Communicating to Connect, Not Conflict

Part One: How Do Others Feel and Act Around You?

What’s the secret to attracting others’ respect, support and friendship? It is not through our instinctual initial behavior with others.  That is to show others our best side.

Just the opposite.  People are more inclined to like and respect you when they first get to show you their better side. As others enjoy being around you they see in you the qualities they most like in themselves – whether or not you’ve demonstrated that you, in fact, have those qualities.

Probably they will not be aware of their underlying reasoning, yet research shows that people like people who like them. *

In first meeting, women, in general, tend to become happier and higher performing when they feel liked and like the people they are around.

In first meeting, men, in general, tend to become happier and higher performing when they feel respected and respect the people they are around.

Tip: 

• In first meeting or re-meeting “Go Slow to Go Fast”:  first enable the other person to demonstrate or discuss her greatest talent or temperament.


Part Two:  Talk. Agree to Disagree, Without Becoming Disagreeable

The activities in Iraq and the worldwide economic instability means life feels less certain for most of us.  Rather than avoiding conversations about your deepest concerns, turn to the people you most love and admire and ask to talk about what most matters to you.  Say you want to become closer by being truthful with each other, listening to understand  – even agreeing to disagree. 

We often grow closer when we realize we can maintain our liking and respect even as we acknowledge our differences.  Further, we tend to learn more about our hot buttons, not around like-minded people but around those we like who do not always agree or “act right”, like us.

Tips: 

• Look to his positive intent, especially when he appears to have none.

• When you begin to grow angry, remind yourself of the core part of that other person that you most admire and like.

• As you stay open to another’s views you keep that person open and close to you.

In a civilization when love is
gone we turn to justice and when
justice is gone we turn to power
and  when power is gone we
turn to violence.

Failure is usually no more fatal
than success is permanent.

Failure is usually no more fatal
than success is permanent.

Opportunity is often inconvenient.

The fun is in discovering how the sum of us can be greater than apart.

Coercive power saps energy
from everyone.   Shared power
showers energy on everyone.

Some people control by defining
the rules of the relationship.
You can choose to define the rules
of how you will relate.

Being defined by others
gives them control.
Defining yourself
gives you choices.

Power resides not in
aggressiveness but
in conscious choice.

You can't empower or
disempower someone else.

As you fix the problem,
you won't have to
fix the blame.

Holding onto your anger is like
clutching a vibrating pole. 
The harder you hold, the more
every part of your being
vibrates in reaction.

Strengths spread
just as fears do.

The stronger the signal
you send  yourself of your
highest purpose, the higher
the priority you assign to that area.

Think well of yourself.
The subconscious
can't take a joke.

We do not see things as they are. 
We see them as we are.

Beliefs shape your experience,
not the other way around.

Your eyes see what
they are trained to see.

Your body speaks to you constantly,
telling you what your own needs are.

Problems seldom exist
on the level at which
they are expressed.

It is easier to act your way
into a more positive feeling
than to feel your way into
a positive way of acting.

You can't develop
positive people with
negative feedback.

What you praise in others,
you'll encourage to flourish.

Praise others when they are
around people who most
 matter to them.
 
Unflinching kindness in
the face of cruelty  is
your strongest protection.

Quiet the chattering mind
promotes directed action.

Point out to someone that
they are acting like a jerk
they will go out of their way
to prove it to you some more.

People like people who like them.

All that we are is the result
of what we think. All that we will
be is based on our ability to
feel and to think with warmth.

Our emotions fuel our energy.

You are the medium
for your message.

Resenting someone is
a way of never leaving them.

Look to their positive intent,
especially when they
appear to have none.

Act as if the world is
going to treat you well.

What you do not say
often says it all.

If I say you are a bad person
I can almost see you worsen. 
Funny how my words for you
have a way of becoming
true in my mind.

Our emotions fuel
our energy.   Strengths
spread just as fears do.

The person who chooses
from the broadest range of
possible actions usually
becomes the peacemaker.

You can disagree with an argument,
but not with a personal experience. 
You cannot defect from an insight.
You cannot unsee what you have seen.

Better to see something once than
to hear it a hundred times. 
That's why actions are often 
more powerful than  words.

A personal experience shapes
your opinions without
your conscious willing.

Whoever most vividly
characterizes what a situation
is about usually determines how
others see it, talk about it, and
make decisions about it.

Speak like it tastes good.

Offer verbal  snapshots that
penetrate the mind and the gut
in an instant then linger, leaving
a bright after image.

If you are arguing for more
than ten minutes, consider that
you may not be arguing about
your true conflict.

How we do our tasks
may  have more impact
than the tasks themselves.

Whatever you press against
will press back.  However hard you
press against it, it will press back
at least equally hard.

Shut people out
and they shut up.
Bring people in
and they open up.

In most cases stress
is caused not by the event itself
but rather by our response
to the event.

Forgive all who have
offended you, not for them,
but for yourself.

Act genially in the
face of rancor.
You may be the only
angel in that person’s life.

Happiness is a state
of minimum regret.

You only and always
have three choices
in any situation: 
change, accept or leave.

Take each step with reverence
as if it is the axis on which
the whole earth revolves,
slowly, evenly, without rushing
toward the future.  Only this
actual moment is life.

The sweetest revenge
is a well - lived life.