My son, Austin, is doing well after a decade of struggles. During those hard years, he would go “dark,” meaning I would not hear from him for weeks on end— a mother’s nightmare. Thankfully, as he has healed and found success in life, that has gotten a lot better. And yet, no matter how often he picks up the phone …
Empathy First
Courageous Conversations (as we call them at LionSpeak) often involve confronting someone about a behavior that you’d like them to change. When I coach people on having these conversations, I ask them to empathize with the person whom they are confronting. And they say things like, “I’m not going to feel sorry for her. She knows when our morning meeting …
The View from the Balcony
It was a beautiful Saturday morning and instead of enjoying the beginning of our weekend together, we were in the middle of a heated, spiraling argument with all that goes with it: raised voices, angry looks, accusations and defensiveness, finger pointing, blaming, ultimatums, and failing attempts to make the other person believe that our viewpoint was the right one. It …
Breaking the Ice
I bet all you East Coast subscribers would like to know how to “break the ice” right about now! I’m sorry, I don’t have any tips for sending our West Coast early Spring temps to your side of the country, but I do have a few awesome reminders for how to break the proverbial “initial conversation ice” when you are …
Getting Got
I know its poor English and bad grammar, but “getting got” by another person is simply one of the very best feelings in the world! We do a lot of mystery shopper calls for clients, and one thing we notice that is seriously lacking in our fast-paced, over-booked, high-production world is personal connection and empathy (not to be confused with …
The Great Communicator
“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” “We will never forget them… (as they) ‘slipped the surly bonds of earth’ to ‘touch the face of God.’” “Honey, I forgot to duck.” Whatever your politics and assessment of his presidency, one thing we would all likely agree on is “The Great Communicator” was an apt description of our 40th President, Ronald Reagan. …
Talk to the Hand!
When my boys were young, a few of the words that signaled you were “cool” were words like “rad” or “sick” or “gnarly.” I fortunately skipped over the era of “Whazzup!?” and “Chillax!” But one phrase that seemed to find its way into the popular lexicon over the last decade was “talk to the hand” which of course meant “stop …
The BIG Difference
Someone recently asked me what was different about my current marriage and its success in relation to my previous marriage which ended in divorce. I didn’t have to think long about my answer: communication. The difference is in the quality of it, the timing of it, and the intention and discipline of it. And it’s not that different when I …
Feedback with Context
All of us must receive feedback to grow. There’s no other way. Sometimes the feedback is organic: a consequence for our actions, a bad outcome from a hasty decision or a positive outcome from our hard work, unintentionally hurting someone’s feelings because of a poor communication. Through these experiences, we learn. But other times, feedback comes to us directly from …
People Acting Badly
Is it just me? Or have any of you had the out-of-body experience of severely overreacting to something said to you at just the wrong time, in just the wrong way, in just the wrong circumstance, with just the wrong words and intonation, and (BAM!) suddenly you feel your face peeling off, your fangs popping out, and Cujo exploding from …
