Say it Better

Say it So You Lift Your Spirits

Even non-Scandinavians feel their mood dampen with the longer nights as we head into winter. Luckily there are some easy ways to lift your spirits. Here are three:

1. When describing something that just happened or in your past, notice if it is anchored by a positive or a negative incident. Those who are most resilient, energetic, caring and involved with others tend to link their stories to redemptive themes.

Those who are plagued by down moods often mark their stories with what went wrong and don’t include a redeeming detail.  These narrative themes affect our choices –what we think we have to choose from – and how others see us.

 2. We each have many personalities inside us. Some situations enable us to use our best talents and display our best side. Instead of attempting to be a “virtuoso juggler” as many women do, discover the specific situations where you thrive. When you can identify those moments you are better able, like a defensive driver, to see potential danger farther ahead where situations or individuals spark your discomfort or worse.

Conversely, knowing where you shine (temperament and talent) means you can make smarter choices about how you work and live – and with whom.  While Marcus Buckingham’s book is intended for women I know three male friends who have found it helpful in how they seek the situations that best serve them, professionally, personally and socially.

3.We each have a set point along the continuum of pessimistic to optimistic. After winning the lottery or experiencing the death of a loved one, we eventually return to that set point.

Since those who are on the positive end of that range are more likely to thrive, have friends and advance in their work, you might want to practice specific ways of “acting as if” you are more optimistic that are described in Learned Optimism and Authentic Happiness. 

Those who instinctively react more negatively or helplessly to difficult situations tend to experience it as the “three Ps”: Personal (most of all it happened to me) Pervasive (now everything feels worse in my life), and Permanent (it will always be this bad).

One caveat that makes it worth having friends at the other end of the spectrum: Optimists tend to be overly rosy about a situation, leaping into opportunities that, in fact, aren't while pessimists are more realistic – seeing what is. 

Together they are more likely to see potential problems and to find solutions. They are also more likely to squabble because the other person doesn’t act right – like them.

So it helps to laugh when you recognize when it that is starting to happen.

Hint: Perspective is potent -  “Every day may not be good, but there’s something good in every day.”  ~Unknown

 

 

When Caught Off-guard

 Wincing I glanced down. It hadn’t taken much to make that small blister appear in the hollow of my palm, that most tender of places on one’s hand. It’s my writing hand where a thin flap of skin now folded back. 

I’d just planted 30 daffodil bulbs in my garden but had neglected   to wear gloves. 

Suddenly I remembered a dinner party where the hostess brightly asked the man across the table from me, “How long have you been hunting for a job?” I saw him wince momentarily, then quickly attempt to cover it with a smile.  He made a fumbling reply then someone quickly changed the topic. 

But there is another way.

Live Your Strongest Life

  “Out beyond the ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing there is a field – I’ll meet you there.” ~ Rumi

“It hits a spot, doesn’t it?  It suggests that not being right (or wrong) is a place we can choose to go to,” wrote Sarah Wilson after reading Laura Munson’s book on how she chose not to retreat or retaliate when her husband said he was leaving. Instead Laura chose to be calm, still – and yes, sometimes quite scared.

“If your partner said that to you, chances are that would be the start of a conversation --- an ugly one,” wrote one of my favorite reviewers, Jesse Kornbluth. 

Instead she said, “I don’t buy it.” 

Her story was the most forwarded, shared and debated Style column in The New York Times all year.

“I was faced with a choice, wrote Laura, “I was going to let this take me down, or I was going to learn to base my happiness on something that was within my control.”

Adds Sara, “That it just exists, once we drop knee-jerk judgment, and is entirely accessible. If. We. Just. Choose. It.”

This is not an instinctive nor an easy approach yet it is worth practicing. That is to choose not to suffer or to retaliate against someone dear to me right after he says something toxic  - or doesn’t speak up or act in a situation where I relied on his support – or at least their understanding. Good men know this.

My reacting harshly out of hurt usually stiffens the spine of the other person in their righteousness. They respond defensively and feel greater justification for their actions.  This hardens our hearts towards each other, making it increasingly difficult for either “side.” By then we do see sides in the situation, so we move farther apart.  Through that lens of protective distance we are more inclined to see how the other person is wrong and we are right.

 

One hard-learned truth I tend to forget:

Choosing to respond to the decent actions in others and to let the rest go seems to be the most likely way to stay connected to the better parts in each other. Live strong is not only an apt motto for Lance Armstrong but a wise maxim for us all to accept frailties in others and to live from our strengths.

 

Another rule of thumb:

Do not let somebody else determine your behavior.

 

Make it So Vivid You May Motivate Others to Change

 Meth is a death sentence.  “Ben hanged himself when he couldn’t stop using it.” Want to change others? Learn from Montana’s graphic techniques to stop the carnage. When the danger is extreme the nudge may have to be too. 

Even if you are attempting to nudge others in less dire situations you can glean lessons from these powerful ads. 

Here are four ways to make your message sink in and sway others:

 1. Short sentences carry punch. “This is where he went into convulsions.”  So do pithy tag lines: “Not even once.”

 2. Be more credible and memorable by using vivid, specific everyday language, rather than jargon or generalizations. “This is the sink where she started pulling out her eyebrows.”

"’Kevin’ dropped out of school, used sharp objects to remove   imaginary bugs from his body and now spends his days restrained to a bed.”

3. Use “sensory contrasts.” The dramatic background music and snippets of emotional voices stand in sharp contrast to the dulled, sad tones of the victims, the narrators – whose faces you only see at the end of each advertisement.  (Not seeing the narrator until the end builds anticipation.)

 4. Show some visual detail AND leave some to the imagination. While you see some of the scenes where awful things happened and you hear snippets of voices in those situations you don’t see the worst things - except in your mind’s eye. Don’t express the outrage. Instead present the reason your audience will feel it and express the emotion that may move them to change.

 Hint: When you create a written, audio or video message, leave gaps for them to instinctively fill in the rest.  This is akin to a speaker repeating a key phrase throughout a speech until that speaker can pause so the audience can say it for him. Their unavoidable participation glues them to your story.

 Look for the brash book by Stanford business professor Jeffrey Pfeffer, Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don't. 

Hint: While collaboration is key in this increasingly complex, connected world, attempting to create it between competing organizations can be dangerous if one does not understand the use of power to first protect oneself and then to unite others in a common purpose. 

"What makes power degenerative rather than generative? Lack of love What makes love degenerative? Lack of power." ~Adam Kahane, author of Power and Love  

Turn Your Quirky Interest Into a Blog-to-Book?

 Kangeroos. My smart, generous and mostly conventional Aussie college roommate began collecting small statues of them years ago.  These elegant, beautiful objects began lining her bookshelves.  Unfortunately for her, snarky friends started giving Mandy kangaroos that were, well, in odd positions… together. Then there were the politicians-as-kangeroos and the picnicking kangaroos set. She gamely displayed them on her shelf – not knowing there was a hidden opportunity in “our” hobby. 

Now I know how she might make money from her now extensive and extremely odd collection – just like you and I might reap the benefits from a weird hobby where others (even strangers) are invited to contribute. 

It helps if your humor comes across in writing as at least four lucky collectors have discovered.

 What quirky-to-the-point-of-funny objects capture your attention? Ever offer your friends color commentary on them? If you haven’t already, consider collecting photos of them and adding your snarky insights – on a blog.

Who knows?  Almost overnight you may attract so many fans that a publisher approaches you with a book deal. Odd pays off.

 Success stories are great motivators to stir your imagination. Here’s three funny blog-to-book projects that successfully capitalize on the "wacky objects with humorous commentary" formula: Jen Yates’ The Cake Wrecks: When Professional Cakes Go Hilariously Wrong, Mike Bender and Doug Chernack’s Awkward Family Photos and now April Winchell’s Regretsy: Where DIY Meets WTF.    

What blogs have you discovered that you think might be bound for success as books – or what topics do you think could go blog to book?

Want to be boring?

 It’s easy.  In fact you just have to do what you usually do when you put on your thinking cap to craft a description that’s important for you – like what you do in your work or why we should support your cause.  That’s when one turn’s to generalities.

Here’s how to make this common mistake. First strive first for accuracy - and then offer an example. 

Forest Stewardship Council of Canada, for example, explains that "FSC is an international certification and labeling system that guarantees that the forest products you purchase come from responsibly managed forests and verified recycled sources.”  

 Instead, writing pro Daphne Gray-Grant, suggests starting with this: “Ever gone to the lumberyard and purchased a 2x4 for your deck, wondering if it was ethically produced? 

Or, perhaps you've bought a stack of paper for your printer or a new desk for your office or a box for moving and worried about exactly the same thing. This is where the FSC can help...” Then add that accurate description.

Now it is always easier to edit someone’s improved description so I would hone the message further into everyday language and fewer words, “Ever been at a lumberyard, about to buy planks for your deck, and wondered, “Is this wood taken in a way that damaged a forest?” Or, when you’re buying printer paper, would you like to be able to choose the brand that was better for the environment?

As an avid evangelist for saying it better I turn to friends for help in honing my message.  I am too close to my subject - and know too much about it (the Curse of Knowledge) – to pick the starting point that will pull other in.

Even better, I try to listen to what people say about what I do to get insights about what resonates. Inevitably my self-descriptions are accurate yet blandly general. The vivid and thus compelling specifics come tumbling out when I ask myself (as I ask my clients) “Give me an example.”

Conclusion: You can be accurate in describing what you do or compellingly accurate so they actually get interested - and may even remember, ask questions, buy and tell others. 

See also:

• Become Quotable by Comparison

• Create a Tag Line to be Top of Mind in Your “Market”

• Six Off-Beat Ways to Get Along Better

• How to Help Your Critic’s Argument Sway Others

Apologizing Properly: Is There Enough Mea in Your Culpa?

 Last year U.S. Senator George Allen went serially apologizing across Virginia after demeaning a man of Indian descent at a campaign rally as “Macaca or whatever his name is.” Up popped a virtual cartoon bubble caption over his head -  “racist.” By continuing to exhibit the same lack of understanding about his mistake each time he apologized, that caption worsened, from “racist” to “bumbling politician” to “bumbling politician who does not learn.” 

He did not mean harm but he did harm his reputation by not learning the lesson on how to say,

”I was wrong. 

This is why.

This what I am going to do about it.”

 Even a TV soap opera couldn’t match recent real life lessons on the need to learn when and how to apologize. For most situations you and I will face there are proper ways to apologize that often evoke respect and sometimes bring people closer. Doctors are learning, for example that it pays to apologize– even if it is difficult to do.  Here are four tips that have helped me.  

1. Don’t beg. Do prove you mean you are sorry.

No excuses. No delay. And forget groveling.   

It doesn’t show your best side nor bring out the best in those from whom you want forgiveness. In debasing yourself you inadvertently evoke a righteous attack instinct in others who’ll then pile on their complaints.    

"Never ruin an apology with an excuse." ~Kimberly Johnson

2. Put Enough Mea in Your Culpa 

Knowing When Fear is a Friend

 A gang rape of a teen girl, took place over several hours at a high school, with onlookers who did nothing.  It happened just last month in an adjacent county to where I live.  Among the many reactions to this horrific incident, here’s the first that’s positive and proactive for women, albeit an action than can seem self-serving.

A local author is co-offering a free self-defense class. As someone who chronicled her recovery from violent abuse in her book, Skinny, Tan and Rich: Unveiling the Myth, Maryanne Comaroto will teach emotional self-defense techniques.  Her colleague will teach physical self-defense techniques.

Comaroto’s core message is “TLC: Trust yourself, love yourself and control yourself."  Reflecting the insights in security firm founder Gavin DeBecker’s excellent book, The Gift of Fear, Comaroto suggests that,  “One of the things we typically don’t do is trust our intuition. It’s the first indicator we maybe in danger.“  

That’s the money quote for me, one I hope each of us has grown into knowing and doing by this stage in our lives.

Whenever you’ve felt profound fear, it was linked to the presence of danger, imminent pain or death.  Said DeBecker in a National Public Radio interview, “When we get a fear signal, our intuition has already made many connections.  When you feel fear, try to ‘link’ it back to a past situation where the feeling that was similar to see if your fear is, in fact, justified.” 

While the media often portrays human violence as random, de Becker points out that it seldom is random. In fact, you can anticipate the patterns of impending danger in most cases, if you listen to your instinct of genuine fear and take action.  DeBecker’s book offers specific criteria for how you can better protect yourself by learning to recognize and act on the intuitive signals you pick up but reject as unfounded.

Worry, on the other hand, is the fear we manufacture.  Worry, anxiety, concern and wariness all have a purpose, but they are not fear.  Any time your dreaded outcome cannot be reasonably linked to pain or death and it isn’t a signal in the presence of danger, then it really should not be confused with fear.  

Worry is a form of self-harassment.

Worry will not bring solutions.  Worry distracts from finding solutions.

To free yourself from worry sooner, understand what it really is.  Most people worry because it provides some secondary reward such as:

• Worry is a way to avoid change; when we worry, we don’t do anything about the matter.

• Worry allows us to avoid admitting powerlessness over something, since worry feels like we’re doing something.  Prayer also makes us feel like we’re doing something, and even the most committed agnostic will admit that prayer is more productive than worry.

•  Worry is a cloying way to have a connection with others.  Worry somehow shows love.  The other side of this is the beleif that not worrying about someone means you don’t care about that person.  As many people who’ve been worried about know well, worry is a poor substitute for love or for taking loving action.

• Worry is a protection against future disappointment.  After you complete an important project where the success of your approach won’t be known for some while, for example, you can worry about it. 

Ostensibly, if you can feel the experience of failure now, rehearse it, so to speak, by worrying about it, then failing won’t feel as bad when it happens.  But how would you want to spend the time while you find out:  worrying, playing or initiating another action on another endeavor?

There is a Pay-off for Worry But Not a Healthy One

For some people, worrying is a “magical amulet”, according to Emotional Intelligence author, Daniel Goleman.  Some people feel it wards off danger.  They truly believe that worrying about something will stop it from happening. 

Most of what people worry about has a low probability of occurring, because we tend to take action about those things we feel are likely to occur.  This means that very often the mere fact that you are worrying about something is a predictor that it isn’t likely to happen.

The connection between real fear and worry is similar to the relationship between pain and suffering.  Pain and fear are necessary and valuable components of life.  Suffering and worry are destructive and unnecessary parts of life.  Worry interrupts clear thinking, wastes time, and shortens your life.

When worrying, ask yourself, “How does this serve me?”

To be freer of fear and yet still get its gift, consider these techniques: 

1. When you feel fear, listen.

2.  When you don’t feel fear, don’t manufacture it.

3. If you find yourself creating worry, explore and discover why.

We Choke on Anxiety

Anxiety, unlike real fear and like worry, is always caused by uncertainty.  it is caused, ultimately, by predictions in which you have little confidence.  If you predict you will be fired and you are certain that your prediction is correct, you don’t have anxiety about being fired, but about the ramifications of losing a job. 

Predictions in which you have a high confidence free you to respond, adjust, feel sadness, accept, prepare, or to do whatever you need to do.  You can reduce your anxiety by improving your predictions, thus increasing your certainty.  It’s worth doing, because the word anxiety, like worry, stems from a root that means “to choke,” and that is just what it does to us. 

Our imaginations can be fertile soil in which worry and anxiety grow from seeds to weeds, but when we assume the imagined outcome is a sure thing, we are in conflict with what Proust called an inexorable law:  “Only that which is absent can be imagined.”  In other words, what you imagine -- just like what you fear -- is not happening.