The only promise you can always keep is: I am here, now.
And so many fail to deliver that, while attempting to keep promises that are larger than life.
Anchor your feet to the ground.
Tag: empathy
Little and difficult
It’s incredible how little people need.
Attention.
Care.
Support.
It’s equally incredible how difficult it is to give that to them. Unconditionally.
Ask, resist, and frame
Three things you can start doing right away to unlock other people’s potential.
- Ask clear, open questions – Abuse what and how, get rid of be and do. One example: instead of are you happy with the project? ask what are you happy about with this project?
- Resist giving answers – Even when you know and are sure, an answer not given gives the possibility to the other person to figure it out. Go back to #1 and ask things like what will do with this information? or how do you plan to tackle this issue? or what’s the next step to figure this out?
- Frame everything – Help others put what they do in perspective, anchor the day-to-day in the broader picture, make evident the link with company goals, community goals, life goals. If you do #1 and #2 you should maintain the distance necessary to focus exactly on #3.
Empty-handed
The moment you make an argument personal is the moment you lose it.
If your position is right because the other is wrong, or is an idiot, or did not do a good enough job, or is not as competent, your position is extremely weak. And even if you are right, there’s no way you can prove them wrong.
Keep discussions around facts instead and be ready to accept other opinions as valid and worth your consideration.
Arguments are negotiations, and no negotiation can leave one party empty-handed.
Nothing really ends
Everything ends.
But nothing really does, does it?
Things might end on a material level. A relationship, a job, a moment. But there are threads that keep us attached to things that have ended, and that make them come back. Memories, feelings, thoughts.
It’s the accumulation of everything that happens that makes us who we are. Nothing really ends.
Your choice is whether you want to keep all that in a messy closet or if you want to give it a shape that you can call your story.
You've got this 