Employer Columnist

We can throw away our masks now

 

I was recently driving down the road near my office and I saw this man, a construction worker with yellow boots and hard hat, walking down the road with a huge smile in his face. Some smiles look like smirks, some smiles are barely seen, this one is gloriously teeth baring. It was so obvious that he was thinking of a wonderfully happy thought. Seeing him smile, I couldn’t help but smile a huge one myself. It really did lift me up a notch. Well… two notches actually.

Sometimes I catch myself smiling even when I don’t feel like it. In days past, I remember the awkwardness of being in an event all alone and smiling just for the sake of smiling. It was the insecure smile. I remember the times I walked into my old office with a smile, not the genuine smile, but the “I am pretending that everything is wonderful” smile. I have put on this smile mask for so long that I mistook it for the authentic me.

Some say fake it till you make it. Well, there’s actually some truth in this. There was this research done where chronically depressed people were injected with botox on their frown lines to prevent them from frowning. Voila, it was reported that there was a general uplift in mood and everybody was generally happier. All because they couldn’t physically frown. So smiling has the general ability to do the same too. Try smiling when you are upset and you’ll notice that a 1 minute effort would lift your mood up.

I have come to the point that faking it till I make it is not going to allow me to actually make it. When I speak on stage it becomes so apparent what my moods are. Faking it takes away a lot of energy. So I learned to be authentic. That’s right, the bare bones, and no filters kind of authentic. I find it is very liberating, immensely empowering and nicely refreshing. The air I breathed minus the mask somehow seemed fresher.

When we communicate with our colleagues with a mask, it creates a nice first impression (unless you wore an ugly mask that morning). The problem is, how long are we willing to keep it up? We will get found out sooner or later. I found this out the hard way when I was working with my previous company. I was smiling at them, saying nice things to them while at the back of my head I was thinking that they are such lazy incompetent people. Yes, I was quite the idiot back then. It didn’t take long for my old colleagues to see right through me.

So the answer is not to wear the mask, but to be authentic. However, should we show our authentic ugly self? Isn’t that why we need to wear a mask in the first place? Well, it may sound over simplistic, but we need to authentically like the people we communicate with. Yes, especially with the people we cannot stand. Have you noticed that there are bound to be some people who like the person you dislike? It’s still the same person, but because of differing perceptions of the person, different people have different opinions. So the key is to change our perception, but how?

Our outside world is a reflection of our inside world. That means I see ugliness in people because I see ugliness in myself, when I see laziness in others because I see laziness in myself.

So the key here is to change the way we see ourselves, by loving ourselves, accepting ourselves and forgiving ourselves. It is then that we can throw our masks away and never have to put it on ever again.

 

Want to learn more? Check out these titles: -

  • Art of Talking to Anyone - MAGGIO ROSALIE
  • Crucial Conversations - PATTERSON KERRY
  • Zero Limits – Joe Vitale

Read these books, keep your hair.

Written by
Edmond Yap
Education Republic
www.edurepublic.com

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Take off that mask and Take in some knowledge. Get a 10% discount on these fabulous titles by printing out this article and presenting it at any Borders outlet in Malaysia. This offer is valid until July 31th, 2009, or while stocks last. One printed voucher is valid for only one copy of the title and the vouchers are not exchangeable for cash. The book cover image may vary from the ones available in the store.

Edmond is a qualified civil engineer who has been working in the engineering field for 5 years.  Switching career in motivational speaking and training, he was the performance consultant at the Malaysian chapter of Dale Carnegie Training. His love of motivating and inspiring people prompted him to starting up Education Republic with a few others. 

He can be reached at edmond@edurepublic.com