The friendships of Friends are something of a marvel. Six vastly different people in their young adulthood with disparate wants, goals, professions, and relationships all closely orbit one another (and a single coffee shop). Whenever they need each other, there’s always someone available to help or comfort them. Monica, Rachel, Chandler, Ross, Phoebe, and Joey live together and love each other — and eventually find their happily-ever-afters with each other, too. But the cruel lie of Friends and so many shows like it is that in real life, friendships often don’t operate like that at all.

The Lie Of The Sitcom 'Friends'

Television and movies have long given us unrealistic expectations for romantic relationships. There are rarely any perfectly timed meet-cutes or mad dashes to the airport, and the chances of an ironic misunderstanding that lead you to the love of your life are slim to none. But less attention has been devoted to how television and movies shape our perception of friendships, too, in ways that don’t always reflect reality.Modern adult friendships aren’t just challenging to create and maintain — some evidence suggests they are also in decline.

Wrong Expectations Of A Relationship

Americans today lead increasingly busy lives, and as members of our friend groups grow into their careers and relationships, incomes and schedules start to vary. People move away for new jobs or to be closer to family. Distance and time become barriers in a way they weren’t when everyone was young, single, and devoted to their found families.

No Time For Friendships

TV reinforces the fantasy that true friendships are and should be deeply close but require no real effort to maintain. It’s a stark difference from the way we know friendships operate in our own lives — as meaningful but sometimes fleeting relationships that can eventually dissolve because we have no language, script, or social expectation for how to seriously integrate friendships into our adult lives.

Everything You See On TV Isn't True

Real friendships are rife with conflict, separations, jealousies, and reconciliations. They are relationships like any other, stretching through their growing pains and sometimes snapping from the stress of ongoing tension. But none of that ever seems to make it to a television screen. As a result, we’re left idealizing relationships that wouldn’t happen outside the context of scripted television.

The Real World

And as an audience, we want closure when stories end. We spend years with characters and invest in their lives. It makes sense that our journey ends as they exit the phase of life in which we met them. But over time, this accumulation of choices has trained us to associate friendships with the spaces where they initially thrive. And we don’t have great models for how friendships should endure when they exist outside the realm of convenient proximity, despite the fact that in the real world, people’s locations and jobs are constantly changing.

Change Is The Only Constant

But perhaps more insidious than the portrayal of a too-close friendship is the lack of work their relationship seems to require. Disagreements and miscommunications between them are quickly resolved within the span of an episode or two, and very little time is allotted to working through the disloyalties, real or imagined, that have infected their friendship. Conflict resolution is unnecessary when your love for each other supersedes all.

Friendship Needs Work!

Slowly but surely, television is catching up to this glaring emotional disparity. Shows such as Insecure are finally taking a hard look at what happens when a friend group fractures, and how deeply wounding it can be to fall out with the person who used to know you best.  Friendships take time and dedication to maintain. The fallout felt real and hurtful, in part because there have been so few honest, realistic cultural scripts in media for how friendships should end.

Catching Up To The 2022 Reality

Perhaps what viewers really want, if we’re being honest, is for the friendship dynamics of our favourite TV characters to never really change or evolve as they do in our real lives. We want them to stay frozen in that inexplicably spacious purple apartment in ’90s New York City.If only our own friendships could be so pat.

The Bottom Line

The TV show sold us an idealized vision of these relationships. For young adults, the real thing is far harder to find.

loveandrelationships

Love & Relationships

artsandculture

Society, Arts & Culture

"Friends" and the illusion of perfect adult friendships

The popular belief that a friendship shouldn’t make you uncomfortable and that you should cut someone off at the first sign of tension or disappointment has seeped into the collective consciousnessRelationship experts agree: That’s not real friendship.<ul><li>Honing your ability to work through conflict in a long-term platonic relationship is no different than learning to do so in a committed romantic partnership.</li><li>Open, non-blaming conversations lead to deeper intimacy.</li><li>When the challenge arises, don't run from the chance to deepen your bond.</li></ul>

Real Friendship

Coping with conflict is the goal, but that doesn't mean you have to confront your friend every single time they do something that bothers or annoys you.A helpful way to assess if it's worth going to them about it is if it is a recurring issue or a situation that has continued to affect how you perceive your friend and how you show up in your friendship.

Examining The Problem

Your level of closeness to the person is a factor worth considering when deciding whether to bring up an issue with your friend.Conflict isn't automatically an indicator of incompatibility; it may simply be the sign of differing preferences that can be bridged with communication.

Assess the Relationship

<ul><li>Timing is everything</li><li>Consider if you have the immediate capacity for it.</li><li>Carve out an entire afternoon - or day, if you need it - so that you aren't rushing through your chat and have time to process any emotions you may feel afterwards.</li></ul>

Take The Time

If you've given yourself a chance to prepare for the conversation, you should also extend the same courtesy to your friend.Consider if they are in a space where they can actually receive and process your feelings. If not, it's likely that they will go into fight-or-flight mode.

Provide a Warning

<ul><li>Use authentic feelings as leverage.</li><li>Be open about your feelings and be honest about your nerves. This may help ease your friend’s nerves and expand their ability to receive and receive your emotions. You can also build trust with someone by being open and honest with them.</li></ul>

Lean into vulnerability

<ul><li>How you start the conversation influences the mood, tone, and direction of the talk more than you know.</li><li>Use verbiage that welcomes your friend in rather than alienates them, positive framing script.</li><li>An example would be: "Hey, I was wondering if we can talk about something that's been on my mind."</li></ul>

Use Inviting Language

When sharing your dilemma, keep the focus of your words on you and how you feel by using "I" statements.Start by expressing how it made you feel when your friend did what they did. Feelings are information, not fact.This also helps you understand that there is more than one reality, and going towards factual reality is a two-way process involving both.

Speak to Your Reality, Not Theirs

<ul><li>What you're trying to do is to embrace something called mutuality.</li><li>You're considering their experience and your experience at the same time.</li><li>True mutuality is not about right or wrong, it's about finding balance and understanding.</li><li>Don't kowtow to their reasoning, but listen to them out.</li></ul>

Ask About Their Experience

If you have been approached by a friend about how you've hurt them, remember that they care enough to bring it to you and are willing to be their vulnerable self with youThis is your friend showing that they're invested in you enough to want to work through this issue

View It as An Act of Love

<ul><li>Do what you need to do to refrain from sending emotions into overdrive</li><li>De-escalate if necessary, even if it means taking a break during the conversation</li><li>If the dialogue gets heated, verbalize that you need a moment instead of shutting down</li></ul>

Protect Yourself from Fight or Flight

In the heat of the moment, it's hard to remember that we are real people.Take a pause, ask for a moment, and call back later, or even take a day or two. It will help your relationship in the long run and give you space to be receptive rather than reactive.

<ul><li>Frame your friend's feelings as information instead.</li><li>A certain word or action may trigger them, but it might not trigger you and vice versa.</li><li>It's simply about respecting and honouring their request next time.</li><li>Don't let them tell you they hate you.</li></ul>

Depersonalize It

Before the conversation ends, let your friend know that you hear them. Confirm what has upset them, and verbalize that you care and understand where they're coming from.If you would like to avoid hurting them in the future, express how you will go about it next time.

Listen to Understand

Learn the best methods for navigating disagreements with friends, whether you’re bringing up or responding to hurt feelings.

communication

Communication

The Art of Friendship: How to Address and Respond to Conflict

If you're always successful, you won't know what to improve. If you always fail, you won't know what works. We learn the quickest when the success rate is 85 percent.

Learning needs a mixture of success and failure

Imagine you're studying for a test by doing practice problems. <ul><li>An easy way to solve the problems would be with an open book and worked examples. </li><li>The most difficult would be to work on novel problems with the book closed.</li></ul> The 85% rule suggests that learning is best when we practice tasks that we can succeed at roughly four-fifths of the time. If you're getting one out of every five problems wrong, you may need extra help. If you're getting nearly all the problems right, you need to move to more difficult ones.

How to apply the 85% rule

Theories of optimal learning show that we learn best when it is not too easy and not too hard. <ul><li>The zone of proximal development states that we maximise learning when tasks are slightly beyond what we can do.</li><li>The zone of learnability shows that If texts are too easy, you won't invest much effort in creating a mental model. When it is harder, the struggle forces you to retrieve background knowledge.</li><li>The model of deliberate practice argues that when a skill becomes automatic, we plateau at levels of ability far below our potential.</li><li>Learned industriousness states difficulty plays a role in motivation.</li></ul>

Optimal learning and a sweet spot for difficulty

How often should you succeed at a task, to maximize learning? I review research suggesting the answer is close to 85%.

education

Learning & Education

The 85% Rule for Learning - Scott H Young

<ul><li>It is better to say something rather than nothing and to express empathy instead of sympathy</li><li>Most people enduring the tiring and lonely experience of grief benefit from expressions that are more empathetic than sympathetic</li><li>Generally, people prefer to be understood rather than pitied</li><li>What is needed in these situations is less about what is said and more about being there to help hold space for the grief.</li></ul>

Say something rather than nothing

<ul><li>"I know what you're going through." We can never know exactly.</li><li>"Did the doctors try everything to save him/her?" Some things in life cannot be saved and fixed, no matter how we try. </li><li>Cliched like: "Everything happens for a reason." "God has a plan." "Time will heal." "They’re in a much better place."</li><li> "Let me know if you need anything." This puts the burden on the caregiver or the bereaved person when he or she already is preoccupied with too many things, both big and small. Try instead to offer something very concrete and very specific that you know you can do.</li></ul>

Some things to avoid saying and doing

<ul><li>Don't worry about bringing up this loss unless for some reason the person has already indicated they don't want to talk about it at all. </li><li>Don't be afraid to share a fun or funny memory you have. </li><li>It is best to let the person be the guide as to how much or how little they want to share, answer, vent, switch topics, etc.</li><li>Acknowledge that words seem to fail, that you are aware this really sucks and feels empty, sad, lonely, hard, stressful, etc.</li><li>Offer to simply sit with the person, even in stillness and silence, or to just be in the other room as a familiar presence. </li></ul>

Some things that might be helpful to say and do

Some do's and don'ts for what to say and do.

How Do I Comfort A Friend Who Lost a Loved One?

If you want to keep people in your life, you have to tell them and be ready to put in the effort.Whether you've just moved away from your friend or you've been apart for years, long-distance friendships require a reciprocal commitment. That means reaching out, finding time to hang out and showing your friend, you value them.And the reciprocal is true – remember: They value you, too.

Be Explicit and Intentional About Keeping Your Long Distance Friend

The anchor also generates exclusivity, and that's something that builds our friendships when we have memories, experiences inside jokes that we share with one person that we don't have with other people.The key to building on your bond from afar is vulnerability. Your ability to show vulnerability is a big predictor of whether you'll stay close over time. Try being vulnerable about what's going on in your life and asking questions that welcome your friend's vulnerability.

Use Common Interests to Feel Connected – and Get Real

If you feel like your communication is in a rut, your friend probably feels that way too, so don't be afraid to be the first one to reach out. It shows your friend that they don't need to fear rejection.And when phone calls won't cut it, think about a visit. Visiting is one of the most important things we can do to keep a long-distance friendship going. There's no "right" frequency for visits, so talk about what works best for you and your friend.

Don't Hesitate to Reach Out

Separation is hard. Miscommunication happens. And because there's just a limited amount of time you get with your friend, it's easy to let conflicts go unaddressed.Try not to sweep things under the rug. In fact, addressing conflict is one of the ways you can become closer with your friend. But bringing issues up can feel scary.One common issue long-distance friends face is reciprocity. That's when one friend feels like they're putting more into the relationship than the other. The natural reaction is to back away, but, instead, try reaching out first.

Conflicts Are Natural and Healthy – Address Them Openly

Long distance friendships are a common reality of adulthood, as we move around for school, work or family. While they might require some planning and creativity to keep up, there's no reason to let physical distance keep you from staying connected.

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

4 tips to stay connected when your friends live far away : Life Kit

Carl Gustav Jung coined the terms introversion and extraversion in the 1920s. According to Jung: <ul><li>An extravert wants intensive contact with the outside world.</li><li>An introvert turns the psychic energy inwards.</li></ul>Yet no one is 100% extraert or introvert. Most people tend to one or the other side.However, iff both characteristics are equally present, they have an ambivert personality.

Carl Jung on introverts and extraverts

In the 1960s, Hans Eysenck added to Jung's ideas. He thought the main difference between introverts and extraverts lies in how they recharge their mental energy.  <ul><li>Introverted people have a higher level of brain activity and need to protect themselves from too much external stimuli. They gain mental energy by withdrawing themselves.</li><li>The extravert has less neuronal activity. They overcome this lack by exposing themselves to external stimulation, which charges their inner batteries.</li></ul>

Hans Eysenck's ideas

Introverts may walk away from small talk to recharge, but that doesn't mean that they are shy. They may not be afraid to talk to anyone, but when too many people are around and the conversation becomes superficial, they get tired. One strategy is to withdraw and recharge through silence.

Introverts are not shy

Some experts state that extraverts and introverts use different brain areas to form their ideas. An extravert relies on short term memory and can come to fast associations and ideas. But they often speak before they think. An introvert retrieves information from long-term memory. Their thoughts are more complex and need time to develop. That is why they think first before they speak.

Extraverts and introverts use different brain areas

Good teachers are aware of the differences between extraverts and introverts and try to develop their strengths. They help extraverts to learn to formalise their thoughts before they speak and introverts to get more talking time to practice their public speaking. Group projects can support both temperaments. Extraverts can learn how to develop more complex thoughts while introverts can learn to think and speak more flexibly.

Developing the strengths of extraverts and introverts

Introversion and extroversion (or extraversion) are terms first coined by psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung in Switzerland of the 1920s. According to Jung, an extrovert seeks intensive contact with the outside world. An introvert instead turns the psychic energy inwards. Jung believed that no one is 100% extravert or 100% introvert instead we carry both traits. However, most minds tend to lean either on one side or the other. If both characteristics are equally present, we can speak of someone who has an ambivert personality. Never miss a new video with our newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dNU4BQ Join and support us! www.patreon.com/sprouts www.sproutsschools.com Special thanks to our Patrons: Cedric Wang, Eva Marie Koblin, Mike, Julien Dumesnil, Orc Oran, Mathis, and the others. You are amazing !!! Join our supporters and help us reach students and teachers worldwide with friendly videos that explain difficult things simply: www.patreon.com/sprouts Full Script: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YCiXRT8h26R-eYBKPYG6i_C0x1bYrpdRRn6Kjxqja0Y/edit?usp=sharing

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

videos

Videos

Introversion and extroversion (or extraversion) are terms first coined by psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung in Switzerland of the 1920s. According to Jung, an extrovert seeks intensive contact with the outside world. An introvert instead turns the psychic energy inwards. Jung believed that no one is 100% extravert or 100% introvert instead we carry both traits. However, most minds tend to lean either on one side or the other. If both characteristics are equally present, we can speak of someone who has an ambivert personality.  

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Special thanks to our Patrons: Cedric Wang, Eva Marie Koblin, Mike, Julien Dumesnil, Orc Oran, Mathis, and the others. You are amazing !!! Join our supporters and help us reach students and teachers worldwide with friendly videos that explain difficult things simply: www.patreon.com/sprouts

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We make educational videos  about psychology, pedagogy and child development. We publish them on Creative Commons so students, teachers and parents can to use for free. To download our videos go to www.sproutsschools.com. To support our work go to www.patreon.com/sprouts

Sprouts

Carl Jung’s Theory on Introverts, Extraverts, and Ambiverts

Effective leaders don’t buy into or try to suppress their inner experiences. Instead, they approach them in a mindful, values-driven, and productive way—developing what we call emotional agility. 
In our complex, fast-changing knowledge economy, this ability to manage one’s thoughts and feelings is essential to business success.

Emotional agility

The first step in developing emotional agility is to notice when you’ve been hooked by your thoughts and feelings. That’s hard to do, but there are certain telltale signs. One is that your thinking becomes rigid and repetitive. Leaders stumble when they are paying too much attention to their internal chatter and allowing it to sap important cognitive resources that could be put to better use.

Recognize your patterns

When you’re hooked, the attention you give your thoughts and feelings crowds your mind; there’s no room to examine them. One strategy that may help you consider your situation more objectively is the simple act of labeling.
Labeling allows you to see your thoughts and feelings for what they are: transient sources of data that may or may not prove helpful.

Label your thoughts and emotions

The opposite of control is acceptance—not acting on every thought or resigning yourself to negativity but responding to your ideas and emotions with an open attitude, paying attention to them, and letting yourself experience them. Take 10 deep breaths and notice what’s happening in the moment. This can bring relief, but it won’t necessarily make you feel good. In fact, you may realize just how upset you really are. The important thing is to show yourself (and others) some compassion and examine the reality of the situation.

Accept your thoughts and emotions

When you unhook yourself from your difficult thoughts and emotions, you expand your choices. You can decide to act in a way that aligns with your values.
Is your response going to serve you and your organization in the long term as well as the short term? Will it help you steer others in a direction that furthers your collective purpose? Are you taking a step toward being the leader you most want to be and living the life you most want to live?
The mind’s thought stream flows endlessly, and emotions change like the weather, but values can be called on at any time, in any situation.

Act on your values

corporateculture

Corporate Culture

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

Emotional Agility

If you work in sales you need to be a team player in order to get results through the individuals you're managing. While most sales managers are trained in, sales they're not always trained in sales management; they likely came into a sales manager role after proving themselves as a good salesperson, but that isn't always enough to succeed at the managerial level.

Being a Sales Manager Is a Team Activity

It's not enough for you just to focus on results, you have to build a team that's results-oriented too. To do that, be clear with your team about what their goals and end results should be,  explain what you're trying to achieve and why it's important. Make yourself available for any questions or clarifications to ensure everybody is on the same page.

Be results-oriented

This can be done in a three-part process: <ul><li>Identify the key skills the salesperson will need to help them make their quota. These skills should be things that are highly relevant to your product or service.</li><li>Teach your new recruits these key skills (attend calls with them and watch them perform, give them audio programs to listen to, send them to sell seminars, or conduct your own.)</li><li>Continue checking in with your salespeople over time to reinforce what you've taught.</li></ul>

Provide your team with excellent sales training

There's always room for improvement in growth even if you're at a manager level. Be humble enough to realize that you still have space to learn.Identifying your weaknesses will also help you improve you can make even more progress by working on your weakest area or skillset.

Seek out opportunities for growth

Being a sales manager is a team activity. Develop these three simple skills to become a truly effective sales manager and lead your team to success! https://bit.ly/3wt1EPG If you need more help improving your sales strategy, here's a FREE video training series to help level up as a salesperson and leader. Click the link above! Give me a follow on Clubhouse! @briantracy — see you there! #salesmanager #sales ___________________ Timestamps: 00:00 - Intro 00:57 - Be Results Oriented 01:53 - Provide Your Team with Training 03:04 - Seek Out Opportunities for Growth ___________________ Learn more: Subscribe to my channel for free offers, tips and more! YouTube: http://ow.ly/ScHSb Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/BrianTracyPage Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/BrianTracy Google+: +BrianTracyOfficialPage Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/BrianTracy Instagram: @TheBrianTracy Blog: http://bit.ly/1rc4hlg sales, sales leadership, sales career, sales manager, sales growth, sales management, how to be a sales manager

career

Career

marketingandsales

Marketing & Sales

Being a sales manager is a team activity. Develop these three simple skills to become a truly effective sales manager and lead your team to success! https://bit.ly/3wt1EPG 

If you need more help improving your sales strategy, here's a FREE video training series to help level up as a salesperson and leader. Click the link above! 

Give me a follow on Clubhouse! @briantracy — see you there! 

#salesmanager #sales
___________________

Timestamps:
00:00 - Intro
00:57 - Be Results Oriented
01:53 - Provide Your Team with Training
03:04 - Seek Out Opportunities for Growth

___________________
Learn more: 

Subscribe to my channel for free offers, tips and more!
YouTube: http://ow.ly/ScHSb
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/BrianTracyPage
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/BrianTracy
Google+: +BrianTracyOfficialPage
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/BrianTracy
Instagram: @TheBrianTracy
Blog: http://bit.ly/1rc4hlg

sales, sales leadership, sales career, sales manager, sales growth, sales management, how to be a sales manager

Brian Tracy is the most listened to audio author on personal and business success in the world today. His fast-moving talks and seminars on leadership, sales, managerial effectiveness and business strategy are loaded with powerful, proven ideas and strategies that people can immediately apply to get better results in every area.

Brian Tracy

How to Become an Effective Sales Manager in 3 Simple Steps | Brian Tracy

<ul><li>As managers go up the corporate ladder, it seems they lose their basic human skill of communicating clearly.</li><li>They know they have nothing substantial to say, so they make up long sentences of nothingness, using obscure and long words, buzzwords and jargon.</li><li>As the nature of the economy is shifting rapidly, managers are doing things that are difficult to talk about or explain to others, resulting in them being intentionally vague and unclear.</li></ul>

Corporate Gobbledygook

Corporate jargon is neither pretty-sounding nor is it making things efficient in an organization.  Apart from sounding knowledgeable or causing deliberate confusion, managers also use jargon to establish credentials. By speaking the ‘manager code’ they establish their superiority and justify their salary. The newly hired junior staff does not question this nonlanguage of middle and senior management, as they fear losing their jobs or not getting promoted on time.

Garbage Language

<ul><li>To get things done, one has to be clearly understood.</li><li>It is good business to be precise, accurate, and easy to understand.</li><li>Corporate gobbledygook works well when the goal is to cover up stuff.</li><li>Details that are not easily understood will lead to wasted efforts and useless meetings.</li></ul>

Jargon: Bad For Business

The reasons behind management gobbledygook | Business

Why businesses use so much jargon

<ol><li>We can fix culture: Culture is agile and continually changing. It is not a static problem that needs to be solved.</li><li>Virtual or remote work erodes culture: Before lockdowns and WFH, there were many cultural problems but no one paid attention.</li><li>There is a perfect design of an organization: The reality is that everything changes and leaders have to let go of static thinking.</li></ol>

Culture Myths That Leaders Need To Wake Up To

<ol><li>Leaders need to overlook and control employees: This old practice of control is evil and results in bad performance.</li><li>Delaying surveys and feedback forms is a good idea: Leaders always want to manage stuff without fixing anything substantial. This won’t work now.</li></ol>

More Cultural Myths In Organizations

Instead of binary solutions that won’t work anymore, leaders need to:<ol><li>Experiment and brainstorm, testing different configurations of work, like a hybrid model, while taking regular feedback.</li><li>Instead of talking about the obstacles, one can focus on possible solutions that are fair and balanced.</li><li>Have fewer meetings.</li><li>Bond with the employees in the real world, not just online.</li></ol>

What Leaders Need To Do

A new path for leadership is growing out of the decision to work hybrid or in the office. The CEO of Eber Leadership Group says this oversimplification misses the opportunity to evolve company culture.