communicationskills

Empathy Stretch

Bardees, Leave a comment

Last Sales Talk Tuesday, I shared with the team the beautiful word Sonder, which I first heard about from my mentor Seth Godin. Connecting with people is easier when we understand Sonder.

This definition by the dictionary of obscure sorrows is my favorite:
Sonder
n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

It perfectly aligns with a beautiful compassion exercise I learned from the amazing teacher Pema Chodron called Just like Me which the spiritual teacher Ram Dass explains below so eloquently:

  • This person has a body and a mind, just like me.
  • This person has feelings, emotions, and thoughts, just like me.
  • This person has experienced physical and emotional pain and suffering, just like me.
  • This person has at some time been sad, disappointed, angry, or hurt, just like me.
  • This person has felt unworthy or inadequate, just like me.
  • This person worries and is frightened sometimes, just like me.
  • This person will die, just like me.
  • This person has longed for friendship, just like me.
  • This person is learning about life, just like me.
  • This person wants to be caring and kind to others, just like me.
  • This person wants to be content with what life has given them, just like me.
  • This person wishes to be free from pain and suffering, just like me.
  • This person wishes to be safe and healthy, just like me.
  • This person wishes to be happy, just like me.
  • This person wishes to be loved, just like me.

Now, allow wishes for well-being to arise:

  • I wish this person to have the strength, resources, and social support they need to navigate the difficulties in life with ease.
  • I wish this person to be free from pain and suffering.
  • I wish this person to be peaceful and happy.
  • I wish this person to be loved . . . because this person is a fellow human being, just like me.

So powerful.

Empathy Stretch

Keep the spotlight shining on them

Bardees, 1 Comment

I notice myself flourishing in the presence of some people. I make my best jokes, I feel light, I feel at ease, I feel understood, I feel at my best. I can count the number of those people on my hands. They are rare.

The question is, how can I be like this for others?

I remember an exercise we did a few years a go with a mentor where we were requested to practice listening more to the people in our lives. Whenever they struck up a conversation. We needed to listen attentively, hold back from switching the subject, and notice our urge to interrupt and talk about ourselves. If it’s the right time and place, we also needed to offer the space for them to continue their thought process, with as little probing as possible, until they figure out what they needed to do next all by themselves.

Being very similar to the exercise I mentioned in this post, it was such a hard experience to implement.

Try it and see firsthand the insights that will reveal themselves to you. Simply witnessing the urge to take the microphone and be under the spotlight is something totally worth catching.

If you get asked, answer shortly and then kick the ball back into their court. Make them the guru not you. Wonder what they could teach you. Listen with the purpose of learning something new about them and their worldview and maybe a useful fact or two. Be open and curious. Trust me, they will feel it and open up to you. They will feel you not rushing them so you’d take your turn to speak. For example, If my conversation partner tells me they are starting to wake up early and share their routine, I need to resist the urge to tell them I’ve been doing that since 2016 and have a whole thing around this habit.

It’s been a while since I practiced this, so it’s time I activated my listening muscle again. I think it grew weaker lately. Join me and let me know how it goes with you.

Keep the spotlight shining on them.

Keep the spotlight shining on them

What’s it for and Who’s it for?

Bardees, , , Leave a comment

I seek to improve the degree of clarity in my communications because no one likes to feel confused when they read or listen to something shared with them. Clarity in communication will serve me well in my relationships and also in my work like my podcast and future courses. It is a skill, like any other, that takes practice and requires asking for feedback and implementing small tweaks to improve it.

Two great questions I learned from Seth Godin are:

What is it for? Who is it for?

I can use these questions as filters before writing and sharing an email, a group text or an Instagram caption.

When we ask these questions we will be able to create a clear message that meets the purpose we want to accomplish. I sometimes cancel the whole idea of sending a message when I see that I am only interrupting someone’s day with it and not sharing or adding something valuable.

I invite you to try these questions too. They work super well when designing products and work presentations.

What’s it for and Who’s it for?

Pausibility

Bardees, , , , , Leave a comment

Pausibility. What a lovely word I ran into 1 year ago when I was writing an assignment for altMBA.

There is much magic that go on when we take a pause, and the one I’m talking about today is during conversations. Have you ever thought why are we so eager to skip pauses?

You see, I’ve been the kind of person quick to fill the silence in conversations, business and personal ones. I  couldn’t stand the tension. I had a coaching session about this issue with my altMBA coaches where they helped me practice silence in conversations by counting to 5 between full sentences. That was so hard! Looking inward during that silence, I felt unease in my heart, like I was taking up too much space and time out of people in front of me, and they might have other things to attend to than give me their full attention including my pauses. What an insight of a limiting belief I had. That was also a very good explanation why I used to (I hope) talk so fast.

Continue reading “Pausibility” →
Pausibility