Say it Better

Peace-Keeping Tips for Couples Who Want to be Rooted in Love

• 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.

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

 • Saying less and listening more often gets you more of what you want.

 • Looking directly and warmly, 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 the other person.

 • Do not interrupt, especially when you most want to.

 • First, respond to 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 resistance will most likely escalate the hardening of sides between you.

 • Rather than describing what you don’t like, ask for a specific change without using emotionally-charged characterizations.

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

 • Do not 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 resistant 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 vivid, specific and emotion-laden language to describe what you like and respect.

• 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 most heated moments of discussion, remember what you most like in the other person and take the time to express it.  Of course all these wise pieces of advice are much easier to offer that to live by.

 • A tender touch is  loving language.

 

Get Them Involved and Telling Others

That saying “familiarity breeds contempt” may be true. We tend to take loved ones for granted, no matter how well-intended. Yet it is equally true that familiarity breeds acceptance.  Thus it is easier to stick a new idea in someone’s mind if you can attach it to something familiar – an existing memory. So....

Become more quotable by employing this Familiarity Effect

Here are two ways:

1. Piggyback your characterization on top of a familiar concept or saying.

Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn and an investor in other successful online networks gave this advice: “Social networks do best when they tap into one of the seven deadly sins. Facebook is ego. Zynga is sloth. LinkedIn is greed.”

2. What familiar and respected product embodies the valuable trait for which you want your product to be remembered?

Plum wants to be the Netflix of baby clothes. Instead of buying clothes for your child, rent them then return the clothes when they are outgrown, and get a new set.

Here's a third hint. Let others be the stars in your story.

People are more likely buy your idea or product if they are placed in a situation where they can be the experts, exploring the topic their way.  Better yet, enable them to gain bragging rights, proving themselves right – in front of others - in their choice to buy from you or to support you.

Imagine, for example, the astonishment of the staff  -- and the sommelier -- at Bone’s, an Atlantic steak house when they started handing dining guests iPads at the table, loaded with a copy of the wine list. 

Purchases of wine, shot up 11 percent. Mused Mr. Reno, the sommelier, “With the information on the device, they seem more apt to experiment by buying a different varietal or going outside their price range.

It stuns me, but they seem to trust the device more than they trust me, and these are people I’ve waited on for 10 years.”

Or, perhaps diners feel more comfortable and confident, looking at various wines themselves and discussing them at the table. The key here is that they get to be the expert. 

Hint: Let others take charge of your message, tweak it for their needs and thus sell themselves on it. 

Entertainment mogul, Peter Guber, is a passionate believer in the power of a purposeful narrative. That means sharing a story that is meaningful to others, leaving ways for them to jump in and become an important part of that story. 

In Tell to Win, he gives many examples of how people love to tell others about a story in which they have a great role. Surrender your story to their re-working of it, rather than correcting them, and they will re-tell it with passion and conviction.

Organizations as diverse as LEGO and the S.F. Giants, and individuals as diverse as Nicholas Kristof and Tony Hsieh have attracted passionate supporters, in part, by letting others take over their story to re-tell it in their own way.

Surrendering your vivid story in which we can play a meaningful role can probably spread it farther, faster and in more directions than you can on your own.  What story are you sharing that will pull me in? I am eager to hear it - and your insights about now to nudge us to participate with you.

 

Sensory Ways to Bring Others Closer…

… and enable them to gain bragging rights about their experience with you and your place or event.

Was it the butterscotch-colored walls, light coconut scent wafting through the door as I opened it or the cushy island of deep blue carpet under my feet as I stepped into the boutique hotel? I don't know yet I instinctively sighed with relief. And that was before I saw the the smiling doorman walking towards me, saying, “We’re glad that you’re safely out of that storm. Let me help you with your coat, if you like, and your bag.” 

The lobby was light with the soft, full-spectrum lights that store make-up counters have, making us all look and feel our best.

Hint: Positive sensory cues multiple their emotional effect when we feel more than one at once or in quick succession.

In fact, without my knowing it at the time, that doorman looked more handsome and caring than I would have experienced him if the entry to that hotel had shiny metal railings, an elaborately patterned carpet and/or a dark colored wall. Further, since the “closing scene” when I left the hotel the next morning was as a positive as the opening scene, I tended to forget the slow room service or  cramped bathroom, according to research on the power of the sequence of events within an experience - from a vacation to a colonscopy. 

That’s why it behooves anyone who wants their guests, customers, conference attendees or families at home to feel welcome, brag about their experience and act nicely to storyboard the sequence of multi-sensory experiences that those they serve or love experience in their “place.”

Even apparently small physical experiences make a big emotional and even learning difference. Adapt these multi-sensory cues to emotionally engage with others: 

1. Children “are better at math when using their hands while thinking,” found to Josh Ackerman, a MIT psychologist. Further, the weight, texture and hardness of objects we touch affects our opinion of the people and the situation.

2. Actors recall lines better when moving and we remember more when walking, gesturing, eating or physically working on something.

3. “People are more generous after holding a warm cup of coffee and more callous after hold a cold drink,” discovered Yale University psychologist John Bargh.

4. Patterns, whether on the walls or floor or upper part of one’s clothing, break up the observers’ attention span and, like ambient noise in a room from the heating or air conditioning system, make us more agitated and inclined to become irritated by each other’s behavior.

 5. Scent is the most directly emotional sense and thus a two-edge sword. If the evoked memory is positive it hits deeply and, if not….well, we are more likely to project bad characteristics on the scene and individuals around us.

6. Enable people to engage in the scenes or objects around them and gain bragging rights as a consequence. Have a “What’s next for you?” sign on a large bowl of positive sayings or fortunes near places where they must wait or pause, such as check-in areas.  Staff can encourage them to read theirs aloud. (The more actions we take on behalf of something the more deeply they believe in it, identify with it and will share it with others.)

7. Encourage colleagues to stand and walk side-by-side with those you serve this "sidling" is more likely to evoke a convivial  “us” feeling.

 8. Create a story about your region, place, interactive object or monument or event, hopefully involving humorous, heroic or otherwise emotional incidents and individuals, where you can invite those you serve to become a part of that story, as Peter Gruber suggests.

They may become a part  of "our" story when they can participate your custom ritual, receive your souvenir as a gift, eat the snack that’s part of the story or you take a photo of them in front of the scene on the wall that represents a highlight of our story – and email it to them after they leave.

9. Continue to keep them involved with “our story.” Use geosocial apps that enable them to connect with each other  - and your staff - as they walk through your store, hotel, hospital, sports arena or event. That’s what DoubleDutch did for TED conference attendees. And use augmented reality apps, as in Tuscany, yet to enable people to discover more about your area, place or meeting.

What multi-sensory cues have you used to involve people in your place, event or other experience?  Also let's share ways to say it better on Twitter. I am @kareanderson.

 

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