I'm Durian, slate and Fleming, and thank you for joining me on get what you need and feel good about it. Do you find it difficult to ask for what you need? Do you frequently feel misunderstood?

Do you have a problem or cause.

That you would like to learn to manage more effectively? What makes it so hard for us to tell each other how we feel? And how do we speak up for ourselves so we get what we need and feel good about it? How do we do this? Respectfully, so that we honor the needs and feelings of others. Together we'll explore tips, strategies and resources that, when used mindfully and consistently, will improve our results and enrich our relationships.

Welcome back.

To get what you need and feel.

Good about it, I'm Darian Slate and Fleming. And today, back by popular demand, I have Joe Rohn. Joe was with us in a previous episode when we talked about toastmasters.

Hi, Joe. Welcome back.

Hi, Darren. Great to be back.

It's always fun to work with you and talk with you.

Today we are going to resume our series on communication that I promised you two episodes ago. And today we're going to cover some basic communication concepts that can help us improve our communication so that we get what we need and feel good about it. Jo it seems like one of the most basic concepts that we always want.

To keep in mind when we're communicating.

With people is showing respect for the other person. Along with that, we've always heard that.

You can catch more flies with a.

Drop of honey than a gallon of gall or bad stuff.

What do you think about that?

In my experience, and this comes from more than one time that I went to couples counseling with my wife back in the day, I found that two things were really important, a listening. Listening until they're through saying whatever they need to say without interrupting, without thinking about what you're going to say. And when you mention respect, I think listening to someone is the first sign of showing respect. What you said about a drop of honey, I fully agree with that one, too. Because a lot of times when you want to talk about some conflict, it's best to say, I love how you do x, whatever x might be. Before I even start to complain, I want to at least say, and this is sometimes doesn't have to be related to the conflict or the particular item of contention. I was taught, you know, with the therapist, just say, make a statement of a compliment or a loving statement just to set the mood. And I think as corny as that might sound, it does help.

It's helpful to know what respect looks like. And to me, that is the active listening, that really sincerely listening to the other person and not just thinking about your own point of view. To me, there's a lot of things that go into active listening that require a little bit of emotional intelligence to be thinking about how would I want to be treated? So what we want to do is try honestly to understand the other person's point of view. There are subtle things that can affect our communication, such as timing and tone. And how we say things is often as important or more important than what we say. So if I use a tone of frustration or anger or rudeness, I am not going to be received very well.

You reminded me of something that happens to me all the time where I'm texting with somebody and misunderstanding happens. I find myself picking up the phone and say, that didn't come out right. I didn't mean this, I meant that. So what you say about tone, we often try to make up for in text with these emojis, but it's a poor substitute for hearing someone's tone.

You mentioned text messages. Text messaging, in my experience, can be taken so literally. In my work as a therapist and reading some of the work of other therapists, I find that trying to resolve a problem by text is not very helpful. One of the tips that a company called secure marriage in Milwaukee, Oregon, suggests is do not fight via text message. So in this podcast, we're really going to be talking about face to face communications or phone communications, where we hear each other's voices. We're present for those conversations, avoid conflict, and move towards problem solving. We're basing a lot of our points today on the book, how to win Friends and influence people, by Dale Carnegie. One of his points is to start by finding areas of a disagreement with people. You will probably find more that you agree about than you disagree with.

First off, I do love the book by Dale Carnegie. It has been a guiding light, and I will get into this a little bit more later as to what I found valuable in the book. There's so much, I could read the book over and over. In fact, he suggests you read every chapter twice. That's how much is packed in. The book is great. It's easy to read. It's, he'll state a principle and then just tell you scenario, story, another scenario, another story, how they could have gone wrong, or how they did go wrong.

And how they could go right on.

The idea of avoiding conflict. His first statement is the best way to win an argument is to avoid an argument. He says if someone states to you, he mentions a dinner party he was at where someone made a quote, and the person claimed the quote was from the Bible. Now, he knew, this is, Dale Carnegie knew that it was a Shakespeare quote, and he told the person they were wrong. And no, I was right. No Iran. Then he turns to his buddy next to him, who was a definite Shakespeare expert, and he says, tell him he's wrong. Oh, no, Dale, he's right. As he kicks him under the table, he was trying to show, Dale, it's not important. What you might have done was get your facts straight, but you just made enemies out of a possible friend.

So what's more important? Winning an argument on winning friends, right?

You did say, though, to win an argument would be to avoid the argument in the first place and in our lives, in our communication as couples or families or coworkers, you can't totally avoid a conversation. Couples accuse each other of avoiding the topic, of changing the subject, of walking away instead of dealing with the subject. So I want to see if we can put that in perspective. And when we talk about avoiding an argument, would it be more helpful to think about how you can turn that into a problem solving conversation rather than an argument?

There's always going to be disagreements.

Of course, you cannot avoid every argument in life, but you're certainly going to have disagreements, especially if it's your partner, family member, close working colleague. You're going to have disagreements on important things.

There's no two ways about it.

It can be an art form, but it takes practice. There's some simple techniques. And I go back to Dale Carnegie's book. It's full of stuff like that. But I know you want to bring up one particular, very easy four step technique today that we're going to work with a little bit and use that as a, a platform to at least have something easy to remember and easy to follow. And you can get better at it with practice.

But to set the stage in talking about avoiding arguments, creating problem solving situations, Dale Carnegie talks about finding areas on which you agree, and that if you think about it, we will probably find that we agree on more than we disagree on. So obviously there's going to be various issues that will come up in our relationships. But it seems like it's always helpful to see if we can bring ourselves to a point where we can agree.

Hey, we care about each other. We're on the same page here. We're in this relationship because we care about each other.

And what we really want to do is just find points that we agree on and ways that we can overcome stumbling blocks and remain in amicable relationships.

Brian, I agree.

And when I started to talk about avoiding an argument by not worrying about who was right and who was wrong, the other side of that coin is when you are wrong, admit it. Apologize profusely and quickly. I can even bring up what I found was the most valuable thing in the Carnegie book to me, that has served me best over the years. It says, apologize even if you're not sure you're wrong. That doesn't sound quite honest, but it can be made honest in this way. If you don't think you're wrong, at least admit that you're human and you're not perfect. So therefore you could be wrong about anything. Once you admit your part in a contentious situation, you can even do it without knowing, saying for whatever part I have played in this, I am sorry, and I'm not even sure I understand what I might have done wrong. Please help me understand and I'll talk it out with you. But I want nothing but better to resolve the situation. That's a kind of a catch all thought, but it does work. I've used it many times. It takes a lot of self control to admit you're wrong when you don't think you are. But you always have to admit anything's possible when you're human, right?

Because if we start out by saying you're wrong, that's wrong. That just doesn't make sense. What usually happens, Joe, when we start a conversation or we respond to someone's point by saying that you're never going.

To get me to be your friend, if you start out by saying I'm wrong, I'm immediately going to become defensive. Even if I think I'm wrong, I don't want to be told I'm wrong.

And it puts now I'm on the defensive, now I'm feeling attacked and I don't even want to listen anymore. I'm probably going to be arguing rather than listening. And so if we can find a way to create an atmosphere where we say, I'd like to resolve this with you, I want us to get along, I want to feel good about how this turns out. Start the conversation with a respectful tone of voice and kind words. I will be putting the links to the book about the 30 day kindness challenge, and I'll be putting links to the Dale Carnegie book in our show notes. So there are some ways to have very contentious conversations, and we have all had them. And usually when I have a conversation like that, I feel a lot of regret and guilt afterwards.

And this has led me to really.

Study the areas of communication and how to be more effective to reduce my tendency to fall into conflict and feel bad after the fact. And also, I want to hold on to my relationships. And so we are going to demonstrate a technique that can help improve outcomes to our communication. Right now, what we are going to do is show you how it doesn't go well, what can happen. And after that we'll demonstrate a more effective way to communicate that will increase your likelihood of an amicable outcome. Joe, did you get those groceries I asked for?

Wait a minute, I just got home. What do you mean? When did you ask for groceries?

Well, I sent you a text message.

Why don't you ever read your text messages?

I didn't get any. Oh, I see. I did get a text. When did you just sent this text? A half an hour ago. I was already on my way home. Why? If it was, what was I supposed to get?

Well, I was hoping that you would.

Call me and ask me what we needed.

I had no idea you needed anything. What's for supper?

Well, how am I ever going to be able to get your attention before you leave work so that these kinds of things don't happen?

If you call me, I will answer. Or if you call me and I can't answer, I will at least call you back. Texting doesn't always do it. I was out on the road. I had the radio on. I didn't even hear the text come in. But if you called, I would hear it.

Thank you, Joe.

We did a good job of showing.

How to do things badly. So now we are going to demonstrate a technique called non violent communication. In this technique, there are four steps. Basically, you start by focusing on the facts rather than emotions, focusing on the issue at hand rather than issuing character judgment. We want to stay away from you. Don't even care about what I need or want to. Just stating what you need and what would be helpful. So the first step is to talk about your feeling about what happened and then talk about your description of what happened or the behavior that is bothersome. Next, talk about your need and turn that need into a request. As much as possible, steer away from using the word you. This method is based on what was previously known by therapists and communication experts as an I statement. And when we use an I statement.

It'S all about what I feel, what.

I observe, and what I need. And there's an art form to steering away from using the word you. But when we use the word you, it tends to put us on the defensive. The person who's the recipient of that accusation feels attacked, becomes defensive and stops listening. We're going to show a way to have that same conversation again and also show you how you can get creative about avoiding using the word you. My suggestion is if you're going to.

Use the word you because it's so.

Hard, that's such a common word in our language, is to fit that word you into the need and the request because that gives people information about what they individually can do to make things better.

Now we'll have that same conversation again. Hey, Joe, did you get those groceries?

I asked for groceries.

Asked for. I didn't know you asked for groceries. When was this?

Well, I sent a text to you.

This afternoon and I was hoping you.

Would stop and pick up some groceries for me.

I don't remember getting any. I'm looking at my phone, I see a text, but it just happened when I was on my way home already. I didn't know anything about that.

I need to say I get really frustrated when I send text messages and I don't get a response. Would you be willing to check your text messages before you leave work in case I need something?

I can't hear text messages necessarily at work. I don't always have my phone on me. I could be in a meeting, have to silence my phone. I don't know if I can remember all the times. Hey, look, my head is full of business when I'm at work. I don't know if I can remember, but I'll try.

Thank you. That would be really helpful. Now, we're going to do this scenario another time because I believe there are times when your partner might be unsure about whether he can fulfill your request and there might be some problem solving that needs to be done. We're going to demonstrate this a different way now. Hey, Joe, did you get those groceries?

I asked for groceries.

What groceries? I wasn't aware you asked for any groceries.

I sent you a text message this afternoon. I was really hoping you would get in touch with me and asked me what we needed.

I don't remember getting it. Oh, I see my phone. I did get a text. But you just sent this text a half an hour ago. I was always already on my way home.

I get really frustrated though, when I send you text messages and I don't get a response. What can we do about that? Because would you be willing to check your text messages before you leave work?

I could, but that wouldn't help today. Now, wouldn't.

Would it be more helpful if I call you and if I don't get an answer, I follow up with the text message?

That would be good, because a phone call gets my attention. A text is just a quick and I may or may not pay attention to it. But a phone call I have to pay attention to, especially if it's from you. And then if you follow directly with a text, I would definitely pay attention.

Thank you so much. That would be so helpful. I can work on it, too. So in this scenario, we demonstrated how it might be difficult for a person to feel that he or she could honor the request. There might be a barrier that they are feeling, and so some negotiation or problem solving might be called for. So it's helpful sometimes to discuss other possible solutions or for the requester to have an alternate solution in mind or be willing to negotiate. I learned something new yesterday that reminded me of some other work I have done regarding agreements. Making agreements in relationships. We see this in business partnerships. When we are writing up a business plan or a work plan together, they often recommend that you build into those plans agreements for how you're going to handle conflicts that might arise. The nonviolent communication method would be useful in those situations as well. And it occurred to me that it is helpful in relationships to discuss and agree on agreements about how you will handle certain situations when they arise, so that both parties know what the game plan is.

In my marriage, constant issue that come up would be when somebody had a responsibility, whether it be to pay a bill or to do an errand or to take something in store, it oftentimes it wouldn't be handled. And we'd look at each other and say, I thought it was your responsibility.

Oh, no, no.

We agreed it was your responsibility. We'd go back and forth. After some time, we had to make a verbal, out loud agreement that when something important that had responsibility attached to it was taking place, we'd agree, transfer of responsibility, this is now in your hands. And we'd say it out loud, it helped a lot just to simply, whether it be a handshake or we put something in the other's hand or just said, transfer responsibility, those were keywords that perked us up and made us both pay attention, and it really solved. Most of the responsible things that had to get done were, there was very much improvement in that area.

Right.

And I think that both parties in any relationship wouldn't feel so taken by surprise. One of us might have learned a.

Technique, but that other person doesn't know.

We'Re working on it unless we tell them. And so when you are struggling through a situation like this, it could be helpful if you decide, let's make an agreement about this. And when it happens in the future, let's remind each other or ask each other if we can follow the process that we agreed on to resolve this conflict. I was in a class yesterday with Marcie Shimov. I'm taking her happiness certification training course, and she actually said that a situation in her relationship arose where it felt like conflict was going to arise, and she specifically stopped the process and asked, could we use the nonviolent communication method to resolve this? And they did. That is totally appropriate and might be more helpful in allowing both parties to feel they're working together and not catching each other by surprise. I want to move on to two other techniques that are somewhat similar that you can use. One is called the sandwich technique. In the sandwich technique, you begin by saying something complimentary or something that you appreciate about the other person. You validate and value them. You follow that with your concern. I would recommend that you use this technique to validate your appreciation for your partner. Follow it up with your concern using the I statement messages, as we demonstrated in the nonviolent communication method, so that neither one of you gets defensive after expressing your concern, follow that up with a request or a suggestion and ask if you can agree to work on that together. So that is the sandwich technique. I also follow couples therapists John and Julie Gottman. They have a variation of these techniques called the softened startup. In this approach, you do the same thing. You compliment or appreciate something about your partner. You follow it up with a concern, and you finish by making a request, agreeing to that request in some way, and follow up with appreciation for successfully making an agreement.

In the Dale Carnegie book that we talked about already, there's a story about Calvin Coolidge, who was not a man of many words. He was overheard one morning going into his office, complimenting his secretary, Mary, saying, that's a lovely dress. You look great in that dress, Mary. And she was blown away because he wasn't a man who would give out many compliments. But he quickly followed up with, now, don't get carried away. I did want to get you in a good mood. So I can tell you that we need some more help doing these particular memos. So he was very candid and not even very polished using the technique, yet it still worked.

I think what I hear you saying is, you don't have to be perfect. You don't have to know all the right words, but the techniques are helpful. They set the stage for amicable agreement. That's a great story. We have talked about effective communication methods and attitudes that can enhance our relationships and improve our outcomes through effective communication. Today we covered being respectful using active listening and three techniques, nonviolent communication, the sandwich technique, and the softened startup. I will be putting links to the professionals who use these techniques and who have written about them in the show notes and I wish you all happy communicating with these new skills. And Jo, I want to thank you for joining us for this podcast episode today. It's always a pleasure to work with you. Thank you so much.

Pleasure is all mine.

It was nice to be back and.

We will see you all in June for the next episode of get what you need and feel good about it. Thank you.

Thank you for joining me today on get what you need and feel good about it. Remember, when you speak up for yourself assertively, you will get what you need and feel good about it. You will also be showing respect, respect for yourself and for the other people in your life who are important to you. Until next time, try thinking about it like Stephanie Lahart says it. Say what you mean, mean what you.

Say, but don't say it mean before.

It gets too late. And the only way to do this is with hope, not a yes. The only way to do this is.

With hope, not hate.