Life Mastery: Communication & Relationships
If Life Had an Instruction Book, This Would be It
Self-paced, Online, Lessons
Videos and/or Narrated Presentations
Approximate Hours of Course Media
The Life Mastery course series covers hundreds of life-enhancing topics that they don't teach in high-school or most colleges, but should. This is more than a course on self-improvement; it is a course on mastering life.
In this course on communication and relationships,
Learn About Mastering Life
This course is a result of the continued research that suggest adults in the United States today are woefully unprepared for today's social and professional environment. People struggle with effective communication, relationships, weight and health issues, depression, life purpose, achievement, discerning fact from fiction, selling ideas to others, earning enough to live comfortably, finding jobs, and overall peace of mind. These are problems that get in the way of living a happy and fulfilling life when one's energy is spent on just trying to get by. This course addresses each of those problems, and many more, with the goal of helping you avoid those problems while focusing on what energizes you most.
By the end of this course, you will be on the right track to designing the life you want to live, and living it well!
Welcome to my Life Mastery course! This course has been several years in the making and I am continuing work on it with the anticipated completion by Fall of 2020.
Since age ten, I have been fascinated by the self-help genre and as a researcher and social scientist, I have studied the self-help genre's more respectable, academic big brother... the psychology of well-being. The bottom line... this course contains high-quality information that will educate, motivate, and inspire. This is based off one of my best-selling books, Year To Success.
Most lessons will contain discussion questions and/or exercises. I encourage your to actively participate in this course by using the lesson forum because active participation increases retention, but this is your learning experience, and you can interact with the material as you wish.
Look out for additional lesson resources. For many of the lessons I have includes several links to YouTube content that I have reviewed and found to contain useful and accurate information on the topic. Some of this is new material, and some just supports what I already presented in the main lesson videos.
Don't feel bad if this course takes you a long time to complete. It is not a race; it is a learning experience. Pace yourself but set goals as well... perhaps one lesson a day. Your course, your choice.
Best of Success To You!
Bo Bennett, PhD
Course Instructor
Research continues to show that making a good first impression is important because a bad first impression can be extremely difficult to correct. There are many ways to make a good first impression that include the use of all of our senses. Articulation and manners play an important role. But making a good first impression isn't good enough; a lasting impression is what you want to make.
In this lesson, we will look at how to make a good first impression.
Imagine being the human resources director for a large firm. You are reviewing applications and seeking candidates to fill a top-level position. After searching through hundreds of resumes, you come across a candidate that looks perfect on paper, and you arrange an interview. Within the first 30 seconds of the interview, you realize you’ve made a mistake when the candidate says to you, “Thanks for invitin’ me here. It’s frezzin’ outside—I prob’ly shoulda worn a heav’yer coat.” Although the candidate looks like a professional and has the credentials to back him up, you do not give him the job because you know his poor articulation will evoke negative perceptions in customers who speak with him.
Courtesies are polite behaviors, gestures, or remarks. While entire books have been written on manners, this lesson focuses on a few select behaviors that apply to both professional and personal situations, which are most likely to influence your level of success.
An impression is an effect, feeling, or image retained as a consequence of experience. However, like a footprint in the sand at a beach, impressions eventually fade away; a lasting impression is one that does not. When we refer to making a lasting impression in terms of success, we are referring to a positive impression.
Small talk is polite conversation about unimportant or uncontroversial matters, especially as engaged in on social occasions. As much as people despise small talk, it is a necessary social lubricant to connecting with people and discussing more important issues.
It is said that over 90% of communication is more than just the words we use, and 60% of our communication is nonverbal, or body language. It is also believed that nonverbal signs have about five times more impact than verbal ones.
Imagine that you work for XYZ Corporation, a large company that manufactures widgets. The company sends you and a few of your coworkers to an international widget convention where there will be thousands of your suppliers and potential customers. Once there, your colleagues are busy meeting others while you quietly keep to yourself because you do not see yourself as a “people person.” When the conference is over, your boss asks you for a list of the contacts you have made. You then realize that your lack of social skills may have just cost you your job.
Sigmund Freud, the Austrian founder of psychoanalysis, was known as one of the greatest active listeners of all time. One of his greatest contributions to the field of mental health was his discovery that in order to understand and effectively treat a patient, a doctor had to listen to his or her patients. He further explained that communication may be with direct words, with actions, or in some other disguised manner whose code is very difficult to decipher. Active listening is not just a key element of psychoanalysis, but it is the key element of successful communication.
It has been said that a person’s name is the most important word in the world to that person. Using a person’s name in conversation is one of the best ways to build rapport. Sounds good, but if you are like most people, the names of people you meet go in one ear and out the other. So step one is remembering the name. First, however, a memory primer.
Content Warning: The start of this lesson contains some adult material.
No, I am not a professional actor, but thanks for thinking I am.
Robert "Bo" Bennett started "Adgrafix", a graphic design firm, right after graduating Bryant University in 1994, with a bachelor's degree in marketing. In 1995, he sold the graphic design business but kept the name "Adgrafix" that he used for his new web hosting company. As a self-taught programmer, Bo created one of the first (perhaps the first) web-based affiliate systems and web-based web hosting interfaces. He built Adgrafix to a 5 million dollar a year business, then sold it to Allegiance Telecom in 2001.
A day after he sold Adgrafix, Bo started Archieboy Holdings, LLC as a holding company for many different web properties, some of which have become their own entities, and sold to new owners, and others which he is still running today. One of the past sales include Boston Datacenters -- the distressed datacenter in Charlestown, MA purchased by Bo from former HarvardNet founder. He took the company from losing tens of thousands of dollars per month to profitability in less than a year. In two years time, he sold the property to Hosted Solutions. Today, the property is owned by Windstream and it remains one of the premier datacenters in New England.
Bo is currently the founder and CEO of eBookIt.com, a company that formats and distributes eBooks, print on demand, and digital audio books, as well as president of Archieboy Holdings.
By age 10, Robert "Bo" Bennett started listening to and reading personal development tapes and books. Over the years he has developed a science-based approach to success that differs quite a bit from the over-hyped success guru's approaches commonly seen today. Before beginning his lifelong quest to shape the lives of others, he had to prove to himself that his theories, beliefs and convictions worked.
At age 10, Bo started in business by creating and selling wooden key racks in his father's workshop. Since then, he has started several companies and sold them anywhere from to $20,000,000.00.
After selling his first company of significant value, Bo began writing Year To Success, the most comprehensive book ever written on success, based on his experiences, thoughts, and timeless success principles.
