Little Boy and His Dog

Little Boy and His Dog
Not really a strategy for handling conflict. But if you're ever upset, watch this to calm down and bring back your smile.

I'm Right, You're Wrong, Case Closed

My wife and I were arguing about who works harder and is busier. What began as a disagreement about who should walk the dog became a general “discussion” of who did more.

I had just finished writing an article about bullying and I suddenly realized that I was bullying my wife. I didn’t think of myself as a bully. I was simply being “assertive.” Then I realized how right I had to be in the argument and how similar I was to the bullies I was writing about.

I never thought of myself as a bully. I had always distanced myself by feeling superior to the school yard bullies I read about or the abusive bosses colleagues told me about or the stories I had heard from the battered wives at a woman’s shelter I had visited.

Coincidentally, on the same day, I heard an interview with Ken Ballen, the author of a book with the attention getting title, “Terrorists In Love.” The subtitle is “The Real Lives Of Islamic Radicals.” Ballen is a former Federal prosecutor, who spent five years trying to figure out what motivates Islamic extremists.

Ballen was asked whether, after spending so much time with these extremists, there was ever a point where their ideas made sense.

He responded that, within their belief system, what they are doing makes sense to them. He added, “They don’t see themselves as evil at all. They see themselves as saintly, not evil and they feel like they’re doing the right thing.”

Ballen’s comment impacted me personally.

I don’t think of myself as saintly (well, maybe I do) and I certainly don’t think of myself as evil (at least to myself). But for sure, when I have a conflict, I just know that I’m right.

Does this remind you of some of the “terrorists” in your life? Someone who is obstinate, opinionated, inflexible, insensitive and apparently determined to remain that way because they are in the right, “saintly, not evil.”

Could this be you, me and everyone else we know?

Just when I think I can blame someone else for not seeing what’s right, true and just, along comes someone like Ballen to remind me that, to the “bullies” in my life, I’m the bully. They must look at me and wonder, “How can he be so wrong?”

Ballen maintains that a completely militaristic response to ideas and beliefs will not defeat them. He asserts that they’ll simply continue to push harder for those ideas and beliefs.

Again, this fits with my experience. The harder I try to convince my wife (or anyone) that I’m right, the more resistant she becomes. No one wants to be a push over.

Tim Flannery, the author of “Here On Earth“ noted that, “We have trod the face of the Moon, touched the nethermost pit of the sea, and can link minds instantaneously across vast distances. But for all that, it’s what we believe that will determines our fate.”

So I suggest that an examination of our beliefs is in order. In a conflict, I guarantee that the root of the conflict is a belief that you’re right and the other person is wrong.

If you have this belief, consider the possibility that you’re wrong about that.

Of course, I may be wrong about that as well. To believe otherwise is to be a bully. 

Nothing Changes Until We Do

“The fly in your eye is keeping you from seeing the fly in your eye”

         from Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Think of a change you want to make in your life. Now consider five action steps to make that change.

See. I knew you didn’t need any advice. Neither do most people.

For example, if you don’t know how to lose weight, stop smoking, make more money and/or have more intimate relationships, you certainly know where to go to get the information (just for fun, I Googled “make more money” and got 304 million potential searches).

Yes, it’s often difficult to know what advice to believe, but the real difficulty arises in that word “believe.”

Breakthroughs into new ways of acting occur in one of two ways: Either we have to see what we haven’t seen before or we have to stop seeing what we think is there. Doing either of those requires taking a hard look at what we believe to be true.

A friend told me the other day of a Nobel prize winning physicist who, when asked why he won the prize when so many others were working towards the same breakthrough responded, “They believed their assumptions.” In other words, they wouldn’t stop seeing what they thought was there.

The classic example that we’re all familiar with occurred when it was observed that the earth revolved around the sun. This flew in the face of the previous observation that the sun revolved around the earth. The earth, of course, had always revolved around the sun. This fact wasn’t immediately accepted because people had spent centuries believing the opposite. In other words, they were seeing what wasn’t there and had a difficult time seeing otherwise.

The observation of gravity by Isaac Newton is another example. Gravity obviously existed before Newton “discovered” it. But it took awhile to see what had always been there.

I use the word “observation” rather than “discovery” because the history of human progress is nothing more than finally seeing what has always been there.

This has profound ramifications for why we don’t change when we say we want to. No matter how many times I may coach someone that there is nothing to fear when delivering a presentation, it makes no difference if the person believes there’s plenty to fear. In other words, they continue to be fearful because they see something that isn’t there or don’t see something that is.

I know that resolving conflict is easy: Simply give up being right and making others wrong. Refusing to do so is the source of all wars, violence and unhappy relationships.

But knowing this makes no difference when we are sure that we’re right and the other person is wrong. In other words, when we are committed to seeing what isn’t there.

There are many people afraid to call someone and ask for a date, a job, a sale, etc. That fear is a product of seeing something that isn’t there or not seeing something that is.

The other day, I asked a friend who is in the pool remodeling business why he was so successful. He said he makes dozens of cold calls per day. I asked if he was afraid to do so. “Why should I be?” he said. “I’m not getting any business from them now. The worst that can happen is that they’ll say no and I still won’t have any business from them.’

My friend was seeing what was there, not what wasn’t.

Consider the possibility that if you’re not getting what you want it’s because some blind spot is keeping you from seeing the obvious. This is why we all need people in our lives who will tell us the truth about reality. Or at least a different version of the truth than the one we are believing.

Then the really hard part occurs: We have to give up our belief so that we can see what’s always been there. If we don’t do that, we are doomed to keep repeating the same behavior over and over and over again, looking for something that isn’t there or believing that something is there that isn’t.

Conflict Resolution Training: Willful Blindness and Bullying

I write and speak about conflict resolution and I’m sometimes asked about handling bullying behavior. Bullying, of course, has been a major topic of conversation for quite some time and the recent crimes at Penn State represent a particularly tragic example of the willful blindness that allows bullying behavior to continue.

Consider the case of Steve Raucci (pronounced “Rossi”).

Raucci was head of maintenance for the Schenectady, New York public schools, a job he held for 23 years right up until the time he was arrested and ultimately convicted of arson, planting bombs and vandalizing the homes of people that he and his friends had problems with. In June of 2010, Raucci was convicted and is currently serving a sentence of 23 years to life.

With the exception of the arson, bombings and vandalizing Raucci was considered a model boss (irony!), beloved by the Schenectady school Board. After all, unlike the teacher’s union, some parents and, occasionally, the voters, the Board never had to deal with complaints from anyone on the maintenance staff. For 23 years.

There had been rumors and complaints of Raucci’s bullying of his staff. But these were discounted as merely the ramblings of disgruntled employees who, in any case, had been transferred to other school districts. After all, the much trusted Steve Raucci had transferred them and certainly the beloved Raucci had good reasons for doing so. Obviously, the disgruntled employees simply refused to take responsibility for their poor performance.

Willful blindness occurs in families as well. I remember reading about a man whose daughter had been expelled from high school for bullying. Rather than support the school, the father, an attorney, sued the school district. Bullying was, evidently, an inherited trait in that family.

My wife, Carol, has many stories of the “beloved” football coach at the high school where she taught before I knew her who made it a practice to put his hands on the body of any female teacher who wasn’t fast enough to run away. When Carol complained to the Principal, he asked what she had done to provoke the coach.

Plainly put, bullying exists because those who run organizations (and families) tolerate it. They tolerate it because the bully is “too important” to be let go or the bully “makes my problems go away” (as one marketing executive told me) or because those who complain are often labeled “whiners” and ignored (or sued in the case of the attorney and his daughter).

An organization (or family) takes its cue from those in authority as to what is permitted. The “I didn’t know” defense cuts it for only so long. As with Steve Raucchi (and Penn State), someone will complain, an incident will be observed, a rumor will emerge.

That’s why it’s important to listen to all complaints without dismissing them. Every complaint contains the seed of an unmet need. The complaining individual always has a reason for doing so and it’s important to listen to those reasons to determine if action is called for. Yes, some people complain just to complain. Smoke doesn’t always lead to fire, but there is certainly no fire without smoke.

Like so much else in life, blindness to bullying occurs willfully. We choose to be blind. Or we choose to take action. We have that choice and, beyond that, the responsibility.

If you’d like to hear the Steve Raucci story, you can do so at  
 http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/419/petty-tyrant

Conflict Resolution Training: Innocent Until Proven Guilty And Maybe Not Even Then

"The trouble with quotes on the Internet is that it's difficult to

determine whether or not they are genuine."

       Abraham Lincoln (provided to me by Michael Nees)

“Believe half of what you see son and none of what you hear”

          “I heard it through the Grapevine”

I’m not sure where Michael Nees got that Lincoln quote. Perhaps I should Google "Lincoln" on the Internet.

The key to resolving conflict is to give up being right and making others wrong.

Here’s a test to determine your conflict resolution skills: The next time someone provides you with a piece of gossip, ask yourself whether you believe it or not. The less you believe the gossip, the better your conflict resolution skills.

Even when you observe the behavior yourself, be careful about judging the other person. The juiciest payoff for a human being is to be right and make others wrong.  

Another way of thinking about this is to live by the principle that a person is innocent until proven guilty. I suggest that many conflicts would be resolved if we lived by the rule that others are innocent until proven guilty and, even when we are sure of guilt, to check our premises before acting.

I was reminded of this when I was recently called to jury duty. Perhaps you’ve had a similar experience. 

I wasn’t selected for the jury, but I did get to hear the judge describe the case, which involved possible child molestation. The accused, a man of about 50, was alleged to have taken pictures of his 12-year old stepdaughter. There was an intimation that he was accused of more than just taking pictures.

Later, I repeated what I had heard about the case to friends, many of whom questioned whether they would have been able to serve impartially on the jury. They had children of their own and were outraged by the crime. Several had been molested themselves as children and still carried the scars.

I said that I would have absolutely no trouble serving impartially, that the accused was, without question, innocent until proven guilty. I came to this conclusion because of another time I had been called to serve on a jury and had likewise been excused.

In that case, we were told that the man on trial was accused of hitting a car in which two children and their mother had been riding. Thankfully, no one was hurt, but the man had run from the scene and, it was alleged, he had been smoking marijuana. As I heard the details of the case, I wondered why a jury trial was necessary. Why waste taxpayer time and money on adjudicating something for which this man was so obviously guilty?

Two weeks after I had been excused, I was reading a newspaper and I saw a story about the trial. 

After deliberating for only 20 minutes, the jury found the defendant not guilty. In fact, when several of the jurors were interviewed, they questioned why there had  even been a trial since the man being accused was so plainly innocent. Obviously, my perception of the facts and the actual facts were not the same.

Presume innocence. We tend to judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their actions. Start reversing that if you want t Presume innocence. We tend to judge ourselves by our intentions and  resolve a conflict.  

Since we don’t have other jurors to give us their perspective of the “evidence,” we need to be doubly careful that what we are seeing is “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”

If You Build It, He Will Come

I'm sure you've seen or, certainly, know of the movie, "Field Of Dreams" with its famous tag line that I've used as the title of this article.

The film is often referred to as the cinematic version of the best selling book and DVD program, "The Secret" with its emphasis on focusing intently on what we want in our lives and the power of our beliefs.

I was reminded of the power of our beliefs in an unexpected place the other day. I was listening to the National Public Radio program "Car Talk" which, as you probably know, is a show where people call in to get car advice from the hosts, two brothers named Tom and Ray Magliozzi who often refer to themselves as "The Tappet Brothers."

A caller asked which additive, when put in the gas tank, works best at improving gas mileage. Without hesitation, Tom and Ray said that none of them actually work. But, they then added, paradoxically, that putting the additive in your gas tank usually does improve gas mileage for a time.

I thought I was in the midst of the Zen Koan, "What is the sound of one hand clapping." How can an additive both work and not work?

Tom and Ray explained that, while the additive doesn't work, we are so desirous of making it work that, without necessarily realizing it, we drive more carefully. We slow down. We make fewer jack rabbit starts. We turn the motor off instead of letting it idle. In other words, we want to believe that it works and we act to confirm our belief

The reason the additive eventually fails is because we revert to our old driving habits.

Now back to "Field Of Dreams." People who are disappointed that their dreams remain unfulfilled even though they meditated, visualized and prayed, may be focusing more attention on "He will come" than on "If you build it."

Without actually altering driving habits, the additive wouldn't reduce gas mileage at all. Without actually fighting to get up that hill, "The Little Engine That Could" never could have made it no matter how much thinking went into it. Without actually building the base ball field, the players would have no place to show up no matter how much Ray Kinsella (the protagonist played by Kevin Costner) may have wished for it.

Consider the movie: Ray devoted a considerable amount of time to plowing up an entire field of corn worth (at the time of the 1989 film), $2,200 per acre, installing lights for night games and creating the base ball infield and outfield. He researched the life of Terence Mann, a writer Ray admired in the 1960s. Ray drove from Dyersville, Iowa where the ball field is located to Boston where Ray finds Terence Mann to Chisholm, Minnesota to find Doc Graham (a character whom Ray thinks is supposed to return with him to Dyersville) and back home to Iowa. This is a distance of 3,107 miles that would have taken 52 hours in driving time alone (thank you Rand McNally mileage calculator), not including the time spent in the destination cities.

Malcolm Gladwell might have included Ray Kinisella in his book "Outliers." In that book, Gladwell writes about people who have become successful pursuing their dreams (lawyers, doctors, The Beatles and Bill Gates among others) and he notes that there was one thing they all had in common.  According to Gladwell, every one of these people worked for at least 10,000 hours (about three year's worth of 10-hour days, 7 days a week) to achieve their success.

There's something to notice about "The Little Engine That Could," "The Secret" the "Car Talk" show I referenced and "Field Of Dreams." As much as we would like to "wish" our desires into existence, it takes concentrated action (not just concentrated thinking) to make them happen (according to "The Secret" website, the secret "has been passed down through the ages," so, obviously, it took untold effort to get it to us).

You may have heard the story of the man who couldn't understand why he never won the lottery. After all, he had meditated for an hour every day, visualizing what he would do with the money once he won. Then someone pointed out to him that no matter how much he visualized, he would still have to buy a ticket. 

No matter how much visualizing one may do, "You can't win if you don't play."

As we all know, visualization without action is an hallucination.

The “Secret” To Long Term Relationships

Did you see the recent HBO documentary about former Beatle George Harrison called “Living In The Material World?” The documentary was directed by Martin Scorcese and produced by Olivia Harrison, George’s widow to whom he had been married for 23 years.

In the documentary, Olivia is asked, “What is the secret to a long marriage?” After a short pause, she smiled slightly and said, “Don’t get divorced.”

I’ve been married for 38 years and I can tell you that is the best advice anyone can give to those who are wondering how to maintain a long term relationship.

As you know, any relationship of any duration will have ups, downs and in betweens. Like a roller coaster ride, the difference between those who stay together and those who don’t is that those who stay together have decided to not get off the ride while the ride is in progress.

I also ask you to consider that we choose our lives and then forget that we were the ones doing the choosing. Instead, we blame the person we’re in relationship with for the condition of our lives. Then we end the relationship and enter a new relationship in which we recreate the conditions of the old relationship.

The only way we could create a new relationship is if we were new. After all, we’re the only common denominator in all of our relationships. Just as we continue to believe that money will buy happiness, we are sure that some other grass is always greener.

As my friend Sherri Bresn noted in a recent email, “We build our lives around patterns of feelings, beliefs and behaviors. We then repeat those behaviors over and over because then we do not have to think so much about what we are doing... habits die hard.”

A friend of mine is considering divorce because his wife doesn’t like to do the things he likes to do. Of course, the things he likes to do (rock climbing, hiking and biking), he likes to do alone. His main complaint is that his wife won’t do the things with him that he likes to do alone.

It was easy for me to see the paradox in my friend’s behavior, but it’s not so easy to see my own blind spots. That’s why it’s important to listen to the feedback we receive and especially to the feedback about ourselves that we disagree with.

None of this is to suggest that one should stay in a relationship no matter what. I simply intend to point out that our perception of a relationship depends on our point of view about that relationship. Sometimes, we think our point of view is the truth.

Points of view can change. Relationships end when points of view are mistaken for the truth.

The “secret” to a long term relationship is to give up being right and making the other person wrong for being exactly as you want him/her to be.

Where Do We Find The Strength To Be Miserable?

Film critic Roger Ebert, writing in his Chicago Sun Times blog on November 12^th, 2010, noted that he knows people who have volunteered to answer Alcoholics Anonymous phone numbers in Chicago. Ebert wrote that one person “after doing this for a time, wondered where people found the strength to keep on drinking despite the misery it was causing them.”

Strength??? How odd…until I thought about it. Then I wondered where any of us find the strength to maintain our misery.

I remember spending years being angry at my mother. Until I made peace with her, I didn’t realize how much strength it took to maintain that anger.

I had a friend who called his ex wife to apologize after years of not speaking. To his surprise, she was not happy to hear the apology. “I was prepared to hate you for the rest of my life,” she said. “What am I going to do now?”

Where did she find the strength to maintain her anger for all those years?

I’ve worked with many people who commit to changing a behavior that has frustrated them for years. Six months later, some of these same people have reverted to their old behavior, preferring instead to return to their misery.

Have you ever made a “commitment” to change and then failed to keep that commitment? How many say they’d like to be more patient and then blow up at the slightest delay? How many want to be more thankful but continue to complain? Who among us say they want to be a better listener, a better parent, a better anything and then…nothing changes?

Where do we find the strength to keep our misery in place?

We find the strength because, through repetition, we’ve become addicted to our misery. Or, put another way, feelings are produced when chemicals (neurotransmitters) are released in our bodies. When we try to change a behavior, what we’re really doing is trying to alter our body chemistry. When those chemicals we’ve been used to aren’t released, we miss them. That’s why people who change sometimes say, “I don’t feel right” or “I don’t feel like myself.” It’s the chemical “hit” that we’re missing, not the cigarette or the drink or the food or the anger or any other emotion.

This is really what my friend’s ex wife meant when she asked, “What do I do know?” In other words, what will replace my usual chemical addiction?

Perhaps you don’t think of these as addictions. But what else to call a behavior that we change for awhile and, then, revert to the way we always have done things in spite of our “misery?” The classic definition of insanity.

The difference between those who stop smoking, lose weight, begin an exercise program or change anger into compassion and those who don’t is the difference between those who are willing to put up with the discomfort of not getting their accustomed chemical hit.

Patience is not only a virtue. It’s the pathway to permanent change.    

Conflict Resolution Training: When Resolving Conflicts, It’s The Little Words That Count

Resolving conflicts is largely a matter of paying attention to the little things, especially the little words. 

Indeed, you may be in conflict because you spend a lot of time
“butting” others rather than “anding” them.

For example, if I say,“I agree with you, but…” what I’m really saying is that I don’t agree with you at all. In fact, I’m suggesting that everything you’ve said prior to the word “but” is wrong.

On the other hand, if I say, “I agree with you and…” I’m suggesting
that what you are saying is true and what I am about to say is
equally true.

Another little word that seems innocuous and can have major
consequences for conflict resolution is the word “because.”  We use
“because” to explain a cause and effect relationship that, to us,
is a rational explanation for the events we observe. Consider that
conflicts occur when we attribute motivations to someone’s actions
and then respond as though our assessments are true while, at the
same time assessing our similar actions differently.

For example:
You are a team leader who is angry at one of your team members who
is late and you just know it is because she is selfish and doesn’t
care about the needs of the team. When you arrive
late for a meeting with your team, you excuse yourself with the
obviously rational explanation that you were late because you were
completing a conversation with another team leader. 

A coworker lets you down again. It’s obviously because he is
unreliable. When you let a coworker down again, it’s obviously because,

as your coworker must certainly know, you’ve been so overworked.

No one will let you into a line of traffic during rush hour. It’s
because other drivers are inconsiderate. When you won’t let other
drivers cut in front of you during rush hour, it's because too many

people have already cut in front of you.

A peer gives your boss a birthday card because he’s angling for a
promotion. When you give your boss a birthday card, it's because, as everyone
knows, you’ve been working together a long time and you really care
about him.

Your direct report asks for a raise and it’s because she doesn’t
understand the economic difficulties the company is experiencing.

When you ask for a raise, it's because you're worth it

since the work you do, as all can see, has a direct impact on the

bottom line of the company.

You don’t give someone feedback because you don’t want to hurt his
feelings. When he doesn’t give you feedback, you’re certain it’s
because he doesn’t want you to succeed.

Your spouse didn’t pick up the dry cleaning because she’s angry at
you. When you didn’t go to the grocery store, it's because, as might happen to anyone, you simply forgot.

The waiter is giving you slow service because he’s incompetent. When you
didn't immediately respond to a request, it was because, as everyone knows,

you are meticulous and you didn’t want to make a mistake.

In all these instances, suppose we substitute “and” for “but?”
Suppose instead of creating a “because” we simply asked? Suppose we
started from empathy rather than blame? Suppose we assumed that
people are just as reasonable as we are, just with different
reasons? Suppose, instead of demanding that people justify their
positions, we accepted their positions without justification?

One of the rules I encourage people to live by is to stop
pretending they know what motivates another person and to simply
ask.

  The goal of conflict resolution is not to change another’s view of
the world (a useless exercise if there ever was one). The goal is
to find a compromise agreement to which all can be committed.

Simply changing “but” to “and” while also asking instead of creating
“because” reasons won’t, of course, resolve a conflict.

Consider, however, that if we start from a different set of
premises than the ones we’re currently using, we will get very
different outcomes.

To See Ourselves As Others See Us

Here’s a riddle:

• ·          There’s something common to every conflict in which we’re involved.          
•       This commonality is with us at all times, but it’s a blind spot that, by definition, we don’t see.
• ·          Sometimes, the people we’re in conflict with will point out our blind spot to us but, when they do, we don’t always pay attention even though discovering this blind spot will assist us in resolving conflicts and improving our relationships.

To solve the riddle, find a mirror and look into it. The blind spot will be as big as the nose on your face as well as your entire face and body (if it’s a full length mirror).

For all of us, the one commonality to every conflict is…us. Have you noticed that regardless of who we’re in conflict with or the issue about which we are in conflict, we’re always there?   

To resolve a conflict, therefore, I suggest you first examine whether there’s anything you’re doing (or not doing) that may be causing the conflict to persist.

In general, however, people do not examine their own behavior first. More commonly, people ask questions like, “How can I get the other person to change? What do I need to say or do that will get the other person to do what I want him/her to do? Why are they being so obstinate and difficult to get along with? Don’t they see that I’m right?

Consider that there is often something you’re doing or not doing that is causing the conflict to persist, but, as noted above, it’s generally a blind spot and, by definition, we’re blind to our blind spots.

So what’s the way out? How can we see a blind spot we’re blind to?

I noted earlier that the people we’re in conflict with will sometimes point out our blind spot to us but, when they do, we don’t always pay attention. If you do decide to pay attention, listen carefully to what the people you’re in conflict with are saying to you. You may hear:

·      You’re being defensive.

·      You don’t listen.

·      Why do you always have to be right?

·      You don’t take me seriously.

·      You’re obstinate

or some other statement of resistance.

As the poet Robert Burns wrote, “O would some power the gift to give us to see ourselves as others see us.” The feedback we receive is the “gift” that allows us to see ourselves as others see us if we will only listen without rebuttal.

I maintain that conflict resolution is easy because, when you hear feedback about yourself, all you have to do is ask, “Why do you say that?” and, once you hear the reason(s) ask, “What would you like me to do about that?” Then, simply choose: Will you do what you are being asked to do or will you not?

I am not at all suggesting that you should always do what people ask of you. “Take it or leave it” can be an appropriate approach. For example, the action being asked of you may violate a moral, legal or ethical position. There may be policies, procedures and/or rules that are not open to change. Some people truly are bullies and they just want to get their way without consideration for your needs.

But before you make this determination, go back to that mirror and have a conversation with yourself. Do you know your blind spot? Have you listened to what the other person is saying without arguing? Is saying “no” a reasoned approach or simply an habitual one that is often your default position?

Maybe, just maybe, you’re the bully.    

Want Better Relationships? Stop Stealing Other’s Stories

Have you read the book, “The Art Of Racing In The Rain?” The book is narrated by Enzo, a dog whose owner dreams of becoming a racecar driver.

Enzo too dreams of being a racecar driver. He wants to be reincarnated as a human because then he would have thumbs and be able to grip a steering wheel (is going from a dog to a human a step down or up?).

At one point, Enzo explains that he would make a good human being because he listens. Since he can’t talk, he listens very well, never making a comment of his own.

Enzo’s advice to human beings is to “Learn to listen! I beg of you. Pretend you are a dog like me and listen to other people rather than steal their stories."

By “steal their stories,” Enzo is suggesting something close to giving up the need to be right and to just listen without trying to change the other person, without giving an opinion and without offering advice (unless asked and perhaps not even then). In other words, listening without letting the desire to look good get in the way.

Some of the flavor of this is contained in an article Jennifer Boylan wrote for the New York Times on August 17^th, 2011 (“All My Old Haunts”).

Boylan writes about her father who, although deceased, would have had an answer to how to bridge the gap between Republicans and Democrats in the recent debt ceiling debate. If the goal is to reduce 4 billion dollars from the budget (a number Boylan uses in her article), he would have had the Republicans be responsible for 2 billion dollars of tax increases and the Democrats responsible for 2 billion dollars through cuts in services and entitlements.

As Boylan suggests her father would have said, “Only when you try to argue your opponents’ point of view does your own begin to make sense.”

Good advice. The next time you’re in a debate, imagine that you have to explain your opponent’s position to a stranger and do it so well that your opponent would agree you’ve been accurate in your explanation. 

This assumes, of course, that you’re not out to steal your opponent’s stories.

And finally, just to be sure we don’t take ourselves too seriously, scientists for the first time say that they have witnessed a black hole swallowing a distant star. The event took place about 3.9 billion years ago in a distant galaxy in the constellation Draco, but radiation from the blast has just reached earth.

Perhaps in the shadow of a star that died 3.9 billion years ago, we can let go of our need to be right.

Transforming Fear Into Excitement

When it comes to dealing with our fears of failing, sticks and stones may break our bones but words will really destroy us.

I broke my leg when I was 17 and it healed before I turned 18. I’ve had no adverse effects from that break.

On the other hand, what we say to ourselves can destroy our ability to achieve our goals and we may believe what we say to ourselves forever.

Imagine, for example, you’re about to pick up the phone and call someone for a date. You may notice that your heart is beating wildly, your palms are sweating and your muscles are tense. This is real fear, you may think.

Or imagine you’re about to talk to a roomful of strangers. Your heart may beat faster, your mouth may feel dry and your palms may sweat. If you could sense it, you might experience your blood pressure increasing, your muscles tensing and your breathing becoming shallow. This is real fear, you may think.

Or is it? Actually, we would experience the same physiological response if we were excited. For example, whether being on a roller coaster is fearful or exciting for us depends on how we label the experience. Two people doing the same activity may have totally different experiences based on what they call their experience.

Recently, a friend told me that he had always wanted to start his own business, but he was afraid of failing. How does he know it’s fear and not excitement?  Consider the possibility that it becomes fear when we label it as such and it’s the labeling that creates the experience, not the other way around.

The other day, I spoke to the Board of a nonprofit organization that was looking for ways to raise half a million dollars when, up until then, they had never raised more than 50,000. In order to do that, the members of the Board were going to have to be a lot bolder in their requests. They were going to have to call people they had never called before and they were going to have to ask those people for more money than they had ever asked before.

However several members of the Board told me (privately. They were afraid to admit so publicly.) that they were afraid to do so. How do they know it’s fear and not excitement? Consider the possibility that it becomes fear when we label it as such and it’s the labeling that creates the experience, not the other way around.

“Fear of failure” is brought into existence when we label what we’re feeling as fear. We call it fear and it is so. After all, “In the beginning was The Word.”

Don’t try to control you fear. That which we resist persists. Don’t try to change your fear. You will never “heal” your fear as you might heal a broken bone. Your fear isn’t real and that’s why you can’t “heal” it.

Give up expecting that, someday, your fear will disappear. Just get into action. Pick up that phone and make the call you’re avoiding. Ask for what you want. Be excited about delivering a presentation.

Conflict Resolution: Is Your Demand To Be Right Destroying Your Relationships?

Emily, a friend of mine, told me that her husband often says to her, “Why do you always have to be right?” Whenever her husband said this, Emily’s thought was always, “Because I am right.”

But Emily had an insight the other day. She said to me, “I realized how wrong I was and my demand to be right was destroying my marriage.”

I experienced this myself recently. I was with a man named Arnie with whom I often disagree. As usual, the more he talked, the more irritated I became as I waited for him to stop talking so that I could point out the errors in his thinking. I stopped listening to Arnie as I listened to myself screaming in my head, “Shut up, Arnie.”

Then I remembered Emily’s insight and I decided to really listen to Arnie as though I had no opinion but only wanted to understand his. I decided to see Arnie as someone who wanted to contribute to me and not as someone who was an obstacle to me getting my way. I paraphrased what he was saying to help me understand his opinions and I asked questions out of curiosity and not to catch a contradiction in his thinking.

As Arnie talked, I began to notice something I had never really noticed before. Certainly, Arnie would have liked for me to agree with him. But even more importantly, it became clear to me that Arnie wanted to be heard and understood. I knew that Arnie’s bluster had turned off many people who had simply stopped listening to him and, in fact, avoided him when they could. I was usually one of those people who only pretended to listen to him. This only made Arnie more determined to get his opinion across which caused me to want to avoid him which caused him to be more forceful. Here was the self fulfilling prophecy in operation.

To my astonishment, after I had been listening for a while, Arnie stopped talking and asked me what I thought. I gave my opinion, not to prove him wrong but simply because he had asked. Even more to my amazement, I began to enjoy being with Arnie and, it was clear to me, he enjoyed being with me. While we didn’t come to an agreement, we saw that we were not that far apart in our opinions and we definitely improved our relationship.

This experience reminded me that when we change our perception, the world around us changes. Or, more accurately, when we change our perception, we see things that were always there that we could never before see.

Perhaps the people in our lives are merely a reflection of who we’re being.

Was Arnie “difficult” because he really was that way or because I was being difficult in resisting what he was saying? Was Emily’s husband upset because she always had to be right or because she never allowed for the possibility of being wrong (or, more accurately, the possibility of both of them being right)?

Perhaps our most intransigent conflicts occur not because the other person is being intransigent, but because we are.

Conflict Resolution Training: Give Up The Need To Be Right and Apologize

Like you, I get a lot of emails. I’m able to delete many of them just by looking at the subject line. However, the other day, I received an email from the company where I order my business cards with the subject line, "Please accept our apology."

I opened the email. In truth, it was just another solicitation, but the word “apology” caught my attention.

Apologies are very powerful. I’ve written about this before and, in response, my friend,

Rick Daussat, wrote to caution me that, “when you apologize to another person, don’t expect or anticipate an apology back. If you do, you are setting yourself up for potential disappointment.”

Rick went on to relate a story of when he apologized to a coworker for something that Rick “still believes was both our faults.” In response, the coworker responded, “Yes, I was disappointed in your actions.” The coworker’s comment angered Rick, but he kept his mouth shut and reminded himself that he was apologizing because it was “the right thing to do and nothing else.”

Rick gave up the need to be right by not expressing his anger and made a huge difference in the relationship.

A man I know has been divorced for 10 years, has two children and argues with his ex wife every time he sees her. He took on giving up the need to be right, called her, apologized and took responsibility for how he had been behaving for the last 10 years.

His ex wife was silent for a long time before responding, “I was prepared to hate you for the rest of my life. What am I going to do now?”

Contrast this with another friend whose son is barely speaking to her. The reason has to do with a disagreement they’ve been having over the son’s daughter (my friend’s granddaughter). Neither will give up being right and simply apologize. When they are in the same room together, they literally avoid looking at each other.

I have told both of them, “Get off it!” If someone doesn’t apologize here, the rest of their lives will be filled with tension and bitterness.  

For the sake of your relationships and your own peace of mind, give up the need to be right and apologize. Give up your need to be right about your anger. Give up your need to be right that other people are wrong. Give up your need to be right that resignation and cynicism are the appropriate responses to conflicts in your world.

Your apology will make a huge contribution towards peace in your world and peace on this planet.   

It's Your Point Of View, It's Not The Truth

If you want a world that works for everyone (and, especially, for you) it’s simple: Stop believing that your point of view is the truth.

In fact, conflict would disappear if people would just get that their point of view is just that: A point from which they view the world. They don’t have to defend this point of view, they don’t have to give up this point of view, they simply have to accept it as a point of view distinct from some inviolate “truth.”

The people who flew those planes into the World Trade Center didn’t think they had a point of view. They believed they had the truth.

The people in Rwanda who committed genocide didn’t think they had a point of view. They believed they had the truth.

The shooter in Tucson, Arizona didn’t think he had a point of view. He believed he had the truth.

I’m using these extreme examples to have you consider this possibility: If you are in a conflict, you don’t think you have a point of view. You believe you have the truth.

The way to distinguish your point of view is to complete this sentence: The world is… or my boyfriend is…or my husband is…or my children are… or my boss is or…

Whether you complete these sentences with “positive” or “negative” words, it’s still just a point of view and not the truth. Your point of view determines the actions you will take. Your point of view determines if you will be loving or hurtful, antagonistic or cooperative, friendly or distant.

For example, consider the possibility that the people in your life who you describe as “difficult,” show up that way because that’s the point of view you hold about them and you hold that as “the truth.” Of course, from their point of view (which they also hold as “the truth,”) you’re the difficult one.

If you have “the truth,” then you must live in a world in which you are right and others are wrong. However, if you will accept that your truth is just your point of view, then the resolution of every conflict in your life becomes possible.