Page 38 - Effective Communication Skills Mastery Bible 4 Books in 1 Boxset by Tuhovsky, Ian

Having said that, let me tell you about one extremely

important thing. There’s a gap in time between event and

response. Between, for instance, someone saying something

mean to you and you giving them a response. Do you want to

know what really happens during that time? Do we stop and

think about how should we answer? It depends; sometimes we
don’t really think about our replies. Do we take time to think

about what just happened? Maybe.

But what ALWAYS happens is we stop and think who we

are. Either consciously or subconsciously, it can happen in
a fraction of a second. The way we react to this situation is

simply a reflection of who we think we are. We tend to think

that we say and do what we say and do to other people because

they did something to us. But that is not true. It has nothing

to do with what happened. What people do and say to us has
nothing to do with us at all. Therefore, we need to remember

that everything we say and do is a reflection of who we think

we are and what we believe. What people say to you—it’s

about them. When you say anything, it’s about you. It reflects

who you are. It’s all about the way we are perceiving the

events, the reality.

There were times in my life when whenever someone was

mean to me (saying, for instance, that I’m too skinny, too pale,

too short, untalented or that I will never amount to anything), I

would react neurotically and either aggressively or passively

(blaming myself for not fitting into other people’s vision of
me). After I started working on myself, my self-confidence

and my list of achievements got bigger and I attained totally

different and new self-perception. Now, whenever someone is

mean to me, I mostly don’t give a crap. Depending on the