Antoni Martínez is a famous Valencian psychologist who runs the website www.psicologiaenpositivo.org, a portal that deals with topics that help people to be happier.
As he himself points out, his "working method includes both cognitive-behavioral psychology and Positive Psychology, choosing the most appropriate intervention according to the needs of the person."
With more than 10 years of experience in the sector (where he has even created an NGO), he already begins to give practical advice on the subject before the interview, commenting that every morning he does a practical exercise: wondering who he is and how he wants it to be his day, something that serves as a method to give his best in his day to day.
Antoni is one of the pioneering psychologists in Positive Psychology in Spain and one of the most experienced and knowledgeable. The following interview will focus on strategies to be successful professionally and on other aspects related to personal development.
Question: To begin, I would like you to indicate a phrase that has marked your life or your way of thinking
Answer : Well, there is an expression that I especially like, coming from a book called "Consultation Secret" and it said that in the psychologist's consultation there was neither magic nor miracles.
What there are are talks, vocation, hope, and that when entering the door, there is someone with a serene and grateful face. It seems to me a good description of what the psychologist means and what we can aspire to achieve with our work.
Q: I am writing down the book. What are you most proud of in everything you have achieved so far?
A: Well, look, we could distinguish professionally and personally. Professionally, I would aspire to be great in psychology, in what I like, in what I enjoy. On the personal side, then having a type of life that I like and with which I feel more and more comfortable.
Q: Well, now we get into personal strategies to succeed in professional life
A: We must bear in mind that the first strategy is to “find your favorite tool” that would be your passion, a hobby, your strength, something that you are good at and fill you with, and exploit it.
A second point would be "learn from your mistakes" and for this it is convenient to surround yourself and cultivate people who are especially good at what they do in order to enrich you.
A third could be "continuous improvement", but be understanding. When we are in a professional state and we want to be successful we face a process of improvement that we have to live, being very understanding.
We are in a state of learning, of having patience in the good sense of the word with ourselves. If every two successes we have a failure, nothing happens, we must move on since it is not the end of the world.
Q: So the key is to be understanding with yourself
A: Yes, to be understanding with ourselves as we are with our clients. This is about a marathon and not a sprint and there will be comings and goings: we are going to move forward, backward, go to one side and another.
But nothing happens, as long as we go more or less forward, we are doing well. A phrase that I also like a lot dictates: "fluctuating does not mean not improving", simply that sometimes we do it better, and other times worse.
Q: Yes, I totally agree. Shall we continue with the fourth?
A: Yes, the fourth is "communicate, convince and confirm." Hardly anyone is going to let us know, work and be successful. There is one point that always comes out, and that makes the difference: social strategies.
I would dare to say that in any field in which we dedicate ourselves, we will learn to communicate better, we will learn to convince that we are a tool of persuasion, and then we will confirm. In the end, communicating with marketing and convincing is linked; here we can put finance and the social world as an example.
Q: Interesting, well, let's continue with the following strategy
A: This one would be titled "No one can win the war alone." Returning to the position of psychologist, we need to learn to handle social networks. I can try things on my own or turn to other people for help, or just go it alone. But we need to be connected, because nobody ends up succeeding fighting against absolutely all the elements.
Q: So, what would already be the penultimate strategy?
A: The next point would be entitled "visible on the big web", obviously we would say that it is on the internet. We must have a presence in that field if we want to be successful professionally, but do not neglect the other strategies that we have discussed.
The online presence is convenient to combine with face-to-face, since it is not the same to talk with someone online than having breakfast and talking.
P: Well, finally we are going to approach the interview with the last missing strategy.
A: This strategy is titled "No one can beat you at being yourself." The end of the process of being successful consists of obtaining your way of doing things, something that is conditioned by our way of being. This is where there is a direct relationship.
No one can beat us to do things the way we do. We have to find our particular way of doing our work, doing therapy, writing articles, or even giving talks.
Q: One last question I have is on the subject of trust and fear. What is the way to face fears? Because sometimes fear immobilizes. For example, you are going to talk to that important person and you get a panic attack, sweat, nerves… What do you think is the way to overcome it and to take the first step and say “I will make it even if I am very afraid?
A: There are people who say “well, I will face it at all costs”. And they do it and it goes well. I think the best thing is to go searching, trying minor things and increasing the level of difficulty more and more.
The secret is to increase and increase the level of difficulty, as these fears can be quite impressive at some point. For example, in the case of public speaking, why not start talking to a small group and expand it?
Q: Well, to the readers it must be said that Antoni has started a new project which is the apprenticeship school, which can be found on the psychologyenpositivo.com website.
A: There you can find the apprenticeship school or my blog, where you can see different professional perspectives of psychology. Readers can browse and anyone who wants to contact me or has any more questions I will answer without problems.
Q: What is this school formed for?
A: For psychologists or people studying psychology. In addition, there will soon be workshops for people and the individual public who want to improve self-esteem, social skills, etc…
Q: Ok, and to finish, we know that you have written a couple of books. Can you explain a little about them?
A: There is one called Overcome Depression that is on my website or on Amazon, focused on people who are depressed or who want to know more about depression…
There is also another called Positive Psychology for the day to day, which is also on the web and you can download it for free in an ebook. This focuses on creating positive daily habits that help us to be happy and optimistic.
Finally, there is also one called 21 keys to relax before a first date, focused on how to relax so as not to get nervous. There is a lot of interesting material on this in the book.