Blog

UH-OH!! I Broke It.

You know that feeling you get when you’ve been so focused on getting some piece of equipment or technology to work—when it’s not even remotely cooperating—and you push it soooooo far past its limit that it breaks?
 
Oh man, I hate when that happens.
 
Is it just me, or do you have that same impulse to push your way through something so forcefully that whatever you’re focused on comes apart in your hands? NOT my most favorite feeling in the world—yet I have done it more times than I like to admit.
 
And doing this is SO totally normal.
 
You can chalk it up to the way we’ve been socialized in our industrial society to “never surrender” “never give up” and “push through to overcome.”
 
We come by this urge so honestly. Without even thinking about it, we break stuff all the time.
 
We Do This With People, Too…
 
You know that feeling you get when you’re pushing your way through in a conversation with someone—because you feel sooooo right about whatever it is you’re saying—and they are sooooo not cooperating? Because they feel every bit as right in their point of view as you do in yours, they refuse to be swayed by the points you’re making.
 
Not so fun—and so very normal.
 
Meanwhile, if you’re lucky—or smart—you both catch on to the fact that you’re at an impasse, so you quit the conversation while you’re ahead. You stop talking about it before you break something…like your trust in each other, or even your relationship.
 
On the other hand, if you don’t pay attention to what you’re doing, you can slide right into the next level of “being right.” That is: holding on to your point of view with a veritable death grip, in order to WIN what has now become The Argument.
 
Having done this myself, I can still hear that “snap” of what I broke from here.
 
So Where’s The Sorcery?
 
If Everyday Communication Sorcery is all about choice, then it’s important that you know about the choices you have here—as well as the ways that we’ve been socialized to instinctively, protectively, react instead of choose.
 
All choice (The Sorcery) begins with information. This bit of info found its way to me over 30 years ago, in the early days of my third (and final) marriage—to Chuck Beatty. This one FYI saved me from making many of the huge mistakes I made in my previous two, given my strong need (at the time) to be right, as well as to win.
 
FYI:
There are two things that will break apart any conversation,
and many relationships:
 
The Need to be RIGHT (because the other person has to be WRONG)
and
The Need to WIN (because the other person has to LOSE.)
 
WHY would anyone want to talk to you 
when they knew they could only:
 
BE WRONG or LOSE?
 
Now What?
 
Now you know—and now you really do have a choice. When you think about you Being Right or you Getting the Win, it doesn’t seem like that much of a problem, right? (I know…and…that’s where the danger begins.)
 
Until you realize that these two behaviors MAKE EVERYONE ELSE WRONG and MAKE EVERYONE ELSE A LOSER, you’re blind to the trap you’ve created for yourself.
 
Three Bits of Sorcery That Support Every Conversation and Build Relationships
 
There are three strategies that have helped me—and my clients—tremendously, for over 30 years. Although they are by no means the ONLY strategies you can use here, they’re my personal Golden Oldies and they work every time. (Once you start using them, you will very likely come up with several more of your own.)
  1. When you accept the fact that everyone else believes in their own opinions, beliefs, practices, and data just as strongly as you believe in yours, you can choose to imagine a New Thought: What IF each of you inhabits your own little Planet? What IF these opinions, beliefs, practices, and data are Always True and Always Right—just for you, just on your own little Planet? That makes YOU RIGHT and THEM RIGHT, each on your own Planet. That gives you both a way to see each other as equally worthy of being right. (It also gives you a reason to visit them on their planet—to experience their version of Right, without having to give up your own.) This one strategy has been a total game-changer for everyone who’s used it.
  2. In 1992, Chuck and I watched a show called Mad About You every Thursday. It’s where we learned this bit of Sorcery.
    • There’s an episode where Jamie and Paul were both hard-lining in their totally opposite beliefs about spending—or saving—their money. When Paul secretly invests in a teenager’s virtual reality start-up, and Jamie finally finds out, she comes to appreciate her new (virtual) experience of having Paul repeat, over and over and over again, “I couldn’t have been more wrong.” This one sentence clears up everything for her and gives her heart some deep satisfaction.
    • Watching this episode, Chuck and I laughed so hard that we started using this sentence—and we have found over the past three decades that there’s magic in admitting that we were “wrong” when we remember how FUNNY it was watching Paul and Jamie. We have taken the emotional STING out of “being wrong” and it has saved us from the trap of having to prove we’re right—about ANYTHING—because we know we live on two completely different planets that are opposite in every way.
  3. Because the FUN of winning is intrinsic to Chuck’s lifelong sport of competitive swimming, we have a different experience of this word. Internationally, sometimes the difference between “winning” and “second place” can be a HUNDREDTH of a SECOND, which I submit is simply too weird for words. In the swimmers community, a WIN lasts only until the next race—and winner can come out of nowhere.
    • So we play with the idea of “I WIN” by saying it at every opportunity—and laughing.
    • Alternatively, we are completely generous with saying “YOU WIN!”—and laughing.
    • We’ve taken the OVERPOWER energy out of winning and imbued it with the JOYFUL energy of the worldwide community of masters swimmers—always celebrating each other’s “WINS.”  In our decades-long relationship, winning is a shared experience.
Play of the week: This week, I invite you to consider the possibility that you can benefit mightily when you choose support and relationship over being right or getting the win in any conversation where you have a difference of opinion, beliefs, data. or experience.
  1. Catch yourself feeling that you’re “right” and starting the push to prove it. Let that be your cue to remember that the other person is every bit as right on their own Planet as you are on yours. See what that realization does to your conversation.
     
  2. (Search for “Mad About You Virtual Reality” if you want to see this episode.) Catch yourself in a disagreement with someone who really loves you and practice softly saying the phrase, “I couldn’t have been more wrong.” See what happens to your conversation.
     
  3. Practice celebrating other people’s “wins” by gleefully saying—or shouting—“YOU WIN!” Play around with the FUN of winning by claiming your own wins privately (I recommend looking in the mirror while shouting “I WIN!!”) and everyone else’s wins publicly. See what happens to your relationships.
Try out these three steps and see what happens. The Big Win here is to consider the possibility that these steps have merit—something you can only prove one way or the other by trying them out.
 
Important Note: All you’re doing this week 
is PLAYING & EXPLORING.
There’s NOTHING to SOLVE—and EVERYTHING TO DISCOVER.