3.28.07

Learning about positional bargaining was very good. This is a skill that can be used anywhere, especially in making business deals. Implementing the 7 Habits was very good because you get to see which steps you are taking when actually positioning yourself. The movie was pretty good. You really have to have a spine when sticking to your decisions. Win-Win or No Deal are the outcomes we want. Very good class!

3.26.07

Learning about the different roles today was pretty good. It is true that we have many roles to fill as well as many ways to communicate. Creating that graph on the board with statements, person, role model,1 thing to do helped me visualize how I communicate with other people. It was good. I liked it.

3.26.07

Friday's activity was great! Not only we focused on individual team-leading and listening skills but applied it to a whole group setting!

This time it was great because you are all in one boat. Also you are being herded together, so we all fall together. You can tell also that everyone has their own style of leading. The trust factor is also greater because you are with other people.

The activities are getting better. It truly matches the class' learning styles. I am glad that Bro Adams has decided to include activities with lectures.

3.20.07

No BLOGS for March 9, 12, 14, 16. I was back home in MD.

Yesterday's activity was really great. You got to learn a lot of things in one activity. I also liked how the whole class was happy and excited. Definitely a highlight class.

The activity was simple but there were many things that you can pull things off from.
The number one thing was trust. Being guided by a classmate you sort of know through obstacles can get challenging. In the early stages of the obstacles, many groups were hesitant on moving on. As the activity went on, the emotional bank account was being filled and trust was being created.

You can tell the level of trust the people had through their body language. The ones that truly trusted were more touchy feely. Those were able to communicate and change their way of communication easily.

The different types of communications were evident too. You cannot communicate in the same especially when circumstances around you change constantly.

This was a very good activity.

3.7.07

Class was great. We learned a lot from Bro Adam's activity. We first started off by reading a small piece of paper and in 10 seconds, find all of the "F"s in the paragraphs. After that we were all settled into different groups based on how many "F"s we found.

I "found" 3 and joined the group in the middle. The other groups were all around us. Well our group started becoming defensive since there were really 6 "F"s. Bro Adams started writing all of our comments and emotions on the board. To make a long story short, many gave some interesting comments.

He concluded by saying that we all act how we think others perceive us. I say comparison is the surest way to destruction. When we compare ourselves to others, we will lose focus on ourselves and seek more of other people's approvals; not a good way to have self confidence.

I learned a lot from today's exercise. I will be leaving for MD tonight.

3.5.07

Good class today. I liked how we broke down the reasons why we do not listen to each other. The following are some of the reasons:

Agenda
Preoccupied
Experience with person
Lack of reason

Then we moved on to talking about loyalty and disloyalty.

I learned a lot today and these are things I need to refine my communication skills.

3.3.07

Today was a Mother's Weekend Special episode of our class, and it was fun.

We talked about maturity. Bro Adams kicked it off with a great object lesson ("musical chairs", even though it was not meant to be). It was great him telling us the object of the activity. It is true that many of us are running on traditions created by our ancestors many years ago. We also viewed a clip on conflicts. It was great especially the football hits! YEAH!!!

I learned a lot today. I definitely teach these to others and apply it to my life.

2.28.07

Great class. Good discussion on the case study. It's a watered down version of studying cases. It was fun and interesting.

Role playing really helps us see things in a different perspective. It gives us the chance to adjusts and practice different situations. In the mission, we role played all the time and it really helped our teaching. Role playing is also a good part of effective listening. I like reading these cases and discussing them.

2.27.07

I finally got the opportunity to role play against Bro Adams and I think I pitted well. "I don't know, what would you do?" It was good to be able to use some things that I learned from the mission.

We learned more on the things we should do for empathic listening. We saw a clip from Father of the Bride.

I think the highlight today was when Bro Adams brought up a good real world scenarios. The scenario was if you are an intern at Time Magazine and they are going to be holding a meeting at a club, what would you do? To me, it is a simple people relations scenario. Go with the company because you need to be there BUT just DON'T DRINK! People will respect you for that. Besides they know you are from BYU-I. I do not see the point where confined Mormons needs to get all antsy in these situations. Maybe I grew up as a non-member and the only member in my family in Baltimore-DC corridor and that is different from UT/ID. Also the boss is trying to be as understanding as possible. No pressure at all to drink.

Let's just be people and respect each other. There is a real world outside of the Mormon bubble where we will be working/living in. The only difference is, you have to know where to draw the line. If you cannot live and understand the culture outside the Church, stay in Utah.

*this is not targeted to anyone in particular. This part of my frustration with some here on this campus that complains a lot concerning these types of issues (and also after serving in SLC).

2.23.07

Today's class was great. Kicked off with some 80s clip action. Examples like those are good.
Then we jumped right in to the role plays. The more we do the role plays the more I think I am becoming a better listener. I have been doing a lot of listening with the girls and buddies. They are all responding well. I have been applying these skills in my interpersonal relationships. It is tempting to give off your 2 cents but people seem to enjoy talking to me more when I just listen.

This is a great point given today: We do not know where people are coming from. I am doing a bit better on this skill and not jumping the gun too much.

I think I can take on the role play. All we did in the mission was role play. In all of the UT missions, we were the ones that pioneered and really used this teaching skill. Thanks President!


2.21.07
Role played. I was hoping he would have called on me. We are chugging along.

2.16.07

Funny how all the guys were in class and most of the girls are gone for the weekend. Chill day. Cleaned my car before class (1.5 hour free inbetween classes). Now I can eat off my car. I love it more than girls.

I really liked today's class because it is something that is really true. Bro Adams talked about S Curves and its importance. To sum it up, it is:

"If you keep doing what you are doing, you are going to slow down. You have to make a change."

This principle holds ture to anything we do that concerns progression. When we do not jump from the S Curve, we are going to plateau. From the weight room to eternal progression, we need to always make changes so we can grow. It holds true too that maybe this is the reason why we are tried.

The model for the S Curve for guys was nice to see. I can clearly see myself following those paths. Everytime I jumped, I gained more experience. I feel like I am going up. Change is hard but very beneficial. It is comforting to know that change is a big tool for learning.

2.14.07

Valentine's Day

We got a sweet surprise kicked off by Rachel and Elle (VDay cards for everyone). That was nice! Thanks! The class was good. Learned to not take other people's monkeys. Let them deal with those. Our part is to just be there and be an ear.
Then Bro Adams discussed the 5 different levels of maturity (dependences). That was really good and informative.

2.12.07

Today was a good day in class.

Kicked off with some Dances with Wolves action. The talking stick is the way to go if you want a lesser conflict in group decision-making. After that, we actually had role plays that supported this theory.

I loved the role plays today because everyone was involved, and we were all doing what was preached. It was amusing watching Rachel and Dani go at it with the neighbor/dog role play. Girls can be feisty but also conflicts can turn into one blaming/accusation fest without any clear solutions. Me and Dani role played the clogging scenario. We were quick to find a solution since we were just chill about it AND we decided on a compromise.

Good class.

2.9.07

It was interesting to start off with some aikido action. DJ had a good form.

It was good to relate this with discipline when we are listening to others. It takes a lot of patience to be a good listener.
The role play on empathic listening and breaking up with Katelyn was good. Good empathic listening model in a situation where you may encounter it a lot (college town).

Unexpressed feelings never dies. Gotta stop trying to defend yourself. Let it out. Don't let it fester.

2.8.07

Class was good. Covered generalities and more roleplays on empathic listening.

On the topic of generalities, I think it will always be part of human nature. We are ignorant concerning many things. Education/Experience is the only way to combat this. Being in a small Idaho town (and coming from the Baltimore-Washington DC area), generalities are magnified 50% for me (to add to that, I am Filipino). Empathetic listening all the way.

2.5.07

Test day. Studied hard. Good class.

Googled Article on Empathic Listening

http://www.psychological-hug.com/

This is actually a 19 page-long article on empathic listening. It is really interesting, and in a tone that does not sound like a psychology book.

The article pretty much talks about the pros of empathic listening. He also included examples--which is helpful (such as being empathic about his wife's grocery shopping adventures, etc).
He also gave the risks of empathic listening (the person feeling awkward towards you after telling you EVERYTHING, we lose our train of thought because we're busy paying attention to the other person, etc). Within the article, he compared sympathy and empathy. This part was really interesting. Sympathy invokes scenes of "Aw I feel sorry for you...". With empathy, we just shut our mouths and listen.

The author closes it by stating that empathic listening is like a big "psychological hug".

Overall, this was a very good article. It is a very good read.

1.31.07

Sorry that I fell asleep today in class. It is my last class of the day and I was beat. Thanks Liz for waking me up.

Today was pretty cool. I like how Bradams is teaching us how to peel them onions. We just don't whack at it and 'probe'. The iceberg analogy is actually in Preach My Gospel (Missionary Manual of the Church). I got to be real familiarized with it real well during the mission and it really works. We do not know the people we talk to. It is hard to trust people because we do not know them. Even in this LDS town, people are people. But we can never assume their feelings and circumstances. Truly the key part of empathic listening is to care about the person and lose our selfishness.

I read a book by Larry King last semester on becoming a great conversationalist. The main key point he focused is to be an empathic listener.

1.29.07

Today's class was pretty chill. Again, learned some things that can make me a better communicator.
One of the points Bro. Adams mentioned was how people trusts us when there is a high EBA. The more we deposit, the higher the trust fund is. One of the ways we can do this is through rephrasing the content ACCURATELY. This has worked really well for me (but I do not want to use this with kids from our class since they'll know what I am up to--being empathetic).

Parroting in the other hand will annoy people and give you withdrawals from the EBA. I have done this too especially with girls I don't care and they ended up not caring eventually at the conversation.

Then Bradams summed up the class with this statement (concerning empathetic listening):
"We get caught up with our "what is" than other people's "what is".

True dat.

1.26.07

Today was chill. Hockey game right after class.

It was cool to learn about how that we sometimes encode our communication to be received to intended receivers. In daily communication, we talk differently to different people. We talk differently to President Clark in contrast with our buddies. I see myself doing this a lot.

Also Bro. Adams shared with us 4 different things:

Uncounscious Competence
Conscious Competence
Conscious Incompetence
Unconscious Incompetence

Tight stuff.

In the mission I have used empathetic listening a lot so I attempt to hear their worries and doubts so I can send them in the water. But since I have been home I just lost that art. Last night I had 2 dates (one in the afternoon, one in the evening). The joy of empathetic listening. I pretty much did that and the girls were talking my ears off! It's a good sign because I don't like to talk a lot and they trusted me with their personal stories.

1.24.07

We finally went over the class syllabus. It has been a great time so far in class. I am learning a lot especially with dealing with people. First activity we did was we divided ourselves into groups so we can discuss the article we were supposed to read for homework. Wow that was really interesting!

"When things get inour way (not planned), it is an inconvenience and makes us grow (dealing with it)". It's true.

Another thing that I learned from Bro Adams is to not probe when trust is low, and emotions are high.

Hockey game tomorrow at 4:30PM. The team (Spartans) are looking sharp.

1.22.07

Today's class was really interesting.
-Discussed the different reasons why men and women communicate:
Men: for status determination
Women: for connection/relationship

There needs to be a balance point between the two genders.

Bro Adams also discussed the "I" Statement. This made me think of when I communicate with people. I observe, interpret, feel, and say the outcome.

The class was just interesting. I learned a lot that I can apply to my dealings with people. It's great.

1.19.07

Class was short for me but nonetheless amazing. I was only able to attend the first 30 minutes of the class since I had to leave early for a hockey game.

I really enjoyed it because we talked about motivation. Bro Adams pointed out 3 different causes for our personal motivatio--money, a just cause, or recognition.

That made me think of my motivation in everything I did. I wanted to stay in the class but I had to go. Good thing he was able to discuss conerning the EBA (Emotional Bank Account).
We make certain deposits, withdrawals, and balance whenever we meet with people. I have read this before in Mr. Covey's book before and truly enhances the way I interact with people. It is great!

A very interesting class

Discussions today were great. Almost the whole class were partcipating and giving their 2 cents in the discussions. The topics varied but it revolved around the two important emotions of humans-- Love and Fear. Bro Adams pointed out many different aspects between these two emotions and their bi-products. The diagram was really cool showing the relationships between the emotions.

Then we got into some good discussions. I took some notes and here they are.

-Negative Faith --> Fear
-That which we resists, persists (Bro Covey taught this to us when he visited my mission in UT SLC).

There are more cool notes I got. Then we got into the Love Language and perfection.

It was cool. I can use this in my life.

Friday

It was a usual class. We got to hear more presentations. I am learning a lot about them. We continued with the role play by Evan and Brother Adams. Evan would not let go of Bro. Adams' hands. Good actor. I had hockey tryouts right after that.

Testing

The concepts that I learned during last class was how different we are. I started looking at my other classmates as people, not robots. Although I noticed that once class was over, we were back to our old selves again. Communication is definitely key towards understanding. If we can communicate better, we can learn a lot from people.

Life is great. Go Baltimore Ravens!