by Sam Horn
Help People
“Language is like songs, like food, like dance – it is the expression of what we think.” - Holly Near, Singer Songwriter
A man in a Tongue Fu!® workshop shook his head ruefully and added, “I wish I had known this last night. My son called from college. I haven’t heard from him for awhile so when he asked, ‘Can I talk with you, Dad?’ guess what the first words out my mouth were? ‘Sure, Son, what’s the problem?’ I can see now that response must have made him think the only reason he might want to call his old man was because something was wrong.”
Negative words can have unintended consequences. Overusing the word problem can make people feel like all you ever talk about is what’s wrong. Replace that word with proactive alternatives such as:
Before
“Shirley, my secretary said you called. What’s the problem?”
“It’s time to get back to work. Any other problems we need to discuss before we call it quits?"
“I don’t have a problem with you taking Friday afternoon off.”
“I have a problem with the way you handled that client.”
“No problem. I was just doing my job.”
“You want to know what your problem is? You never think of anyone but yourself.”
After
“Hi, Shirley, what did you want to talk about?”
“Anything else we need to address before we wrap up the meeting?”
“Sure, you can have Friday afternoon off. You deserve it.”
“What happened with Mr. Mappano?”
“You’re welcome. I was glad to help,” or “My pleasure.”
“Please be more considerate of the people around you.”
A department store manager said, “We have used a modification of this idea with great results. We relabeled our Complaint Department. It is now called Quality Assurance. Changing the name has improved the morale and performance of the people who work there. They used to find their work depressing because all they ever did was fix problems. Now they see their job as maintaining excellence. Every comment they receive is an opportunity to improve the quality of our service and products. They take pride in what they do now because they see their efforts as making a positive contribution to our company’s reputation.”
No More Problems
“Aggression unopposed becomes a contagious disease.” – Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter
The word problem can become a contagion that affects and infects the people around you. Kathryn, a woman who owns a flower shop with her husband Harry, told me, “I don’t think he realized how much his use of the word problem was coloring his perception of life. Everything was a problem with Harry.
“If he came back from deliveries and I asked how his day was going, he’d say, ‘It was one problem after another.’ Or he’d protest, ‘Why does everyone always dump their problems in my lap?’ If a customer asked if a bouquet could be sent that same day, he’d say, ‘I don’t have a problem with that.’ Yesterday our daughter thanked him for letting her take off early. He shrugged off her appreciation with a brusque ‘No problem.’ ”
Kathryn believed her husband wasn’t aware that his habitual use of the word problem was having such a harmful impact. She said, “I bought your mp3 on Tongue Fu! and played it during our commute. Harry sat absolutely still during the section where you talked about the word problem. Then he turned to me and said, ‘I do that, don’t I?’ He vowed to become ‘problem free.' The change has been powerful. You’ve heard the phrase ‘Just because you have a persecution complex doesn’t mean everybody’s not out to get you?’ That was him. His frequent use of that ‘problematic’ word was making him feel life was a burden, a perpetual struggle. Eliminating that pessimistic word has given him a more positive outlook. Our family and our customers have really noticed the difference.”
Action Plan – Don’t Let Things Become A Problem
You have always wanted to be your own boss, so you’ve started your own computer repair business, which you operate out of your home. Sometimes you can make diagnoses over the phone; other times you need to make house calls. The phone rings and a customer needs help. How do you respond?
Words To Lose
You answer the customer’s query with the word that carries negative connotations.
“What’s the problem with your computer?”
You continue to use the word problem and add to his distress.
“It sounds like it. I had the same problem you had last month. I wonder why it broke?"
You keep bringing up what’s wrong, making everything worse.
“Anything else not working with your computer? How about that problem you had with your label printer?"
Words To Use
You respond in a positive, open fashion.
“Hello, Paul, how can I help you?”
You help him focus on solutions.
“I think I know what’s happening. I have time this afternoon if you'd like me to come and look at it.”
You diplomatically seek information without categorizing it as bad.
“Otherwise, how is your computer working? Is the smart label printer cooperating?"
CHAPTER 16: AVOID GOING TO EXTREMES
“Exaggeration is truth that has lost its temper.” - Kahlil Gibran
How do you feel when someone uses extreme words? “You never listen to me!” “You’re always late.” “Everything has to be your way.”
Extreme words trigger extreme reactions. As Gibran observed, words such as everyone, always and nobody are often based on truth. When truth is exaggerated though, others will lose their temper. They will vigorously protest all-or-nothing characterizations as being unfair and will be quick to point out the exception.
Don’t Be Subjective; Be Specific
“Precision of communication is important, more important than ever, in our era of hair-trigger balances, when a false or misunderstood word may create as much disaster as a sudden thoughtless act.” - James Thurber, American Author and Cartoonist
Ground your observations on specific real-life actions to keep your discussion objective rather than subjective. A sweeping accusation such as “You always forget to feed the cat. Do you want it to starve?” will produce a passionate denial. This statement is doubly inflammatory because the extreme word is linked to an equally extreme conclusion. It’s one thing to complain your child forgot to feed the cat; it’s another thing to imply he doesn’t care about the cat. He’s bound to come back with an equally vehement denial.
Instead, say, “This is the third time this week the cat hasn’t been fed. What’s happening?” This neutral observation combined with a request for information will focus the conversation on the incident rather than the individual. Instead of putting your child on the defensive, you are giving him an opportunity to be accountable and correct his actions.
After we had reached just this point in one of my workshops, I caught a woman blushing and asked what she was thinking. She said, “I’ve just realized why my kids are tuning me out. I’ve hurt my credibility by overstating things: ‘Jeffrey, I’ve told you a million times to close the screen door when you come in from the patio,’ or ‘Lisa, you never put the milk back in the refrigerator.’”
She then asked, “How do I break the habit?” I recommended she rephrase exaggerated accusations into prompting questions that motivate her kids to take the desired action. Ask, “Jeffrey, the screen door?” and “Lisa, are you finished with the milk?” Then, follow up with the kind of silence we’ve already talked about. Hopefully, that silence will be filled by Jeffery saying, “Oops, I forgot. I’ll get it now.” or “Yup. I’m putting it back in the fridge.” Brief prompting questions will get better results than harping on what your kids didn’t do.
Another participant, Rita, a student, said she wished she had her college roommate with her at the workshop. “She thinks I’m a slob. Last night, she accused me of never cleaning our place and said that she’s always picking up
after me, that she’s tired of being the only one who takes care of the apartment.”
I asked if what her roommate was saying was true. “Of course not. She conveniently forgets that I do the vacuuming and I’m the one who cooks dinner and does the dishes every night.”
Rita had just pointed out yet another reason all-or-nothing words inflame emotions: they often target prior actions or inactions. This produces a triple whammy—an extreme accusation followed by an unfair conclusion and recrimination for the past.
I suggested Rita redirect the extreme words back at her roomie. Feeding the offending words back in an inoffensive way gives her housemate a chance to qualify or quantify her charges and an argument can be prevented.
Rita could gently yet incredulously repeat her roommate’s sweeping statement—“I never. . . clean the house?” while raising her eyebrows as if to say, “You can’t really mean that.”
Her roomie would probably back down with, “Well, I spent almost an hour cleaning up the living room.” Aaahh. This more factual account of what made her roommate upset might motivate Rita to apologize for leaving a mess, thank her for straightening up and promise to clean up after herself from then on.
You may be thinking, what if Rita’s roommate played tough and came back with, “No, you never pick up after yourself. I can’t remember the last time you cleaned the apartment, and furthermore...,” Rita could choose to bypass the accusation rather than belabor it. Belabor means “to explain or insist on excessively,” and bypass is defined as “to neglect or ignore, usually intentionally.” Rather than take offense, “Who do you think you are to call me a slob?” she could move the conversation to a higher, more proactive plain by saying, “Calling each other names won’t help. If you want to discuss how we can keep our apartment neater, I’d be glad to talk with you.”
No More Catastrophes
“I’ve suffered a great many catastrophes. Most of them never happened.” – Mark Twain
A friend named Bill was able to use this idea to change his fiancée’s habit of speaking in extremes. “I think words like worst, terrible, and impossible are extreme words too. Winona is an intense woman, and it shows in her language. She used to say things like, ‘I look terrible in this dress,’ or 'My mom’s impossible to talk to.’ ‘We never go anywhere anymore.’ She would work herself into a funk by using such rile-up words.’’
He was right. As stress researcher Hans Selye says, the words we choose to use to describe what happens to us shapes our perceptions of what happens around us.
Physical Event
“Events don’t cause stress; your interpretation of events causes stress.” – Hans Selye, Stress researcher
Physical events (i.e., you stub your toe, you jump into a cold shower) produce feelings directly. You don't have to think about or decipher what happened. Your toe hurts. Your body gets goose bumps (or as we call them in Hawaii, “chicken skin”).
Everything else that takes place (i.e., there’s a blizzard and you can’t get to work) is processed psychologically through your mind, which then produces feelings based on your values, thoughts, expectations, previous experience, and habitual attitude and vocabulary. You may feel anger (“Not today! I was supposed to meet with that VIP client”), or grudging relief (“I’ll take this as a sign I need to spend more time preparing my power point slides”), or general dismay (“This is just my luck. Why do things always go wrong?”) or gratitude (“Thank heaven for snow days. I can finally get caught up on sleep.”)
Make Your Feelings Fit The Facts
“Change your perception of what a miracle is and you’ll see them all around you.” - Jon Bon Jovi, American Musician
That is why it’s so important to describe precisely what happens so our feelings accurately reflect the situation. If we exaggerate our descriptions, we exaggerate our feelings, and perhaps exaggerate the consequences. If our portrayals are excessively negative, our outlook will be too.
How can you make sure your feelings are appropriate to the facts? When something happens, immediately check your thoughts for accuracy by using the Emotional Accountability Quiz. Ask yourself,
“Is this true?”
“What is true?”
If you look at a stack of bills and think, “It’ll take me a hundred years to pay off all those charges,’’ ask yourself, “Is that true?” If it’s not true (and extreme statements rarely are), ask yourself, “What is true?”
Be precise. You may realize that what’s true is, “Well, it’s actually going to take me three months to pay off that debt.” You have now correctly assessed the situation rather than catastrophized it. Now that task is doable instead of daunting and depressing.
Bill said that the day after we talked about this idea, he picked Winona up for a date. No sooner had she gotten in the car than she started in with a familiar complaint: “Nothing ever goes right. . .” He turned to her and asked, “Winona, is that true? Does nothing ever go right?” That question stopped her in her tracks.
“First, she sat in silence for a while. Then she shook her head. ’That’s not true. There are plenty of things that go right.’
“We continued to talk about this habit of ‘awfulizing’ and how drastic words make things worse than they are. We agreed to keep each other honest in the way we react to situations. If we slip up and represent something as being terrible, we ask ourselves, ‘Is that true? What is true?’
“If we see a movie we don’t like, that doesn’t mean it was horrible. If I forget to tell them not to put mushrooms on our pizza, that’s not a capital crime. If she breaks a nail, it’s not a disaster. We substitute more neutral words like interesting and inconvenient for negative words like dreadful and unforgivable.
“We’ve even stopped using the words hate and kill. It’s become almost a fad to say ‘I hate it when that happens’ or ‘I’d kill for some potato chips about now.’ Those are such violent words. We’ve decided we don’t want these violent images creeping into our vocabulary. We see events more clearly now rather than categorizing everything as a calamity. It’s made our relationship and our time together more enjoyable.”
What negative, violent words have crept into your vocabulary? Do you say things like, “I hate it when people put Christmas decorations up before Thanksgiving?” “I hate it when people post their political views on Facebook and then gloat when their candidate wins.” The insidious impact of those extreme words is that they turn you into a “hater.” Is that really how you want to go through life?
Frame Your World And Relationships The Way You Want Them To Be And That’s What You’ll See
“Where ignorance is our master, there is no possibility of real peace." – The Dalai Lama
To paraphrase the Dalai Lama, when hostility is our master, there is no possibility of happiness and harmony. If you choose to frame what happens more proactively, you’ll see things more positively.
You can do this by adding a third question to your Emotional Accountability Quiz:
Is this true?
What is true?
What would I like to be true?
You can stack the emotional deck in your favor by asking that third question. Rick Martinez is one of my favorite examples of someone who asked himself The Third Question.
Rick started and sold a medical staffing company called MedTrust for millions and now operates top-rated PorVida (For Life) gyms in Texas. He is also a RN (registered nurse) who was called back into service and assigned to Walter Reed Hospital near Washington DC.
As he said, “One week I’m running gyms and the next I’m working with wounded vets whose lives and bodies have been blown up. As you can imagine, these young men and women, many of whom are multiple amputees, profoundly affected me. When I returned to Texas, we actively recruited vets to be part of our gyms and now 10% of our members, and several of our most popular instructors, are vets.”
But it’s what happened next that prompted Rick to apply The Third Question.
R
ick is an Olympic weight lifter. He was doing a lift he’d done many times before when, for some reason … his back foot slipped. “At that moment, the 250 pound bar came down and separated my quad muscle from my leg. Thankfully, after surgery, several months of physical therapy and the help of this leg brace, I’ll be able to walk just fine.”
While Rick was telling our EO (Entrepreneurs Organization) group this story over dinner, he said, “For months before this incident, I felt like something, was yelling at me, trying to get my attention. I knew I was supposed to do more with my life, but I didn’t know what.
When I was doing that lift, it was like (at this point, Rick moved the salt and pepper shaker aside and flicked his thumb and 2nd finger at his imaginary back foot) God, or something, came down and, and went … dink.”
Take The Emotional Accountability Quiz
“Words do two major things They provide food for the mind and create light for understanding and awareness" - Jim Rohn
Words do more than that. By choosing to use words that cast events in a proactive light, they prevent useless despair and create meaningful action. That’s what Rick did by asking himself the Emotional Accountability Quiz.
Is this true? Is it true that a 250-pound bar came down and grievously injured my leg? Yes.
What is true? I can choose to see this as a tragedy and get bummed out, or I can choose to see this as a message that shapes my future for the better. Getting upset serves no good purpose. Interpreting this incident as a message to do things differently extracts value from that incident and gives it meaning so it serves some purpose.