I’m a fan of Simon Sinek. Here’s a recent post on LinkedIn, from his perspective.

This is an interesting perspective, as obvious as it might seem. I focus a lot on understanding another person’s point of view, by using techniques like echoing back what we’ve heard. If we can do this — to the speaker’s satisfaction — then we can be more sure that we understand.

This post is the flip side of that. I say something, then I ask you to echo it back to me. If you can do that, then I can be sure you understand, and I have communicated well.

So… did you get all that? 🙂

Oh, come on! Is Scott Adams reading this site?

How many times have you been her? Be honest.

A fascinating story about how motivated reasoning works. When are you being a soldier, and when are you being a scout?

I’ve been using an app called “10 Percent Happier” for a couple of years. It’s created by Dan Harris, an ABC news journalist. The app is a collection of short discussions and guided meditations (almost all under 15 minutes). The discussions are with a variety of prominent meditation teachers, all with Dan’s practical, relaxed, and often humorous approach to meditation for everyday people in everyday life.
I was discussing UnderstandingOnPurpose with my wife, Linda. She’s a Licenced Professional Counselor (LPC), and focuses on somatic approaches to the work she does. I was telling her that, in my pursuit of how people communicate (or don’t), I find myself repeatedly following the trail of various experts in the field of relationship therapies; couples therapy and the like.
So today, as I opened my 10 Percent Happier app for my morning session, I drifted toward the “Relationships” collection, and came across a session by Oren Jay Sofer. One of the first things out of his mouth during the opening discussion was about, during a conversation with another human, how it’s important to continually check in to be sure you’re hearing the other person — understanding what they’re saying.
But he went deeper. He emphasized that it’s important to understand “what really matters about” what the other person is saying — to that person. He made it clear that, in asking questions like “let me see if I get what you’re saying,” it’s important to be genuinely curious. It’s much more important to be genuinely curious than to get the words right. Also, it’s helpful, rather than to ask an open-ended question like “what do you mean by that?” to given an example. It matters less if you got the example right than that you made an honest, sincere attempt. This keeps the conversation going.

I’ve been using an app called “10 Percent Happier” for a couple of years. It’s created by Dan Harris, an ABC news journalist. The app is a collection of short discussions and guided meditations (almost all under 15 minutes).  The discussions are with a variety of prominent meditation teachers, all with Dan’s practical, relaxed, and often humorous approach to meditation for everyday people in everyday life.  

I was discussing UnderstandingOnPurpose with my wife, Linda Franke. She’s a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC), and focuses on somatic approaches to the work she does. I was telling her that, in my pursuit of how people communicate (or don’t), I find myself repeatedly following the trail of various experts in the field of relationship therapies; couples therapy and the like.

So today, as I opened my 10 Percent Happier app for my morning session, I drifted toward the “Relationships” collection, and came across a session by Oren Jay Sofer. One of the first things out of his mouth during the opening discussion was about, during a conversation with another human, how it’s important to continually check in to be sure you’re hearing the other person — understanding what they’re saying. What a great idea! 🙂

But he went deeper. He emphasized that it’s important to understand “what really matters about” what the other person is saying — to that person.  He made it clear that, in asking questions like “let me see if I get what you’re saying,” it’s important to be genuinely curious. It’s much more important to be genuinely curious than to get the words right. Also, it’s helpful, rather than to ask an open-ended question like “what do you mean by that?” to given an example. It matters less if you got the example right than that you made an honest, sincere attempt.  This keeps the conversation going.

Julia Dhar: How to have constructive conversations https://www.ted.com/talks/julia_dhar_how_to_have_constructive_conversations

(Thanks to my friend Wayne for turning me on to this video).

Here are my key takeaways…

Start with where are you agree. The video points are a great example of where Jordan Peterson not only agrees with, but actively expands upon a potential adversaries point, and then takes it just a little bit further to counter the argument. This is a technique that practitioners of Aikido know very well. It’s called blending. In layman’s terms, it is often referred to as “using your opponents energy against themselves.” But I don’t think that sentiment addresses the true nature of the behavior. It’s really about starting by becoming “one” with your opponent, as woo-woo as that may sound. In a true blend, there is, for a moment at least, no difference between the attacker and the attacked.

It is best to speak in terms like these: “it seems like… “, which acknowledges the fact that you cannot truly know what the other person is thinking or feeling. You then go about clarifying the other persons point in a way that they would agree with.“ A-men! This is the “talking stick exercise“ that I’ve discussed in other posts. This is Jedi master stuff.

To (eventually, inevitably) address contentious arguments, start by establishing your good intentions. (4:18) The idea is to defuse the connection between the person with whom you’re speaking, and their ideas. We so easily become identified with our ideas. It makes us hold on. It makes us less likely two let go of an idea, because it means we would be letting go of a piece of ourselves.

BTW, if you approach the whole exercise — especially items in the two paragraphs above — with the agenda of learning “tricks” to defeat you opponent, you’re missing the point entirely.

Separate your own ego from the views that you had when you entered the discussion. Recognize that “your“ views are not really “yours,” and make it clear to the person with whom you’re speaking that you understand this is true for them, as well. Non-identification with your opinions is essential! In Aikido, we train ourselves to enter a confrontation without an agenda. It’s really hard, even in a training scenario. Just keep in mind that you are not attacking (or defending yourself from) a person. You are merely taking issue with a particular argument (or technique) — the attack, not the person who delivered the attack. Don’t think or say “The problem I have with your argument.” This addresses the fundamental need for people to be right; or, conversely, the fundamental fear people have of being wrong. It’s not “your” (or “my”) argument. It’s “the” argument. Do not identify with “your perspective.“

7:45 in the video — if you remember nothing else in this post, memorize this 17 seconds.

I’ve long thought that there’s a lot of wisdom in the Comics. Here’s one that needs no words from me.  Happy Memorial Day.

Yesterday I woke up dreading my upcoming workday. OK, “dreading” is a little strong, but I did have some potentially uncomfortable conversations coming up, and I wasn’t looking forward to them.
I took this as an opportunity to check in about how I felt about this, and perhaps why. I didn’t journal about it (next time I will), but I think I did take with me a good sense for what I was experiencing, so that I could remember it later in the day.
At the end of the day, after all was said and done, I checked in. The day went considerably better than I had hoped. A couple of those difficult conversations were a lot more difficult in my imagination than they were in real life. This seems to happen to me a lot.
So, why do I write about this? I’m trying to train myself to check in on things I am thinking, and what it feels like to be (supposedly) right about those things. Then I want to repeatedly practice checking backwards after the chips have fallen, to absorb what it felt like to be right, when I wasn’t.

My family and I are spending a couple of days at Claytor Lake. We rented a “cabin” (sleeps 16 — long story) and I’m taking a day off work. My wife, daughter, and mother-in-law are joined by my son and his girlfriend, who are visiting us from college.

I thought to myself about a week ago that it might be interesting to blog every day on some experience of being wrong. This morning something happened that made me laugh and shake my head. It was mostly my mother-in-law’s experience, but I unwittingly instigated it.

I mentioned we’re at a cabin. This means we don’t have all our usual kitchen supplies, and some of the usual things are not in the usual containers.

So, Gramma was fixing her coffee, and she asked me where the sugar was. I told her it was in the Illy coffee container. I put it in there because Illy coffee comes in a handy steel container that travels well. She thanked me and went about her business.

After she finished her breakfast, she told me that the sugar she put in her coffee was actually raisins. It was at this point that I realized there were two Illy coffee containers — one of which did, in fact, contain raisins. Neither was labeled.

I asked her why, when she noticed that the “sugar” looked a lot like raisins, she didn’t take notice and re-evaluate. She told me she thought maybe the sugar was in the form of “little clumps of brown sugar.” I thanked her for her complete faith in me, and apologized for my error. But, in my own mind, I thought that perhaps, after 86 years, she could probably have trusted her own judgment enough to know the difference between sugar and raisins.

So, from my perspective, when I told her where the sugar was, I felt like I was right. When I realized her mistake, I realized mine. No biggie.

From her perspective, however, the experience is fascinating. She knew something was “wrong” with the sugar, but her answer to that problem was that the sugar came in a form that looked very different than the white, granulated kind — little clumps of brown. In her mind, it was easier to believe in a form of sugar that she had never before seen in all her life, than to consider that maybe I gave her bad info.

I find that fascinating.