The One Skill That Would Solve 90% Of Your Problems

communicating is hard let's play a little game raise a finger if you've ever felt like you've had the same conversation over and over again with someone and still no results raise a finger if you ever offended someone unintentionally raise a finger if you've ever gotten offended by someone raise a finger if you ever had a conversation turn into a heated argument and finally raise a finger if you simply avoided a conversation entirely because you don't know how to bring it up or you're just too scared of the consequences five out of five I got let me know in the comments what you got yeah conversations are hard and it's honestly not your fault growing up you were probably never explicitly taught how to communicate you sort of were just expected to observe adults your parents and other people who themselves were probably also not taught how to communicate either yet you're somehow just supposed to have figured it all out magically well one of my nearest resolutions for 2025 is to learn all of these basic skills that I supposedly should know by now but still don't and I'm starting off with this book called crucial conversation to learn how to communicate but it is not enough just to listen to me talk so at the end of this video I've also included a little assessment if you're able to answer all of the questions in that assessment then you will have learned how to communicate at least how to communicate much better now without further Ado let's get started a portion of this video is sponsored by HubSpot so first things first we need to define the term crucial conversation a crucial conversation is a discussion between two or more people that contains three components number one Ain opinions vary number two stakes are high and number three emotions run strong say you and your colleague are working on an important presentation that you need to present tomorrow morning you've already had quite a lot of back and forth trying to figure out what's supposed to be in the presentation how it is that you should be portraying things and you're both getting pretty tired it's already like 7:00 p. m. your colleague says we should spend the rest of our time trying to make the presentation look amazing it needs to visually wow the client and you say okay I get that but I think we should actually focus on validating the data itself since it's coming from a variety of different sources if the data is not accurate the rest of it doesn't matter anyway which is all going to be fluff the two of you go back and forth about this for a little bit longer and you know he's getting irritated and you're getting irritated because of course you're both very tired and finally he exclaims you're not even listening to me oh [ __ ] this conversation has just turned into a crucial conversation all three components are now satisfied your opinions vary in terms of what you should be spending your time on the stakes are High because it's an important project it's late you're both tired and you're on a tight deadline this is a common example of a crucial conversation and you have many of these types of conversations throughout your life some other examples include ending a relationship talking to a coworker that makes offensive comments asking a friend to repay a loan giving the boss feedback about her behavior approaching a boss who's breaking their own rules addressing racist or sexist behaviors etc etc none of these sound very fun do they so that's why the first question that we need to answer is why do we even need to have a crucial conversation why can't you just not have it pretend it's not there well deep book explains unfortunately many people actually do that but they don't get away with it you see at the heart of a crucial conversation is a problem and problems unless they're solved they don't magically go away they tend to fester and eventually show up in nasty ways like snide comments eye rules sarcasm and just a general sense of growing resentment toward WS that person that's why you actually have to deal with it and even worse the biggest single factor in terms of your ability of resolving one of these problems is lag time the greater the lag time which is when there is a problem and you actually addressing the problem the harder it becomes to solve it's like having a poison that slowly spreads as time goes on the longer it spreads the harder it is to get rid of it but it's also not enough just to address the problem if you handle it poorly it can also lead to bad results like losing a friend or just feeling like you're spending a lot of time and energy on something and it's just nothing is getting solved and it's going to waste and that is why when there is a problem you need to have that crucial conversation and it quickly well the good news is that if you manage to do that not only are you able to resolve the problem you'll find that your relationship with that person becomes stronger as well and this is something that I really noticed myself after having crucial conversations with people I've been avoiding for a very long time I actually have a stronger bond with them than I've ever had before all right now let's talk about how to have a crucial conversation it starts from before you even open your mouth it starts with choosing the right topic to even talk about have you ever walked away from a conversation feeling like the issue is not entirely resolved and then you find yourself having the same conversation over and over again and it's just like still there well that is The Telltale sign that you're having The Wrong conversation you see just because you decide to actually talk and have that conversation doesn't necessarily mean that you're talking about the right thing what let me explain let's take Wendy and Sandrine for example Wendy is a project manager with lots of experienc leading successful projects that are both small and large sandreen is her manager who was recently hired and has a reputation as a hard charging get things done kind of executive so sren says all right Wendy let's talk timelines Wendy says it'll take us over 6 months and Sandrine says oh well when I looked you should be able to finish this in a quarter Wendy then says well it's a good thing that we're talking about it now before we've made any commitments because there there's no way we can finish it on that timeline sandrin responds that's why I put you in this role in the first place you are able to do the impossible I need you to figure out how to get this done by the end of the quarter because other projects are at stake The Accelerated schedule is already in the master plans Wendy goes like what you agree to a deadline without even talking to me about it and Sandrine pushes forward hey Wendy you know we really need this big win look I really pushed for you to be the one to lead this project do you know what I have said about you I said you were a team player was I mist mistaken oh [ __ ] yeah by this point Wendy's brain and emotions are all over the place she's thinking about how in the world is she going to get this done how many late nights is she going to have how is she going to tell her husband and her kids that she's just not going to be coming home for the next quarter she's is been thinking that this is so unfair and like does she even want to work for sandre anymore does she even need this job Wendy is now facing a crucial conversation and she needs to proceed carefully because at this point she can easily fall into the Trap of having the Wrong conversation by naturally defaulting to two common mistakes the first one is called easy over heart Wendy is fuming but it's still really hard to bring up the actual problem which is the fact that sine went behind her back to tell the boss about a deadline that they never talked about before so instead she chooses to have a easier conversation she might just start nitpicking the timelines saying that oh she doesn't like this part of it or she doesn't like that just going through dis specs and just being like Oh can't do that can't do this the second common mistake is called recent overwrite this is when if there's reoccurring issues you only address the most recent issue as opposed to the other issues previously in this specific placee unfortunately this is not the first time that sarine has done this Sandrine has actually went behind Wendy's back multiple times to make commitments that she had not discussed prior but she may be thinking oh like you know this is the most important thing right now so she only chooses to address this current problem as opposed to addressing the reoccurring issue you see it's quite easy to fall into the Trap of having a Wrong conversation because for every issue there's actually three levels of conversations that can be had the book gives a wonderful acronym here to remember them by called CPR C stands for Content which is when a problem first occurs and you're addressing the specific content of the problem P stands for pattern this is when a similar issue has come up more than once maybe two times three times or even more and three is relationship you see as time goes on and this reoccurring issue keeps coming up it will eventually start also deteriorating the relationship that you have with that person and you start having deeper issues of lack of trust confidence or respect content conversations are the easiest ones to have because they're very tangible and it's very clearly there and you don't need to have the risk of potentially offending the other person but many issues are not actually one-time issues they reoccur and they become a pattern and eventually also start detering in a relationship when that happens just having a Content conversation doesn't actually resolve the problem and you're left with a feeling of frustration because you know the pattern that's there deteriorating your relationship is still happening even if you resolve that specific instance it's just going to happen again in the case of Wendy and Sandrine this problem has been going on for a while now and it absolutely has reached a relationship level Wendy is starting to think that sandine just doesn't even respect her anymore so in this situation Wendy has to start the relationship level conversation this is what she can say I get we're in a tough spot here and I don't want to disappoint your leadership any more than you do and I want you to know that I'm committed to getting stuff done at the same time I want us to set realistic goals otherwise we're setting ourselves up to fail and maybe even more important I want us to work together in a way where we're upfront with each other about our needs and concerns this is the start of the right conversation the relationship conversation another word of warning here is that maybe you finally figured out what is the right conversation to have and you know like you start having that conversation um it's very common for the other person to want to derail you and start having another type of conversation whether intentionally or unintentionally and you have to be very cognizant of this to bring back the conversation it's because the conversations on the pattern the relationship level is hard and the other person may feel uncomfortable and try to change the subject let's look at a conversation between Tyra and Katie for example Tyra and Katie are co-workers and Tyra says the ktie I was expecting to get the raw data files yesterday but I still haven't seen it yet are they ready and Katie says oh my God I am so sorry it's just so hard to concentrate because that creepy guy Mark just keeps staring at me up and down and every time I try to leave the cub he just tries to Corner me I'm just so on edge and it completely slipped my mind damn that was a lot and Tyra is probably thinking that is not what I signed up for I just want my data files but this is also a case of potential sexual harassment it is a very important problem so at this point Tyra has two options the first one is that she chooses to address the guy problem first and says something like wow I can tell you're upset let's talk about this we'll come back to the data file later or if she feels like it's more important to continue that conversation about the data files she could say wow that's a really big deal and I really want to talk to you about this because it's really important at the same time I have 30 minutes to get this data file to the Ops Team let's figure out this data file issue first and then get back to mark because it does need to be addressed this is called bookmarking and allows you to have control over that conversation if you choose to talk about a different topic first by verbally acknowledging the change in conversation you can later come back and have the proper conversation or if you choose to stick with the original conversation you're verbally telling the other person that you're still acknowledging the importance of their other conversation but you just simply want to focus on the one here first okay now that we figured out what it is that you should be talking about now let's talk about how to talk about it people who are skilled in conversation begin with the right motives and also make sure that they stick to the right motives throughout the conversation this sounds really easy but when emotions are flying voices start getting raised potential accusations start flying it can get really hard let's take a look at Greta the CEO of a midsize Corporation it's two hours into to a pretty tense meeting she's having with leadership for the past 6 months she's been really campaigning hard to cut down costs yet there hasn't really been any result and Greta wants to know why when posed with this question a manager kind of like very cautiously shakingly stands up and nervously ask if he can ask a very tough question Greta goes like yes of course and he says Greta you've been asking us for 6 months to find ways to cut cost I'd be lying if we said that we've given you much more than a lukewarm response well it's because while you've been asking us to use both sides of our paper and foro travel you have been having a second office built oh [ __ ] Greta freezes and turns bright red and the manager continues the rumor is that the furniture alone will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars is that right this conversation has just turned crucial and Greta has two choices her gut instinct is to raise her voice Point her finger at the manager and go how dare you but she reminds herself of her motive for this conversation her motive is that she wants to cut cost while maintaining a good relationship with her leadership so she takes a deep breath and instead says I'm glad that you asked the question and thank you for taking that risk I appreciate the trust is shows in me this is what it means to begin with the right motives and keep focusing on the right motives no matter what else is happening something I like to do to practice my communication skills both like one-on-one conversations as well as presentations through a group of people is by practicing with AI I like using the voice functionality from tat PT could you act as the recruiter the interviewer and ask me some behavioral questions tell me about a time when you had to so if you're interested in practicing your communication skills with AI or if you just want to you know be more productive using AI in general I highly recommend that you check out this resource that I made with hopspot it is a prompt engineering quick start guide it includes a step-by-step framework for how it is to craft better prompts and additional tips for getting better results I'm a little bit biased because you know I made part of it um but I actually do really like the fact that there is this flow of bad prompt good prompt and excellent prompt so it really shows how it is that you can take a prompt and elevate it I think if you can start thinking in this way with a little bit of practice you're going to be so much better at prompt engineering and get much better results from Chachi BT or any other AI tools that you're using so please do check it out and thank you so much hopspot for creating this resource with me and for sponsoring this portion of the video now back to the video the book also brings up a concept called the Fool's Choice which is the belief that you must choose between telling the truth versus keeping a friend tally is just scrolling through her social media feed when she stumbles across a debate about a proposed curriculum change in her kids school because she wants to be an informed parent she goes through the entire post and all the conversations uh that are happening underneath as well tally finds herself agreeing with most things that are being said until she gets to the post from Gloria expresses her loathing with strong language and all caps she says she knows is without a shadow of a doubt that these curriculum changes will ruin all the neighborhood kids all of whom will end up dropping out of school and selling drugs as a result so other people are pushing back on Gloria but Gloria is pushing back on the pushbacks and tally as she's reading through this she gets increasingly more triggered as well until at some point she just types at Gloria you are the one who is an idiot principal Johnson has turned the school around if she says this curriculum is the way to help our kids then it is you have no qualifications and you didn't even graduate high school yep so tally here has just fallen into the Fool's Choice she tries to justify it by telling herself oh somebody had to tell Gloria even though it wasn't very nice but instead she also had another option she could have still told the truth but also maintained a relationship number one what do you really want if tally actually thinks carefully about this she would be able to answer that what she really wants is to engage Community discussion she wants the group of parents to be able to share candidly and listen to One Another Second what you really don't want thinking through this she decides that what she doesn't want the most is to have people shut down conversation by dominating the discussion threat and throwing insults she also doesn't want the honest difference in opinions to damage relationships now third present your brain with a smarter question by combining the two into an and question how can we have a candid conversation and strengthen relationships now with this new question in mind write in the comments what Tally could have said that is able to accomplish both of these goals hint maybe being keyboard Warriors is not the best choice here okay I just want to say that isn't it crazy that you're meant to have done all of this work prior to even opening your mouth it's no wonder that people have so much trouble communicating like we usually just only think about what it is that we're going to say and ignore everything else but actually there is still one more thing that you're supposed to do before you even open your mouth and that is to diffuse your own emotions or as the book puts it master your stories the book presents a model called the path to action that has four parts let's illustrate this with Maria and Lewis Maria is a copywriter who is working with Lewis on the latest draft of a proposal during a meeting they were supposed to jointly present the ideas but when Maria pauses for a breath Lewis just takes over the presentation making all the points that they came up with together finally when the boss turns to Maria to ask if she has any input by that time LS has already said anything so Maria has nothing left to say and it's not just this she recently found out that prior to this presentation LS actually took their suggestions to the boss to discuss with him without telling her about it Maria feels like lwis is downplaying her contributions because she's the only woman on the team but she also doesn't want to appear over sensitive so she usually just says nothing and keeps doing her job although she sometimes asserts herself by getting in a sarcastic jab about how she's being treated like the other day when Louis asked Maria if she can bring back some of the stuff he just printed in the printers on her way back from her lunch break she sarcastically said yeah sure why don't I just bring you your coffee and bake you a cake too while I'm at it while rolling her eyes so what's going on here so the common belief that people have goes some like this the first component is see and hear in this case Maria sees and hears LS monopolizing the presentation and she hears from her colleagues that Louis went behind her back to you know go talk to the boss second step is feel so she feels angry hurt and worried so she acts with silence and occasional sarcasm and cheap Jabs so this is the common belief of what has happened but there's actually an intermediary step between what she sees and hears and her feelings that is so lightning fast that she probably didn't even notice and that step is called telling a story this step is just after we observe what somebody else is doing and before we feel some emotions we tell a story about why they're doing that and add a judgment whether that's good or bad then we have that emotional response in this case after Maria observed what was happening she told herself the story that he's being sexist and doesn't value her opinion she tells herself that he doesn't trust me she also tells herself that she can't speak up about it where else other people perceive her as being too emotional okay so now we know that we tell stories but why is this a problem why is it that Maria and you and I need to stop telling these stories well the simple reason is that because we want different results clearly the story that we've told ourselves has led to emotions and behavior that have led to results that we don't want to have so if we want to change that we need to tell a different story to lead to a different set of emotions and behavior also another thing that often times we don't like to admit is that we may also be contributing towards this reality usually it's not completely theault of another person you may also be playing a role into the situation so what to do well the best way of approaching this is by retracing your path you know the path that led to where you are right now so now we're going to examine it the other way around first you want to examine your behavior if you find yourself moving away from dialogue ask yourself what am I really doing then put your feelings into words you need to learn to accurately identify the emotions behind your story ask what emotions are encouraging me to act this way third spot your story identify the story you're telling by asking yourself what story is creating these emotions here are the three most common stories that people tell themselves one is the victim story like wo is me it's not my fault two the villain story it's all your fault three helpless story such is life alas there's nothing I can do about it the final step is to separate fact from story you need to be able to distinguish between what is fact and what you invented ask yourself what evidence do I have to support this story what could possibly contradict it then after you've opened up the possibility of these facts corresponding to a different version of a story you can then tell the rest of the story ask yourself what am I pretending not to notice about my role in the problem why would a reasonable rational person do what they did what should I do right now to move towards what I really want now going back to Maria she retraced her path and is now entertaining what else could have happened to have led to the current situation she answered the question what am I pretending not to notice about my role in the problem she realized that she also played a part in what happened when she found out that lwis was holding project meetings without telling her she could have said something about it if she did she probably would have been able to have an open dialogue instead she decided to stay silent and just let her resentment grow and during the presentation she could have interrupted him instead she just sulked and stayed completely silent when Lewis was answering all the questions now why would a reasonable rational and decent person do what lisis did this one is interesting because after thinking through it she realizes that maybe he really cares about producing good quality work and maybe he doesn't realize what he's doing his actions during a meeting may have just been out of nervousness as opposed to a judgment towards her what does she really want she wants to have a respectful relationship with ls and be treated with respect and acknowledge for her work and what should she do right now in order to work towards that she decided to make an appointment to speak to LS about how the presentation went and how they worked together and guess what after she did Lewis apologized he explained that he thought that he should give the boss a heads up because they might be presenting some controversial things and in retrospect he shouldn't have done that without her he said that he tends to get really nervous during presentations so even though they split the slides he suddenly forgot which slides were his and just covered all of them at the end of the conversation Louis even said hey maybe next time when we're doing a presentation together why don't I just take the first half and you take the latter half or vice versa that would help him a lot by mastering your stories you're able to diffuse your emotions and be in an actual open mind space to be able to have a productive calm conversation all right okay so with finally with all of this prep work in place we're finally actually ready to have the crucial conversation at the beginning of this chapter the book makes a crazy claim they say that when it's safe you can say anything it's not about what it is that you're saying but how it's being perceived but if you kind of think about it does make sense I'm sure there's been times in which you've gotten pretty like painful intense feedback and although you feel hurt and uncomfortable you were able to accept that feedback and feel grateful towards that person while on the other hand there's probably been cases in which they say something and it's like not really that big of a deal but for some reason you get really agitated and emotionally charged the book explains that the reason for this is that people rarely get defensive just based upon the content of what's being said they only become defensive when they no longer feel safe we questioning were they're suspecting ill intent they feel respected by the other person and that they feel like the other person is saying these things out of the kindness of wanting to see them become better they can actually take the feedback well this is why the best communicators are always looking for signs when there's Det erating safety and trying to build up safety let's do a little quiz I'm going to display some questions on screen and I want you to write down numbers from one to 12 and next to it answer true or false pause the video now okay cool now match it to this chart for example if you answered true to 1 2 4 6 and 10 then this is what it should look like this is your own silence under stress score for each of these components which I'll explain in a little bit if you have one or two check marks it means that this is one of your stress responses now tally up the two columns to get your total sum for silence or violence you can have a bias towards silence a bias towards violence or you can have both you could have a bias towards both if it makes you feel any better the first time that I took this quiz this is what I got yeah I literally do every single one of these not productive stress response behaviors the reason why this quiz is important is because the first person that you need to understand well in this situation is yourself so when we're having these conversations before we even think about getting other people to feel safe or having that conversation with other people we first need to control our own emotions so you need to be very aware of your Tendencies when somebody triggers you like how it is that you respond under the silence category we have masking avoiding and withdrawing silence is basically anything that withholds information and this is really bad because if you are not having information in that dialogue then there's no way you can solve this problem masking is when you subtly understate things and you're asking your true emotions usually by using something like sarcasm or sugar coating things avoiding is trying to steer the conversation away from a sensitive topic like if someone asks you if you think that their suit looks good you might just say something like oh I do like blue as a color as opposed to saying that I don't like your suit withdrawing just means literally leaving the conversation make making up an excuse like oh I have to go for a call and then just leaving by the way this is something that is becoming an increasingly bigger problem in our digital age and it is now colloquially known as just ghost leaving someone unre and just disappearing forever we'll talk more about how these techniques translate to digital communication later in the video the other type of way that people Express their lack of safety is through violence this is any type of verbal strategy that attempts to convince or control someone to force them into a different Viewpoint controlling is when you try to get people to think the way that you do like for example saying that oh everybody thinks this way labeling is putting a label on a certain person or a group of people and they're rejecting all of them like saying oh only insert political party name would think that's a good idea attacking is just attacking being threatening like if you do this just watch what will happen write in the comments below if your style is more toward silence violence or both okay so now that you know how people respond to a lack of safety especially yourself next we need to work on how it is that we can build safety for yourself and other people but first I want to talk about how this shows up in the virtual world a lot of conversations are virtual these days and that is both good news and bad news the good news is that these techniques work the same way in the virtual world you know it's still people trying to communicate but the bad news is that the amount of information you're getting in a conversation is now severely limited which also means that it makes the conversation harder to have when you're sitting face to face someone you're able to read that person through not just verbally you're able to see their emotions reactions you're able to perceive lots of little things about them but when we switch to video chat then to telephone or then to text messages and emails you're losing an increasing amount of that information so luckily there's still some good news um in the sense that it doesn't mean that your conversations are just doomed and you just have to guess at what each other are thinking it just means that you need to do a little bit more work when you feel like somebody's safety is being threatened what you need to do is try to increase the amount of information you can get from them face Toof face conversation is always going to be the best but if you can't manage that try to just increase that flow like if you're just like texting someone and they're ghosting you try to suggest having a phone call or maybe like a Zoom video call with greater information available to you it'll be easier for you to have that conversation I'm going to put on screen now some examples of what you can say to someone to try to escalate them into a different form of communication that allows for more information flow okay so as we said earlier safety is extremely important so your primary goal in having that conversation is to make that person feel safe and this is fulfilled by two conditions first one is mutual purpose as well as mutual respect let's take a look at a married couple called Oba and Mari Oba is a chef and Mari is a product manager last year has been really hard and the recession has triggered mari's company to ask her to take on more responsibilities while downsizing her team and for Oba the restaurant he was working for completely shut down and he got fired there's now a lot of financial strain and Mari is also working longer hours Oba feels like Mari is just so consumed with work that she doesn't really acknowledge him anymore and she always puts him after work while Mari feels really burnt out from work and feels like Oba is not picking up any of the responsibilities at home their relationship has really deteriorated essentially every day Mario would just come home exhausted and then she would look at Oba who's just sitting on the couch over there and notied the fact that there's still laundry that hasn't been folded and there's dirty dishes in the sink Mari feels really angry and she just walks to their room shuts the door and goes to sleep while Oba just eventually watches TV and sleeps on the couch Oba wants to bring up this issue with Mari but he's quite afraid because when he's tried to do that in the past she's always just snapped at him and it hasn't gone anywhere and that's because Oba was not able to establish Mutual purpose the way that Oba has brought this up with Mari is somewhere along the lines of hey Mari I was wondering if we could talk about what happened on Friday night you know when you came home late from work and then just went straight into our room you see Oba has good intent but the way that he was phrasing this makes Mari feel as if he is just accusing her they don't have mutual purpose here it feels like his purpose is just to accuse her and that's not something that Mari wants to do so she just snaps back at him instead what he needs to do from the very beginning is to establish that Mutual purpose and respect for example he could say something like hey Mari I'd like to talk about how much you're working and how it's impacting our relationship I'm not bringing this up to criticize you or suggest the problem is yours I know you're under tremendous pressure at work right now and I'm so grateful for the sacrifices you're making for our family this is showing that he appreciates her work he continues I really just want to talk about what we can do to make things better for both of us in this new reality we're in now this is mutual purpose he's clearly saying that what he's trying to do is for both of them to work together to have a better relationship with each other and Mari is likely to be a lot more receptive to this but let's just say for example that Mari is just still in a pissy mood and just really tired um and still snaps back at Oba the book suggests two strategies the first one is to apologize he could say that I'm sorry that I made you feel that I was criticizing you then he can use the second technique called contrasting he says I'm not blaming you for how I feel or act that's my problem I don't see this as your problem I see it as our problem both of us may be acting in ways that make things worse I know I am at least the contrast that he's using here is by explicitly clarifying what is his problem versus our problem this allows Mario to soften up and for Oba to now start building safety back into the conversation Mari says I'm probably at fault as well sometimes I just pout because I feel so overwhelmed and burnt out I'm sorry too she then continues I just don't see how we can work this out my job is what it is right now with you out of work I'm not really in a position to cut back or try to renegotiate and when I come home and I see that the housework is not done it's really frustrating I know that you want us to spend time together but I'm just exhausted and need time on my own to recharge now at least Mari is talking about how it is that she's actually feeling and this allows Oba to reestablish a sense of mutual purpose he continues to say I know you're stretch thin and I don't want something that doesn't work for you I want to find a way to have us both feel close appreciated and loved and he succeeds in doing this Mari says that's what I want too of course his conversation is going to keep going back and forth for a while but as long as Oba prioritizes making Mari feel safe by explicitly showing and reminding her of mutual purpose and mutual respect the conversation will flow all right great we're finally at a point in which we're having a conversation now but what is the best way to say what you want to say the book gives us another acronym called state it stands for share your facts tell your story ask for others paths talk tentatively and encourage testing let's consider a scenario between Anita and her 16-year-old daughter Amber Anita just went grocery shopping and when she's at the stand to pay for her groceries she reaches into her wallet to grab the $20 bill that she knows is there and finds out that it's not there she immediately turns over to her daughter and wants the yell Amber where is it now if she did this she would have fallen into what we talked about earlier called the Fool's choice in which things probably will not end very well instead what she should do is State she first shares her facts and says Amber when I want to PVE her to groceries just now I was planning to use the $220 that I thought I had in my wallet but when I opened my wallet the money wasn't there I thought it was strange because I saw it there yesterday then I remembered you asking for some money last night to go out with your friends I told you no and you ended up going to movie and dinner with them anyway amember says uh-huh then Anita will tentatively tell her story this means to share what she thinks could have happened but don't say it in a way that is directly like this happened instead she says obviously one possibility is that you took the money very tentative Amber then quickly responds you think I stole your money now Anita moves to the third step ask for others plans instead of just quickly snapping back yes I think you stole the money she needs to invite input from Amber's perspective honestly I don't know what to think all I know is what I just shared and I hope you can see how I might at least have the question now Anita continues to talk tentatively Amber honey I know you're a good kid and I don't want to jump to hurtful conclusions I also know that people make mistakes I did when I was your age I just want to be able to talk about things even hard things honestly and openly even when one of us has messed up now Amber is still a little bit hesitant and since Anita is in a position of authority she then proceed ceds onto the fifth step which is to encourage testing what she's actually already done is trying to get the other person to give more input into it and you kind of have to do that in a way that coax coaxes the other person to provide that information in this case Anita continues to encourage Amber by telling her that hey you know whatever it is that is going to be happening it's going to be okay we can solve and get through this until finally Amber opens up she says I was planning to put it back I wasn't trying to steal I didn't think you'll notice before I got my paycheck today and there you have it now sometimes if you're facing someone who has a very strong tendency towards silence when they're feeling unsafe or just they're like a relatively you know person who is doesn't like to express their opinions very much they may need more coaxing in order to get them to start contributing towards the conversation so in this case the book provides us with two additional acronyms the first one is called amp and these are four powerful listening skills to help the person open up to you a stands for ask start by simply expressing your interest in learning that person's viewpoints say something like I would love to know your Viewpoint m is mirror you can increase safety and make people feel more respected by mirroring what it is that they said so if they say something like I feel hurt because of this reason you can say something like I can see feel hurt P stands for paraphrase as that person starts sharing part of their story you can paraphrase what it is that they're saying and say it back to them they might say when you correct me about something I say in public it makes me feel like I'm less there than you should paraphrase this back to them and say I can understand that when I say certain things in public it can make you feel really hurt and lesser that and finally the kind of Last Resort is called Prime priming is when if they just like refuse to talk to you whatever it is that you're say and they're just like and just don't actually tell you whatever it is that they're feeling you can start trying to guess what it is that they may be feeling you could say something like perhaps you were feeling hurt during that situation this is usually like helpful because people like you know you're basically putting it out for them so it's easier for them to either acknowledge it or if you're wrong they also have like an Impulse to correct you now as they start softening up and actually telling you these things then you should do your ABC's A is for agree with them when you share the same viewpoints build is when if they leave something Out start building up what it is that you have in common sort of like expand on what they said you can say something like oh I can see why that's very hurtful for you and the other day when I said the same thing again it really built up the hurt and finally C is for compare when you do differ significantly with someone which ultimately that's usually very common that people don't agree with each other entirely instead of just saying that they're wrong what you should do is actually try to place the opinions side by side with each other you can say something like I see things differently let me share my viewpoint or I come from this at a different perspective I'm interested to hear your thoughts then you can use the state acronym which we just talked about earlier to express your thoughts remember that the whole purpose is to encourage conversation from both sides calm collected sharing of viewpoints and information for you to finally come up with a solution by using the state acronym you're able to say what it is that you want to say while still being respectful and not having to sugarcoat anything or just try to like weaken what it is that you're trying to say and by using amp and ABCs you're encouraging other people to contribute into that conversation of course all at the same time you need to be maintaining safety throughout that conversation so much isn't it but I promise you like if you actually practice this and I really did practice this your conversations get a lot better it's worth it final acronym I promise um so say you're having this conversation right and things are going well but then suddenly somebody the other person just says something super triggering to you and you just really like feel very triggered about this what to do in this situation well there's the acronym called cure C stands for collect yourself take a deep breath and collect your emotions don't say anything impulsive remind yourself that you are safe remind yourself of the purpose of this conversation remind yourself of what's important you can even repeat an affirmation to yourself like this cannot hurt me like in your head you stands for understand try to be curious ask questions if they're saying something hurtful ask them questions about why it is that they think these things can they expand more about these things if you focus your attention on understanding a situation that helps you and distracts you from internalizing what they're saying R stands for recover sometimes you're just like way too triggered just like [ __ ] this [ __ ] you well instead of doing that just ask a for a timeout give yourself some time to recover from the conversation say hey I feel like my emotions are right now and I don't feel like I'm able to have a calm conversation could we regroup in 10 minutes something like that and finally e stands for engage if you've done a good job of calming yourself down reestablishing what's important then you should be ready to engage with what they actually said try to objectively sift through what it is that they said and see if there's a kernel of Truth to what they're saying or maybe it's like completely misguided and that's okay as well but try to objectively go through what they're saying and engage Eng with the content okay so at this point you're able to have a really good conversation with someone and you know settle your differences uh figure things out that you've been putting off for a long time you feel really good about yourself you feel really proud for everybody but wait can't forget the final step you see it's great that you had a really great conversation and you're all feeling happy about it but there's no point of having a conversation if nothing comes out of it that is why the final step is to actually have action items clear deliverables plan to follow up and keep each other accountable it sounds so silly that you know this needs to be mentioned but after getting through all of that you usually just feel such a huge sense of relief that you're just like oh good like this conversation is over now that you don't actually make an action plan and follow through with everything that you talked about super easy to forget so make sure that first have action items determine who is doing what and when make the deliverables very clear whatever it is that you agreed on make it very clear as to what it is that will be done by each person set an actual time for when it is that you're going to check up it's really helpful to have it just as like a calendar just send like a calendar invite or just like a slot on the calendar as a reminder also make sure that you're actually writing down or recording the commitments somewhere so in case anybody forgets about what the conversation was about and what came out of it this is also going to allow everybody to keep each other accountable for what was agreed upon all right we have reached the end of this summary now here is a little assessment of all the things that we talked about previously if you can actually answer these questions it means that you've actually learned and was able to process everything that we talked about in this video if you're feeling overwhelmed right now I just want to tell you that I totally get it um it's like something that at least for me it was like extremely unnatural and I had to like keep practicing to get better and I'm not like I'm not saying I'm a great communicator now but I'm definitely a lot better than I was you know when I first did the stress quiz in fact you know when I was going through this book again to make the this video I did the quiz again and here are my results so yay me I am able to be better at communicating now it's something that I'm going to keep working on because I understand the value of having these crucial conversations and good relationships all right thank you so much for watching and I will see you guys in the next video where live stream