits – because they believe in themselves.

And they believe in others, too.

6. They care much more about their peers than the perks.

Catered meals. Free massages. Lavish parties. These are all perks -- and they're great if you have them. But, the best people care much more about who they work with (their peers) than the perks they get.

This is for a very simple reason: The #1 benefit of working at a startup is that you get to learn. And, how much you learn is largely a function of how much autonomy you have -- and who you're around.

Also, stars know intuitively that life is short. Too short to work with people you don't enjoy.

7. They instinctively focus on the company’s mission.

Walk through any huge corporation and you’ll find people who have created their own jobs (and not in a good way.)

Some will have developed databases filled with data (but resulting in no usable insight) because they love building databases. Some will have created fancy charts (again resulting in no usable insight) because they love creating fancy charts. Some will schedule meeting after meeting (none of which resulting in meaningful decisions) because they love being in charge… and they love hearing themselves talk.

Great start-up employees focus on the core mission of the company. They build products customers want. They meet customer needs. They help other employees succeed. The best people don't just bide their time while they're at work. They squeeze as much value out of that time as they possibly can in furthering the organization's mission.

They try to make tomorrow better than today for everyone around them – because that’s what they love to do.

 

7 Tips for Getting the Information You Need Before Becoming a Franchisee

So, you’ve done your research online and have a sense of the franchise that most interests you. You are drawn to what the business does, and you’ve had great conversations with the franchisor about how all the pieces of the business work together -- operations, marketing, technology, real estate (if applicable) and overall brand management. You are chomping at the bit to ask franchisees what it’s really like to be an owner, and learn if the lifestyle and income potential match your entrepreneurial dream.

You're on the right track: Speaking with current franchisees to validate everything you’ve learned about the franchise is the crux of your investigation. Your franchise representative will give you a clear signal when to reach out to franchisees. 

Here are seven keys to successfully gathering the facts and figures you desire from validation:

1. Speak with a five or more franchisees.

As a franchise coach, I encourage franchise candidates to speak with aminimum of five current owners. If you are checking out multiple franchises at the same time, it’s a good idea to narrow your options to the two top contenders before validation. This will save you time and effort and make the deep dive into the details more manageable.

2. Respect the discovery process.

Doesn’t it make sense to first understand the basics about the franchise, so that you know what the franchisees are talking about, and you can ask insightful questions? What a missed opportunity to have franchisees explain to you how it all works, when you could be asking them questions the franchisor can’t answer such as, “Did you find the training to be comprehensive, and did it allow you to be successful in an industry new to you?” You’ve heard about the training from the franchise development representative. Now you can hear what franchisees think about it, the support provided and all the other important aspects of the franchise.

3. Prepare your questions.

A good franchise consultant helps you create a list of questions. A short list of 10-to-12 meaningful questions will aid you in validating the franchise’s training and support mechanisms, its operational processes and the viability of the business model and marketing strategy. Asking just this one question will shed lots of light on the opportunity: “What’s a day in the life of a franchisee like?”

4. Respect the fact that "time is money."

Since franchisees are volunteering to speak with you, be respectful of their time by being informed and well prepared. It may be helpful to email your questions in advance of a scheduled phone appointment. Some franchises have regularly scheduled group validation conference calls, with a franchisee who volunteers to host the call. This makes validation efficient for everyone. 

5. Look for trends.

Avoid allowing the comments of one franchisee to outweigh valuable input from others. When you come across someone whose opinion is an outlier, whether positive or negative, ask questions to see if this individual is executing on what he or she was trained to do, and closely following the systems that minimize cost and drive revenue. Find out why this person's results are not the norm. This will aid you in determining if there are issues you should investigate, either on the side of the franchisor or that of the franchisee.

6. Know your numbers.

Franchisees are individuals with different skills, goals and motivations. Although everyone took the same training, expect variation on the part of franchisees when it comes to execution and to their financial results. Learn what key performance indicators they use to monitor their businesses. Spend time understanding what drives revenue and how long it takes to break even. Obviously, you want to learn what the income potential is as well as understand costs and operating expenses. After gathering financial information from a variety of franchisees, analyze it, then make your own projections based on what you want to achieve with your business.

7. Build bridges.

If you are awarded a franchise, the people you connect with during validation will be your peers. They can be a wonderful resource to you and may play a valuable role in your success. Thank each franchisee for his or her time and wrap up all your validation calls in a timely manner so you can head into the final phase of the discovery process -- attending a Discovery Day or a Meet the Team Day, as these events are sometimes called.

The quality of the facts and figures you gather during validation will play a vital role in helping you determine if a specific franchise is right for you. Following these seven tips will assist you in getting the best information possible when making that decision.

 

5 Ways to Know If Your Business Is Ready to Franchise

Joe Entrepreneur always believed in his idea for a frozen yogurt parlor, but in 2011 he actually quit his job, put his family’s savings on the line and opened Joe’s Fro-Yo. Three years of hard work, late nights and seven-day workweeks taught Joe a lot about running a startup, but the investment paid off. Today, business is booming, and last year Joe opened a second store. Lately, he and his wife have been talking more and more about whether it’s time to take the leap into franchising.

They know that starting a franchise involves risk, but so did creating the first Joe’s Fro-Yo, and look how well that turned out. It’s hard to put away the idea of franchising -- there is so much money to be made! They’d be crazy not to take a profitable business to the next level and make Joe’s Fro-Yo a national name … right?

Not necessarily. If running a lucrative startup is the equivalent to crossing an uncharted ocean and finding Treasure Island, then turning that business into a successful franchise is the equivalent to launching a rocket into deep space and landing on Jupiter. It’s possible, but with limited supplies and no sure bets, entrepreneurs have to understand and accept the serious risks, enlist the help of experts and prepare for a long-haul journey. Here are five questions they should be asking themselves along the way.

1. Can you clearly articulate what your brand is?

Initiating a franchise requires a lot more than a great business concept. Entrepreneurs should understand exactly what their brand is and does, and articulate the concept and plan. Franchises are about systemization, so entrepreneurs need solid, organized outlines for operations, communications and methods for franchisees to attract new customers. Entrepreneurs must clearly and succinctly describe every facet of branding and operations to everyone, from investors to potential franchisees.

2. Can my business be replicated?

Joe is involved with parent organizations, his church and school sports teams, and both of his stores are within walking distance of two major high schools. Before Joe jumps into franchising, he has to examine whether his company could be a homerun anywhere. It’s easy for entrepreneurs to underestimate how much value they personally add to the business, but for a company to translate into a thriving franchise, it has to be able to survive the day-to-day challenges and do so without the entrepreneur’s personal touch. 

3. Am I willing to team up with multiple experts?

Joe is a fantastic salesperson and balanced business owner with plenty of skills, but a franchisor has to delegate. Building a cohesive brand means keeping every franchisee on the same page, with unified business systems; and no one person can do that alone. Joe’s Fro-Yo will need experts who specialize in a range of industries, including public relations, advertising, graphic design, equipment and support, training and legal issues. Joe has to partner with the right players and empower others to take on tasks, while managing the process alongside a core corporate leadership team.

4. What’s the true cost of franchising?

Before he even thinks about getting started, Joe needs two things: a lot of money and the willingness to lose it all. Entrepreneurs should expect to have investing partners as well as a personal financial stake in the venture. Costs will quickly multiply for brand development, courting potential franchisees, compensating experts and especially covering legal fees. (Never ever underestimate the legal fees.)

Franchises can’t get off the ground without abundant cash flow, and if the franchise flops, it could all vanish. People often look too hard at the potential earnings without considering the potential loss.

5. Is my vision for expansion realistic?

Big dreams are the foundation of every triumph story, but they can sometimes cause financial ruin. In order to franchise, entrepreneurs have to be visionaries who believe in their product, but they also need to seriously examine whether their vision is possible in the real world. Franchising requires commitments on every imaginable level over the long haul. Before Joe takes the plunge, he should gear up for years of preparation, implementation and late hours. In the end, he may prefer to embrace his local success rather than become the leader of a huge brand.

 

12 Ways Successful People Handle Toxic People

Toxic people defy logic. Some are blissfully unaware of the negative impact that they have on those around them, and others seem to derive satisfaction from creating chaos and pushing other people’s buttons. Either way, they create unnecessary complexity, strife, and worst of all stress.

Studies have long shown that stress can have a lasting, negative impact on the brain. Exposure to even a few days of stress compromises the effectiveness of neurons in the hippocampus—an important brain area responsible for reasoning and memory. Weeks of stress cause reversible damage to neuronal dendrites (the small “arms” that brain cells use to communicate with each other), and months of stress can permanently destroy neurons. Stress is a formidable threat to your success—when stress gets out of control, your brain and your performance suffer.

Most sources of stress at work are easy to identify. If your non-profit is working to land a grant that your organization needs to function, you’re bound to feel stress and likely know how to manage it. It’s the unexpected sources of stress that take you by surprise and harm you the most.

Recent research from the Department of Biological and Clinical Psychology at Friedrich Schiller University in Germany found that exposure to stimuli that cause strong negative emotions—the same kind of exposure you get when dealing with toxic people—caused subjects’ brains to have a massive stress response. Whether it’s negativity, cruelty, the victim syndrome, or just plain craziness, toxic people drive your brain into a stressed-out state that should be avoided at all costs.

The ability to manage your emotions and remain calm under pressure has a direct link to your performance. TalentSmart has conducted research with more than a million people, and we’ve found that 90% of top performers are skilled at managing their emotions in times of stress in order to remain calm and in control. One of their greatest gifts is the ability to neutralize toxic people. Top performers have well-honed coping strategies that they employ to keep toxic people at bay.

While I’ve run across numerous effective strategies that successful people employ when dealing with toxic people, what follows are twelve of the best. To deal with toxic people effectively, you need an approach that enables you, across the board, to control what you can and eliminate what you can’t. The important thing to remember is that you are in control of far more than you realize.

1. They Set Limits (Especially with Complainers)

Complainers and negative people are bad news because they wallow in their problems and fail to focus on solutions. They want people to join their pity party so that they can feel better about themselves. People often feel pressure to listen to complainers because they don’t want to be seen as callous or rude, but there’s a fine line between lending a sympathetic ear and getting sucked into their negative emotional spiral.

You can avoid this only by setting limits and distancing yourself when necessary. Think of it this way: if the complainer were smoking, would you sit there all afternoon inhaling the second-hand smoke? You’d distance yourself, and you should do the same with complainers. A great way to set limits is to ask complainers how they intend to fix the problem. They will either quiet down or redirect the conversation in a productive direction.

2. They Don’t Die in the Fight

Successful people know how important it is to live to fight another day, especially when your foe is a toxic individual. In conflict, unchecked emotion makes you dig your heels in and fight the kind of battle that can leave you severely damaged. When you read and respond to your emotions, you’re able to choose your battles wisely and only stand your ground when the time is right.

3. They Rise Above

Toxic people drive you crazy because their behavior is so irrational. Make no mistake about it; their behavior truly goes against reason. So why do you allow yourself to respond to them emotionally and get sucked into the mix?

The more irrational and off-base someone is, the easier it should be for you to remove yourself from their traps. Quit trying to beat them at their own game. Distance yourself from them emotionally and approach your interactions like they’re a science project (or you’re their shrink, if you prefer the analogy). You don’t need to respond to the emotional chaos—only the facts.

4. They Stay Aware of Their Emotions

Maintaining an emotional distance requires awareness. You can’t stop someone from pushing your buttons if you don’t recognize when it’s happening. Sometimes you’ll find yourself in situations where you’ll need to regroup and choose the best way forward. This is fine and you shouldn’t be afraid to buy yourself some time to do so.

Think of it this way—if a mentally unstable person approaches you on the street and tells you he’s John F. Kennedy, you’re unlikely to set him straight. When you find yourself with a coworker who is engaged in similarly derailed thinking, sometimes it’s best to just smile and nod. If you’re going to have to straighten them out, it’s better to give yourself some time to plan the best way to go about it.

5. They Establish Boundaries

This is the area where most people tend to sell themselves short. They feel like because they work or live with someone, they have no way to control the chaos. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Once you’ve found your way to Rise Above a person, you’ll begin to find their behavior more predictable and easier to understand. This will equip you to think rationally about when and where you have to put up with them and when you don’t. For example, even if you work with someone closely on a project team, that doesn’t mean that you need to have the same level of one-on-one interaction with them that you have with other team members.

You can establish a boundary, but you’ll have to do so consciously and proactively. If you let things happen naturally, you are bound to find yourself constantly embroiled in difficult conversations. If you set boundaries and decide when and where you’ll engage a difficult person, you can control much of the chaos. The only trick is to stick to your guns and keep boundaries in place when the person tries to encroach upon them, which they will.

6. They Won’t Let Anyone Limit Their Joy

When your sense of pleasure and satisfaction are derived from the opinions of other people, you are no longer the master of your own happiness. When emotionally intelligent people feel good about something that they’ve done, they won’t let anyone’s opinions or snide remarks take that away from them.

While it’s impossible to turn off your reactions to what others think of you, you don’t have to compare yourself to others, and you can always take people’s opinions with a grain of salt. That way, no matter what toxic people are thinking or doing, your self-worth comes from within. Regardless of what people think of you at any particular moment, one thing is certain—you’re never as good or bad as they say you are.

7. They Don’t Focus on Problems—Only Solutions

Where you focus your attention determines your emotional state. When you fixate on the problems you’re facing, you create and prolong negative emotions and stress. When you focus on actions to better yourself and your circumstances, you create a sense of personal efficacy that produces positive emotions and reduces stress.

When it comes to toxic people, fixating on how crazy and difficult they are gives them power over you. Quit thinking about how troubling your difficult person is, and focus instead on how you’re going to go about handling them. This makes you more effective by putting you in control, and it will reduce the amount of stress you experience when interacting with them.

8. They Don’t Forget

Emotionally intelligent people are quick to forgive, but that doesn’t mean that they forget. Forgiveness requires letting go of what’s happened so that you can move on. It doesn’t mean you’ll give a wrongdoer another chance. Successful people are unwilling to be bogged down unnecessarily by others’ mistakes, so they let them go quickly and are assertive in protecting themselves from future harm.

9. They Squash Negative Self-Talk

Sometimes you absorb the negativity of other people. There’s nothing wrong with feeling bad about how someone is treating you, but your self-talk (the thoughts you have about your feelings) can either intensify the negativity or help you move past it. Negative self-talk is unrealistic, unnecessary, and self-defeating. It sends you into a downward emotional spiral that is difficult to pull out of. You should avoid negative self-talk at all costs.

10. They Limit Their Caffeine Intake

Drinking caffeine triggers the release of adrenaline. Adrenaline is the source of the “fight-or-flight” response, a survival mechanism that forces you to stand up and fight or run for the hills when faced with a threat. The fight-or-flight mechanism sidesteps rational thinking in favor of a faster response. This is great when a bear is chasing you, but not so great when you’re surprised in the hallway by an angry coworker.

11. They Get Some Sleep

I’ve beaten this one to death over the years and can’t say enough about the importance of sleep to increasing your emotional intelligence and managing your stress levels. When you sleep, your brain literally recharges, shuffling through the day’s memories and storing or discarding them (which causes dreams), so that you wake up alert and clear-headed. Your self-control, attention, and memory are all reduced when you don’t get enough—or the right kind—of sleep. Sleep deprivation raises stress hormone levels on its own, even without a stressor present.

A good night’s sleep makes you more positive, creative, and proactive in your approach to toxic people, giving you the perspective you need to deal effectively with them.

12. They Use Their Support System

It’s tempting, yet entirely ineffective, to attempt tackling everything by yourself. To deal with toxic people, you need to recognize the weaknesses in your approach to them. This means tapping into your support system to gain perspective on a challenging person. Everyone has someone at work and/or outside work who is on their team, rooting for them, and ready to help them get the best from a difficult situation. Identify these individuals in your life and make an effort to seek their insight and assistance when you need it. Something as simple as explaining the situation can lead to a new perspective. Most of the time, other people can see a solution that you can’t because they are not as emotionally invested in the situation.

Bringing It All Together

Before you get this system to work brilliantly, you’re going to have to pass some tests. Most of the time, you will find yourself tested by touchy interactions with problem people. Thankfully, the plasticity of the brain allows it to mold and change as you practice new behaviors, even when you fail. Implementing these healthy, stress-relieving techniques for dealing with difficult people will train your brain to handle stress more effectively and decrease the likelihood of ill effects.

 

10 Behaviors of Genuine People

Whether you’re building a business, a network, or friendships, you always want to look for people who are genuine. After all, nobody wants to work or hang out with a phony. On the flipside, that goes for you, as well. Bet you never considered that. 

In case you're wondering, genuine means actual, real, sincere, honest. Genuine people are more or less the same on the inside as their behavior is on the outside. Unfortunately, it's a tough quality to discern. The problem is that all human interactions are relative. They’re all a function of how we perceive each other through our own subjective lenses. 

Being genuine is also a rare quality. In a world full of phony fads, media hype, virtual personas, positive thinkers, and personal brands – where everyone wants what they don’t have, nobody’s content to be who they are, and, more importantly, nobody’s willing to admit to any of that – it’s becoming more and more rare all the time.  

To help you identify this rare breed -- in yourself, as well -- this is how genuine people behave. 

They don’t seek attention. They don’t need constant reinforcement of their own ego. Where attention seekers have a hole that constantly needs to be filled, genuine people are already filled with self-confidence and self-awareness.

They’re not concerned with being liked. The need to be liked is born of insecurity and narcissism. It creates a need to manipulate your own and other’s emotions. Confident and authentic people are simply themselves. If you like them, fine. If not, that’s fine, too.

They can tell when others are full of it. Perhaps naïve folks can be easily fooled, but genuine people are not naïve. They’re grounded in reality and that gives them a baseline from which they can tell when things don’t add up. There’s a big difference. 

They are comfortable in their own skin. In his late 70s, actor Leonard Nimoy said he was closer than ever to being as comfortable with himself as Spock appeared to be. Most of us struggle with that. As Henry David Thoreau observed, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

They do what they say and say what they mean. They don’t tend to overreach or exaggerate. They meet their commitments. And they don’t parse their words or sugarcoat the truth. If you need to hear it, they’ll tell you … even if it’s tough for them to say and for you to hear.

They don’t need a lot of stuff. When you’re comfortable with whom you are, you don’t need a lot of external stuff to be happy. You know where to find happiness – inside yourself, your loved ones, and your work. You find happiness in the simple things.

They’re not thin-skinned. They don’t take themselves too seriously so they don’t take offense when none is intended.

They’re not overly modest or boastful. Since they’re confident of their strengths, they don’t need to brag about them. Likewise, they don’t exhibit false modesty. Humility is a positive trait but it’s even better to just be straightforward.

They’re consistent. You might describe genuine people as being weighty, solid, or substantial. Since they know themselves well and are in touch with their genuine emotions, they’re more or less predictable ... in a good way.  

They practice what they preach. They’re not likely to advise people to do something they wouldn’t do themselves. After all, genuine people know they’re no better than anyone else so it’s not in their nature to be self-righteous.  

All those seemingly different behaviors have the same thing at their core: self-awareness that’s consistent with reality. Genuine people see themselves as others would if they were objective observers. There’s not a lot of processing, manipulating, or controlling going on between what’s in their head and what people see and hear.

Once you get to know them, genuine people turn out to be more or less consistent with the way they initially hold themselves out to be. What you see is what you get. It's sad that, in today's world, such a positive quality is at risk of becoming endangered. Not only is it harder to find in others, it's becoming harder to be genuine ourselves.