It was a pleasant afternoon and I had a pleasant book….
I was sitting with an exquisite cup of white tea in a beautiful local tea shop. They serve delicious teas made from leaves growing on ancient trees, picked by hand in the Spring and then lovingly hand-processed on very small family farms in very remote regions of China.
My environment was perfect.
At the table next to me sat a couple.
The man was in quite a pleasant mood. He was telling the woman about something that had happened that morning. He was enjoying talking with her and enjoying the telling. He finished and smiled at her.
The woman spoke: “Why didn’t you ask her? I would have thought that would have been the first thing you would have asked her.”
The woman’s question seemed polite, but her tone of voice had a slight edge, an unspoken quality of “I’m trying hard to be very polite, but I really don’t get how you could have done something so wrong.”
I’m sure she was completely unaware of her tone. Most people are.
I picked up my book and pretended to read because I knew where this conversation was going. I didn’t even know what they were talking about, but I knew they were headed for a fight.
Can you see how the question itself makes him wrong? I knew he was going to defend what he did. In other words, he was going to get “defensive”.
When you start making the other person wrong, even in very subtle ways, or maybe ESPECIALLY in very subtle ways, they HAVE to get defensive. They don’t really have to, but for most people, it will be their immediate response.
He lost some of his cheerfulness. As he answered, he was more careful and conservative now, not filled with so much enjoyment or warmth for her. He explained his reasoning in measured tones, slow and careful, controlled.
She listened with a disbelieving look on her face and when he finished, she didn’t acknowledge that she understood anything he had said.
She immediately asked three questions straight in a row, which he answered. But he received no acknowledgment that she understood any of his answers. By the time she was done with that, he was irate.
Here is the irony.
After he answered all of her questions, she understood his reasoning and why he did what he did. She said, “Oh I see! I understand.” And she was satisfied.
But it was too late. His feathers were extremely ruffled and it would have now taken a MUCH bigger acknowledgment to calm him down. Something that required more skill than she possessed.
So she decided he was just grumpy and asked him why he was now so grumpy.
She had no clue that she had caused it.
That question, of course, made him even grumpier. He burst out with, “I’m not grumpy!” Almost shouting, but restraining himself in the quiet serenity of the tea shop.
This is a woman who goes through life bewildered why people don’t respond well to her.
There wasn’t much I could do. She hadn’t signed up for a workshop that would have really opened her eyes. All I could do was smile reassuringly at both of them, which did seem to help, and I did receive genuine smiles back from each of them. Then they both sighed and decided it was time to go.
A lost afternoon as far as they were concerned.
She didn’t seem like a bad person or someone I wouldn’t like. Before I really learned how to communicate effectively over 30 years ago, I was constantly getting into trouble. So I have great compassion for people who get into trouble when they communicate.
What she didn’t know is that she did three things that were guaranteed to start an argument:
Asking a question in a way that made him wrong so he had to defend
Her tone of voice that she would have claimed was pleasant, not realizing that the irritation she was feeling created an undercurrent of irritation in her tone that overpowered any pleasantness she was trying to project
Her lack of acknowledgment that she understood anything he said, until the very end when it was too little, too late.
Any one of these is a “pleasantness killer”. All three together are an atom bomb in any conversation.
Being causative means being able to make what you want happen, being able to cause your intended outcome at will.
It means not only creating the exact outcome you want, it means having the ability to create an exceptional relationship with the person.
It’s not a lucky accident when it happens. It takes solid knowledge of the laws of communication and high-level skill to live life at a causative level. Life is full of surprises, many unpredicted and challenging conversations. You’re required to think on your feet, to think fast in the moment.
To do that, you have to understand the “natural laws” of communication, to know exactly what causes what, exactly HOW to make it happen. You have to have a fast reaction time and you have to be in complete control of your thoughts and your actions in order to execute your intention.
This can all be learned. Most people are unaware of these “natural laws” and DO need to learn and master them if they want to operate successfully.
My wish for the woman at the tea shop is that she discovers these laws of communication. Her life would turn around. She seems like a nice person who is simply missing the knowledge about communication that would enable her to be successful.
Your knowledge and skills are your armor and your shield in life’s situations. They enable you to have the power to transform any situation. Without them, you’ll experience lack of certainty, frustration, bewilderment about “what makes people act that way”, and losses in life.
You’ll be put on “wait” when you’re ready to charge forward. You’ll miss out on all the joy that’s possible, miss out on the thrill you experience when you know you can transform any situation and relationship and outcome with your ability to communicate alone.
A causative future is available to anyone who makes the decision to achieve it. It’s not mysterious. It’s simply a choice.
Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of a specific set of skills required to become causative and to communicate with the world from that position.
I didn’t know that 30 years ago, but I know it now. And I’m in the privileged position to get to see it each and every day I do my work with executives and professionals from all over the globe.
The first step on the journey is asking yourself at what level you want to go through life?
There is the average level…and then there is the level of the champion. The one who has acquired the necessary knowledge and skills to perform in a way most people do not believe is possible for them.
I am here to remind you that it is possible. And that it is possible for YOU. And that ascending to the level of your true potential is worth the work.
All that’s required is your decision to do it…
Be the cause!