Exercise: watch NOT
Check-in and ask yourself if the word NOT crops up regularly in your speaking. Any sentence including that word is likely to be negative: some people I have met unconsciously inject the word in almost every utterance. If in doubt, ask a friend or record some of your conversations to check. Encouraging people are easier to listen to!
COMPLAINING
Do not listen to those who weep and complain, for their disease is contagious.
- Og Mandino
I’m a Brit so I know this one very well! Complaining is our national pastime, although fairness compels me to add that this habit does generally overlay a bulldog spirit that still exists today: we may complain, but we do tend to knuckle down when required.
Not all complaining is a sin. If a restaurant serves you a bad dish or if a person or institution fails to deliver on a promise, complain! If you can change anything you don’t like, it’s right and proper to take action and that often starts with complaining.
The kind of complaining I’m suggesting you pay attention to is the useless kind: complaining about the weather, the government, your neighbour, your sports team… anything that’s beyond your capacity or your willingness to change. If you can change it, act. If you can’t change it or you won’t act, complaining is simply viral misery, infecting the person you are complaining to with your own negative emotion.
This kind of complaining can become an unconscious habit. Do you know an inveterate complainer – someone who moans about just about everything; someone for whom nothing seems to be right? It’s hard to be around such a person, and hard to listen to them for any extended period.
Exercise: Gratitude
If you have fallen into the habit of complaining, sit down with a piece of paper and write a gratitude list. Write down everything you can think of that you can be grateful for. This may include any positive aspects of your health, your relationships, your possessions, your achievements, your service for others, your legacy, your surroundings, your experiences. Write until you can’t think of anything else. Keep the list by you and reflect on it for a few minutes every day. Add to it every time you think of something new to be grateful for. Gratitude is the most powerful antidote to self-pity and a complaining habit.
EXCUSES
An inverse expression of the Looking Good leech is desperately trying to avoid looking bad. We all make mistakes, and sometimes those mistakes upset others by creating cost or other negative consequences for them. In the face of anger or pain, it’s tempting to remove ourselves from the line of fire by blaming something or someone else for what happened. “It wasn’t my fault – what could I do?” Sometimes that really is true, but very often if we look closely, we will find that we did have a major part to play in what happened.
I’m sure you’ve made excuses at some point in your life, and you’ve probably had it done to you many times. It is common human behaviour, but as with the other deadly sins of communication, the problem arises if it becomes a habit. Some people are blame-throwers, casting themselves as eternal victims with the fault being everywhere but here. This kind of behaviour creates 2 costs.
First, it’s dishonest, or at best dissembling, so it undermines trust. People don’t give credence to someone who blithely bends or breaks the truth simply to look good or justify themselves.
Second, it obstructs growth. If we refuse to take responsibility for an error or failing, it is very likely to recur: you can’t fix something that you swear is not broken. This kind of denial can be very destructive, obscuring self-awareness to the point where we think we are other than what we really are. The first step in transforming anything is to become aware of it. Repeated excuses deny us the chance to improve, because we believe there’s nothing wrong with us.
EXAGGERATION AND LYING
We talked about embellishment earlier in the context of the Looking Good leech. However, embellishment is not restricted to hyperbole; it can express itself in embroidery of the truth. I wonder if you’ve ever claimed to have read a book you haven’t read, or to have watched a movie you’ve never seen, or to have known someone you really don’t know? I suspect we’ve all done this kind of thing at some point. Mild embroidery like this is relatively harmless, and sometimes it can be a form of rapport-building to warp our reality just a little to fit more comfortably with someone else’s – but beware, lying is just around the corner.
As with all the 7 sins, this behaviour can become habitual and progressive: lies tend to beget more lies, which can lead to embarrassment, pain and even tragedy. This is a common theme in fiction, from Shakespeare’s plays, many of which revolve around lies resulting in either laughter or tears, to the disturbing book and film The Talented Mr. Ripley which brilliantly depicts how lies can escalate and trap the perpetrator in pain. There are reasons for this literary fascination with lying: it is very common, and it can be dramatically destructive.
The effect of lying on communication effectiveness can be seismic. If anyone is recognised as a habitual liar, their words are at best suspect, and at worst completely disregarded.
Exercise: Rigorous honesty
Pay attention for a few days to your honesty level. We all like to think we’re totally honest, but few people are: white lies pop out to make people feel better or avoid criticism or punishment; maybe exaggerations become habitual to curry favour and be more respected. If you spot any pattern, take stock and consider instituting a rule of absolute honesty in the area of concern. In my experience, settling for near-honesty is not as effective as an absolute commitment where the line is clear and you do not cross it. Be careful not to hurt people around you with rigorous honesty: it is always possible to say nothing, or if compliments are demanded and you cannot honestly give one, you can use double-edged praise, like one actor passionately (and honestly) telling another that his performance was ‘unforgettable’!
DOGMATISM
I will listen to you, especially when we disagree.
- Barack Obama
The Being Right leech is foursquare behind this sin. Most of the time, the shells fired in the conversational battle to be right are opinions. I grew up in a household where opinions and facts were rarely differentiated, which gave rise to a lot of table thumping and raised voices. These days, I believe this distinction is critical for harmony so I offer a gentle suggestion in my talks and I’ll make it to you now. Try using the phrase: “Would you like my opinion about that?” You do have to be ready for the answer no! Sadly, all over the world in billions of conversations every day, opinions are given without seeking any permission, often forcefully or even violently.
Internalising this distinction between opinions and facts is a crucial foundation of humility, and a necessary condition for peaceful coexistence. It’s Wednesday. The sun will rise tomorrow morning. My name is Julian. This book is called How To Be Heard. These are facts and there is no point disputing them. However, much of daily conversation involves opinions – about sport, politics, society, other people’s behaviour, the best course of action in a business or in a team, likely outcomes in the future, or effects of past actions (even historians love to disagree!). The problem lies in attachment. When we identify our own worth with our opinions, we become upset or angry when they are challenged; this is the fear-based energy that drives many arguments and confrontations.
Of course, we need to stay true to our values and our beliefs without being blown about by everyone else’s, but we also need to have the capacity to learn and grow. We are not our opinions: we create or collect them.
If you can practice being conscious of the difference between you and your opinions, you may find life becoming much more serene – and more interesting too, as you may be more open to new thoughts and perspectives.
TECHNOLOGY
Most people view technology as inherently benign, which is a rather dangerous generalisation. Certainly, nobody in the world can stop the march of technology, and its benefits are clear: we augment our own capabilities