Your brain responds to competition more than you know- choose your motivational tools wisely.

On February 26, 2019February 26, 2019 By drchristinavillarrealIn coaching, developing leaders, education, empowerment, entrepreneurs, executive coaching, female leaders, goal setting, growth, growth mindset, inspiration, leadership, management, mental skills training, mental toughness, optimism, Overachievers, peak performance, performance, Positive Psychology, productivity, professional strategies, psychology, san francisco, silicon valley, solution strategies, Uncategorized, work strategies

Do you know what drives your urge to compete? Your motivation influences your performance outcomes, whether you acknowledge it or not.

‘Wanting to win‘ versus ‘wanting to avoid losing‘ are two subtle yet measurably distinct differences that drive people’s sense of competition. Murayama and Elliot’s (2012) meta-analyses found the effects of competition depend on this difference in the minds of competitors. When someone wants to outperform others by winning, they tend to benefit from competition, but when they want to avoid performing worse than others, competing reduces their performance. Burnette et al’s (2013) meta-analysis found that the desire to win is positively related to goal achievement, whereas the desire to avoid losing is negatively related to goal achievement. Senko et al’s (2017) meta-analysis found that “wanting to win” improves performance only when it’s accompanied by strategies that leverage a competitor’s feelings of mastery. The take-away from these research findings is that “wanting to win” is not enough to protect people from the pitfalls of social competition that provokes fear of losing.

A primary function of executive coaching is helping people build lasting tactical strategies that motivate behavioral change for goal achievement and peak performance. My coaching practice in Silicon Valley is filled with non-stop competitive people- entrepreneurs, CEOs, venture capitalists, and creative builders leading the edge of tech innovation. Naturally, using competition to fuel new habit formation and improve performance is a no-brainer for many of my clients. But not all tools designed to foster competition will improve motivation and performance for all people, in all situations. Competition is good for sustaining motivation and achievement only when it reinforces feelings of competency or a person’s intrinsic values beyond winning alone.

Designing life goals through the lens of one’s self-determined values is vital not just for achieving a high success rate but for overall psychological well-being. As one might expect, people generally like to feel in control of their own lives. Self-Determination Theory asserts that people seek and engage activities that satisfy these Three Basic Psychological Needs:

Competence: the feeling of satisfaction achieved through completing a challenging goal. Why does this matter? You get to feel masterful and effective. You get to feel that you’re achieving hard things. (Great for people whose personal pet peeves are ineffectiveness and helplessness!)

Relatedness: the satisfaction you get when you feel understood, liked and inspired by people you care about or value. Why does this matter? You get to feel closer to the people you’re engaging with in meaningful ways. (Great for people whose personal pet peeves are feeling rejected and disconnected!)

Autonomy: the satisfaction you get when you act with a sense of personal commitment and choice. Why does this matter? You get to feel in control and the master of your own outcomes. (Great for people whose personal pet peeves are feeling coerced and micro-managed!)

Cross-cultural research has shown these Three Basic Psychological Needs to be intrinsic to all people’s healthy development, engagement, motivation, and well-being. When these needs are met people achieve greater work performance, less perceived stress, and experience fewer turnover intentions. When these needs are blocked, people are likely to experience negative psychological consequences.

A Behavior Change Technique (BCT) is an ‘active ingredient that brings about behavior change’. BCT’s are often used to build a competitive framework, and can either support or frustrate the three Basic Psychological Needs.

How Different Behavior Change Techniques support or frustrate the ‘Three Basic Psychological Needs’

Behavioral Change Technique: Goal Crafting.
- Build in meaningful ‘whys’ or reaching the end goal of a competition won’t matter. Self-Determination Theory tells us many goals fail to motivate because they aren’t personally relevant, or they provide incentives that help people avoid losing rather than winning for personally rewarding reasons. Helping people craft goals that reflect their unique values reinforces their sense of autonomy.

Behavioral Change Technique: Feedback Crafting.
- Build in useful feedback or making progress in the competition won’t matter. Self-Determination Theory tells us well crafted feedback promotes feelings of competence and mastery. As people monitor their progress through feedback they have the chance to use well-timed feedback for making improvements. Crafting feedback that provides a practical roadmap for making improvements helps people achieve feelings of competency. Encourage how feedback is incorporated to reinforce the person’s sense of autonomy.
Behavioral Change Technique: Social Comparison.
- Build in social differentiations that inspire relatedness or the comparison won’t matter, or worse, work to demotivate a person in competition. Studies show that people prefer upward comparisons (with people who are better than them on some quality) even if that comparison is self-deflating. Make strategic comparisons by pointing out where someone falls on a standards of competency continuum. Select an appropriate comparison group based on experience (e.g. first year associates, senior VPs) and clarify the expected gains across a set timeframe. This allows the person to draw meaningful comparisons with a cohort that has faced similar challenges, and been given access to similar resources. When possible, utilize a ‘learn one teach one’ model to further enhance relatedness and competency.
Behavioral Change Technique: Competition Size Matters.
- Build a group size that factor’s in a person’s proximity to the top performance to optimize a person’s effort. There’s a reason why Junior Varsity and Varsity teams are still a thing! If you want to get the most benefit from a competition creating small, ability-based groups may be the best way to go. A 2009 study by Stephen Garcia and Avishalom shows competition is most motivating when there are fewer competitors in the comparison pool.

Whether in a work environment or in one’s personal life, people who measure their growth against those with comparable values and abilities experience boosts in motivation and performance. “When we see someone else just like us being able to complete a task and gain the recognition we seek, we up our game to achieve these outcomes for ourselves” according to Jillene Grover Seiver, PhD, professor of psychology, who’s research findings demonstrate the positive influence of rivalry on competition outcomes.

These are just a few of the techniques I use to inspire meaningful motivation through executive leadership coaching. By considering how our innate psychological needs factor into what’s driving our sense of competition, we can achieve greater outcomes with longer lasting results.

giphy (1).gif

Millennial managers leading startups: their generation’s new face of management.

On February 26, 2018February 20, 2018 By drchristinavillarrealIn career development, Communication Skill Building, entrepreneurs, executive coaching, growth, management, millennials, performance, solution strategies, startups, Uncategorized

According to Pew Research center the millennial generation (born 1983 – 2000) now number 75.4 million, surpassing the 74.9 million Baby Boomers (born 1946 – 1964) and Generation X’ers (born 1965 – 1984). More than one-in-three American workers today are millennials, and have become the largest share of the American workforce.

In today’s current work climate, it’s not enough for millennial-aged managers to focus on productivity for their company’s success. Employees who share their generational employment outlook expect them to drive the company’s mission with clarity and inspiration, embody a leadership style that supports their work/life balance and self-care routine, and provide opportunities for them to do work that fulfills their passion for making a positive, meaningful impact. Millennials widely embrace thought leaders like Simon Sinek who encourage them to marry their values and intentions to their work endeavors for lasting fulfillment in their life. Amid these formidable expectations, it’s easy for a manager who understands the values of the millennial generation to feel conflicted about how to drive productivity while still supporting her employees work paradigms.

giphy (9)

Any manager who leads without a strong sense of direction is destined to fall short of their targeted goals. A millennial manager I coach in the venture capital space suggested I write an article based on the headway we’ve made in developing her leadership approach to managing her millennial-aged team. The following Q & A is based on questions she and other millennial managers have expertly hashed out through their leadership coaching work.

“How can I screen potential candidates during the hiring process to reveal their true work ethic? The nature of our work is deadline driven, and it’s hard to know who will prioritize work objectives over personal objectives.”

How to hire them: Work ethic fit is critical to a company’s success, because a candidate with mismatched work ethic will negatively impact productivity, disengage other employees, and create inefficiencies for the rest of the team. Early stage startup culture has influenced new hire expectations – it’s not unusual for employees at startups to serve in multiple roles to sustain rapid company growth periods. Experienced millennial managers ask potential hires to share how they’ve handled shifting workflow and multiple role responsibilities in prior positions. “Can you tell me about a time when you’ve asked a manager for guidance on how to prioritize your workload? Particularly when you’ve thought meeting a deadline was going to be difficult or impossible because of the high volume and pace of the workload.” This gives hiring managers a chance to learn if the person has experience identifying and solving workflow prioritization with others. By being transparent about their company’s work style and pace, and sharing specific examples of how team members typically ‘get shit done’ they reduce the the risk of hiring a poor fit for their company culture. Millennial managers recognize the need to reconcile workload with self-care routines, and have learned to ask revealing questions like “How do you deal with burn out or work fatigue? How have you managed times when you’ve had conflicts with team members? What are your expectations for personal time off, working overtime, or through holidays?”

giphy (7)

Experts in psychological personality assessment use tactical questions like this to measure what they refer to as ‘faking good’, to detect a person’s willingness to be forthcoming or tendency to present themselves in an unrealistically positive light. If given multiple opportunities, can a potential hire share a well-rounded work history that naturally includes unmet challenges, times of burn out, and how they’ve learned from those experiences? Or are they consistently defensive and unwilling to acknowledge when they’ve been challenged or experienced conflicts at work? Millennial managers seek to hire people who are willing to be direct and forthcoming, understanding this communication style lends itself to effective problem-solving with others.

giphy (8)

“What can I do to inspire my team members to take initiative in their own professional development?”

Millennial startup founders-turned managers understand the desire for personally meaningful work as a motivating principal behind professional development. Based on this core value, millennial managers can inspire their employees to invest in their own development by encouraging them to cultivate their personal vision of career growth and success. Managers seeking to inspire their employees ask “What do you enjoy most about their role? What would you like to eventually do more of, and less of in your career path?” By understanding what personally motivates someone, what is most rewarding, and how they’d like to see their professional opportunities take shape, a manager can provide support based on that particular vision. Further, supporting employees in this way and holding them accountable for progress in their role performance will resonate on a deeper, more meaningful level.

giphy (11).gif

“How can I set the standard for work ethic with my team? My employees get overwhelmed by deadlines, and it seems to be influenced by low self confidence and their desire to protect their work/life balance.”

How to drive high performing employees: When managers find they have an employee struggling to meet deadlines, the situation can put everyone on the defense. The dilemma of many millennial managers in startups is that most if not all of the employees are highly valued for their unique abilities and everyone’s individual contributions are critical to company progress. Further, the time and resources it takes to replace an employee and the risk of destabilizing team morale makes opting to solve the problem a frugal first approach. While some employees may be failing to complete work as a result of prioritizing personal time, others may be failing to meet work expectations for other reasons.

giphy (10)

Through coaching, a millennial startup founder I support resolved how to effectively manage one of her highest-performing employees who’d begun struggling to meet his production deadlines. After processing her emotions and generating a communication action plan, she began by conveying her high regard for his contributions to the company’s success, giving examples and recognizing his overall growth. She listened to his perspective about why his productivity had declined without jumping to conclusions, with the intent to support him in finding a resolution that fit both of their needs. This encouraged him to share openly about what his challenges and mental roadblocks were, and what changes could lead to a return to consistently high productivity. This inquiry-led communication style led to both of them making a shift in thinking about how he could best operate in his role without compromising future leadership opportunities, provided new ways for him to contribute to deadline completion, fostering a solution-focused dynamic between them as manager and employee.

Many of the millennial managers I’ve supported have found inspiration for their managerial style based on the wisdom of their favorite leaders in tech, turning up their employee productivity and balancing idealism with practicality by:

making changes to the types of work an employee is responsible for completing (e.g. shifting an employee from working autonomously on projects to working in a support role to others)
providing alternative options for employees’ work evaluations based on their preference (e.g. brief periodic check-ins to ‘debug’ work progress rather than a longer final project critique)
building a work culture that encourages employees to take part in decision-making in how they solve problems rather than dictating how problems get solved

AAEAAQAAAAAAAAWTAAAAJGU3ZDE3Nzc0LTFlOTYtNDZlOC1iZGI1LWZjODcxZTdmMDE4Yw

Screen-Shot-2017-01-27-at-6.06.00-PM-e1485520722125

Settling down in Silicon Valley, just another impossible unicorn to chase?

On February 16, 2018February 16, 2018 By drchristinavillarrealIn bay area, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, dating, relationships, san francisco, sexual health, silicon valley, technology, Uncategorized

A recent article published in The Washington Post titled “Why Silicon Valley singles are giving up on the algorithms of love” illuminates the struggle single people face, even while living in one of the countries wealthiest and most educated urban areas, attracting young, ambitious people from all over the world. While the San Francisco Bay Area remains a high ranking city for adventurous singles, others find themselves tired of FOMO-driven dating sprints and casual hook-ups and start to crave the intimacy of a committed romantic relationship. To be single and searching for ‘the one’ in the Bay Area is complicated according the wide range of people I encounter through my executive coaching practice with entrepreneurs and other high performers in the tech ecosystem. The single women are far outnumbered by single men making the odds good for heterosexual women, but they’ll quickly tell you the “goods are odd”, describing tech guys as low in EQ and difficult to navigate with through early stages of dating ). Even with the odds stacked against them, single men in Silicon Valley are more selective in their search for a romantic partner than literally, anywhere else in the country. These findings are completely consistent with the feedback I get from the millennials I work with in tech.

source

Back in 2014 I penned an article for techcrunch.com titled #Love: Hacking Social Isolation, bringing attention to how the increasing reliance on technology is making it more difficult for millennials to form and maintain authentic relationships with others. Not unlike Silicon Valley startups whose valuations promise more than they actually deliver, millennials continue to rely heavily upon dating apps, an investment that is more likely to lead to user fatigue and burnout than to the relationship promised land. This is a new kind of failure, and Silicon Valley hasn’t come to grips with it yet. You can’t swipe right for automatic intimacy, you have to build it. Slowly and unpredictably, at least for now.

giphy (5)

Winning together: conflict resolution tactics for startup founders

On July 12, 2017July 13, 2017 By drchristinavillarrealIn co-founders, coaching, Communication Skill Building, conflict resolution, education, entrepreneurs, executive coaching, female leaders, founders, goal setting, grit, growth, growth mindset, peak performance, performance, productivity, professional strategies, relationships, san francisco, silicon valley, solution strategies, startups, teamwork, Uncategorized, work strategies

As a executive coach I support startup founders, CEOs, senior executives and other tech leaders in their pursuit of entrepreneurial success in Silicon Valley. Their leadership development goals prioritize enhancing emotional intelligence, improving interpersonal communication and honing conflict resolution skills for managerial effectiveness. The startup life is often grueling as co-founders face high pressure, high stakes decision-making during the rapid growth of their company. Harjeet Taggar, former Y Combinator partner, once wrote, “The relationship between co-founders is usually the single biggest risk to a startup in the earliest stages, it’s certainly the most common reason for failure we see at YC.” According to Paul Graham, founder of Y Combinator, successful conflict management requires skillful self management, and the ability to separate self-interest from winning solutions “You have to be prepared to see the better idea when it arrives. And the hardest part of that is often discarding your old idea.”

Seasoned entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley recognize that it’s not just the idea, product or timing of a startup that sets the stage for success, but arguably the founders’ ability to work together to tackle emerging problems as a company scales. It means working through differences aligned in partnership rather than at odds with one another. Just like the honeymoon phase of romantic relationships, early startup success can mask a lack of effective conflict management skills between founders. When things are going well, it’s tempting to believe that major conflicts can be avoided. While the gambling spirit is worn like a badge of honor among successful entrepreneurs, this is one gamble they can’t afford to lose. Without practicing conflict resolutions skills early and often, they risk losing time and resources battling each other instead of leveraging their collective strengths when they need them most. Gary Tan, former partner at Y Combinator shared with TechCrunch “Successful co-founders actually embrace conflict, and are constantly in the process of resolving it. If you can’t argue and arrive at the best solution, you’re not doing the work to actually have a real, healthy working relationship.”

So what works? Evidence-based strategies like those developed by psychologist John Gottman are applicable beyond marital relationships, and have been successfully utilized by other respected startup coaches in Silicon Valley. Gottman’s research has a proven track-record for both relationship success as well as predicting relationship failure with scientifically rigorous precision.

1. Aspire to ‘win’ as a team, not as individuals.

When your team is busy arguing over every minor detail your competitors are busy winning, and your company is busy failing.

There’s a saying in Silicon Valley that it’s better to have an A team with a B idea, than a B team with an A idea. Dedicate yourself to operating as an A member of an A team. Each member of your A team has lived their life aspiring to win on an individual level, using tactics that work best for them as individuals. The hardest part of submitting to a team is accepting others’ differences and shortcomings gracefully, and carrying on with your best work ethic and respect for others regardless of who’s slowing company progress. You think “I never would have made that mistake! This problem could have been avoided if they’d listened to me.” When oversights, insufficient planning, unclear communication, failed efforts, personal problems, and fatigue set in, they can lead to setbacks in your combined efforts to succeed as a team. Adopt the mental framework that ‘winning’ is modeling cooperation and flexibility, ‘losing’ is fighting to get your way all the time. Winning is practicing humility and accepting constructive feedback because it sets the best stage for improvement. Are you using tactics to succeed as a team or are you using tactics that are better suited to individual success? Are you willing to do whatever it takes to make progress as a team?

2. Recognize that company success is tied to your team’s willingness to trust one another. By working as part of a founder team, you are acknowledging you are better off working together versus alone. If you agree to build something with someone you are agreeing to rely on them, and you must also be reliable.

Founders of a company are gambling on each other, and there is no way to gamble without trust. Partial trust begets mistrust.

Can you trust that your cofounder has the best interest of the company at heart? Are you both committed to making the relationship work and the company successful? If you are not all in, you introduce risk to the foundation of your company. Trust functions to give team members a “reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something.” By agreeing to work with and rely on one another, you’ve accepted that each person adds important value, unique insights, and specialized abilities that compliment yours. By giving this to one another you maximize the time and attention you have for your own contributions instead of using your energy to raise doubts or second guess others’ work.

3. Attempting to track and keep score of who’s working harder or contributing more ‘worth’ wastes time, fosters animosity and reduces positive synergy.

Everyone’s best effort looks different, so spending time making comparisons rarely produces progress for the relationship or the company.

According to University of Illinois psychologist Brian Ogolsky and Texas State University’s Christine Gray, people who keep score in their relationships damage their potential for healthy relationship maintenance because the very act of counting implies a lack of trust, rigidity, and negativity. Co-founders and team members should aim to delegate responsibilities based on ability and expertise, and if a continual imbalance in the workload emerges, plan to discuss this as a team to solve for more efficient allocation of tasks that factors in individual strengths, resources and availability. Avoid placing blame when ever possible, and focus on actionable solutions that are tied to current circumstances. The potential for success is maximized when everyone’s strengths are being efficiently utilized in real time.

4. Create space for differences in opinion- exploring these differences will generate the most ingenuous solutions. Aim to facilitate a wide range of possibilities, and take an objective approach to problem-solving.

Even if you don’t agree with a particular solution, it’s more effective if everyone shares their vision how this solution could result in success or failure.

This style of debate fosters constructive involvement and reduces power struggles. If you oppose a decision, it’s not sufficient to point out a suggested plan’s low probability of success. Research and prepare an outline of alternative action-oriented solutions to share with the team.

5. Pay attention to people’s feelings. Conflict will naturally give rise to emotional expression that can work in your team’s favor. Strong emotional overtones are bound to emerge during a heated debate- take this as a sign that people care deeply about the work, about the team’s success, and that everyone at the table wants to avoid pitfalls. Identify what people are feeling and why. Let their answers inform how to proceed based on the expressed ideas. If the discussion doesn’t lead to an agreed upon direction, rely on people’s primary areas of expertise as a guide for who has the most insight for the final call. If the plan doesn’t work as out, take part in supporting a change in course quickly to minimize stalled productivity.

6. Ignoring reoccurring bad vibes between team members will only lead to bigger problems- resolving conflict is one problem startup founders CAN control. The sooner you address them, the sooner you can get back to business.

Lastly, if all diplomatic efforts fail, agree to seek outside advice. I always recommend that founders and executive teams establish a range of outside resources (experienced mentors, business advisors, legal counsel) to give your team the insight it needs to resolve conflict. Having an outsider broker your disagreement will end the gridlock- it’s like couples therapy for co-founders. This might be what saves your startup from sinking. Your team should agree in advance to take the advice with the goal of moving past this stage with finality.

And don’t lose your sense of humor! At fast-growing startups, the sheer magnitude of work should be complemented with some light-heartedness. Laugh in solidarity at the crazy, silly things that you face together as a team- it will help lighten the mood. When you look back at this time in your life, those are the things you’ll remember with a sense of gratitude and character-building strength.

Millennials tech twist on engagement, weddings and parenthood

On August 18, 2014February 15, 2018 By drchristinavillarrealIn marriage, personal branding, psychology, relationships, technology1 Comment

While millennials are still getting married at much lower rates than previous generations, some are finally beginning to grow and up, entering the world of marital engagements, wedding planning, and parenthood. True to form, their choices reflect advancements that set them apart from Gen-Xers, who were the first to utilize technology to chronicle their love stories on websites like theknot.com, build wedding registries online, gift personalized CDs with digitally remastered music as wedding favors, show spliced video montages of the bride and groom’s childhood at wedding receptions, and research honeymoons on websites like tripadvisor.com. As a card carrying member of generation X, I can proudly say we thought we were so cutting edge! Our kids were the first to be born with smartphones and tablets in their hands, and we posted their baby pictures on our social media pages and texted them to their grandparents. But time nor technology stands still, and Gen-Y has begun to put their own tech twist on engagements, weddings and baby plans. As someone who works with a high volume of with millennials in the San Francisco Bay Area, I have taken note of the following trends:

Their romantic relationships have an online life of their own. As the saying goes, no one really knows what happens behind closed doors, but in the personal lives of millennials, we can certainly take a look at their online activity to see what they’d like us to believe about their relationship status and history. The internet has become their forum of choice for chronicling romantic highs and lows, functioning as a means to gain public support, air grievances, compete for attention, and display markers of success (not to mention deleting away failures.) From public playlists on Spotify, hashtags on Twitter and Instagram, Pinterest boards and Facebook’s ‘Relationship Status’ updates, Gen-Y leaves little to the imagination when it comes to sharing their stories of romance.

They crowd source their decisions when it comes to navigating relationships. Millennials are used to solving problems fast, arriving at optimal solutions with the least resistance possible. Millennials have been groomed to work in competency-based teams, and this concept is frequently used for managing their personal lives too. They prefer to avoid conflict, and are more comfortable than previous generations relying on others to help them make decisions. Jeff Snipes, CEO of Ninth House, a provider of online education, including optimizing team effectiveness, says a hierarchical, leader-oriented team was more appropriate for earlier generations: “Traditionally if you worked up the ranks for twenty years and all the employees were local then you could know all the functions of the workplace. Then you could lead by barking orders. But today everything moves too fast and the breadth of competency necessary to do something is too vast.” When faced with life-changing decisions about relationship commitment or endings, Gen-Y seeks the opinions of their team of friends, family and experts to help them navigate and solve problems. When problems are deemed too private to share, websites like popular sites like Whisper and Secret are put to use by millennials as a way to air their private thoughts, share their hidden behaviors and ask for advice completely anonymously, so there is no threat to their carefully constructed online image.

Their engagement stories, weddings and honeymoons reflect their brilliance and investment in personal branding. While previous generations aimed to establish their worth and reputation through self-improvement, author Dan Schawbel of Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success points out that Gen-Y has discovered that in the dawn of the internet, admiration and success comes from self-packaging through a carefully concocted personal brand. From the days of Myspace to Tumblr, millennials have grown up managing their self image like celebrity publicists. Gen-Y has turned self-portraits into a way of life- ‘selfies’ have become one of the internet’s top forms of self-expression. Their overall online presence has been a way to uniquely distinguish themselves from everyone else, and they are highly invested in making their relationship milestones ideally memorable as part of their personal brand. Whether they capture and share these milestones via Snapchat’s Our Story, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or personal blogs, millennials are sure to control how the world sees their love stories unfold through brand management. One San Francisco Bay area millennial shared with me she got engaged via FaceTime, since her long-distance boyfriend was living in abroad and couldn’t wait to pop the question. To his credit, her (now fiance) also created an iMovie that he shared with her, depicting him staged in funny scenarios accompanied by a personalized musical score that specially captured their romantic history.

They’re comfortable resisting tradition, understanding that ‘following the rules’ doesn’t necessarily bring ‘happily ever after.’ Author Paul Hudson of Elite Daily, The Voice of Generation Y observes that millennials are far less likely than past generations to buy into the notion that marriage is the gateway to a future of stability and happiness. Harry Benson, research director at the Marriage Foundation, describes the strong link between parental divorce and a reluctance to get married. “If your parents split up then most people are more likely to be quite skeptical about the value of marriage,” he explains. “So as there’s rising divorce rates, you can imagine how when the next generation appears, people will be more dubious about marriage.” Bobby Duffy, leading market researcher on generational analysis, says there are also far more financial pressures on millennials than previous generations. They have more educational debt in a less stable economic climate, and face an incredibly buoyant housing market. According to CNNMoney, twenty-somethings are transitioning into adult life at a more gradual pace, opting to cohabitate and co-parent without traditional marriage at a much higher rate than previous generations.

They anticipate their babies’ future in a world where technological identity matters. One website says it all:awesomebabyname.com, a new online tool that allows parents to choose a name for their child based on website domain availability. Yes people, this is happening. I heard it first a few months ago when a pregnant patient of mine found out she was having a girl, the first thing she and her cohabiting boyfriend/expecting father-to-be did was buy website domains and establish email accounts in her name. Of course, now there’s an app for that! “It’s important to give your children a fighting chance of having good SEO (Search Engine Optimization) in the 21st century,” says Finnbar Taylor, who created this website together with Karen X. Cheng. “We use search engines all day long to answer our questions and find things, including people. Imagine being called John Smith and trying to get a ranking on Google search. It’s important to give your child a unique name so that people, like potential employers, will be able to find them easily in the future.”

Granted, millennials are still in their 20’s, a time when it’s still developmentally common to be preoccupied with self-image, and an idealized future that looks different than previous generations. The question is, as Gen-Y ages, which of these trends, if any, will change?

Tech in dating: decoding the social rules of text, online dating & social media

On June 1, 2014May 30, 2017 By drchristinavillarrealIn Uncategorized1 Comment

Let’s face it: flirting, finding love and managing relationships have always been complicated, but with the involvement of countless forms of technology now impacting every little step of the way, the social rules of love and sex have only gotten more confusing. The role of tech in dating is a primary concern among young singles in the Bay Area of California- the world’s hub and backbone of tech culture. Part of the challenge is decoding and navigating the emerging social rules of text, online dating and social media to help them achieve fulfilling relationships. I recently spoke withTech Crunch journalist Sara Buhr, who was investigating dating trends among people immersed in the tech industry. Some of the questioned she asked of me were: How are the norms and expectations different? Are young men in tech less likely to follow traditional social rules of dating? How has the proclivity toward using dating websites changed the dating game? This article was born from that conversation, and aims to illuminate the challenges of social connection in the 21st century.

So what do we already know? If you want to communicate personally with anyone these days, you’ve got to text them. Casual, easy and non-threatening, text messaging is upending today’s dating culture. The cellphone is the gateway: swiftly and radically changing the way people interact, meet and move forward (or not) in a relationship. According to a report released in 2013 by Nielsen based on actual phone bills of mobile contract subscribers, about 764 text messages per person were sent/received each month in the USA in 2012, compared with about 165 mobile calls per month. A new survey of 1,500 daters provided to USA TODAY reveals how deeply mobile technology has rocked the dating world. The daters, ages 21 to 50, give even greater insight into mobile behaviors and a new range of dating questions: Do you check your phone during a date? How soon must you reply to a text? Should a friend call or text you to see how the date is going?

Among the findings:

•Approximately one-third of men (31%) and women (33%) agree it’s less intimidating to ask for a date via text vs. a phone call.

•More men (44%) than women (37%) say mobile devices make it easier to flirt and get acquainted.

“Texting is kind of an ongoing conversation. It does make it easier to flirt. Maybe you’re talking every day,” says Alex Pulda, 27, who works in product research in San Francisco. “It’s not like text conveys a ton of emotion, but you are getting a little more comfortable with each other.” Pulda says he texts for everything, including dates. “I don’t love phone calls,” he says. “They have all the downsides and don’t have the benefit of face-to-face communication. It’s kind of this in-between. And part of it is, it’s a lot more work than a text.”

Millennials’ love of texting is rubbing off on other generations, suggests Naomi Baron, a linguistics professor at American University in Washington who has studied electronically mediated communication in five nations, including the USA. She says telephone calls are often thought of as an intrusion, while texting affords a way of “controlling the volume,” a term she uses to describe the sense of control that text gives users that they can’t get with a voice conversation. “We tell ourselves we don’t want to disturb someone. Sometimes it’s true, but more often, it’s because we can’t get them off the phone,” she says. In texting, “we don’t have to talk to people or listen to what another person has to say. We decide how we want to encounter or whether we want to encounter other people. Technology gives us tools for controlling our relationships.” In the modern world of dating, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to know how our electronic messages are being perceived and paced by others.

It’s not uncommon (and quite the norm) for people to save texts, tweets, status updates and Gchats to discuss and analyze amongst their friends. These digital exchanges are often at the root of their increased anxiety and worry, social tension, and depressive symptoms such as decreased concentration and irritability at work and other important areas of functioning. Life coach Debra Smouse explains “when a response [from others] doesn’t come, we begin to worry. When we don’t hear back, our minds start to spiral, creating crazy scenarios and we begin to believe that something is wrong. We know logically that a friend may have left his or her desk or a colleague may be on a call, but when we’re on the other end and stress hits, an unanswered chat box is discomforting, and logic goes out the window.” [Technologies like Gchat] “make us think that because the technology is ‘instant’ and free, people should respond instantly — and there’s something wrong when they don’t,” adds Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, author of “The Distraction Addiction.”

It’s not just the frequency and pace of our electronic messages that are difficult to decipher. The content of these exchanges can also be equally confusing in the context of modern dating (a.k.a ‘hanging out‘), getting to know each other, (a.k.a ‘internet stalking‘) and sex (a.k.a ‘hooking up‘.) Ambiguous, common messages like “what’re you up tonight, anything fun going on?”, “I’m out drinking with some friends if you’re around”, and “hey” are all commonplace in the current dating marketplace, can make it difficult for people to gain traction towards building a committed relationship. The normalization and proclivity toward using dating websites in recent years contributes to a pattern of non-comittal social ties. Mobile apps like Tinder, okcupid and plenty of fish supply people with a never-ending source of new social opportunities. The problem is that “young people today don’t know how to get out of hookup culture” Donna Freitas explains, author of the forthcoming book, “The End of Sex: How Hookup Culture is Leaving a Generation Unhappy, Sexually Unfulfilled, and Confused About Intimacy.” “Dodging vulnerability cheats us of the chance to not just create intimacy but also to make relationships work”states Brené Brown, a University of Houston researcher whose work focuses on the need for vulnerability and what happens when we desensitize ourselves to it.

In this light, some people can utilize coaching as a way to build social skills to help them find, evolve and navigate romantic relationships. Dean, a Millennial who writes about her generation (generally born 1982 to 2000) says, “We really see this generation as having a huge handicap in communication. We have our heads down in our smartphones a lot. We don’t know how to express our emotions, and we tend to hide behind technology, computers and social media.” she says. With diminished opportunity for healthy social relationships, this generation is at increased risk for isolation.

Deep Mindset Coaching, LLC

Tag: tech