Social Skills and Values

Reminiscing about my past always leaves me bursting out with laughter. Not exactly the brightest of students in school, and I didn’t know how to interact with anybody. I remember how in grade 9, a former friend who went to the same elementary school defined social skills to me to my face: the ability to interact with others. Needless to say, I was not exactly the most popular with the ladies back in the day.

I don’t look back at it and regret anything though. If anything, I look at those times as part of the experiences that molded the interests I have today, and brought me the friends I choose to enjoy interacting with on a personal level. I would say the biggest growth of my social skills came this year. That is, January 2010 and onwards. On an objective level, I can clearly see how people treat me differently, how I’m invited to more parties, even given better gifts, and offered more of everything, really.

But before, it really was a mystery. Interacting with other people seemed a completely alien matter, and I simply chose to accept the reality that I did not understand others and continued making social blunders (some pretty hilarious to me now), including one really genius maneuver way back in the day of hitting on the best friend of my first girlfriend, mere minutes after leaving her. Epic fail.

When did I stop being so stupid?

Well, with the massive pride that I had before… I guess it was actually realizing that I wasn’t the brightest. I “emptied my cup” so to speak, and was willing to learn from others. I associated myself with the most intelligent group of people that would accept me, from a few different pools of the most social, confident, healthy, abundant, generous souls I could find and simply kept soaking everything up like a sponge.

And I asked myself recently, “In what way did I end up changing from meeting all these awesome people?” My 20/20 hindsight vision tells me: My values, my beliefs and my habits.

My love for changing the very core of who I am, that hasn’t really changed. Some would argue that people don’t really change, and if my life is any reflection of anything, I would have to say that they are flat out wrong. If everybody has a unique gift (and I would even go so far as to say everybody has infinite unique gifts, but I won’t go into that now), I would say mine is imitation, and I constantly find the best to imitate. I am always looking for the very, very best, from my closest friends, my family and everyone around me really. But it’s not only from the best that I learn from.

Well…

Learning is a funny thing. And somewhere along the way, I began to learn from everyone. I decided I would start seeing everybody as their highest self, and that I could learn the best from literally everyone I met. And once I started along this path of learning, I found that I simply did not care so much about focusing on finding that one perfect teacher, for any one thing. That used to take up a lot of time and energy, and no one person can teach you everything. They don’t know everything, and even if they did, if they were the perfect teacher, they would have to be able to keep up with your pace of growth so that once you’ve surpassed them, they would still be able to teach you things. And also, to have a powerful expectation of a teacher to bring you to your finest in any skill is silly. At the end, the greatest growth comes from the inside of who you are, and a patient attitude with no expectation of being the best is what brings the best out of you, and gives you the potential of being the best.

Sick of me using the word best yet?

I don’t care so much about perfection (people who don’t make mistakes, never amount to anything, because they don’t do anything). I care about people expressing themselves, being who they are genuinely with a deep appreciation to those around them, and doing their very best in a humble, flexible manner to the universe.

Going back to my values, I do have a current list. Even though this list seems quite extensive and thorough, I’m actually open to it changing dramatically over the course of this year. I’d like to emphasize that this openness is the fundamental key to helping yourself change, if you ever want to do so yourself, in any area of life you deem important to you. This may sound a little confusing, so if you don’t get it just understand this: being open to being wrong will help you grow.

My current values, if I were to have a list, would be so:

Evolution of Myself (In these areas)

Expression of who I am/ Taste/ Openness to being wrong

Humbleness/Gratefulness/Appreciation

Abundance/ Creating Value/Vision

Relationships/ Synergy/ Connectivity/

Health/ Environment/ Surroundings

Creativity/ Novelty/ Variety

Paradox/ Reality manipulation

Love/ Pleasure/ Contrast/Desire

Certification/ Stuff society cares about/ Formerly described by me as worthless pieces of paper

More subtle than most around me can tell, I embark on a journey of personal change of such scale, every single day, that I am often quite pleasantly surprised at how much people treat me differently. I attribute this to my love of change. I change how I think, and this often results in joy to myself and those around me.

Values are only a symptom of successful habits though. It’s really successful habits that create lasting tangible change, good stuff to your life.

I have a few habits I would say are super successful. The most important of all my habits is my habit of learning. I am amazing at learning, and picking things up quickly has helped me with everything, from traveling to investing money intelligently. Everybody has a different technique to learn (and I would certainly be very grateful for any that you can share, in the comments below), and here I will share mine. Whenever I go into something new, even the smallest of attempts, I proceed with the expectation that I will eventually master it, whatever it will take. I expect to become the best, or at the very least, a top pro in training. This is basically saying the same thing in a different way, because no one can be the best without continually improving themselves anyways.

Now, it doesn’t matter what I’m going into, this can be learning social skills, to teaching a private class some form of exercise, to playing chess, to learning a completely new topic… like uh… rocket science. If I were to learn rocket science, I would go into the topic thinking myself a far superior scientist to Albert Einstein. Now it doesn’t matter if I don’t actually become better than Albert Einstein, what matters is that I’m doing my best with laser-like focus, destroying my obstacles with overwhelming force while getting really good at rocket science.

Basically, I consider myself a world class professional in training at anything I care about, which is anything my mind is on.

Here’s a list I made the other day as part of a journal entry, of what my mind focuses on. One could almost read them like affirmations, if one enjoyed.

The Reality is… I Am:

World’s Best at Strategy

World’s Quickest Learner

World’s Best at Money

World’s Best at Recovery.

World’s Best at Relaxing.

World’s Best at Hard Working.

World’s Best at Accomplishing Things Intelligently/Efficiently.

World’s Best at Mornings.

Worldly Mastery of all fields

World’s Best Synchronicities

World’s Highest Vibration (some new age thing, ignore it if you don’t know)

World’s Best Trust

World’s Best at Having Fun

World’s Best at Obtaining Easy Income

World’s Most Serious Positive Influence

World’s Best Sound

World’s Best Style

World’s Best Use of the Human Body

World’s Highest Understanding of the Human Body

World’s Best Meditator

World’s Greatest Yogi

World’s Best Conversationalist

World’s best at being Easily Influenced (Sponge to pros)

World’s best at not being Easily Influenced (counter deception)

World’s Best Teacher

World’s Best with Kids

World’s Best Blogger

World’s Best Reputation

World’s Friendliest Person

World’s Best Photoshop Expert

World’s Best Videographer

World’s Best Photographer

World’s Best Portfolio

World’s Most Effective Downloads

World’s Best use of the Internet

World’s Best Use of New Media, web 2.0

World’s Best Use of Technology

World’s Best use of Subconscious

World’s Best use of the Word Best

World’s Most powerful Manifestor

World’s Best Client(s)

World’s Best Friends

World’s Best Family

World’s Most Wanted in Perfect Opportunities That Expand My Inner and Outer Growth

World’s Best Referrals

World’s Best Referral

World’s Best Rebounder

World’s Best Organizer

World’s Best Marriage

World’s Best Understanding of Women

World’s Best Relationship

World’s Best Cuddler (I actually had something else here, but it wouldn’t be tasteful)

World’s Best Friend

World’s Best Variety

World’s Best Image

World’s Best Beyond Comprehension Person

World’s Best Experiences

World’s Best Practices

World’s Best Talent(s)

World’s Best Comprehension

World’s Best use of “No Mind”

World’s Best at all Emotions

World’s Best at all Sensitivity Levels

World’s Best Blogger/Writer/Radio Personality

World’s Greatest Actor

World’s Best Logic

World’s Best Calculations

World’s Best simply Best

World’s Bravest Man

World’s Best Mathematician

World’s Best Speller

World’s Best Accountant

World’s Best at Languages

World’s Best Yin Partner

World’s Best Yang Partner

World’s Best Follower

World’s Best Leader

World’s Best Imitator

World’s Most Natural Person

World’s Luckiest Person

World’s Best Strategist

World’s Best Individual

World’s Most Forgiving Person

World’s Most Humble Person (haha?)

World’s Most Appreciator

World’s Friendliest Person

World’s Most Abundant Man

World’s Smartest Man

World’s Best Listener to the Universe

World’s Most Unique Dancer

World’s Best Standard Dancer

World’s Healthiest Man

World’s Greatest Vision

World’s Happiest Man

Now, as silly as it might read to someone not myself, you have to understand I am a man with a great sense of humor. And as I made this list, I was really, really playful about it. Now, I’m not saying this for myself, but to clarify something. This strategy doesn’t work if you are too serious. Even when I think of myself as the world’s (whatever), I have an attitude of a child at play.

Anyways, and with this attitude of play, I will abruptly end this post. Thanks for reading, my world class fans

… and I wonder if you found it as funny as I did, where I had 2 pictures really early in the post, only to have you, my dear reader read onwards without being able to find another.