This is a book review of Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ.

I purchased the 10th anniversary edition of this “groundbreaking book that redefines what it means to be smart”. 10 years following the release of his book, Goleman’s development and popularisation of emotional intelligence (EQ or EI) has sprouted a new field of study that assists parenting, teaching, managing people, personal success, and general well-being. If you are at all interested in your own emotions and the emotions of those around you, then Emotional Intelligence is what you are after.

Emotional intelligence is a broad subject incorporating how you manage yourself and other people’s emotions. There is the self component and relationship component. Emotional skills directly relating to the self include, but not limited to: self-awareness, impulse control, handling stress and anxiety, self-motivation, and coping skills; while emotional skills relating to relationships include, but not limited to: reading social and emotional cues, awareness of others’ perspectives, sociability, motivating people, managing conflict, and listening. Nearly all of these skills play a powerful role in personal living and business success.

Long gone are the days of a person’s intelligence quotient (IQ) being the primary determinant of his or her success. Research has found IQ to contribute only 20% of one’s success in life with the remaining majority of one’s success being accounted for by emotional and social intelligence. Due to our everyday interaction with others and the strong need to successfully manage one’s own emotions, emotional intelligence is likely to determine how far you go in your personal relationship and career. Book after book is now emphasising the importance of managing your own emotions and knowing how to work with other people’s emotions.

Having reported on the brain and human behavior at the New York Times for twelve years and receiving his Ph.D. from Harvard, Goleman’s eye-opening book is jammed with research and hundreds of studies relating to emotional skills. From the beginning of the book Goleman provides insight into the emotional and rational parts of the brain. In this section he explains the neurology behind emotions, along with their evolutionary use, which acts as a foundation for the remainder of the book. He does mention that the technicalities of this section can be skipped as it isn’t necessary to understood. Though I know some people have found this section on neurology fascinating nonetheless.

The following section defines the nature of emotional intelligence. In this section are discussions on: when smart is dumb, the development of empathy, depression, anger, happiness, optimism, focus, and much more. The third section titled “Emotional Intelligence Applied” deals with emotions in marriage, families, trauma, business teams, and the human body. The eleventh chapter, “Mind and Medicine”, will blow you away with the latest findings on how emotions affect various parts of the human body like the central nervous system, the immune system, and the heart.

The remaining chapters of Emotional Intelligence focuses on how parents can teach their children, and teachers educate their students, on emotional skills. Any principal, teacher, parent, or person involved in a child’s life is guaranteed to find the book’s research and insights on childrens’ emotional intelligence as shockingly real. From guaranteed ways to predict a child’s future temperament to the development of abusive, unsociable, and delinquent children, you will discover emotional insights into children. Additionally, the research on empathy and emotional development in babies is amazing. The stories of babies and toddlers empathizing with other young children, by sharing blankets or comforting to name a few skills, will have you hooked.

Overall, if you’re after a book that explains how you can develop emotional skills, I wouldn’t strongly advise you this book. Though there are plenty of skills buried in Goleman’s classic, I say the book is more about understanding the role emotions play in our personal lives and relationships than it is about developing emotional skills. With about 300 citations of mostly research from academic journals, Emotional Intelligence bridges the impact emotions have in our everyday lives from academic studies to the general public.

Lastly, I really hope for emotional intelligence to continue broadening into people’s lives. It is a field of study that has monumental potential in shaping social and worldly issues. I really recommend you learn more about it. After reading the book I have absolute confidence that you will understand the importance emotions play in our lives, as well as seeing the need for schools to teach children emotional skills.

With emotional intelligence being a large determinant in your personal happiness, confidence, success, and relationships, you’re sure to get a lot of powerful information on emotions in this well-written book. The book flows smoothly and should have your life doing the same. You can grab your copy of Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence from Amazon by clicking here today.

“One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.” – Sophocles, 496-406 B.C.

“What most people need to learn in life is how to love people and use things, instead of using people and loving things.” – Author Unknown.

“Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.” – Bible, New King James Version, 1 Corinthians 13:4-8.

You’ve been told by teachers, counselors, relationship experts, self help experts, or religion, that you should at least love your family, friends, and others who are important to you. Though you and I know, it’s not that easy! It is hard to love someone who hurts you. At times you’d rather punch a family member in the face to knock them out so you can live in peace.

This article will help you to love others whom you would like to love. It isn’t about falling romantically in love with someone, though the advice can help you in that sense. It is more about the type of love experienced in a close family. I will give you a logical five lesson plan that you can easily follow to begin loving who you want to love. Loving others will bring an abundance of love, among many other great things, into your life.

What is Love?

Just hearing about the subject of “love” at times gets me cringing. Love gets twisted by society, not just younger generations who are often picked on in this area, into a form that destroys its most pure meaning. People think they are in “love” because they feel attraction or have been in a relationship for many years. Feelings of affection or attraction are a type of love, but they do not comprehend pure love.

Love is a tough subject for anyone to address. Not many people agree with a common description of love. As Haddaway’s classic hit is titled, “What is Love?” Some say it is a willingness of sacrifice, some say its blindness to flaws, while others say it is unexplainable. Some say it is an intense devotion or affection, but that can just be neediness.

I’m not particularly fond of most material about love as the subject has a tendency to get categorized into romance, “Do nice things like give gifts and the person will love you.” Romance doesn’t describe love – not even an act of love, because romance by itself can be a very superficial and manipulative subject. Love is beyond actions. Something is at deeper work in pure love.

Psychologist Robert Sternberg developed the triangular theory of love. The theory is applicable for interpersonal relationships. It categorizes love using three scales: 1) Intimacy, 2) Passion, and 3) Commitment. Basically, variances in the three scales produce different types of love. It is only when all three are present that a pure form of love, known as “consummate love”, can develop. Consummate love is the ultimate form of love an individual can desire.

A more applicable description of love to the style of love I’m writing about in this article is explained by Susan Hendrick and Clyde Hendrick in their love attitude scale:

1. Eros love is based on physical appearance. It describes superficial love.
2. Ludus love is a game based on conquest. Pick-up artists (PUAs) often experience this type of love.
3. Storge love is gradually built from similarities and friendship. The transition from friendship to love is often unclear.
4. Pragma love is more rational than other type of loves as it is based on practicality. An extreme form of Pragma love is prostitution because of the rationalizing financial gains.
5. Mania love is very possessive and unstable. Strong feelings of insecurity, neediness, and jealously are experienced.
6. Agape love is selfless, unconditional, and often spiritual.

Agape love most accurately describes the type of love we wish to have towards family and friends. We want to be able to unconditionally love those who are important to us; not just when they do something nice or when we are in a good mood. It is our goal in this article to develop an agape form of love.

The power of agape love is it doesn’t change when the mood or circumstances change. Agape love even remains when the person you have agape love towards does something mean to you. It is unconditional and withstanding – almost divine. We want to, at minimum, unconditionally love our family as they are our own blood. You are apart of each family member. When you hate others, you are really hating yourself.

The selflessness in agape love we wish to develop is one beyond sacrifice. It is beyond confining boundaries and a lack of concern in fulfilling one’s needs. Selflessness is about focus, attitude, and action towards others while retaining self-love. It isn’t about sacrifice and ignoring yourself. You are more likely to hurt a relationship from resentment by “humbling” your core needs than if you were to act selfishly. Resentment is an unusually powerful emotion that builds in size when ignored.

Acting unselfishly is often thought of as overlooking personal desires. However, selfless acts don’t ignore the giver. This is a very important concept to understand. You can only act truly selflessly when you love yourself. Unselfish actions that overlook the giver’s needs, such as a love-starved wife who cooks for her family, builds emotions like resentment that destroy the selflessness in the action.

Before you can be selfless, you need to be selfish. Keep in mind that being greedy is not the same as being selfish. In mathematics and life, you cannot give what you don’t have. There is nobody more unloving than one who does not have self-love. Unfortunately, we are taught by parents and teachers not to be selfish. I believe this is a big reason for hate in the world.

Unhealthy selfishness worsens by its supposed solution of selflessness. By being selfless in an area we lack resources, we ultimately become miserable and develop unhealthy selfishness. We need an ongoing supply of external emotional energy from our failure to tap into the infinite source of abundance within ourselves. The neediness and lack of love comes from a lack of self-love. It is in the selflessness of Agape love that we get our first lesson on how to love someone:

1) Love yourself to love others

To give love you must firstly have love. If you’re not into religion, the most reliable source of love you can get is from yourself. You do not need to approve of everything about yourself, but you do need to accept yourself. You will always have flaws that you do not like – accept it. Only by loving yourself can you love others. Consequently, love yourself to love others in order to be loved. You cannot expect others to love you if you do not love yourself.

Give-take Relationship of Love

As babies, we were entirely dependent on our parents or guardians. We would cry to get feed, cry to get warmth, and cry to get love. We wanted whatever we could get our hands onto without giving a single thing. Sure, a baby can create a smile on its parent’s face and bring a warm comfort into people’s lives, but it doesn’t give in the sense that it fails to transfer something from itself to others. Perhaps the only thing a baby gives is its regurgitated food!

As we begin to age, we become more “independent”. We can feed ourselves, make ourselves warm, and put a shelter over our heads. However, our growth and independence sometimes doesn’t go beyond that. We are still that crying baby who wants everything without giving. When we do give, it is solely on the basis that we receive something of equal or greater value in exchange for our gift.

A part of this problem comes from our teachers and parents advising us to avoid people who take advantage of us. We get conditioned to not be conned by someone who doesn’t return the favor. As a result, our giving comes from reciprocation.

The principle of reciprocation states that humans have an inherent desire to return favors. When something is seen as a favor, not an obligation or expectation, we react by reciprocating something to the person of equal or greater value. By giving we usually receive more than what we gave. Give love to others and you will receive things that you cannot comprehend.

Unfortunately, when we do give and do not instantly receive, our giving stops. The expectations we create are the demise of our giving. Our expectations which exceeds results makes us dissatisfied. If you think you need to receive love from others, in order to give love, you are living reactively. The more you get, the more you want. Neediness disables a person from loving others.

When we love others, they in turn love us but not necessarily in the same form as our love. It is much easier to love someone who first loved us. The purpose of loving yourself is to create love in your life so that you can love. An active creator of one’s personal universe doesn’t wait for the right circumstances. The person goes and does what he or she wants done.

Agape love isn’t dependent on firstly receiving love. Agape love doesn’t have limiting conditions. It gives without receiving. Mildred Norman Ryder, also known as the “Peace Pilgrim”, nicely said, “Pure love is a willingness to give without a thought of receiving anything in return”. This gives us our second lesson of loving someone:

2) Give love without any expectation of receiving love.

I know people fear giving love out of a concern for not receiving love. What a scarce and fearful mindset. Needing to receive love in exchange for your love is needy and approval-seeking. Reducing your need for someone’s approval empowers you to love the person. It is contradictory to common thought. Desperately wanting love reduces the love you both give and receive.

Daniel Goleman in his revolutionizing book Social Intelligence, which looks at the science of human relationships, emphasizes the need to go beyond ourselves. When we overcome self-absorption, we are able to connect with and love people. “When we focus on others, our world expands.” says Goleman. “Our own problems drift to the periphery of the mind and so seem smaller, and we increase our capacity for connection – or compassionate action.”

By loving someone without the expectation of them loving you back, you go one step closer towards unconditional love. You become immune to the potential disappointment when others do not love you. Giving love without any expectation to receive love creates radical personal responsibility as you prevent yourself from blaming or becoming angered towards others. When you do get to unconditional love, you will permanently love others. That is something I love.

Scarcity and Abundance of Love

The thought of giving without receiving comes from scarcity which immobilizes our ability to give. Giving on the basis that you will receive creates a fearful mind. We fear being conned, taken advantaged of, and not being treated fairly. The world becomes finite in its mental, emotional, and physical resources. Scarce thinking of love assumes it is a limited resource. It means there is a finite amount of love in the world so you had better keep what you want to yourself. No wonder we keep what we can to ourselves because our survival becomes “dependent” on it.

Loving yourself isn’t enough. It is just one step of loving others. You need to extend your self-love to others. Giving from love is empowering; compared to the limitations of giving from guilt, ego, and scarcity. “Love wasn’t put in your heart to stay.” said the singer Michael Smith. “Love isn’t love until you give it away.”

While scarcity can work against us in loving others, it can also work for us. The principle of scarcity states that we more highly value a resource when it is rare. Realizing love is scarce and that it can be lost will make you value it more. Thinking like this uses the pain component of the pain-pleasure theory of motivation which states that we do things to avoid pain or gain pleasure. It is great to acknowledge the scarcity of love and how it can be easily lost, as it makes you value love. You avoid taking love for granted.

Those who have experienced loved ones passing away know the value of love. Unfortunately, some people are too late at expressing their love and greatly regret not having done so. Don’t become someone who doesn’t value what is in their life until it is gone. A loving person knows their love in a person’s life counts. Gratitude gives us our third lesson to love someone:

3) Be grateful for everything in your past and present.

Transforming Pain Into Pleasure

If you have trouble feeling grateful, something that always helps me feel grateful is thinking about the meaning of “appreciate”. To appreciate is to increase in value. Therefore, to be grateful for everything in your past and present you need to increase your feelings of value towards your experiences and the world around you.

You will need to overcome feelings of anger, blame, and resentment first before you can feel grateful and begin loving those who hurt you. When you experience these feelings, you fight an uphill battle that discourages you from loving the person who “caused” you these feelings. Remove the pain to experience the gain. Eliminating emotional pain gives us our fourth lesson on how to love someone:

4) Remove anger, blame, and resentment to make love possible.

Any anger or blame you experience towards someone is a sign that you lack radical personal responsibility. Men who complain that women are “bitches”, and women who complain that men are “jerks”, are examples of those who need to accept radical personal responsibility. Once you accept radical personal responsibility, you no longer blame others and possess feelings of anger towards people.

Recently I was blaming something for making me stay up late which left me feeling tired and unproductive the following day. My youngest brother who is thirteen said, “Josh, don’t blame. You had a choice and you choose to stay up late.” Yikes! What a profound statement that caught me in my tracks. Hearing this shifted the responsibility onto myself, and made me proud of my brother!

Will this technique of accepting radical personal responsibility remove all your anger? No. You will feel anger towards someone sooner or later, but that is just a sign that you lack personal responsibility again. Every second we make a choice as to how we respond to the world. Use your Higher Self, the part of you which gets you acting beyond everyday annoyances, to help you accept radical personal responsibility.

Resentment really just comes from blame, but it needs a mention by itself because of its destructive capabilities. Resentment builds when you fail to forgive someone or when you do not take radical responsibility. Learning the art of forgiveness will erase any resentment you currently have in your life. We think we hurt others when holding resentment against them, but we only hurt ourselves.

Seeing Abundance

Here is a useful exercise to help you become grateful for everything in your past and present. You have probably heard that in every problem is an opportunity. Well, we know that in every problem exists a lesson.

Think of the significant positive and negative main events in your past and present. Summarize them on a piece of paper in separate rows. If you have a painful memory of how your parents brought you up, you could summarize it as “I dislike my upbringing by my parents”.

Once you’ve listed the significant events, write down what you are thankful for about the event besides its summary. What is it you appreciate about the “negative” or positive event? If you disliked how you were raised by your parents you could be thankful for: the independence they created in you, your new knowledge on how not to raise children, or the desire they gave you to lovingly raise your children. Seeing a lesson in a problem is difficult, and you may need to think about it for sometime, but it does exist.

People who value lessons and opportunities, instead of seeing pain and problems, are sometimes accused of being delusional. Negativity and pain isn’t any more real than positiveness and pleasure. You have a choice as to whether you want to be grateful for everything in your past and present – every moment of your life. Being grateful for everything in your past and present removes pain. It makes you aware of the wonderful abundance in your life that you have been blinded from. This gives us our fifth and last lesson on how to love someone:

5) See abundance and you will be exposed to an abundance of love.

Love is everywhere we go. “Although humans inherit a biological bias that permits them to feel anger, jealousy, selfishness and envy, and to be rude, aggressive or violent,” says Harvard psychologist Jerome Kagan, “they inherit an even stronger biological bias for kindness, compassion, cooperation, love and nurture.” It is your choice as to whether you see the abundance of love because it is real. It is also your choice as to whether you use your biological gift of compassion and love to bring an abundance of love into your life. “Only when we give joyfully, without hesitation or thought of gain,” says love expert Leo Buscaglia, “can we truly know what love means.” That is love.

This is a book review of Susan Scott’s Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work & in Life, One Conversation at a Time.

If you have ever felt the need to have an important conversation, but you couldn’t bring yourself to having it, then this is the book for you. Susan Scott details the exact methods to bring us to having those conversations that we know will change our life and other people’s life. It is important to overcome this barrier because a conversation is not about the relationship, it is the relationship.

When people see the word “fierce”, they may think pain, tough, or brutality. As it says on the book’s cover, “fierce” means robust, intense, strong, powerful, passionate, eager, and unbridled. The premise behind having a “fierce conversation”, as mentioned in the book, is bringing authenticity in your life by communicating who you are and what you believe.

Fierce Conversations will get you having the most important conservation you can have with someone, right now. After all, if you want someone or something to change, you are the one responsible for initiating the change. If something is bothering you, you need to be the one who does something about it.

Whether through fear of hurting a person, receiving retaliation, or having someone point out our own mistakes, we delay having the conversations we need to have. A large part of the problem comes down to how we present ourselves to others, in our conversations, and when we are by ourselves. All conversations are with yourself, and some are with others.

It is the book’s purpose to achieve four outcomes: interrogate reality, provoke learning, tackle tough challenges, and enrich relationships. These are achieved through the following 7 principles of fierce conversations:

1. Master the Courage to Interrogate Reality
2. Come Out from Behind Yourself into the Conversation and Make It Real
3. Be Here, Prepared to Be Nowhere Else
4. Tackle Your Toughest Challenge Today
5. Obey Your Instincts
6. Take Responsibility for Your Emotional Wake
7. Let Silence Do the Heavy Lifting

These principles, and other ideas and models in the book, are mostly applied in an organizational context. As a consultant for Fortune 500 companies, Susan leans the book towards communication in an organization. However, as she mentions in the book, if someone has communication problems at work then the same problems are likely to show up in their personal lives.

Fierce conversations needs to be used with employees, customers, colleagues, family members, and friends; not just in business. You will find Fierce Conversations especially helpful if you have trouble expressing yourself, talking with others who have trouble expressing themselves, dealing with passive-aggressive people, or resolving an ignored issue that people know exists.

Susan gives you a series of simple and practical exercises to do at the end of each chapter to help you begin using the chapter’s communication skills. She provides insightful scenarios of her experience with clients using the communication models and the powerful change that has taken place as a result.

Fierce Conversations is no emotional walk in the park. You are faced with some hard questions about your reality. “It takes a certain fearlessness to make your private thoughts public.” Susan says. “But if what you’re thinking makes you squirm and wish to wriggle away, you are probably onto something.”

Should you choose to awaken to the truth that confronts you by beginning to have fierce conversations, your relationships will grow before your very eyes. You will begin to talk about what everyone is pretending to not know. Don’t miss having that one conversation that could change your life. Achieve success at work and in life, one conversation at a time by getting your copy of Susan Scott’s Fierce Conversations directly from Amazon.com by clicking here today.

Related Media Links

1. Video and audio links – Links on the Fierce Incorporated website with Susan Scott.
2. Companies, careers built or lost one conversation at time – An article published in a Seattle newspaper by Susan Scott discussing how conversations, one by one, shape our lives.

When you think of delegation, do you limit your thoughts to organizational leadership? Do you think delegating activities is only a skill organizational leaders should know? Book after book has been written on delegating activities in a business context. However, the act of delegating is a powerful skill any person should learn for their personal and career success.

Delegation refers to transferring the decision making process to someone else. We see that it is simply the transference of responsibility to another person. It allows you to get more done in less time than if you tried to do the activity yourself. There is not enough time in a day to do everything by yourself that needs doing.

Nonetheless, this article does not focus on the view point of decision making in efficiently running a business. The article is about empowering anybody to make decisions on their own while not subjecting them, or anyone else, to damage. It is about learning to avoid turning yourself or somebody else into a cantankerous controlling individual to get people doing things.

You do not need to be a manager running a department or leader guiding a team for delegating decision making to be of use to you. Everyday we are flooded with requests. Too frequently we fail to say “no” and as a result, we go through mental and emotional havoc. Moreover, effective decision making skills allows you to create responsibility in people making them stand on their own two feet. Being able to create self-reliance in people is one of the most empowering skills you can develop.

As a leader, manager, parent, husband, wife, teacher, or human being on this planet (not that a manager isn’t a human being – though some may disagree), learning about the decision tree of leadership will be of help to you. Whenever you transfer responsibility and other duties, under safe circumstances, that lead to feelings of importance in people, you increase your personal magnetism and make people like you. With that said, let’s move onto describing the decision tree of leadership.

The Decision Tree of Leadership

Since reading Dr. Maxwell Maltz’s The New Psycho-cybernetics and Michael Hall’s Mind-lines, I have experienced the realization of how powerful metaphors can be in learning and implementing a skill. To overcome the feeling of being overwhelmed, Maxwell Maltz provided a powerful metaphor and visualization of an hourglass. No matter how much sand there is in the timer, it will only pour through grain by grain. One by one gets things done.

When we create a metaphor that is similar to a problem, we draw associations and learn something new from old information. This is abductive thinking, a creative process whereby we think of what could be. Symbols are used to indirectly mean something else. What this means for us in layman’s terms is our knowledge about a tree has the potential to help us better empower people!

Think of a simple tree. Each day decisions are made to keep it green and healthy. For the purpose of this metaphor, we categorize a tree into four parts: 1) roots, 2) trunk, 3) branches, and 4) leafs. Literally from the ground up we have:

Roots: Root decisions have the most potential to hurt an individual, group, or organization. They are made from a lot of input and consultation with others. Once an outcome is determined to be the best, the person responsible makes the root decision. Each person is kept up-to-date with the results of the decision.

Trunk: After roots are the tree’s trunk. Trunk decisions have the potential to hurt an individual, group, or organization like root decisions, though to a lesser extent. A trunk decision can take into account other people’s input but the ultimate decision is made by the person in charge. Who is in charge depends on who can initiate or omit the action. A parent can be in charge, but a trunk decision for the teen in deciding to find a job is made by their teenager. The outcome of trunk decisions should be reported immediately.

Branches: Branch decisions are very similar to trunk decisions. The main difference is the timeliness of the decision. A branch decision doesn’t have to be reported immediately once the decision is made. The person making the decision can take action immediately without other people’s suggestions. A teen deciding to get a job is a trunk decision, not a branch decision, because the teen is the one who acts on the decision while his/her parents are influenced by the decision.

Leafs: Leaf decisions are clear and simple. Sometimes the person has faced and solved similar problems in the past. A leaf decision is the outer-most and highest level of decision making a person can achieve. It involves making a decision and acting on it without consulting anyone. Unlike other parts of the tree that require the input of others, leaf decisions are pure independence. The person making the leaf decision does not need to report to upper management or notify someone what has been done.

The foundation of a tree is its roots. Without its roots a tree will quickly die. After roots is the tree’s trunk. Tree trunks are important in maintaining the tree’s strength. Next, the trunk leads to many branches. The branches of a tree shape how it looks and need to be maintained. Lastly, leafs grow from branches. Should a leaf or branch die, the whole tree doesn’t suffer. However, if the roots or trunk of the tree sustain serious injury, then the livelihood of the tree is jeopardized.

In terms of decision making, the leaf decision doesn’t necessarily mean it is less important than a trunk decision. Rather, it explains the ramifications of the decision. Leafs can die while the whole tree lives. If roots die so does the tree.

The decision tree of leadership doesn’t takeaway a person’s ability to impact his or her family, marriage, friends, or organization. It encourages leadership while maintaining a finger tip of control. We hate being controlled and having to report everything we do to a superior. The decision tree of leadership creates freedom and empowers people to become responsible and influential. The outcome of a leaf decision can still be life-changing. However, your family shouldn’t have to suffer because you made a leaf decision on behalf of your family that should have been a root decision.

Any teenager or employee at some time experiences a shift in self-reliance where their dependence on people change. Teens desperately want freedom from their parents while employees wish their overbearing bosses would release them from their controlling grasp. A male teen wants to become his own person, but you and I know that giving someone pure independence isn’t a safe choice. Mistakes get made and people get hurt. The decision tree of leadership will provide you with a lovely conceptual understanding of empowering another person so that you grant a person their desired level of independence while at the same time not making you seem like a grumpy controlling onlooker.

In adult love relationships, I often see something I call child-parent dependency. Such relationships have one individual, termed the “child”, who does things that are in compliance with the other individual, termed the “parent”. The “parent” dictates many circumstances of the relationship. The “child” of the relationship may feel comfortable being told what to do or he/she may lack assertive skills. When an important decision needs to be made by the “child”, he/she consults with the “parent” on the problem or shifts all responsibility back onto the “parent”.

Passive individuals require guidance by “parents” of their relationship due to a lack of definiteness. On one hand you have the “parent” who tells the “child” to do something because the “child” needs a decision to be made and action to be taken. On the other hand, the“child” hates being told what to do by the “parent” and will find an excuse to avoid the task whether through silence, avoidance, or forgetfulness. Again, this solving this problem comes down to managing self-reliance. Such a situation is one that will benefit from the decision tree of leadership.

A group, namely an organization, that follows the decision tree of leadership will benefit for several reasons. Firstly, employees have frequently voiced their pain of not having the power to implement actions that they are responsible for. To create any change, growth, or even to conduct a simple daily activity, an employee monitored from their boss’s hawk eye requires their superior’s approval. If you want employees or members of a group to enjoy what they are doing and feel a sense of pride, ownership, and responsibility, you need to empower them by using the decision tree of leadership.

The second benefit of using the decision tree of leadership is the clarity it establishes. When expectations are made clear that are empowering to an individual, the individual knows what is expected of him/her and works to achieve those expectations. As humans we want to make an impact and we need to know where it is that we can impact on. Defining the level of authority establishes clear boundaries and expectations. If you lack expectations and clarity, you are more to blame for a problematic decision than the person who made the final decision.

The third benefit is the personal and professional development the model builds in an individual. By communicating the decision tree of leadership to an appropriate person in your group, they develop self-reliance and confidence. They become motivated to grow and achieve more leaf decisions.

The fourth benefit is it increases the likelihood of good decisions being made. Mistakes often originate from inexperience and a lack of knowledge. A primary reason we control a person by making their decisions for them is our lack of faith in the person’s decision making skills. Parents who control their teens lives act from fear in their teen’s supposed inability to make correct life decisions. A lot of unnecessary conflict can be reduced through better preparation. The decision tree of leadership teaches people to swim in shallow water before venturing into the deep end. Once they get out to the deep end, they know no one is holding their hand which makes it all the more satisfying.

The fifth benefit is the resources it frees up. People higher in the hierarchy do not get bothered by decisions that those lower in the hierarchy can solve. The purpose of the model is to get people making leaf decisions as much as possible when appropriate. Managers and executives are left with time that can be used to solve more important decisions.

The sixth benefit, and one of the most powerful reasons for using the decision tree of leadership, is the large degree of personal accountability the method creates. A lack of personal accountability causes the blame-game and the involved group to not move forward as they fail to learn from past mistakes. The decision tree clearly empowers people to make decisions creating personal accountability. Gary Horsfall wrote a paper titled Accountability: The Force Behind Empowerment that was published in the Hospital Materiel Management Quarterly. In it he boldly states, “The driving force behind any and all successful programs, initiatives and companies is accountability… It is not possible in an environment where people feel that they have little or no control over their own destiny.”

Now you are hopefully aware of what the decision tree of leadership is and the power it has in transforming an organization or similar group. Now I’m going to share with you a quick step-by-step process for implementing the method then I’ll provide some real-life examples of what decisions fit into which category of the model. Lastly, I’ll finish of the article with an exercise to help you begin using the method as I want to help you go from intellectualizing the information to physical behavioral change and results.

To start off using the method, you firstly want to mention a new method you have learned that will improve the family, organization, or team. They may not care what stuff you have learned so you need to tune them into their favorite radio station: WIIFM (what’s in it for me). Tell them that if they give the method a shot, they will come to have more freedom, independence, and personal power.

Next, explain the decision tree to the person (or just email them the link to this page). Once you have done that, ask the person what they think how their most common decisions are categorized. Are they leaf, branch, trunk, or root decisions? Mutually working out a solution here is the secret to its ongoing implementation. When we make a choice on our own, instead of being forced into making a choice, we stand by it stronger and for longer.

The Decision Tree of Leadership In Action

Okay, now to provide a few examples of the decision categories. I’ll use a teenager and a parent to demonstrate the decision tree because the majority of people should relate to and understand the example. As you read the examples, keep in mind that the decisions made by one family or an organization will be differently categorized for different families or organizations. Individuals have different personality characteristics and situations vary.

In this example, Julie is a parent to her teenager Sam. A leaf decision for Sam could be what he decides to do in his spare time. He’s shown in the past that he doesn’t need to be babied around in deciding what he should do in his free time. Though, you can probably see that this leaf decision could also be a branch decision because Sam may need his mum’s permission if she can drive him to the local sports field.

A branch decision for Sam could be deciding what University to attend. While some parents control their child’s education more so than others because of price and other variables that differ between countries, the university Sam decides must fit in with what he wants. Once he has made the decision, it would be helpful for his family and parents to know his decision as soon as possible, though he is not required to tell them immediately. Sam can ask for other’s opinions as to what they think, but it is clearly all up to Sam to decide.

One possible trunk decision for Sam is housework. Julie gives Sam a moderate amount of freedom to choose what chores he wants to do. Sam is influenced, not controlled, by his mum’s input into the decision. Whether Sam does or fails to do the chores, his final decision affects his family to a minor extent.

A root decision for Sam could be borrowing his parent’s car. The implications of taking his parent’s car without permission greatly affects Sam’s family. One possible affect is them being stuck at home with no means of transport to get somewhere important. Safety is also an issue as well as Sam’s parents being concerned for his whereabouts.

It may be tough in deciding whether a decision is a leaf or branch, branch or trunk, trunk or root decision, but it doesn’t really matter if you’re not precise. In this model, close enough is good enough provided that you have mutual agreement. I repeat, ensure that you have mutual agreement on what decisions should be in what category.

To begin implementing the decision tree of leadership in your family, organization, or other type of group, here is a simple exercise to do. Over the next week, write down your most common branch, trunk, and root decisions. Leaf decisions can probably be ignored because there may be to many of them that you won’t want to write them down. Once you write them down, you’ll begin to see what areas you or other people are independent in and how your many decisions affects someone else in the group. The exercise will help categorize and track what is going on.

Overall, the grand purpose of the decision tree is to establish freedom and personal growth. We hate being controlled and made to feel like a caged animal at the zoo. The decision tree of leadership empowers people to make decisions that they would like to make or once could not make. By following the decision tree of leadership, you’ll be on your way to nurturing growing and healthy relationships that aren’t constricted by the thorns of controlling individuals.

This is a book review of Michael Hall and Bobby Bodenhamer’s Mind-lines: Lines for Changing Minds.

You’ve been to told to see the glass as half full, but how do you do it? Have you ever wondered how your worries, fears, disagreements, interpersonal conflict, anger, and misunderstandings can be reinterpreted so that they empower you; instead of disempowering? L. Michael Hall and Bobby G. Bodenhamer’s Mind-lines will show you exactly how using the magical neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) technique of reframing. Moreover, the art of reframing is far more powerful than just being positive.

A father sees his son watching television while lying on his bed. The father begins to give his son’s behavior a meaning of “laziness”. As a result, the father starts criticizing his son out of the lazy frame. On the other hand, let’s take a look at another father and son in the same scenario. This other father sees his son watching television while lying on his bed. The father gives his son’s behavior a meaning of “relaxation”.

The premise of reframing is that the world exists with no meaning. “By mind-lines we refer to the lines (the linguistic constructions) that we connect and associate to things that create meaning formulas” says the authors. “By the changing of meaning, our emotions change, as do our behaviors, habits, moods, attitudes, skills, health, etc. and our life.” What you see around you means nothing until you give it meaning. By acknowledging that we are the ones who give the world its meaning, we become empowered to transform our world. Learning to reframe gives you the magic to overcome self-limiting beliefs and communicate more effectively in your relationships. The book is helpful for your personal development and relationships with everyone around you as it changes everyone’s felt sense of reality.

In each of us exists what the author’s call a “map”. Our map is our understanding of “reality” that provide us with a direction in this world. The map is only a construct of reality; it is not reality itself. Mind-lines will have you analyzing your map, seeing its many faults, and then helping you construct a map that is more healthier for your mental, emotional, and physical well-being. The same very lines can be used in your communication with others to change their behaviors, habits, moods, attitudes, skills, health, and life.

In the fifth edition exists a large 26 reframing techniques. These 26 reframing methods are conceptualized in the meta-model – a model introduced in part one that illustrates how the reframing methods fit together. I found myself slightly overwhelmed at the beginning of the book as the first of four parts focuses on the theory aspect of reframing.

However, once I had finished reading the first part, I realized the foundational material gave me the framework for understanding, and more easily, using the 26 reframing techniques discussed in the second part. When you read this book, if you have a similar experience, don’t let this small hurdle stop you from the power it has to change your life and those who you touch. Neuro-linguistic programming has some complex terminology which means it will take more time to read than your average self-help book, but it is still very understandable and life-changing.

It is a practical book. All 26 reframing techniques are applied to six specific statements plus a few additional statements scattered throughout the chapters. You are definitely encouraged to try and reframe using the specific technique before reading on and comparing your own answer to the authors’ answer. I personally encourage you to apply your self-limiting beliefs to each reframing technique as you read the book and observe the magic that begins taking place in your mind.

To give you an idea of how reframing used and the power it possesses, I’ll give you an example of the eighth reframe, positive prior intention framing. The purpose of positive prior intention framing is that every behavior has a positive intention behind it. There is a hidden positive intent even behind hurtful behavior. A reply using this frame to “I hate it when you treat me badly” would be “It’s good to hear that you want to be treated well. What can I do to treat you better?” This is drastic and powerful change to a reply most people would use, “I don’t treat you badly. You’re the one who is mean to me.”

Here’s an example of the fourteenth reframing technique, criteria and values framing. This reframing techniques puts into perspective what the person deems important. You are giving people, or yourself, motive to change. A reply using this frame to “You’re rude for not washing the dishes” would be “When you tell me I’m rude for not washing the dishes, it hurts me which makes me dislike our relationship. Is our relationship more important than the dishes? Would you prefer to tell me about the need to do the dishes without hurting our relationship?” What a wonderful example of reframing a person’s behavior.

Another interesting aspect of the book is something called a “meta-state”, which is a term that describes a state about a state. For example, you can be angry about being stressed. Our meta-states can get very confusing and multi-layered. Let’s say you experience guilt from hurting your partner. You then “wrap” the guilt with anger by becoming angry about the guilt. The anger leads to depression about the anger. The methods in this book allows you to overpower these “lower levels” with “higher levels” that give you more productivity, efficiency, a better mood, relieve stress, and generally anything else that is beneficial for you.

I have experienced the NLP technique of reframing in changing my own behaviors, moods, fears, etc., as well as helping other people change, to be far more powerful than other NLP techniques like the swish pattern. Knowing how to reframe will give you a skill for life that you can use anywhere at anytime to improve something about you or another person. It is a great book that teaches a great technique.

The six pages straight after the preface and before part one of the book, titled “Mind-lining a Toxic Idea”, is worth a thousand times the book itself. I say this with absolute confidence that reading those six pages will change your life. In those six pages, the 26 reframing techniques are applied to “failure”. The word “failure” will be eliminated from your life for good if you apply the simple reframes, but it doesn’t stop there. The reframes will not only cancel out the bad emotions and thoughts towards failure, but the reframes transform the concept of failure into a power energy source for better behavior, mood, skills, and health. Is living a life absent from seeing yourself as a failure important to you? Imagine the happiness and success you would experience when failure isn’t even a concept in your life?

To wrap this review up, I want to use the mind-line of story-telling. There was a poor illiterate man who lived by himself out in the woods. One day out in the woods he stumbled across a piece of paper. It was written in Chinese with a few strange diagrams that he couldn’t understand so he just through away the paper. Years later a few Chinese tourists were visiting the area and found the same object. With a scream of excitement, the tourists realized they had accidentally stumbled upon an ancient Chinese document. The tourists later sold their discovery to a collector for a large amount of money.

The map which is your understanding of reality can give you far more things than wealth if you no longer ignore it. Learn to alter your map and you empower yourself to change your own, and other people’s behaviors, habits, moods, attitudes, skills, and health. I know you want what is best for yourself and your relationships, so I recommend you grab your hands around a copy of Michael Hall and Bobby Bodenhamer’s Mind-lines: Lines for Changing Minds. The little price of the book is nothing when you consider that everything you experience in this world is dependent on how you frame it. You can get your copy from Amazon by clicking here today.

On October 23, 1990, David Pologruto, a high school physics teacher, was stabbed by his smart student Jason Haffizulla. Jason was not a teenager you think would try to kill someone. He got straight A’s and was determined to study medicine at Harvard, but this was his downfall. His physics teacher gave Jason a B, a mark that Jason believed would undermine his ability to gain entry into Harvard. After seeing he received a B, Jason took a butcher knife to school and stabbed his physics teacher before being reprimanded in a struggle.

Two years following the incident in a New York Times article covering this story, it was reported that Jason raised his grade to 4.614, a grade that exceeds the perfect average of 4, by taking advanced courses. He graduated with highest honors.

How can someone as smart as Jason do something so dumb? Jason received above perfect grades and still emotionally lost himself by trying to severely wound his teacher. The answer? Smart can be dumb. I’m not saying smart is communication dumb, but in this article we’ll look at how intellectual intelligence can hurt the person’s emotional life, as studies show there is little or no direct relation between I.Q. and emotional intelligence.

This article may generate a fair bit of controversy, but I feel I give a balanced discussion in sharing my experience, knowledge, and getting you to think deeply about the topic. Whether you are intelligent, “mentally-challenged,” or curious about this topic in understanding those smart people in your life, I’m sure you’re bound to get some useful advice out of this article.

Being a somewhat smart guy myself, it’s painful to hear that intelligence, such a useful characteristic to possess, may be harmful. It is tough to imagine a quality that is so highly praised by everyone is detrimental to communication. For this reason, take a deep breathe now, relax, and open your mind to the possibilities of bettering your communication to improve your life.

During my early university years, I regarded myself as an intelligent guy. I was no Einstein, but I would get good marks in Mathematics, Physics, and other technical subjects. This lead me into starting a degree in Engineering, majoring in Mechatronics – an area of study that integrates mechanics, electronics, and computing. Basically, I would be able to design robotics and cybernetic systems – the wave of the future. Surely such skills would give me an edge in life.

After one year of study with decent marks, I began to see two major classes of students. The first was ones who would turn up to few lectures, party every weekend, enjoy a great social life, and do the minimum work to pass courses. The second class of students were intelligent, hard workers, got good grades, and were very focused on their studies. Surely these intelligent and hard working students would be the ones to get the jobs over the other, more “lazier,” class of student?

Not so. Students are often shocked when graduating that their qualifications are not as important as they once thought. They are guided to believe that their academic knowledge is all they need to get a great job and be successful. Students think that all power and success is derived from intelligence. Howard Gardner in Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences defines various types of intelligence and emphasizes that schools are too focused on logic and linguistic intelligence.

Graduates enter the workforce only to realize that co-workers hate them, less intelligent people are receiving promotions over them, and “suck-up” behaviour to the boss doesn’t get them very far. The students have the “hard skills” such as technical know-how, but they lack the “soft skills” such as conflict management and other human relational skills. The transition for intelligent people from being very goal-oriented to being process and people-oriented is usually realized through the hard school of knocks – experience.

If you’ve had some experience in hiring people, you know the importance of people skills. Without people skills, the educational skills become less useful. Sure, you can have great ideas, theories, and solve complex problems, but if you can’t effectively communicate that material in a persuasive and exciting manner by relating to your fellow human being, then you’re facing an uphill battle in whatever challenges you encounter. It’s not that people will dislike you because of your intelligence; it’s that people will dislike you because you’re rude, not understanding, or annoying to be around. The intelligent person with poor communication skills is insensitive, or just unaware, of another’s emotions.

Hopefully I can reveal the elusive obvious to you in this little exercise. I want you to think back to primary school or high school. Perhaps even college. Select the most memorable class to you.

I want you to categorize, and roughly rank, class members’ based on two sets of criteria: intelligence and popularity. You don’t need to go through every class member, but recall those at the end of each spectrum. That is, remember those who were the smartest in the class and those who were the most popular in the class. On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the highest, give a person a rank of ten in intelligence if you feel they were the most intelligent in the class. For the students who had lots of friends, give them a ten in the popularity category. Try to categorize roughly six students. If you have problems remembering, quickly write the ranks down on paper.

Now, with those students who you have ranked in one category, I want you to rank them in the other category. So if you’ve ranked the smartest student as a ten in the intelligence category, give the person a rank that you feel is appropriate in the popularity category. Do the same for the students you ranked in the popularity category.

Now that you’ve got several people in each of the two categories, think about the difference between each student. The purpose of getting you to do this exercise is in seeing the contrast between intelligence and people skills.

Genius Failure Paradox

Chances are if you are like most people and I, you would have noticed something distinguishable from doing the exercise. Those who were smartest in the class were generally not very popular due to poor social skills (I’m sure there are other similar measurements of poor communication than just popularity). They didn’t have good people skills. Presumptuous? I don’t think so.

This doesn’t mean all intelligent people have poor people skills or that all the unintelligent people have good people skills. I know people will say, “But I know someone who is smart and great with people.” Good. So do I. Intelligence and people skills aren’t mutually exclusive characteristics! Having one doesn’t mean you can’t have the other.

What I’m proposing, which has been touched on and backed by a couple of authors and teachers, is that academically intelligent people may have poorer people skills than others. The genius failure paradox describes this in stating that smarter, wealthier, or generally people who have feelings of superiority, refuse to seek help in dealing with people. I’ll continue to explain why this is so throughout the article. (You can read more about superiority, inferiority, and the self-image.)

Saying that intelligence doesn’t equal success is nothing new. Daniel Goleman in his book Emotional Intelligence, says that IQ is too narrow for indicating success. Your emotional intelligence is summarized in understanding your own emotions and the emotions of others. The implications of emotional intelligence are profound in communication and many areas in life. In his book he says, “Emotional Intelligence is a master aptitude, a capacity that profoundly affects all other abilities, either facilitating or interfering with them.”

Beginning at Childhood

A study titled Reading Difficulties, Behavior, and Social Status that was published in the Journal of Educational Psychology, found that 81% of children referred to aggression and social behaviour as the number one reason for disliking another child. As children age, the researchers found that a child’s academic performance increased their peer acceptance.

The study also found that achievement and other factors are influential to peer acceptance. We do need to keep in mind that peer acceptance doesn’t equate to just social skills. Peer acceptance can increase due to one variable that is completely unrelated to communication. What we can take out of this study, is that right from the beginning of our social interactions, we are liked or dislike based on our behaviour and social skills.

Herpreet Kaur Grewal in an article titled Lack of Social Skills Can Make Poor Even Poorer, refers to a study done by the Institute for Public Policy Research. The study confirms that the economy is making interpersonal skills just as important as academic skills. She says, “Those with good social skills born into poor families are 14% more likely to be well-off by age 30 than a similarly under-privileged person with average social skills.” The study presents a few interesting points that are worth noting for the purpose of this article.

Firstly, social skills and other communication skills were found to be more important later on in life. Maybe you’ve experienced the same thing. When you were young, you could get away with yelling at other kids. You could even have a physical fight with little or no repercussions. However, should you punch someone at work in the face tomorrow (I hope I haven’t given you any thoughts!) because of your inability to resolve conflict, then the quality of your professional and personal life will greatly decline.

A second finding from the study that is of interest to us is that the best way children can develop the communication skills required for life are through organized activities. These groups should have children of varying ages, experiences, and interests, as well as adult leaders that provide guidance to the young group. The adult leaders typically have a goal they want the children to achieve together. Team sports are a good example of activities that fit the described criteria to help children develop their social skills. Even for mature adults, interacting with diverse individuals is sure to improve your communication skills.

Seeing that organized activities have such an impact on developing a child’s communication skills, it is logical to assume these activities influence an adult’s communication skills. The implications of these findings on this article are vague, but I present them to you for your curiosity. Do smarter people participate in fewer organized activities that fit the criteria of developing children’s social skills? Do smarter people participate in more singular extra-curricular activities like learning to play a musical instrument? Is their a trade-off between social interaction and increasing your intelligence? Do the less-intelligent individuals spend their time in these socially-beneficial activities instead of studying?

Regardless of the answers to these questions, one thing we do know is that social skills, and other communication skills, need to be practiced on a frequent basis. While people can naturally have the gift of the gab, be emotionally intelligent, or win friends very easily, these people will lose their skills without practice.

When a person has poor communication skills, I’ve often seen the case where they experience a “cyclic effect.” Their poor communication thwarts them from putting themselves in situations which require those communication skills, which further decreases their skills. Should a person have poor communication skills during their developmental and independent years, I believe they will struggle to improve the skill for several reasons – mostly an over-reliance on their intellect.

Logic

Intelligent people solve problems with their superior logic. They are presented with many problems which they solve using rational thinking. A dilemma arises when they attempt to solve emotional problems with their logic.

The logic dilemma is partly given birth from intelligent people loving information. Finding information makes their lives a lot easier. With the Internet being a superhighway of information, intelligent people are inclined to read, learn, and continue to analyse their issues.

However, communication skills are skills. Communication skills are not information. Any skill is developed through practice. If you’re an intelligent person, I still want you to learn about communication skills, but know that acting on your knowledge is more likely to be a bottleneck in your personal development; rather than more information.

Back to the logic dilemma, people are an illogical formula. For the smart people who don’t understand that, I’ll put in a way that you can understand. If people were a formula, they would be defined by 1 + 1 = 3. Logic and intelligence cannot explain the complexities of human emotion. Dale Carnegie, author of How to Win Friends and Influence People, emphasizes the importance of emotion in human relations and not focusing on logic. He says, “When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion.”

In my communication secrets of making people like you program, I define two distinguishing behaviors of those who fall into the logical trap. Firstly is a common mistake we all make – we point out the obvious. Stating the obvious is frustrating and emotionally ignorant. Some examples include:

• “Breaking up with someone is tough. Don’t worry, there’s the right person for you out there some where.” – We all know there is someone out there for us. The trouble is in finding them.
• “I can’t believe you burnt my toast. That’s stupid.” – Do you really think they burnt the toast on purpose?
• “Wow. I’m so sorry to hear about the burglar breaking into your car. You really should have locked your doors.” – Thanks for the advice. Idiot!

The second common logical mistake is making factual statements. People make the factual statement mistake when they talk about an emotional issue with logic and rational. An indicator of this type of mistake is when someone says, “You don’t get it” or “You’re missing the point.”

As an example of the factual statement mistake, Jill is talking to Michael about her recent break-up. Michael is an intelligent guy. They two have been good friends for sometime, so Jill begins to “open herself up” and discuss her broken relationship. The emotions she is communicating are discomforting to Michael. As is common with smart people, Michael perceives Jill’s affliction and his own discomfort in clear terms. He doesn’t see muddled-up emotions. He sees pain; not resentment and anguish; or hatred; not partial likeness and hatred.

Michael wants to resolve the hurt Jill is experiencing. In his black and white world, Michael sees clear emotions, problems, and provides a solution. He may use his intelligence to give advice, provide reassurance, or create some other type of communication barrier. Intelligent people are used to seeing problems, knowing what is going on, and providing a solution. The logically driven communication Michael gives Jill is frustrating to her. Jill probably just wants someone to empathize with her, but Michael is blinded from his intelligence and thinking too much. He is too intent on resolving problems and providing advice.

Logical Strength and Emotional Weakness

Intelligent people seem to think that they are stronger than their emotions. They seem to think that they can suppress or ignore discomforting personal emotions. Daniel Goleman says that it is the fears, anxieties, anger, and other emotions that guide us in our everyday lives, “Even the most academically brilliant among us are vulnerable to being undone by unruly emotions.”

I don’t advocate being psychotic or annoying to people so that you can get all your bad emotions “out of your system.” For people such as Michael in our example, the problem is in the logical reasoning that the emotions can be ignored. They may see pain as a sign of weakness. As a result, the best way to deal with the emotional pain is suppression. The thought of not being able to solve a problem causes smart people to avoid the issue.

When intelligent people can’t resolve an issue, they will likely complain and blame others for the outcome. Their knowledge and past experience in solving problems causes them to look outside themselves for a reason as to why the problem still exists. Even when blaming outside influences, a smart person may conclude that because they have an unsolved problem, it can’t be solved or it isn’t worth the effort to solve.

Pat Wagner from Pattern Research, a Colorado company that provides organisations with a very diverse range of communication development programs, says smart people have a tendency to convert their self-diagnosed failings into virtues. They use their intellect to convert their emotional weaknesses into strengths. Pat terms them as smart flaws.

One particular smart flaw used by Pat that stood out for me, because I’ve been caught out using the exact same rationalizing to excuse myself, was not engaging in small talk because I reasoned it was a time waster. Now that I’m more aware of the most common smart flaws I use, I try to stop myself in my tracks and identify the real reason as to why I’m rationalizing my behavior. Whenever I don’t talk to someone because “it is a waste of time,” it could be because I’m not dealing with my emotions such as hiding: the fear of talking to strangers, feelings of unhappiness, or the anxiety that I’ll be boring.

This leads onto another emotional weakness smart people have, particularly guys when they want to approach a woman they like – fear. David DeAngelo, expert dating coach for guys, says, “A smart guy’s strength is his mind. His weakness is often his emotions. Smart guys are often immobilized by fear.”

Women wonder why a guy won’t come up and talk to her in spite of all the obvious signals she is sending in wanting him to approach her. When the guy wants to talk to a girl he likes, his analytical mind switches on. A million thoughts, scenarios, and potential problems go racing through his head. It becomes a psychological war.

The guy’s mind has served him very well in the past to get him where he is today. Ancestrally speaking, he’s been able to identify predators, threats, and dangers to protect himself and his tribe. The analytical mind has its purpose. However, the problem for intelligent people who think a lot is they think a lot! They have a tendency to map out everything before taking action. This may cause them to lose spontaneity and avoid doing things “in the moment” in fear of repercussions. Such behaviors may manifest themselves in the form of neediness, validation, and indecisiveness.

In social situations, over-analysing is a killer mistake to make. The intelligent people try to mind-read those they are talking to. They micro-manage their interactions based on their analytical feedback which drives their fear and uncertainty in conversations.

The next time you catch yourself micro-managing your conversations and worrying about what the other person is thinking, remember that the other person is likely to be more concerned with what you are thinking about them. Remind yourself that you can’t mind read and that trying to do so only creates anxiety. Live in the moment more often and you’ll notice people naturally becoming more attracted to you. You’ll know when you’re too careless about other people’s thoughts regarding you when you begin to damage relationships or hurt others.

A few last points I’d like to make on logical strength and emotional weakness deal with conversation. We hunger for emotionally connected conversations. We love drama, fun, and controversy. Facts, logic, and technical subjects are often boring and too complex. The emotional side of conversations is more engaging to people. Academically intelligent people may focus on logic too much. Women are especially interested in any type of drama. Watch their eyes light up when you talk about the latest celebrity fashion stuff-ups and other popular dramas.

Another emotional weakness, in addition to the subject of conversations, is the vocabulary used. Academics often use technical vocabulary to prove their intelligence – a killer of rapport. Simple, duh-duh, language is often more effective than technical linguistics and non-methodologically circumstantial language that no one gives a stuff about. The same goes for writing to keep people interested. I try to write in a casual way – similar to how a conversation goes; not technical stuff, things, and other types of stuff, you know? This last reason is why so many great findings in academic journals go hidden for years – because the general public can’t be bothered reading about it.

On that last point of being too technical for people, something that may interest you is how some people write emails to me. Yeah I teach communication, but that doesn’t mean being technical, using complex vocabulary, and trying to be intelligent helps in building rapport. You can tell the difference. One example of such a “technical” email is: “Dear Joshua. Allow me to extend my formal gratitude in your beautiful array of teachings…” The intent behind such emails is great. It’s just that the person you are talking or writing to when you trying to be intelligent doesn’t experience a “connection” with you. Lots of organisations are hopeless in this when handling complaints.

Let’s compare that previous example of an email with this other example: “Hey Joshua. Thanks heaps for the articles. I’ve learned that… You’ve helped me improve my relationship with my partner.” Can you sense the difference? The last example is more friendly, but not overly casual. The person in the first example who appears intelligent doesn’t “connect” because they are too technical. Even if you are intelligent and have a complex vocabulary, you need to use terminology that the other person uses if you are interested in building rapport. Don’t try and prove your intelligence. We are interested in improving your communication skills and not boosting your ego.

Equating Intelligence to Skills

Take a moment to imagine you have travelled back in time to the Stone Age with a really smart friend. You and your friend have just arrived at a dangerous landscape. You two guys are amongst a tribe who are being approached by a couple of ferocious sabre-toothed tigers. What would you choose: Do you get help from your intelligent friend? Or would you rely on tribe members, who are only half as intelligent as your friend, but you know they have been able to survive and adapt to their environment for years?

Our trip in time to the Stone Age shows us that intelligence doesn’t equate to survival and other important skills. Those in the Stone Age are no where near in equal intelligence to people today. I remember hearing a strange statistic that the decisions we make when reading a newspaper (such as skimming sections, understanding an article, and selecting what to read) in just one day, exceeds the total decisions made by those from prehistoric times in their lifetime. The information age means we are quickly becoming an intelligent society.

Intelligent people need to acknowledge that they aren’t an expert in everything. Their intelligence doesn’t equate to effective communication skills. A person from the Stone Age is sure to teach you something. Instead of always having to be right, concede that you don’t know everything about communication. Find out the initial steps you need to take to develop expertise in an area of your interest. If you’re interested in becoming charismatic, find what you need to do first and continue asking those who have the skill what to do next – even though they may have less intelligence than you.

It’s funny how smart people sometimes think someone of lesser intelligence than them is inferior. They create a smart flaw by saying something like, “His friends are just weird. I wouldn’t want to be with them.” or “She isn’t mature like me. I’m not gonna be stupid to make friends.” I frequently have caught myself out in making similar statements. Someone with an IQ of 60 can have way better communication skills than you. Accept it. You’ll be more desirable in humbling yourself.

They Don’t Seek Help

What happens to intelligent people who are struggling in their social life? They keep quite. Intelligent people are so use to solving problems, being an expert, and logically working things out themselves that they refuse to ask others for help. They would rather freeze themselves with fear and uncertainty then ask someone about social skills. There are several very interesting reasons for this.

Not in all cases, but smart people will look down on those who are less intelligent. These people who are less intelligent may possess better social skills than the intelligent people, but there is “no way” an intelligent person can ask someone less intelligent for help. It is lowering, demeaning, and a sign of weakness to them if they were to ask for help – especially from someone who is less intelligent than them.

When helping an intelligent person improve their communication, it’s good to point out that their expertise will improve when working on their communication skills. Dale Carnegie talks about appealing to those characteristics you want in others to create those characteristics. Intelligent people know they are smart. One such statement in appealing to those good characteristics for changing the intelligent person’s behavior would go along the lines of, “You and I know you’re an intelligent person and improving your communication is another way of showing people your intelligence, expertise, and good skill-set.”

Another explanation for describing why smart people don’t get help, and a reason that I used to avoid having to ask others for help in developing my people skills, is that social skills are assumed to be natural. People skills can be a laughable skill to develop. If you need to develop your people skills, then you may get considered as a “loser.” Intelligent people can’t risk getting humiliated when asking for help, because it’s a sign that they “suck.” They need to maintain their feelings of importance and not feel inferior that is brought by seeking help.

It’s easy to talk about the importance of seeking help, but being able to do it is different. No one person on their own can gather the necessary life skills to overcome personal problems and succeed. We all have different natural abilities and experiences, and hence we require varying degrees of help. There is no shame in seeking help; only shame in not seeking help.

Someone who is of less intelligence than you doesn’t mean you can’t learn something from them. The areas of life that I consider myself very knowledgeable and an expert in, I find it very difficult to consider that someone with less intelligence, or even less skill than me in that area, can teach me something. I need to constantly remind myself that there is no shame in asking others for help and that I can learn something from everybody.

Once I remove my ego and pride, I actually find myself happier and more knowledgeable than I was before. People will be attracted to you when you’re not obsessed with always being right. Besides, asking them for their advice is sure to make them feel important and increase your personal magnetism. You don’t need to play dumb, but not showing off your intelligence to show superiority will win you friends because we hate feeling inferior to people.

“It is a real recommendation to be stupid,” says Arthur Schopenhauer. “For just as warmth is agreeable to the body, so it does the mind good to feel its superiority; and a man will seek company likely to give him this feeling, as instinctively as he will approach the fireplace or walk in the sun if he wants to get warm. But this means that he will be disliked on account of his superiority; and if a man is to be liked, he must really be inferior in point of intellect.”

There a millions of lessons waiting out there for you to take. You just need to drop your ego in order to see them. Don’t let your ego blind you from the many lessons humanity has out there for you. Doing so will prove your expertise more so than stubbornness.

I hope the article has provided you with some deep insight – whether you are an intelligent person or know of someone who is intelligent that lacks good communication skills. While intelligence is certainly very beneficial for succeeding in today’s society, effective communication skills will have you better relating to your fellow human beings. Intelligence is something you can do without, but you can’t avoid people.

You’re about to unlock what I believe is the greatest human need in communication. I’m going to show you how to connect with your fellow human being in the most intimate way possible – a way that many people have never experienced their entire life. This is something I know the world so desperately needs. It is something that you so desperately need. I would not pour excessive amounts of time and effort into this article if I failed to believe this article would change how you think about communication forever.

See if you can figure out the common thread between the following short scenarios: Your partner leaves the room in anger after another argument; A friend lashes out on you despite you having done nothing wrong; Your children’s constant disobedience makes you extremely frustrated causing you to yell and do other things you later regret; Your supervisor or boss orders you to complete a task leaving you to feel controlled like a puppet on a stick.

These are just a list of common scenarios where we know there is a better way to handle the situation, but we just can’t figure it out. A lot of the times, our emotions get the better of us causing us to handle the situation poorly, yet often in these times of conflict there is something we can’t quite put our finger on. We know something is wrong and that we can fix it, but something we don’t know that is going on is just out of our reach.

Why does your partner become angry at you when you remain calm and willing to communicate? Why would a friend lash out on you despite you having done nothing wrong? Why does your children’s disobedience seem as though they are doing it constantly on purpose? Why does communication at work seem to only be on the surface as it ignores the more important issues skin-deep? There are thousands of similar situations to the ones listed above that all have a common thread.

Let’s face it, everything we say to another person attempts to get a response from them. Whether we are trying to get a person to agree, comply with our request, conduct a certain behavior, feel a certain emotion, or simply listen in silence – there is a response each of us seek because we want to be acknowledged that we were received (that’s a hint with regard to the commonality amongst the above situations). Your partner would not become angry at you and your children would work with you – instead of against you – if you followed this rule.

It is said that all communication is hypnosis because all communication is about inducing states within people. Some people are more effective in inducing states of emotion and thought within others because they have more effective communication skills. A salesman who can induce the desired buying state of emotion and thought in a buyer will likely make the sale instead of a salesman who desperately tries to persuade and sell. We are all constantly trying to make others feel, think, or behave a certain way with our communication.

The process I’m about to discuss in this article is one created by the Center for Nonviolent Communication. The organization is a nonprofit organization founded by Marshall Rosenberg who has written Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life. Rosenberg and a couple hundred other people who are well trained in the process, conduct workshops throughout the world teaching people their techniques known as Nonviolent Communication (NVC). The NVC process has changed the lives of millions of people who have learned the techniques directly and those who have been fortunate enough to have those trained in the NVC process use the techniques on them.

By learning the NVC process, which I’m going to teach you below, you will be extremely effective in inducing a state of connection with the person you are talking to. I’m talking about a level of connection that most people will never experience their entire life.

If you are after a process that changes a person’s behavior, then NVC is not the best one to use in your situation. NVC is about building an intimate relationship and connecting with people at a deep level by using effective communication to met the needs of both people involved. I’m not saying it can’t be used to change a person’s behavior – it definitely can – but the underlying purpose of the process is to breakdown conflict to let people connect at a very intimate level. Once you have sufficiently gone through certain steps in the process, then you can begin using your negotiation skills to persuade the person. If you try to persuade the person upfront without having used the NVC process, you will often find the person resisting you – emotionally blocking you out – and ignoring what you have to say. This is especially true for you if you feel others don’t understand you.

When a person disagrees with you, refuses to comply with a request, or is angry at you, a poor communicator will firstly try to express oneself. The person seeks to be understood before seeking to understand. An effective communicator and one who uses the NVC process, will seek to understand the person, which in turn leads to their own need of being understood. The secret to being understood is to understand.

Remember that little teaser above where I said I’d tell you the commonality amongst the situations mentioned earlier? What I said about the need to be understood is that shared relationship. Your angry partner wants to be understood. Your friend wants to be understood and will have almost zero frustration once you understand. Your children want to be understood which will lead them to talking to you about intimate issues. Even your boss and supervisor want to be understood. The power of Nonviolent Communication lies in understanding others and having them understand you.

Answer this question truthfully. How many people in your life truly understand you on a frequent basis? Think about the question for some time because it’s important to have an understanding of understanding.

If you’re like most people, you won’t have one person in your life that frequently and truly understands you when the two of you communicate together. If you are fortunate enough to have someone who understands you when the two of you are talking together, show your gratitude to the person by telling them right now how thankful you are. Phone the person if need be. Having an understanding person in your life does amazing things for your mental health which is why we need to be understanding and be understood.

I asked this question because I want to demonstrate the scarce number of people in this world who seek to intimately understand the people they talk to. Very few people actually care about understanding others and as a result, they fail to be understood. I believe this is why most individuals who complain about “no one understands me” are constantly misunderstood. They live on a one-way street seeking to receive before they give. Violence is so widespread because on one hand there is one person desperately wanting to be understood, and on the other hand is another person they are in conflict with wanting to be understood.

The failure to see each other’s needs means neither has his needs met causing an outbreak of emotional or possibly physical destruction. Ignorance to understanding another person without imposing judgments or solutions is what I believe to be a secret of world peace. “Peace cannot be achieved through violence,” said Ralph Waldo Emerson, “it can only be attained through understanding.”

The anger and frustration present in everyday situations appears to be irrelevant to deeper issues, yet it is our little bursts of anger that contribute to a global scale of war and hatred. Our everyday outbursts of anger, frustration, and misunderstandings has as much – but probably greater – impact on peace and love than kind actions.

I’ve written about the reciprocation rule and how you can get a lot of the things you wish – often in greater quantities – by firstly doing that which you wish to be done to you. That sounds a bit wishy-washy, but it is a universal law that holds true in many of life’s situations. Once you learn to understand others, they will be far more willing to understand you.

The need to be understood is quite possibly the greatest unmet need amongst humankind. If you can fulfill someone’s need to be understood, you will trigger amazing things that you have probably never experienced before when communicating with someone. Thanks to Dan Kennedy, a great marketer that I intently learn from, I came across a quote by Cavett Robert, the founder of the National Speakers Association, who said, “Most people are walking around, umbilical cord in hand, looking for a new place to plug it in.” If you can be that “socket” by understanding the person and empathically receiving the person’s needs, you will build an electrifying connection with the person. You will see something about the person change before your very eyes. They will know something deep is going on without having understood the process themselves.

The Nonviolent Communication process is a very simple technique once you understand it; though it is not exactly simple to use because emotional pollution clogs your thinking. With practice, you will become better at implementing the process and be more successful in your communication and relationships. Over time, provided you continually practice the techniques and polish your skills, you will become excellent at using the process because you have got to be willing to learn, change, and grow. Nobel Prize winner George Bernard Shaw said, “Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”

The process has four steps: observing, feeling, needing, and requesting. There are really eight steps because you firstly apply the four steps to the other person, then you apply them to yourself. Remember what I said before about seeking to understand before being understood? Applying the stages firstly on the other person is a way of initiating understanding so that you can be understood.

You firstly empathically go through the four steps with the other person, then you apply the four steps to yourself. This is a very important concept to grasp. You go through the four steps first on the other person otherwise he or she will not listen to what you sre saying. Use the visualization of picking up a vacuum and firstly having to empathically “suck up” the person’s communication. You then turn on the reverse switch and “spit it out” in an empathic manner. Having successfully done this process, you are then ready to use NVC on yourself.

Most people, including myself, identify a few problems in firstly focusing on the other person. If you haven’t identified one or a few of these now, you’ll likely come across them as you continue to read about the process below. The biggest concern when using NVC is that you are forgoing your own needs and concerns. People think they have to suppress their own needs and emotions such as anger. The process actually encourages you to express intense emotions – especially anger – but not in the way we are conditioned to believe that is good for us. By following the NVC process to express yourself, you prevent destructive expressions of anger and frustration to help heal your emotional self.

Observing

The first step of the process involves observing the other person. You are to observe what they are specifically doing, not being. By far, the greatest mistake in this stage is observing the person with an evaluation. People evaluate by using judgments in their observations which pollutes their understanding of what they see and hear with the person they are listening to.

Think of a birdwatcher who is carefully and calmly admiring nearby birds. The birdwatcher doesn’t disturb the birds. Rather, he carefully watches to see what the birds are doing while listening to the sounds they make. He may even respond to a bird’s sound in the same manner by whistling. At the observation stage, if people were birdwatchers and they were observing a bird (the other person), they would fire gunshots, scream, and throw rocks at the bird. Shooting a gun, screaming, and throwing rocks at a bird is equal to evaluating the person you are “listening” to instead of just observing.

I can almost guarantee you that when you’re listening to your partner, a customer, or coworker, that your “effective communication” and “excellent listening skills” involve shooting a gun at the person by evaluating them through judgments. I estimate that 99% of people using the process fail at this stage, but I occasionally fail at this stage so don’t get discouraged. It is a tough concept to grasp for many people.

Evaluations can take many forms. An evaluation basically means you are not receiving someone’s communication for what it truly is. You mostly “shoot a gun,” “scream,” and “throw rocks” when observing by judging, criticizing, blaming, or using general words.

Those who have my communication secrets of making people like you program will deeply understand the common ways we intoxicate our ability to listen to others. I believe your ability to actively listen without polluting the person’s message with your thoughts and feelings is one of the greatest communication skills you can obtain. This is why I’ve written separate chapters in the book on criticism, diagnosing, labeling, reassuring, and moralizing. They are the greatest destroyers of relationships. Understanding them allows you to communicate in a “magnetic manner” that builds a connection in your relationship.

I’ll give you some common examples of how people stuff up the listening process by using the 12 communication barriers I give in my program. The first part of the dialog is person one, while the second part is person two who uses the communication barriers:

There is a lot more to these 12 secrets so I encourage you to read more about them here. These are all times that we should be observing the speaker instead of providing evaluations. To demonstrate this concept more, because it is vital to understand, here are some more examples of evaluations and the reason why they are evaluations:

• “You’re very kind by helping out.” – The word “kind” is a moralistic word as it is judgmental and distinguishes the behavior as good or bad. The person gets evaluated as good instead of the person’s behavior.
• “I reckon Mary is ugly.” – The adjective “ugly” evaluates Mary’s looks. It is dependent on each person. Other people will like Mary’s appearance.
• “All guys are clueless about managing a relationship.” – Too generalized and not specific enough.
• “She avoids me.” – The person needs to provide evidence as to why the woman avoids him/her. Also, the word “avoid” needs to not be used as it assumes the woman’s behavior is avoiding when in fact there are many other possibilities.
• “Britney, you don’t like my helping you.” – How does the person know Britney doesn’t like the person’s help? The person tries to mind-read instead of stating some visible emotional or physiological aspect that gives the signal of her dislike.

A wife who wants more intimacy with her husband may use the following statement to evaluate her husband, “Whenever I try and communicate or be intimate with you, you always avoid me.” Using such a statement will stimulate a typical response to an evaluating observation: the person will feel cornered and become extremely defensive. Arguments will break out and nothing good will come out of the conversation.

Poor observations cause conflict. In Frogs Into Princes by Richard Bandler and John Grinder, the authors discuss common words that damage communication. Each of us have our own representational system where we access information based on how it feels, sees, or smells. (If you don’t understand that, then I recommend you go visit my review of Frogs Into Princes and go grab yourself a copy of the book.) You build rapport and connection by talking directly to the person’s representational system. If the person uses seeing words in their language, then you can use seeing words to build rapport. A problem arises when words such as think, believe, or sense are used as they are too general and confusing. They don’t match any representational system, but more detrimental is the fact that they can be misinterpreted.

When you use generalized words or what is known as “Universal Quantifiers” such as always, never, ever, at all, and anytime, you are polluting your observation with an evaluation. You evaluate that the situation occurs “always” or “never” instead of truly observing when it happens. These examples are often exaggerations and not the truth – hence an evaluation. Using those words will likely evoke defensive behaviors and intensify arguments.

It’s vital to be specific in your wording. You can be specific by recalling a past situation and directly referring to it. The wife who is seeking intimacy with her husband is better off saying, “Last night when I tried to talk with you while we were sitting down and watching T.V., I felt unhappy because I needed to share my experiences with you.” That statement incorporates the next two step we will soon discuss. You may already be feeling the power of NVC.

An alternative application of universal quantifiers is clarifying someone else’s communication. Sally says, “My husband never appreciates me”, to which an effective communicator would reply, “Are you sure he never has?” Because we often use universal quantifiers as unconscious exaggerations to make a point more profound, clarifying the exaggeration and helping the person to become more aware and specific allows a solution to be more easily achieved.

An effective observing statement typically starts off with, “When you hear…” or “When you see…” The goal of this stage is to reflect back to the person what you are observing. As stated, it must be free of evaluations.

Don’t be focused on the intellectual level when reflecting back what you are observing. It will greatly hurt the person’s feeling of connection with you. (There’s a whole chapter in my communication secrets program on the balance of logic and emotion in your communication.) It’s vitally important to be focused on emotion and not logic. In other words, reflect back the person’s feelings and not what the person is thinking. Reflecting back what the person is thinking involves judgment and evaluation on your part because you don’t know what they are thinking.

Some good examples of observing are:

• “When you hear me tell you to do work around the house…”
• “I see that you’re unhappy with the changes in the office?”
• “It sounds to me as though you’re worried about losing a friend.”
• “I see that you’re excited about winning tonight!”

These statements are all free from polluting judgments and other evaluations – allowing you to build understanding and empathy. A lot of times your observation may be incorrect, but this doesn’t matter when you observe without evaluating because the person will correct you.

When using the observation step on yourself (think of it as the fifth step), it is again vitally important to remove evaluations. This will help you gain clarity as to what you really need which will help you fulfill that need. You are verbalizing these observations to the person you are communicating with once you have used the four stages on the other person.

Observing statements of yourself that you communicate to the other person typically start off with, “When I hear…” or “When I see…” Examples include:

• “When I hear you speak loudly…”
• “When I see you walk away from me…”
• “When I come home from work…”
• “When I don’t hear your appreciation of my cooking…”

It’s just as important to not include evaluations from the observations of yourself. Your goal is to communicate yourself clearly such that the other person understands what you’re feeling. Evaluative statements of the above examples with regards to observing yourself would include:

• “When I hear you become angry…”
• “When I see you avoid me…”
• “When I come home from work and see you annoy me…”
• “When you don’t like my cooking…”

Bad, bad, bad. These are all evaluative statements. Here you are judging the person to be angry or avoiding you. You criticize the person that they annoy you or dislike your cooking. Again, I highly recommend you read about my program by clicking here and grab your copy to learn more about ways you “poison” communication.

Feeling

Having observed the person, you’re next step is to identify the feelings he or she is experiencing. Like the first step, there are a few common mistakes made at this stage that destroy effective communication.

But before I list the common mistakes and how to express the person’s feelings as well as your own feelings, I’ll give you a few successful feeling statements to give you an idea of what this step involves. Continuing on from the provided examples in the observing stage for the other person:

• “When you hear me tell you to do work around the house, you feel overwhelmed…”
• “I see that you’re unhappy with the changes in the office? This makes you feel restless…”
• “It sounds to me as though you’re worried about losing a friend. This makes you feel brokenhearted…”
• “I see that you’re excited about winning tonight! You feel energetic…”

Also, continuing on from the provided examples in the observing stage for yourself:

• “When I hear you speak loudly, I feel scared…”
• “When I see you walk away from me, I feel detached…”
• “When I come home from work, I feel exhausted…”
• “When I don’t hear your appreciation of my cooking, I feel depressed…”

Upon seeing those statements, which involve the observing and feeling steps, you’re probably thinking that the feeling stage is very simple. You might be saying, “Cool. All I gotta say is what the other person feels and what I feel.” If it only were that simple.

One of the greatest mistakes made at this stage is choosing the wrong feeling. I consider myself an emotionally aware guy with regards to my own emotions and others’ emotions, yet I still incorrectly state my own and other people’s feelings. However, incorrectly expressing someone’s feelings isn’t as much a concern as incorrectly expressing your own feelings. It is more important to accurately express your own emotions than it is to accurately express the other person’s emotions. When expressing other’s feelings, it doesn’t really matter if you incorrectly express their feelings because the person will likely correct you. But unless the person has good communication skills and a good ability to interpret emotions, you’re the only person who will accurately express your feelings so it’s important to choose an accurate feeling.

Having a good emotional vocabulary is an essential part of the Nonviolent Communication process. In the example, “When I see you walk away from me, I feel detached…”, if the person instead said, “When I see you walk away from me, I feel angry…” a huge misunderstanding will occur – assuming that the person actually feels detached instead of angry. It is easy to confuse feeling detached with anger. The person may be angry, but what’s more important is their feeling of anger coming from the disconnection occurs from the detachment. Saying that oneself is angry is too vague in this example because it can be misinterpreted in various ways. The Nonviolent Communication book has a useful large list of feelings when our needs are being met and when our needs aren’t being met. I encourage you to read up on the list a few times to expand your emotional vocabulary. Alternatively, you can view a list of feelings online.

After not having a large emotional vocabulary, another big mistake is the wrong level of responsibility for your own and others’ emotions. You need to take complete responsibility for your own emotions while not taking responsibility for other people’s emotions. Let me explain.

Firstly, when you fail to take responsibility for how you feel, you will blame, condemn, and criticize others for how you feel. You feel a victim of this world. You believe other people become the reason for your pain. I believe we all have to continually remind ourselves to take responsibility for how we feel because we often see ourselves as a victim of another’s actions.

In addition to taking responsibility for your own feelings, it’s important to not be responsible for other people’s feelings. When relationships advance in importance, it’s common to begin feeling responsible for the person’s emotions. If your partner is grumpy, then you may feel responsible to make him or her happy. If your partner is sad, then you may feel responsible to lift them out of their depressing mood. Statements such as, “What did I do to make you feel…” and “Have I caused you to feel…” are signs of feeling responsible for other person’s feelings. This feeling of responsibility is dangerous to a happy and successful relationship because the person you feel responsible for becomes a liability.

I’m not saying you must ignore the person’s emotions. Definitely not. Rather, you need to empathize with the person instead of making yourself responsible. Observing without evaluation and expressing the person’s feelings is powerful empathy at work. Take note of that. Express the person’s feelings; don’t express the person’s thoughts or words. This process is far more helpful for you, your partner, and the relationship than the many ways feeling responsible manifest.

Your partner storms into the room you are in and starts shouting at you. You will communicate poorly when engaging in an emotionally intense dicussion with logical statements or making yourself responsible for how the person is feeling. In this example, logical statements could include, “I didn’t do that,” “That isn’t what happened,” and “You’re missing the point.”

Instead of talking about the content of what your partner is saying and getting caught up in a logical battle that can’t be won, you need to focus on the feelings by empathizing. An effective statement would be, “You feel angry because you need…” With intense emotions, one or two empathizing statements are likely to not be enough. Just keep going through the process and you’ll see amazing communication changes taking place. To continue the blatant self-promotion, because I really believe you will benefit, I highly recommend you get my communication secrets program by clicking here and reading the chapter on logic and emotion.

Needing

A lot of what I discussed in the feeling stage with regards to responsibility is just as important in the needing stage. It’s common to blame and criticize others when stating your needs. You don’t actually state your need, but rather complain about the person not doing something you want. You also must not feel responsible for the person’s needs. Remember to empathize instead of feeling responsible. Once you do this, then you can take the necessary steps to fulfill the person’s needs. I understand this is what people are trying to achieve when feeling responsible for other people’s feelings and needs, but the outcome in doing so isn’t desirable and is often damaging to the relationship.

In the needing stage, your first goal is to express the other person’s needs so you and they know what it is that they require. Your second goal is to express your needs to let the other person know what it is that you require. In the Nonviolent Communication process, this is the third and seventh stage respectively. The definition of a “need” says it is a requirement. For our use, it also incorporates something you or the other person wants like personal space, quietness, or attention.

By focusing on the needs of those concerned and your own needs, you communicate at a whole new layer of communication. When we want something, we complain about what we don’t want. There’s a very powerful distinction here. A manager needs the daily quota completed, but instead he blames employees and criticizes them with statements like, “You’re not working fast enough. I can’t afford for you to be working at this pace.” In addition to the criticizing and vague statements, the manager hasn’t stated what he wants. He has just said that he “…can’t afford for you to be working at this pace.” The manager may have the goal of achieving the daily quota and a good intention to not hurt employees, but this isn’t the message that is being received. The employees will feel attacked in addition to not knowing what exactly their manager wants. I highly doubt this manager will have a happy and productive workforce.

A husband comes home from work and needs some personal space, while his wife needs some intimacy and communication. Instead of the husband saying he needs personal space, he’ll say what he doesn’t want like, “I don’t want you to bug me” or “not now”. Instead of the wife saying she needs intimacy, she’ll criticize her husband or state what she doesn’t want such as, “You never want to talk to me” or “I don’t like when you avoid me”. Not only is this couple failing to express their needs correctly, but they are also completely failing to perceive their partner’s needs. You’ll also notice that those statements include evaluations instead of pure observations.

Continuing on from the provided examples in the observing and feeling stages for the other person:

• “When you hear me tell you to do work around the house, you feel overwhelmed because you need rest…”
• “I see that you’re unhappy with the changes in the office? This makes you feel restless because you need consideration…”
• “It sounds to me as though you’re worried about losing a friend. This makes you feel brokenhearted. You need someone very close to you…”
• “I see that you’re excited about winning tonight! You feel energetic because you have a need to win this important game.”

A common problem nearly every person makes when talking to someone who is angry is they feel attacked and also become angry. There is an amazing thought that has worked for me so well to overcome this problem. It is something I use just about everyday to separate myself from other people’s below average behavior and communication. It is a way of not dragging myself down in someone else’s anger, poor communication, or rudeness.

When I feel an urge of anger towards someone, I simply think, “They aren’t making me angry. It’s my response. The way I’m reacting is making me angry.” I aim to reframe my thoughts using various reframing techniques from NLP. Possible reframes you could use include, “They aren’t making me angry. It’s my response.” “I know the person cares about me because of what the person did last night for me.” and “He’s probably angry because he has had a tiring day.” No one can control how you feel without your permission. As Marshall Rosenberg said, “I never have to worry about another person’s response, only how I react to what they say.”

Think about this concept of anger very deeply. Someone doesn’t make you angry. This is usually a life-changing “Ah-ha!” moment for many people. The messages you run through your mind after observing a person’s anger is what makes you angry. You “reason with yourself” what their shouting, swearing, and anger means. You’ll probably think that such messages mean they don’t respect you, care for you, or want to hear your opinion. It is this rationalizing process that makes you angry. The person doesn’t make you angry; it is how you react that makes you angry. If you’re reacting instead of responding, chances are that you’re angry. The reframing examples I gave you above are ways of controlling your interpretation of the person’s behavior so that you can think more calmly to maintain your poise.

When someone is expressing anger, they have a need. As hard as it is to think that way in an emotionally intense situation, their anger is a poor attempt to fulfill an unmet need. The person has a need somewhere and they are trying to make you aware of it – often in an unconscious manner. Knowing that a person’s anger is originating from an unmet need prevents you from taking it personally.

Okay, so far in this stage you’ve learned about other’s needs and a little about your own, so let’s discuss expressing your own needs more in depth. Continuing on from the provided examples in the observing and feeling stages for yourself:

• “When I hear you speak loudly, I feel scared because I need emotional safety…”
• “When I see you walk away from me, I feel detached. I need physical closeness…”
• “When I come home from work, I feel exhausted. I need to relax…”
• “When I don’t hear your appreciation of my cooking, I feel depressed because I need to be appreciated…”

Many of us think we know our needs, but it’s not funny how far out of tune we are with our own personal needs. If you can’t correctly express your need, let a lone have awareness of your need, then good communication is very unlikely.

When you come to the needing stage, you’ll probably catch yourself out a few times in saying an incorrect want or saying what you don’t want. You want to be accepted yet say “I need to not be ignored”. You want to be touched yet say “I need you to not be so distanced”. You want to be understood yet say “I need to feel connected”. When you aren’t in tune with your own needs or when you express what you don’t want, you can’t expect someone to magically fulfill your needs. As with feelings, you don’t have to be sure of what the other person needs. Empathically receiving and giving allows you to help build clarification so that you can later correctly express their needs.

By accurately “tuning in” to your own needs, it becomes so much easier to “tune in” to another’s needs. I think this is because we begin to think at a level of needs. We become aware of the needs instead of missing them purely because of our focus of consciousness. We see a deeper reason behind each word and body gesture. As I said earlier, all communication is trying to induce certain states of feelings and thoughts in others. Thinking at a level of needs makes you see the deeper reasoning behind a person’s actions.

Requesting

The final stage of the Nonviolent Communication process is the simplest so there isn’t much need to discuss this stage in depth. It is also the most powerful in changing a person’s behavior. The most important thing to keep in mind when making a request is it needs to be specific and not general. A request cannot be accurately fulfilled if it is vague.

Continuing on from the provided examples in the observing and feeling stages for the other person:

• “When you hear me tell you to do work around the house, you feel overwhelmed because you need rest. Would you be willing to workout a weekly plan regarding the household chores?”
• “I see that you’re unhappy with the changes in the office? This makes you feel restless because you need consideration. Would you be willing to accept the changes this time and in the future we’ll ask you for your thoughts regarding the issue?”
• “It sounds to me as though you’re worried about losing a friend. This makes you feel brokenhearted. You need someone very close to you. Would you be willing to solve the issue with your friend?”
• “I see that you’re excited about winning tonight! You feel energetic because you have a need to win this important game.” (Doesn’t really have a requesting stage because it’s an unusual application of the NVC process. You could say, “Would you be willing for me to come watch?”)

The request you make is dependent on what you are trying to achieve. In the third example regarding the friend, you may be annoyed about the person complaining about their friend and not doing something about it. Your request would therefore be something along the lines of, “Would you be willing to discuss the issue more in depth with your friend?” However, losing a friend will probably not even require a requesting statement. All you are likely to be doing is listening to the person, empathizing, and comforting them (not reassuring), instead of bringing about changes to the person’s friendship-life.

The requesting stage is usually only made once or twice during the whole process, while the first, second, and third stages can occur many times. The provided examples shouldn’t be fully used in one statement. By reading those examples above, you can probably see that it lacks empathy. That’s why you don’t just say the observation, need, feeling, and request one after the other.

You can observe, feel, observe, feel, need, feel, need, and then request. It all depends on what is appropriate for the situation. Remember the analogy I mentioned earlier about the vacuum. “Suck up” the person’s communication first before moving on. You will probably “miss a few spots” and constantly have to go back through several stages. Marshall Rosenberg says you will know when you’ve adequately empathized when the tension reduces or the person doesn’t have anything else to say.

Having successfully used the NVC process, you are then ready to use NVC on yourself. You can run through the NVC on yourself in your mind to control your emotions, but also be aware that in doing so, you will not be conscious enough of the other person to adequately empathize.

Continuing on from the provided examples in the observing and feeling stages for yourself:

• “When I hear you speak loudly, I feel scared because I need emotional safety. Would you be able to not yell the next time we argue?”
• “When I see you walk away from me, I feel detached. I need physical closeness. Would you like to cuddle when we’re alone and together?”
• “When I come home from work, I feel exhausted. I need to relax. Would you allow me to sit down for 15 or so minutes after work?”
• “When I don’t hear your appreciation of my cooking, I feel depressed because I need to be appreciated. Would you say ‘thank you’ or give another form of appreciation around once a week?”

“Would you like…” is the typical requesting statement made when making a request because it doesn’t order, threaten, or blatantly advise the other person.

When someone tries to connect with you by reflecting back what you are saying, the worst thing you can do is become angry and condemn them for not understanding you. Thank them for making an effort and then clarify yourself. I know someone who gets frustrated when you don’t hear or understand what he says. The people talking with him are afraid to seek clarification. What then happens is people pretend to hear him as a means of avoiding his anger.

Let’s say you tell somebody you’re angry about work and they reflect back that you’re depressed. What you do is thank them for trying to reflect back your feelings and follow that by clarifying yourself; not by saying “You don’t listen” or “You never understand me”.

Another brief note worth mentioning is repeating what I said earlier regarding what you want in the needing stage. When making a request, don’t say what you don’t want. Say what you do want. Be clear, be specific, and make it actionable. An example is not saying you’d like the person to work harder. Say something along the lines of, “Would you be willing to complete the daily report by 5pm each day?”

A Complete Application of the NVC Process

You’ve now learned a lot about empathizing, listening, and the entire Nonviolent Communication process. It’s time to give you an example of the entire process at work in a real-life example. The main points I want to demonstrate is how the process is applied and that the application of the process isn’t as logical as sequentially going through the stages.

The non-italicized text in brackets is my discussion of what is going on so that you can deeply understand the communication taking place and the reasoning behind the person who is attempting to communicate effectively. All the italicized text is provided to create and describe the scenario. You’ll see in the following example that you don’t have to use the techniques perfectly for them to work.

Ryan and Jessica are married. Recently, Ryan has been watching a lot of television, playing computer games, going out with friends, and working. He hasn’t been giving Jessica much intimacy as she would like despite her efforts of pointing out the problem and providing a solution. Ryan arrives home late one night after going out with friends and did not tell Jessica that he went out. He enters their house and the couple makes eye contact. Jessica has recently learned the Nonviolent Communication process so she is keen to use it and is likely to make some mistakes.

Jessica: (Jessica has been anxious about Ryan for hours and greets him inside their house with a very unhappy face.) Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick about you.

Ryan: (Ryan has a smile on his face after arriving home from a good night out.) Chill out. I’ve been out having a good time with my mates.

Jessica: (Jessica’s emotions get intense causing her to become angry and forget the effective communication skills she has been learning.) You want me to chill out while you’re out partying? Are you kidding me? You didn’t even tell me you were going out. You’ve been out having fun all the while I’ve been stuck here at home! (Here Jessica has been caught up in a logical battle with Ryan. She is talking about facts and trying to logically argue with him. The issue here is an emotional one which means her focus needs to be on emotions.)

Ryan: That’s why I don’t tell you because all you’re gonna do is annoy me. You’re a nagger. It’s not like I have to tell you everything. (Ryan has become angry and joins Jessica in the conflict by using the communication mistakes of diagnosing, criticizing, and labeling.)

Jessica: Ha! You’re like a little child. You don’t take responsibility for anything. I do all the work in this relationship. (Jessica has criticized, labeled, and used universal quantifiers – all things that will make Ryan defensive. She has taken Ryan’s criticism as a personal attack and becomes angrier because she has failed to recognize that Ryan was purely trying to met one of his needs.)

Ryan: Oh! And you’re little miss perfect? You’re just a big pain in the a**!

Jessica: (Jessica realizes that she has forgotten the Nonviolent Communication process and tries to begin using the communication techniques. She takes a moment of silence and breathes deeply to clear her head.) You feel annoyed and this makes you angry. (Jessica has turned her focus towards Ryan and first seeks to empathically receive what he has to say. The NVC process successfully begins!)

Ryan: You do more than annoy me! All you do is tell me what to do! You’re a stupid control freak and a b****!

Jessica: When you hear me tell you what to do, you feel controlled. (Jessica has reflected back another one of his statements by using the observation and feeling stage. She begins to see that he has an unmet need of freedom which prevents her from feeling attacked.)

Ryan: Yes! I hate it when you constantly nag me! I just want to have fun without you being a damn pest!

Jessica: So I can understand what is annoying to you, is what I said tonight an example of the nagging? (Jessica is unsure of what he means by “nag” and so she asked a good question to clarify what he means. She needs to be careful about taking responsibility for the way Ryan feels.)

Ryan: That’s just one small example of you being a damn pain.

Jessica: When you hear me ask you what you did, you feel irritated because you need freedom. (Jessica has observed, felt, and identified a need.)

Ryan: (Ryan begins to calm down though he is still agitated.) No! I… I just don’t like having to run everything through you like your some boss. (Jessica wrongly identified one of Ryan’s needs, though it didn’t matter because he then provided clarification.)

Jessica: When you hear me ask you what you did, you feel irritated because you need independence. (Jessica has rephrased her previous statement with a different need. She is attempting to identify what unmet need Ryan has because this will result in a solution.)

Ryan: I do need independence and you’re not giving it to me. You control me. You’re not fun at all. You’re just a pain.

Jessica: You feel detached from me when you hear me telling you what to do. (Jessica jumps back to the beginning of the NVC process by shifting her focus onto another feeling. Notice how she is empathizing with him instead of feeling attacked?)

Ryan: (The tension is reducing.) I guess that’s right. You’re no fun anymore. All you do now is annoy.

*Silence*

Jessica: When you hear me tell you what to do, you feel annoyed because you need more joy with me.

Ryan: That’s right.

Jessica: Would you be willing to help me become more fun? (Jessica sensed the tension in the air dissipate and felt Ryan has said what he wants. Therefore, she made a requesting statement.)

Ryan: I’d love to.

Jessica has used all four stages of the NVC process on Ryan and knows she is now able to use the process to express her feelings and needs, as well as making a request for Ryan to change his behavior.

Jessica: When you constantly go out without me, I feel detached. (Jessica has made a poor observation as she has made an evaluation with the word “constantly”.)

Ryan: I don’t constantly go out!

Jessica: You feel frustrated because you don’t go out much. (Jessica realizes Ryan may have another need and so she switches her focus back on him.)

Ryan: Yeah.

Jessica: (Jessica senses the number of times he goes out isn’t an issue and so she switches her focus back on herself.) When you do not go out with me like tonight, I feel alienated from you. I need to be close to you a few nights per week. (Jessica has made an accurate observation without evaluation and has given Ryan a specific example of the behavior she dislikes. She has also been able to identify her need of intimacy with Ryan.)

Ryan: I see. You need to be with me whenever I go out?

Jessica: Thanks for telling me your understanding of what I need. To clarify what I meant, I don’t mind if you go out by yourself, but for example, like tonight I wanted to go out with you because I need physical closeness. (Jessica thanks Ryan for trying to understand her even though he misunderstood. Most people would have felt frustrated, and started an argument, from Ryan’s excessive statement.)

Ryan: Okay.

Jessica: Would you be willing to tell me what you’re doing so that we can go out more often? (After having completed all seven stages, Jessica finally makes her request to change Ryan’s behavior. This is usually the first thing people do; not the last.)

Ryan: Sure. Provided that you become more fun like we said earlier.

Jessica: (Jessica hugs and kisses Ryan in huge relief as she has solved a problem that has annoyed her for months.) Agreed.

There are many possibilities that could have taken place in the above scenario and changed the communication, but I think this scenario beautifully demonstrates how the Nonviolent Communication is applied to real-life.

Some people, who for the first time use this powerful process that I have described, may find their partner or themselves breaking down in tears. That’s perfectly okay as it’s pure relief and likely to be a release of mental and emotional tension that has built up after years of being entirely misunderstood and ignored. When someone observes without evaluation, accurately sees your feelings, and is able to identify an unmet need you have, it builds a connection of understanding that most people will never experience in their entire lifetime.

Overall, the Nonviolent Communication process isn’t about getting people to do what you want. It isn’t a persuasive process. It is a method used to build compassion and connection in a relationship. In a world where we desperately need to be understood by others, there is a gap that Nonviolent Communication fills as it connects two people who would otherwise remain distanced, frustrated, and in ongoing conflict. Begin using this process today and I know you will begin to have more intimate relationships in your personal and professional world. Doing so will bring us closer to world peace. “We can never obtain peace in the outer world,” said the Dalai Lama, “until we make peace with ourselves.”

I highly recommend you go read my review of Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg and visit the provided link where you can order a copy of the book today. Secondly, if this article interested you, you can receive Nonviolent Communication skills training online. Lastly, you can get my communication secrets program here to discover more skills that work extremely well with the Nonviolent Communication process.

“Language is surely too small a vessel to contain these emotions of mind and body that have somehow awakened a response in the spirit.” – Radclyffe Hall

“All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

“You don’t have to hold a position in order to be a leader.” – Anthony D’Angelo

The doorbell rings at home and you are greeted by two men in police officer uniforms. They ask you if they can come into your house to discuss the recent kidnapping that took place in the neighborhood. You are keen to help the police in their investigation so you let them inside and begin discussing the kidnapping with them. After five minutes discussion, one of the officers sees a necklace on the table and says it is similar to the victim’s necklace on the day of the kidnapping. Shocked, you begin defending yourself by saying where you got the necklace and how long you’ve had it. The officers agree with you and are calm about the situation, but they say the necklace should be verified that it isn’t a part of the crime scene by taking back to the station. They tell you to pick it up tomorrow and give you the address of the police station and the ID number of the necklace for reference purposes.

Would you give them the necklace? If somebody were actually in the situation and experiencing the emotions, I believe most people would actually comply with the officers’ request. “So what?” I hear you ask. Here’s the thing. Who said they were truly police officers? They aren’t police officers. They are con men. If you just gave them your necklace, then I’m sorry to say that you were conned!

The principle of authority states that we are more easily persuaded by those with authority. When a doctor gives you medical advice, you are much more willing to follow the doctor’s advice than if an ordinary person gave you the same advice. If Andre Agassi were to give you tennis lessons, you would follow his advice more thoroughly than if you received advice from a local tennis coach.

You maybe thinking that authority is authoritative power like an overbearing boss. It can be, but that isn’t the type of authority in influence I recommend you begin developing. Author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey, says “Most people think of leadership as a position and therefore don’t see themselves as leaders.” You need to know that you can influence others without any assigned position of power. An overbearing boss will influence you because of the person’s title, but you don’t need to be in an assigned position of power to possess authority. There are symbols of authority you can use to increase your authority and persuasive power.

Symbols of Authority

Most people would be deceived by con men because of symbols of authority. The three typical symbols of authority are title, clothing, and perceivable wealth. Title can be the occupation’s prefix like “doctor” and “professor” or even the occupation’s name like , “officer”, “lawyer”, “surgeon”, “trainer”, “gardener”, and “consultant”. The second symbol of authority is clothing which consists of all the clothing a person is wearing. Lastly, perceivable wealth can consist of the respective person’s car, house, jewelery, business, and any other wealth the person being influenced can see.

In the police example, the con men used clothing as a symbol of authority in deceiving you that they were police officers. When the “officers” knocked on your door, did you stop to ask for proof of their position as police officers? Or did you perceive their clothing as proof of their position as police officers? If you were conned, you would have assumed their wearing of officer uniforms meant they were police officers. Clothing has an enormous amount of authority; maybe as much as the position itself. Mark Twain humorously said, “Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.”

Manipulating the Symbols of Authority

Con men can manipulate the symbols of authority so it is also possible for you to alter them and for more ethical purposes. Firstly, I’ll discuss clothing. Whatever message you are trying to communicate, make sure your clothes match the message. If you want to communicate wealth and power, then a well-fitted suit will do. If you want to communicate attractiveness, then wear stylish clothes that match you as a person. If you want to communicate freedom, relaxation, or leisure, then wear casual clothes like a plain shirt, shorts, and even sandals.

Next is title. Depending on what qualifications you have, you can search for the appropriate job titles and begin using them more often. If you find there are no titles that you can use, then perhaps consider doing some training to gain the title. Maybe you want to be a “counselor”, “practitioner”, or “trainer”, and to get these titles just involves doing a little extra learning. The knowledge gained from the training won’t do you any harm in increasing your expertise.

Lastly is perceivable wealth. Clothing can communicate wealth, which further emphasizes the need to dress well. However, the most wealthy usually don’t dress the best. They have no need to. You shouldn’t need to dress in the most expensive clothing, but it’s fine to be the most stylish. However, be careful with how much perceivable wealth you have in some situations. When you have excessive perceivable wealth, people can think you are overcompensating for other areas in your life and the tactic could backfire. Be aware of the trade off between overcompensation and influential authority.

Follow the Leader

What happens if you have a successful leader at work, sport, or in the family? You follow the leader. The person’s influence isn’t once off or temperamental. The leader is able to influence others on an ongoing basis. You continue to follow the leader. The law of good continuation is a principle of Gestalt laws of perceptual organization and states objects are perceived to be smooth because of a pattern. (My communication secrets program has four other Gestalt laws of perceptual organization plus an entire chapter on perception because it is the filter that determines how we interact with the world.) When we are presented with patterns of consistency, we assume the same consistency will exist into the future.

The law of good continuation in leadership means followers of a leader will “blindly” accept the leader’s decisions because of past successes. Followers fail to critically think and question the leader’s actions because the leader has proven himself in the past to make good decisions. The great Albert Einstein said, “Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.” It is a common and fair enough mistake to make.

The law of good continuation tells us that you will meet less resistance by most followers you are influencing once you get into the position of influence. However, should you get yourself into such a position of authority, don’t be afraid to encourage those following you to continually question your actions, because in the end the outcome will fall back on you.

Size and Status

In the animal world, size is often a way to communicate status. Kangaroos stand on their tails to appear taller as they enter a fight, Puffer Fish fill their stomachs with water to enlarge their body and scare off predators, and Bearded Dragons can straighten the skin on their head to appear larger and fend off threats. Prior to a fight, many animals have this natural mechanism of sizing each other up to gain an understanding of how powerful their competitors are. If an animal is intimated by the size of its competitor, then the fight may not take place. It is nature’s way of discerning the healthy alpha males from the less healthy and weak males without the specie making itself extinct by constantly fighting.

In the human world, we have a very similar natural selection process. This selection process is far more sophisticated and expands into areas beyond fights. However, in terms of size and status, we aren’t at all very different. Taller people and those who are more muscularly defined, are seen to possess more status in our society. From what I know, there isn’t much you can do about height, but you should workout at the gym to improve your strength and pack on muscle.

What the animal world doesn’t have which the human world has, is a vice-a-versa relationship between size and status. While size relates to status for animals and humans, status influences size for humans. By improving your status, people will perceive you as being bigger than you really are. This in turn can increase your ability to influence people.

I was once listening to a DVD by David DeAngelo and a guest speaker, Dr. Georges Sabongui, was talking about the relationship between size and status. Dr. Sabongui was once a commander in the Canadian Navy where he learned how to project a presence. It was absolutely necessary for him to project a powerful presence because anyone in the room he was in had to know he was in charge. He is five foot six, but people often mistook him for being six foot tall because of his powerful non-verbal communication. You can project a presence and more authority through powerful body language.

To increase people’s perception of your size and at the same time increase your influential authority among many other benefits, there are some simple body language tips you can start using. These body language tips will further help you to project a powerful presence. Firstly, behave “as if”. Act out the body language you would have in a room if you were the person in authority. Secondly, look people in the eye. Thirdly, take up more space. Spread your legs, lean, and have movement in your gestures. A powerful President doesn’t look like he is constricted to a cage. This tip applies more so for men than it does for women. Lastly, have a confident posture. Lift your chest up and this will bring your neck, back, and head perfectly into place.

Remember that all principles of influence get the person to comply with the request on their own terms. They come to the solution “themselves”. Using the advice given in this principle to increase your influential authority will make others comply with your requests and have people liking you more; unlike a bureaucratic boss that employees resent. By implementing the four body language tips and combining them with the three symbols of authority, you will greatly increase your authority and influential power.

Links in this Course: The 6 Principles of Influencing People

• Introduction to Influencing People
• 1. Commitment and Consistency
• 2. Reciprocation
• 3. Scarcity
• 4. Authority
• 5. Liking
• 6. Social Proof

You can download this entire course in a neat report format by right clicking here and selecting “save target as”. You can keep a copy safely on your computer. The report is in .pdf format so you will need this free software to view it.

“Forbidden things have a secret charm.” – Publius Cornelius Tacitus

“One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach. One can collect only a few and they are more beautiful if they are a few.” – Anne Morrow Lindbergh

“Without a sense of urgency, desire loses its value.” – Jim Rohn

When I came to write about the principle of scarcity, I had a limited idea of how the principle relates to communication, relationships, and success. It is a great principle to use in business and sales, but I had trouble relating it to these areas that we are interested in. Then it hit me. Scarcity is far more abundant (pun intended) in our everyday lives than we realize. This relates back to influence in general which often goes undetected in affecting our decision making.

The principle of scarcity states that we are more easily persuaded when the resource is limited. Scarcity is a fundamental principle in economics within the supply and demand curve. (As I explain scarcity in a business and economics context, I want you to think of how it applies to communication and relationships.) Referring to figure A, you can see that as supply decreases, so does the quantity in demand. However, people are willing to pay more for those fewer resources. On the contrary, when the quantity is large, people will pay less for the resources. My university microeconomics’ lecturer would be proud of me after that description.

Organizations and salespeople use scarcity to increase demand. They will bring in the most profit when they calculate the point at which the supply and demand lines intersect. The organization will often not change the number of items available, but communicate the item is scarce. It is a matter of communicating to consumers that a shirt, car, or collector stamp, is only available in a limited quantity. Consumers can have a total “mind-shift” where a once disinterested consumer becomes hungry to devour the product.

When sales are on, you will hear scarcity phrases like “limited time only”, “only 50 available”, “sale ends tomorrow”, and “don’t miss your chance”. These all get us to go into the respective stores and purchase their products instead of procrastinating about the purchase decision.

If you haven’t realized yet, you can adapt these same principles businesses use in everyday conversations for persuading people. Tell the person there is “limited time”, “a rare opportunity”, or “high demand because it’s popular”. In the case of getting someone to go out with you and have fun, you could use a sentence along the lines of “Come out because we haven’t had the chance since (last time you went out). It’s rare we have such an opportunity.”

To take similar phrases to the next level, use scarcity picture words. I think the scarcity phrases mentioned above appeal to both the left and right brain functions because they are verbal and mathematical numbers (left brain) but also contextual and focus on the future (right brain). Picture words use the right brain because they get the person to visualize and feel the emotions of those pictures. A few examples of scarcity picture words you can use are:

• “The opportunity is falling through our fingers and we need to grasp it now before it’s too late.”
• “The hourglass was turned a while ago and has almost run out. We need to act now.”
• “This is as rare as your boss buying you a BMW. If you’re lucky enough for it to happen, you better take advantage of it because it ain’t going to happen again.”

Bitterness, conflict, and resentment arises from the use of bland words as it makes people raise their shields. On the other hand, the visual is more concrete than words. What makes scarce imagery very persuasive is its ability to establish unity. There are rarely two-sides to strategic symbols and imagery – just one shared understanding. This makes symbolism a great way to strengthen team cohesion. You can create and distribute items that establish an “us verse them” mentality.

The primary reason scarcity is so effective for influencing people is that generally we are more motivated by loss than gain. Scarcity implies rarity, high quality, and high demand, all influences that increase our demand for the resource. We can become irrational when a resource is scarce and do things we never thought we would do. It is difficult to think clear when scarcity is being intensely used.

Job Interview

To further expand on how the principle of scarcity influences our everyday living (because I think most people do not comprehend it’s high frequency), take the example of job interviews. If you have one job interview, then the scarcity of interviews makes you highly value this one interview. This puts extreme pressure on you to get that job and is likely to cause you to perform poorly in the interview. On the other hand, if you have many job interviews, you place less emphasis on each interview as each one is not very scarce. The interviews possess less value which allow you to relax, perform better, and increase the chances of you landing a job.

Dating

When a single-person becomes extremely fixated on dating somebody of the opposite sex, the value of this person greatly increases causing the single-person to think about and micromanage any interaction when they are together. All this does is amplify the scarcity principle and make the single-person become stressed, anxious, and desperate. In the dating world for men, guys who become extremely fixated on one girl are diagnosed with “one-itis”. It’s a very common plague for men and the cure is to go date more women because the men are being deluded with scarcity. They need to see there is an abundance of opportunities out in the world.

Keeping on the dating topic, a woman’s attraction for a guy is increased when the guy is scarce. Yes, like resources, people are a commodity. A guy who is surrounded by women is heaps more attractive to other women. In fact, a woman’s attraction can become so distorted from such a situation, that she’d do things which would surprise many people including herself.

However, scarcity is often not enough just by itself. If a random stranger talked to you for one minute and left, you aren’t going to yearn for their presence. Though their absence creates scarcity, the stranger never made you appreciate him or her in the first place. When you create good feelings in others, have a great conversation, or build attraction – then suddenly cut it short – you essentially become an addictive drug. The person begins to desperately desire your presence. Your value and power dramatically increase due to absence. What gets removed from our grasps becomes wanted as it gets elevated in status from our adoration and honor.

Scarcity creates a gap that the mind fills with its imagination. The mind conceives thoughts based on past experiences. When you have created a presence that another has adored and, only then, make yourself absent, a sense of mystery, unpredictability, and power is instilled in their image of you.

Robert Greene in law 16 (Use absence to increase respect and honor) of his book The 48 Laws of Power, advises the use of absence to increase respect and honor when seducing someone only once you have the person captivated:

“At the start of an affair, you need to heighten your presence in the yes of the other. If you absent yourself too early, you may be forgotten. But once your lover’s emotions are engaged, and the feeling of love has crystallized, absence inflames and excites. Giving no reason for your absence excites even more: The other person assumes he or she is at fault. While you are away, the lover’s imagination takes flight, and a stimulated imagination cannot help but make love grow stronger.”

Competition

The scarcity principle states that our demand for a resource increases when it is scarce and even more so when we are in competition for the resource. Whenever you have the chance in persuading people, communicate that there is competition for the opportunity at hand or how other people are desperate in this circumstance to take action. What you are doing is communicating that there is competition and scarcity in the situation. Social proof is another influence in this situation, which you’ll learn about in the sixth principle of influencing people.

What makes scarcity very interesting to me is that we actually don’t enjoy having the scarce resource more than if it was an abundant resource. The pleasure isn’t gained from using the resource. It is gained from merely just having the resource. Knowing we have it provides a sense of pride and security. You’re not going to have a better relationship with a person who is highly sought after by others. You’ll merely derive an illusion for yourself when the influence comes from scarcity.

Romeo and Juliet Effect

There are many applications of scarcity that would be great to discuss in depth, but I’ll only discuss a few more. Expanding on scarcity in relationships, Robert Cialdini in Influence mentions a study that had some astonishing findings about the “Romeo and Julie effect”. The study analyzed parental influence on 140 couples in the American state of Colorado. When parents hindered the relationship, each individual in the couple were more critical of the other. The amazing finding was that in spite of this, the couples also experienced more love and romance. So a note to all parents who are against their children’s love relationships: the more you intervene in the relationship, the more you will increase the love and romance in relationship.

Availability of Information

An interesting law of happiness is that we are happy to the degree which we are controlled. The more you are out of control in your life, the less happy you will be. An “out of control life” can consist of other people telling you what to do, obligations you must fulfill, and general things against your will. A powerful and frequent message in my communication secrets of making people like you program lays in teaching people to not control others; whether it be through criticism, giving advice, threatening, or sending solutions. All these are negative influences that will destroy a relationship because it causes the person you are communicating with to “lose control of their life”.

When governments, parents, managers, and partners, limit the availability of information, the person being controlled will usually want it more. A partner who forbids their loving other of interacting with a certain person, whether it be because of jealousy or pride, actually increases their partner’s desire to be with that person. What’s amazing with this is the thing which gets banned all of a sudden is wanted more because it becomes more scarce. Stephen Worchel has done several studies on how censorship affects our demand for the resource. When things become censored, banned, or in some way restricted, we have an increased desire to obtain the information. In addition, we gain more pleasure when we possess such information.

Parents can be extremely tempted to remove their children’s access to certain things when they disobey a rule. As a parent or manager, remember that if you take away something, you are increasing its scarcity. The most common reaction to this is rebellion and wanting the resource more. A good parent will be consistent in what they offer towards their children. This establishes what areas in the child’s life he or she can be expected to be controlled or not controlled in.

By limiting a resource you are increasing the child’s desire for the resource more so, then if it were already at that level of availability. When a resource is made less available than if it were already at the reduced level, we are more influenced to want the resource. If you haven’t been consistent in your parenting, then the best thing you can do now is to begin being consistent – and that may mean introducing scarcity. It’ll be hard to change the behavior in the beginning, but it will change and become easier. The sample holds true for managers changing the behavior of employees and the like.

I feel the dilemma where we don’t value the time spent with family is because of scarcity. Spending time with family is an abundant resource for most us which causes it to lose its value. Many people would prefer to hang out with their friends or new loved one. However, if they do that, then the demand and supply curve shifts causing a diminishing value of the “resource”. If you constantly hang out with your friends, then you will have less value in the time you spend with them. It won’t be as much fun.

In conclusion, scarcity is a common influence in our everyday decision making. We are frequently unaware of how it affects our decisions. Scarcity influences us in how we respond to opportunities, find a partner, procrastinate, and spend time with family to name a few situations. By understanding the principle of scarcity and its many applications, you are able to incorporate yet another powerful principle of persuasion into your communication skills to get people to do what you want.

Links in this Course: The 6 Principles of Influencing People

• Introduction to Influencing People
• 1. Commitment and Consistency
• 2. Reciprocation
• 3. Scarcity
• 4. Authority
• 5. Liking
• 6. Social Proof

“When you give yourself, you receive more than you give.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

“Trying to get without first giving is as fruitless as trying to reap without having sown.” – Napoleon Hill

“Whether by presenting us with an initial favor or initial concession, the requester will have enlisted a powerful ally in the campaign for our compliance. At first glance, our fortunes in such a situation would appear dismal. We could comply with the requester’s wish and, in so doing, succumb to the reciprocity rule. Or, we could refuse to comply and thereby suffer the brunt of the rule’s force upon our deeply conditioned feelings of fairness and obligation. Surrender or suffer heavy casualties.” – Robert Cialdini in Influence

Have you ever wondered why organizations: give you free samples of their products, donate money to charity, or do something that is generally perceived as nice? Yes, they can get you to trial their products and if you like the products then they will have you as a buying customer. They also can get free publicity by donating money to a charity. However, there is another side to this story.

The rule of reciprocation states that humans have an inherent desire to return favors. This influential principle is beneficial to an organization when you feel their free sample or donation is a favor for you. By doing you a favor they will have influenced you to return it in the form of buying their products or services.

The organization example is not the best to demonstrate the principle of reciprocation because we sometimes don’t perceive it as a favor. If we perceive a tactic as a trick, then it will backfire. The principle of reciprocation says we return favors with favors and not tricks with favors. Do not fall for making a decision or getting another to make a decision based off a trick.

In the introduction of this course, I mentioned how each influential principle can be misused. Even though a principle can be used for the wrong reason, it does not make the principle itself “wrong”. It is up to you to not manipulate others with the reciprocation rule in tricking the person that you did them a favor.

Reciprocation in Personal Relationships

There are stronger applications of this influential principle than the one I provided where an organization gives you a free sample of their products. Think of how the rule of reciprocation could apply to our relationships. Do you think it would be possible to get an attractive partner by doing them favorable things?

The short answer to this question is “no”. The human emotions of attraction, love, and intimacy cannot be consistently manipulated with favors. If a person believes it can be, then they need to contrast their current experience with a non-manipulating experience and they will see the difference. This isn’t to say that people like supermodels won’t marry rich guys for their favors. The couple just won’t feel the attraction and intimacy. They will experience an unfulfilling relationship based on gifts. Attraction is to strong of an emotion to be manipulated by a favor. Those who are in relationships because of favors have ulterior motives.

I don’t know whether this is clear to you, but think of guys who buy women drinks at a bar or nightclub. The guys are unknowingly using the rule of reciprocation in a poor context by trying to do the woman a favor and hoping for something in return. Of course, the women accept the drinks then give the guy a cold shoulder because it is perceived as a trick.

Reciprocation has its place in getting the relationships you want, but only to a degree. This influential principle does not replace the rules of relationships. It is only complementary meaning it must be used with other relationship skills. In a serious relationships context like trying to strengthen your marriage or finding a lifetime partner, reciprocation will be less useful than if it was for a normal friendship.

Verbal Favor and Reciprocation

The power behind compliments lays in the basis of the reciprocation rule. You’ll notice that when someone gives you a “verbal favor” like a compliment, you all of a sudden feel compelled to return the favor by complimenting the person back. If the compliment was well delivered, you’ll stutter your way into quickly trying to find something you can compliment the person on. The principle of reciprocation has as much power through words than it does through physical gifts.

Do the Favor First

You can get more out of the reciprocation principle by firstly doing the person a favor prior to making your request. This isn’t just religious, but a proven component of reciprocation within influence. Investing in your relationships and most other things upfront, will give you a future return that will often be larger than your investment. It is not unusual to receive a large favor from someone at a later time in reciprocation to a small favor you gave earlier on.

Business owners are generally encouraged to offer something upfront to another business before requesting a partnership or some joint venture deal. Doing so increases the strength of the relationship and the likelihood of the giver to receive a larger return later on. To move up in your career of choice, I advise you to begin donating your services to those who influence how successful you become. Join groups, clubs, and organizations where there are “big players” in your career, then offer your time and efforts. If you constantly do so with enthusiasm and in a successful manner, I can almost guarantee those “big players” will want to help you.

Contrasting Principle

A salesman will offer you an expensive item which he knows you will reject. He then offers you a cheaper item which is made to appear as an attractive offer because of the contrasting with the expensive item. The salesman uses the contrasting rule where the less expensive item is seen as desirable solely because it is contrasted against an expensive item. The example also incorporates the reciprocation rule because the cheaper item acts like a favor he is doing for you because he is “saving” you money.

Realtors have been known to use this influential tactic unethically by taking their potential customer to a steeply overpriced house the housing agency has reserved for this specific influential tactic. Once the customers see the undesirable house, the Realtor then shows the house the customer is most likely to buy. The cheaper and more desirable house is seen as a wonderful deal when compared against the overpriced dump seen earlier. The Realtor is making use of the contrasting and reciprocation principles.

The contrasting principle does not work when the first request that is made appears to be unreasonable. In fact, the influential tactic is likely to backfire and decrease your influential power. It is absolutely necessary for the first request to appear reasonable such that the person believes the “jump” from the first to second request isn’t extremely large. Your first request can’t be seen as a bluff. We all know when an initial request is extreme and we feel manipulated as a result. The contrasting principle is believable and honest. You don’t have to expect the person to accept your first request though it should be within reason for them to. If a person does accept your first request, then you have just received more out of the situation!

To further demonstrate the contrasting principle, let’s say you are trying to get your children to do the dishes by using the contrasting principle. The principle would backfire when you make your first request, “Would you all like to clean the entire house?” which the children would straight-away decline as they know it’s unreasonable. You follow it up with the request that is your goal, “Would you children please do the dishes?” Your children would likely refuse to do the dishes because you made an unreasonable first request where you “abused” the contrasting principle and principle of reciprocation.

You would have greater success in getting your children to do the dishes by firstly making a larger request that appears reasonable such as, “Would you children please sweep the kitchen floor and then do the dishes?” You follow this initial request up with the second request you wish for them to accept, “Okay. Would you children please do the dishes?”

You don’t have to be limited to giving gifts and other donations to use the principle of reciprocation. As you remember from above, giving well-deserved praise such as a compliment can influence the person to return the favor. Think of ways you can use reciprocation and contrasting in your conversations and you’ll be well on your way to increasing your influential power.

Links in this Course: The 6 Principles of Influencing People

• Introduction to Influencing People
• 1. Commitment and Consistency
• 2. Reciprocation
• 3. Scarcity
• 4. Authority
• 5. Liking
• 6. Social Proof

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