8 posts tagged “friendship”

Learn over 600 methods in this comprehensive program to become more confident, compelling and collaborative; to resolve conflict, handle difficult people or situations with grace and strength, and be able to attract smarter support sooner. Get the book and six audiotape program, The Resolution Response: How to Reach Better Everyday Agreements More.

Emotions Revealed: Recognizing Faces and Feelings to Improve Communication and Emotional Life
a book by Paul Ekman

"What is he really feeling?," you ponder as you search his face. If you knew, you might get along better. For recognizing true emotions -- yours and others' -- read this book. From the preeminent expert on reading faces and on deception comes his most complete book yet.

I have a friend who looks judgmental when he's in contemplation and a client who appears angry when she's tired. With this book you can become more adept at reading others' emotional signals. Also learn to alter your own feelings through recognizing them sooner. Book includes photos and exercises, such as how to recognize a genuine smile. Ekman's clients range from the FBI to Pixar animation studios.

"There hasn't been a book on this subject of such range and insight since Darwin's famous Expression of the Emotions" is how Oliver Sacks describes this book that culls from 40 years of research.

Everyone from lawyers to teachers and salesfolks can use Ekman's insights to better understand human behavior.

As you learn to recognize emotions -- yours and others -- you can also learn to sidestep conflict and bring out the best in others by reading LikeAbility. You can download it right now.

Don't stop there. Enjoy becoming more clear, compelling and quotable by listening to 100 communication and persuasion tips in Make Yourself Memorable.

Book:  Show us a book everyone should read before they die. 
Submitted by Rob.

The Dance of Connection: How to Talk to Someone When You're Mad, Hurt, Scared, Frustrated, Insulted, Betrayed, or Desperate by Harriet Lerner.

Great book, especially for women, for strengthening your most cherished relationships.

While we share many of our most joyful moments with our family members and dearest friends, our deepest struggles often arise out of those same relationships. When women feel a conflicting tug of emotions in attempting to share concerns, seek support, or stand up for oneself, psychologist Lerner suggests responses to demonstrate one's authentic self.

How can you care for yourself and be caring with others? Learner's thoughtful advice has helped me with such questions for some twenty years. Her approaches to our most common dilemmas show how we can be vulnerable with those we love without becoming a doormat or a nag. From the enormously popular author of The Dance of Intimacy, The Dance of Deception, and The Mother Dance comes her most widely useful book yet -- one of my two favorites -- along with The Dance of Anger -- in an illuminating series.

This book is a thoughtful gift for a family member's or friend's birthday, wedding, approaching empty nest, or other significant situation.

You can make some simple changes in how you dress, move or speak and discover that you have fewer conflicts and greater opportunity to build enduring relationships from smoother daily interactions. From the research on our gut instinctual reactions, here's some easy-to-adopt suggestions.

 1. Sidle. People are more likely to like each other, remember more of what they discuss, and agree when they "sidle," standing or sitting side by side, rather than facing each other.
 Two women or a man and a woman are more likely to face each other. They literally "face off". Two men instinctively sidle. Siddling brings people "in sync." Walking and talking gets you further connected. The best time to resolve issues is while walking together to the meeting, not when you are in the meeting, sitting across from each other.

 2. Look for the underlying issue. When you are arguing for more than ten minutes, you are probably not discussing the real conflict and are thus unlikely to get it resolved in the discussion. Look for the underlying issue. Read Robert Bromson's Dealing With Difficult People for ideas about how to recognize difficult behaviors and ways to respond to them.

 3. Detect lying earlier. When lying, most people can put an innocent expression on their face when you ask them a question about the topic, yet few (except pathological liars) get the right timing or duration of that expression.

Ignore the expression itself when they respond but note whether they appear to put it on too soon or too late and if the duration of the expression seems off. Here your instincts will often guide you to knowing their truthfulness. To learn more about how to detect lying, read Paul Ekman's book, Telling Lies.

 4. Come back to your scents. Since smell is the most directly emotional sense, bypassing much of the brain's thinking process, consider how to introduce positively natural and uplifting scents into your environment as your own "sane self-indulgence."

A naturally scented environment refreshs people, so they feel uplifted. That's why outlets as diverse as the Rainforest Cafe, Sahara Vegas Casino, Disney/Epcot Home of the Future and San Francisco Aquarium have created natural "signature scents" to avoid allergic reactions while refreshing those they serve.

 People who are responsible for your work setting may consider environmental scenting someday. Consider lightly scenting your uniform with the smells that are most comfortingly familiar to you. Two hospitals in Tokyo scent bed sheets with vanilla. Since a Paris hotel began scenting their twoels with rose and citrus, guests have been giving more positive reports on the hotel staff's thoughtfulness and appearance. Vanilla, apple, and chocolate are Americans' most -liked scents.

5. Be vividly specific. A specific detail or example proves a general conclusion, not the reverse. A vivid, specific detail is memorable, while a general statement is less credible and easily forgotten. Ironically, most adult conversation and advertising is general. Children are more likely to be vividly specific and thus more memorable.

When you want to be heard and remembered, characterize your information or request with a vivid, specific detail, example, story or contrasting options. Involve words that relate to the senses. For example "beautiful color" is not as vivid as "blue" which is not as vivid as "cobalt blue."

 6.  Be "plainly clear." Avoid wearing patterned clothing or other detail on your clothing, especially on the upper half of the body, because it will shorten the attention span of the person with whom you are speaking.

• It is harder to argue when you are holding hands.

• Know that showing appreciation and attention, especially when you least want to show them and the other person most needs them, will always bring you closer than asking for them.

• First look to the other person’s positive intent as you hear what what is said.

• Saying less often gets you more of what you want from him.

• Looking directly and warmly at her, rather than away, often brings out the part of her you most enjoy.

• Making and keeping an agreement usually helps the other person feel more safe, respected and cared for in the relationship.

• First try to act in a different and positive way before you verbally ask for a change in someone else.

• Don’t interrupt, especially when you most want to.

• First answer the other person’s question.  Answer it directly, without preface, qualifiers, countering, second guessing, answering questions she or he did not ask or raising other points first.

• Do not answer a question with a question, including questioning that person’s question of you.

• Find out whether the other person feels you’ve answered her or his question or otherwise responded adequately before you move onto your question or another point or topic.

• Showing resentment and resistence will most likely escalate the hardening of sides between you.

• Rather than describing what you don’t like, ask for a specific change.

• Be willing to make a change before asking for one.

• Don’t ask for more than one change at a time, unless you want them all ignored.

• Know that the more changes you ask for the more resistent you’ll face, and the more likely it will be for you both go to your heads to think, rather than to your hearts to feel.

• Use factual language and few words to describe what you want changed.

• Use emotion-laden language, and more words, to describe what you like in the other person.

• Women: Say and move less, especially when you want to do the opposite

• Men:  Give her more eye contact.  If you don’t feel comfortable answering her right away, tell her so directly.  Then tell her when you will get back to her with a response.

• In the middle of your hottest moments of discussion, remember what you most like in the other person and take the time to express it.

•Of course all these apparently wise pieces of advice are much easier to offer than to live by.

Men aren't born passive.  Women aren't born wild.  We just have that effect on each other … too often.

When and why does a conversation become one-sided, or dissolve into conflict, and how can you turn it around and stay sane?  

Here's some gut instincts research-based insights on:
- why things often go sour between the sexes, followed by
- four suggestions for smoother, more satisfying ways to stay connected:

At work, the man is often active, articulate, assertive, and usually successful in his conversations, especially with other men.  

But at home he can become inactive, inarticulate, and withdrawn.
He becomes passive with his wife – especially in certain situation.

Yet even when the woman works outside the home she tends to communicate in a more active way at home - and instinctively wants the same style from her mate.  

His apparent passivity drives her crazy.  

In the face of his further retreat, she goes wild. *
Then he becomes more still, and escapes at the first opportunity.

In personal relationships women often want too much talk, as men sees it.  
She feels resentful, complains, keeps asking questions, talks more, may even act bitter.  

He feels he can’t meet her needs and ends up feeling guilty and sulks.  
They both end up blaming each other.

He thinks:  If only she’d shut up.
She thinks:  If only he'd talk to me.

Here’s four ways women are more likely to engage men in the positive, lively conversation we crave:

Suggestion #1
“Stop Talking Sooner”
Or, less politely, "shut up sooner. As a child my mother washed my mouth out with soap for saying “shut up” yet that’s sound advice for women in trying to connect with men.   Women are usually immediately aware of our feelings, able to express them, usually comfortable in explaining, and asking, and elaborating... in considerable detail.

Our verbal agility can inadvertently create a wall, as women, if it gets us out of sync with men. At times, in personal, social and work situations, men and women will get closer if the speed of the conversation and the amount of words slows down.

When women feel that men are not listening, we tend to “rise” to the occasion by raising our voice and verbiage.  That is we tend to say more, faster, more intensely and at a higher volume. It is as if we are thinking, “What I said and how I said it did not work so I will do more of what did not work, and expect a different outcome.”

Our pace in conversation is faster and more multi-dimensional. We rush past and around most men.  

We need to allow a man to respond, a point at a time, at his pace, without interrupting or finishing his sentences.

If the strongest complaint women have about men is that they do not listen, then we must work hardest on leaving the time for them to speak.*

Suggestion #2
“Sidle”

While women prefer to talk, face-to-face, men pefer to sidle, standing side by side.  Research shows that both women and men like each other more and get along better when standing or sitting side-by side.

Suggestion #3
“Get Moving”
Any woman who wants better relations with a man should “walk it out”: talk while walking to the meeting, around the block, etc.

Further, when men and women are walking or eating together their body motions become more similar so they get more in sync.  Even vital signs (heartbeat, skin temperature, eye pupil dilation) become more similar) so we are more likely to feel a natural, easy kinship.

In motion we tend to experience the best, rather than the worst side in the opposite sex.  That's good news.  Yes?

Suggestion #4 “’See’ the Situation Their Way”
Women crave longer and more continuous eye contact than men.  
To help men feel more comfortable let go of that unremitting eye gaze.  Glance away sometimes as a man is inclined to do while thinking.  
His glance away does not necessarily mean avoidance so don’t act as if it does by a your harsh tone, words or glance.  
He may be trying to gather his thoughts.

 ... Bring Others Closer by Praising What You Want to Flourish

When the priest was moved to a new parish he approached he asked his superior to ask for permission, “Would you mind if I smoked while praying?” and was, not too surprisingly, turned down.

Some wise people instinctively know they can gain approval by how they ask. Set the stage for people to hear your positive intent.  For example, the priest might have said, “Would you mind if I pray while I am smoking?”

Setting the context with your initial comments is akin to dressing in the fashion that the people you are going to be around will approve or even admire, while still being true to yourself. 

Why?  Because people like people who are like them.  Like all other animals, we are most comfortable with those who look right -- like us.  In fact, the more you look familiar to me, the earlier in the conversation I will literally hear your words, absorb their meaning and be more able to accept them, and you. 

The more you look and act different than me, the more my peripheral vision narrows initially.  Further my skin temperature will go down and my heart beat up in anticipation of the possible need for flight.  That is because the primitive triune part of our brains has not changed. We are forever hardwired to respond to new, unfamiliar situations with the “fight or flight” syndrome.

Our vital signs literally shut down when we are first around a person, setting or situation that is radically different, unfamiliar thus initially potentially dangerous, until we have decided how we feel about our situation.

You can pull people closer, and bring out their better side so they can see and appreciate yours. In fact, this is probably the most meaningful gift you can give someone else, other than the present of your warm presence. Continuously praise others’ specific actions you admire, however small they may seem to you. People eventually warm up to your warmth.

Here’s two ways to praise to inspire happier, high-performing behavior in others and yourself.. 

1.
One way is to praise someone directly. 
Whatever you praise you will encourage to flourish. 

The more specific your words, the more memorable your message. 
Describe the actual act in as much rich detail so you honor the person in acknowledging how vividly it affected you.

2.
The second and perhaps even more powerful way to praise is to compliment the person to one or more people who are very important to them.  My client, the CFO of a Berlin-based maker of wireless portal equipment named Punjabi, has had a rugged and quite successful third year of operation where everyone has worked long hours.  Instead of handing out the ten top team awards in the traditional way, at a company event, the CEO took the time to find a significant group related to each of the winners. 

For those winners the groups included a place of worship, a rugby club, a college alumnae organization and an antique car association.  With the permission of these organizations, the CEO arranged to give the award and an eight-minute speech, describing both the winner’s accomplishments at Punjabi and a specific incident where the winner exemplified the heroic character of a true team player. 

Thus each (surprised) winner got to bask in the spotlight in front of valued people in her or his non-world world.  The CEO’s greater effort also put his company in a genuinely positive light in many new places.  Although it did not appear that any of the people who saw their friends receive the award were immediate, potential customers of Punjabi, they were sufficiently inspired to stir some positive word-of-mouth buzz about the awards ceremonies…. 

A month after these ceremonies a feature writer for the equivalent of the “lifestyle” section of the main Berlin paper heard the story through a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend who was a rugby player with her husband.  Not one to be interested in business stories, she was nevertheless touched by the way the ceremonies had rippled out to surround the winners’ lives.  She tracked down the CEO and interviewed him, thus affording him another chance to speak glowingly about some of the specific examples of his winners’  dedication and ingenuity.  As he praised each person, the glow of the values he admired reflected back on him and his company. 

The reporter also interviewed the winners and several of the people at the organizations where the awards events occurred and then wrote a human interest story that appeared, with photos, in a Sunday edition.  The article generated several glowing letters to the editor by people who witnessed the ceremonies, the winners and others who were also moved by the story.  

Mr. John Sunui, a vice president of sales for Singapore-based construction management company happened to read some of the letters in the paper while eating his breakfast in a hotel while in Berlin on business.  Sunui emailed the reporter to request a copy of the original article that the reporter emailed back the next day and he received when he returned to Singapore. 

That December holiday in Singapore -- and 14 other countries where Sunui’s company has offices, both the office director and one person in each office who has done an outstanding job at their work, as voted by their co-workers, will be happily surprised when they walk in the door at some place that is special to them to be greeted by a company representative who will give them a present and tell a story about another side of the winner that their friends in that organization may not know about. 

How can you give a lasting and perhaps the most widely-known gift that ten people you admire can receive?   For each person think of the specific incident where that person has exemplified the quality that you most admire or cherish.

Re-play the situation in your mind so you can describe it in all its story-building, touching detail. 

Practice saying the story, then notice how you now feel about the person.

Begin with the specific details before you end with the general statements that summarizes your feelings and values.  That way, you make the story, and the person, more vividly memorable to all others who read or hear your story. 

Next step: for each person envision what group to which they are affiliated (family, religious organization, hobby or other interest or professional group, etc.) would be most significant for that person if you were to praise them among the members.

You have several ways to pass along your praise about the person you love or admire.  You may simply call, email or write to someone in their valued affinity group and share your story of praise.  Or you may, like the people in the story above, ask for permission to confer a gift on the person at a gathering of their group.

In advertising this method is called a “third party endorsement.”  For example, when customers praise a product in an advertisement they are providing a credible third party endorsement.

Because we are all instinctive voyeurs, naturally interested in the stories of each other’s lives we are more drawn to third party endorsements than to other kinds of advertisements. 

Further, when we hear a positive story about someone, told by another person we do find it more credible and compelling than if the person was to “boast” about it in telling it himself.

Here are other ways to offer heartfelt, long-lasting third party endorsement gifts to those you hold dear during this upcoming, less certain holiday season:

• Donate money or another gift to a charity or cause in which that person is active, and ask that your story about them be included in any acknowledgement of the gift.

•  Seek out places that person frequent and see if you might buy a needed piece of equipment or repair in that person’s name.  In our Sausalito church you can buy a hymnal and dedicate it with a related phrase, to someone. So every Sunday, someone at my church opens up a hymnal with this caligraphied message on the inside front, dedicated to my mother who loves piano music, “To Lestelle whose piano playing washes away the dust of everyday life.”

• On an object which that person might use frequently (coffee mug, bath towel, key holder) imprint or monogram a positive nickname or one phrase characterization of the “hero’s” action.  To my English rugby-playing friend, Richard, we’re giving a glass beer stein this holiday with these words etched on the bottom, “Great giver of bone-crushing hugs.”

• Make a large, colorful postcard where you use your computer to print a description of the positive incident involving your hero, then ask your colleagues who agree to join in signing it before sending it to that person’s home.

• Give a gift to the person’s partner in work or personal life, as an acknowledgement of your admiration.

• Make a banner or poster, with a celebratory sentence and an enlarged and flattering image of the hero and hang it in a prominent place (wall or door of the person’s office, home or event).

•  Find a place the person frequents (dry cleaner, golf club) and offer the business manager at that site your credit card number with a set dollar limit. Ask the manager to pay the next bill of your hero, fax you a copy of the bill, and hand the manager a gift card with your inscription on it to be given to the hero at their next visit.

• You may think of a variation of this story.  Two years ago I learned that Janice, a meeting planner who had hired me to speak at her association several times over the years, and who was exceptionally gracious and generous with me, had contracted leukemia and was not doing well.  I learned this from her assistant who called to confirm some details of my next presentation at their annual conference.

On a long plane flight back from another speaking engagement, I looked out the window, thinking of Janice, and conjured up this idea for a third party endorsement of the Hawaiian-born meeting planner which would reflect one of her most passionate interests, gardening. I called the association’s executive director to share my idea and he immediately agreed.

Two months later, just after I was introduced to speak at that association’s convention’s opening breakfast, I moved to the center of the raised stage, signaling the 500 attendees to also rise from their seats as the board president caught the elbow of our surprised meeting planner, Jana, who at the bottom of the stage steps, still focused on making sure the room lighting would be alright for my speech. 

He guided her up the steps as I stepped back to the side of the stage and the first person in the audience, roving mike in his hand told the first vignette of how Jana had guided him at the beginning of his career.  As Jana reached the center of the stage, in front of the people she had served for 14 years, eight other people in various parts of the room lifted their mike and told their brief story about her.

Then a saxaphone player stepped out from the side of the stage to serenade Janice with a fragment of her favorite Kenny G song as the screen on the stage was filled with these purple words on an emerald green (her favorite colors) background, “Jana is a special flower” followed by a swift changing set of images of Janice in several situations. 

As the song ended, on cue, all 500 people pulled from out of their pockets and purses the fragrant Hawaiian-grown white flowers, the gardenias, tuber roses and pikaki and held them aloft towards Jana.  The board president handed Jana a bouquet of the flowers and asked Jana to speak, which she did, briefly, through her tears. 

Even several of the hotel waiters standing still, crying by then.  My speech had, of course, been moved to the luncheon so people could drop by Jana’s table to say hello through the ensuing breakfast.

The secret is all in understanding a code.
It is a most elaborate code that is written nowhere,
known by none, and yet understood by all. That secret
is how we tell each other, without words, what
we really feel.

How do other people perceive you, especially upon first meeting you face-to-face?  

How well do you anticipate another person’s discomfort before that person freezes up and becomes paralyzed, withdrawn or even destructive in a situation?  

Whichever side of the table you are on, these skills are crucial to your ability to lead, mentor or be a “MVP” valuable team player with your staff, vendors and customers.

Whether you making a presentation or listening, the boss or support person, being interviewed for a job or conducting an interview, selling or trying to decide whether to buy, your ability to project a comfortable confidence and approachability  -- and to detect another’s degree of comfort  - will always play a huge role in your ability to sell, lead or otherwise get things done  - with others.

Early Warning Signs of Increasing Emotional Intensity

Here are some ways to observe increased emotion.  Learn to look out for them in yourself as well as in others.     

Sweating:  Might indicate an increase in some emotional feeling.

Blinking more:  Might indicate an increase in some emotional feeling.

Dilated pupils:  Often indicates arousal or fear.

Blushing:  Might signal embarrassment, shame, anger, or guilt.

Talking louder and faster:  Usually signals anger, fear, or other excitement.

Talking slower and softer:  Might signal sadness or boredom.

Body gesturing:  Signals a negative emotion, usually fear or anger.

Breathing fast and shallow:  Indicates the presence of emotion.

Are You Out on a Limb?

Gestures are emblems of feelings. Using too many gestures usually takes away from the potency of your natural presence, just as talking high, fast, loud or at great length diminishes your power and credibility.

Most people cannot help “leaking” their feelings. Fortunately, few of us are attuned to noticing the often subtle signals that indicate strong emotion in others. Or we misread the signals.

Your body is a hologram of your being; a three-dimensional movie that is constantly running, showing others how you feel about yourself and the world. As you walk through life, is your body saying what your words are saying? Your body is a three-dimensional "full-motion" billboard to the rest of the world. Even if people are consciously reading your body language, they subconsciously react to your body signals.

Tour Your Body for Vital Signs

For example, if you are literally uptight – rigid in any part of your body, especially your face, where most people focus most of their attention in conversation – people will instinctively resist or react against you and your comments. This phenomenon is akin to bounding a hard rubber ball on a concrete surface and then on a soft carpet. The ball bounces higher and faster against the hard surface than the soft one, of course, just as others react more against your "hardened surface."

Suggestion: Whenever you are entering a potentially volatile or even new situation, loosen up physically. Walk, stretch, and work on the areas where you tend to hold most of your tension.

Probably – like many conscientious, hard-working people – you hold your shoulders higher and slightly more forward than is natural, with one of the tendons in your neck tightened up even more than the other. If someone can give you a quick 10- to 15-minute shoulder and neck massage, you will enter a situation more relaxed and others will respond more softly to you.

This is a good time to get acquainted with your body again, as you were as a child. If you don't know where you hold your tension, and most people don't, take a tour of your body so you can know what needs the most loosening – and exercise.

Are you shouldering the world's responsibilities, or perpetually drooping? In your determined drive toward success, do you plant your feet solidly on the ground in a life gesture of hostility, defiance, or taking ground?

Perhaps you have a forward-leaning posture, with your head tilted slightly forward, as if ready to spring into action, actually expressing a lifelong pattern of flight away from psychologically threatening situations when you thought it was part of your makeup to leap forward to new opportunities.

To be depressed is, in fact, to press against yourself. To be closed off is to hold your muscles rigid against the world.

Being open is being soft, with no instinctive muscle-clenching, such as the jaw-tightening that is a growing pattern in Americans, even into their sleep. Hardness is being uptight, cold, separate, giving yourself and others a hard time. Softness is synonymous with pleasure, warmth, flowing, being alive, drawing other people toward you rather than forcing them away.

Are you itching to get at someone? Is a colleague a pain in the neck? Are you sore about something? What is your aching back trying to tell you? Is there someone or something on your back? What about your ulcer, allergy, or muscle spasms? Is there someone you cannot stomach? What is it that you would like to get off your chest, or your back?

Your body speaks to you all of the time, telling you your own needs. Listen to it. It is your free and most sophisticated medical feedback testing system, continuously showing you your inner tensions, state of mind, and habitual life attitudes.

When you are misaligned and tense, you expend outrageous sums of extra energy in the everyday gestures of life. Because the body is a high-viscosity substance that is 60–80% water, your bones are floating in a relatively fluid environment. Over time, despite that apparent fluidity, you have tightened the muscles around every major experience of pain, fear, or anger.

In Western society, we usually hold the tension somewhere in our upper bodies, whereas in many Eastern cultures, the tension tends to be held in the lower body.

We all hold great muscle tension around certain bones in blind remembrance of fearful events, long after the actual events are probably long forgotten. You continue to tighten these muscles each time you think you are experiencing similar situations, thus guaranteeing that you make your pattern of uptightness increasingly habitual, until it becomes an almost permanent condition you no longer recognize as not normal.

Ah, the misleading appearance of maturity. You might never recall what initially made you afraid, but you can note where your body reacted to protect itself. Then spend more time in your exercise and massage or other bodywork to relax and loosen those muscle groups.

We go through life making decisions, closing down and limiting ourselves unconsciously. If you don't begin a regular practice of exercise and stretching, you are guaranteed to lose mobility sooner as you age, robbing yourself of the most positive and alive present you can offer the world every day – a loose and relaxed presence.

Stay open literally by getting in motion more frequently. Stand and stretch at least every twenty minutes when you are sitting and working. Try to walk, hopefully in sync with someone else, in fresh air and sunlight, at least thirty minutes a day. As Dr. Dean Ornish wrote in his most recent book, Love and Survival: The Scientific Basis for the Healing Power of Intimacy, our survival depends on the healing power of love.

One of the safest and most natural ways to move closer to others is to walk with them. Walk farther to the restaurant. Walk and talk on the way to the meeting. Walk with your loved one, rather than sitting at home, to come down from your day together. Motion is emotional and makes every event more vivid and memorable. Literally move toward the one you want in your life and loosen up together.

Your life could depend on it.