Fighting Conflict – What if we saw conflict THIS way instead?
Battling our enemies is always difficult. How can we better resolve conflict?
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The “WIN” Mindset – How do you avoid it?
Being a good driver isn’t only important on the road, but also in conversation. How can you become a more responsible driver in communication?
Driving Conversation – How to be a good “Driver” in communication!
Being a good driver isn’t only important on the road, but also in conversation. How can you become a more responsible driver in communication?
Resolving Conflict
To move a conversation forward in a healthy direction so that both parties feel safe, breathe again, and experience hope, someone has to offer help first…But who goes first?
Understanding Anger
A person who is angry is angry about something … for some reason. In their anger, they communicate directly or indirectly what they are angry about. Our task is first, to listen well enough to “get it” and second, to make it clear in some way what we “get” so they know that we know why they are angry.
Here’s the challenge: when someone is angry at us, we experience all kinds of reactions that are physical, mental, emotional, and even physical in nature…
How to Listen to an Angry Person
You know the experience – so do I. You have said or done something to someone which was apparently frustrating or hurtful. You didn’t mean to (or maybe you did) but they are reacting.
Why is it so hard to listen to them? And what can we do to change that?
It’s never fun having someone angry at you. At the very least it is quite uncomfortable, and at the most it is scary. As a result, we put up our guard and our fists – so to speak. We have been hurt or misunderstood in the past and we’re not about to get hurt again. We are ready to fight back!
How to Become a Master at Communication
In this week’s communication tip, I talked about my son, a semi-professional musician, who teaches History by day and plays guitar in restaurants by night.
I can’t tell you how amazing he is – you would just think I am just biased. I could tell you for instance that:
he has mastered not only the 6-string but the Brazilian 7-string guitar
he knows hundreds of songs in English and Portuguese by heart – chords, and lyrics.
I marvel at how he moves up and down the neck without even looking at where he places his fingers,
he can transpose a song into any key
he can listen to a song once and play along the second time
and I could go on.
But you might say it sounds like I’m bragging about my son, and you might be right. If you watched this week’s video, however, you heard that I also was making a huge point. You see, despite how good of a musician he is and how well he has mastered the guitar, he practices his core basic scales very slowly every day, up and down for a minimum of 20 minutes!
Be Interested – PLEDGEtalk Thoughts
In this week’s Tune-up Tuesday video tip I spoke of wanting to spend some time with a man I have only known mostly at a distance – so we did a breakfast together just a few weeks ago. I spoke further about the impact he made on me by how much time he took to express interest in me, rather than seek my interest in him.
This same man turned out to be the speaker I heard this week – at a gathering called Impact Wichita. His name is Damon Young.
I was struck by a number of points Damon made, but one big takeaway for me was listening to him speak of how we are ALL important…even that person whom we might deem to be less important. Hearing about Damon through the person who introduced him, and then listening to Damon share, I heard more of how and why he values others and takes the time to be interested in them. I was stirred and grateful to have heard him speak.
As I write this, I think how ironic it was/is that he spoke at a gathering entitled IMPACT Wichita. Here’s why:
Exercising PLEDGEtalk
In this week’s Tune-up Tuesday communication tip, I talked about taking note of those relationships or those moments in relationships that aren’t going well.
Don’t ignore those moments!
Take note of them and exercise the principles of PLEDGEtalk in hopes of restoring the relationship. You can watch that video HERE if you missed it.
Easier said than done.
Enjoying Others in Conversation
Think back to the last time a child brought something to you with a smile on their face. It might have been a coloring they did or a stone they found outside. They come with great excitement for they have either accomplished something or discovered something and they want to share it with you.
What do you do?