Brilliant Miller's Blog

Approaching Difficult Conversations

Have you been putting off a difficult conversation or avoiding it completely? Do you want better outcomes in your most important conversations at home or at work?

You Are Not So Smart and How to Talk to People About Things are presenting a free, 90-minute online workshop next Tuesday, February 1st at 5pm MT to give you concrete strategies you can use in all your conversations. 

You can learn more about the workshop here.

You might also enjoy—and benefit from—David McRaney’s conversation on the You Are Not So Smart Podcast with Misha Glouberman about how to improve your communication skills.

I got a lot from this episode, including:

-Most of what we do with other people is COMMUNICATE

-Having better conversations is both INTELLECTUALLY and EMOTIONALLY complex

-Other people are HARD and other people are IMPORTANT

-There’s often a difference between an ESPOUSED THEORY and THE THEORY IN USE (or what we say we believe and what we actually do)

-MOTIVE MATTERS when it comes to conversation, and it helps to know what you hope to achieve by having a given conversation

-Having an OPENNESS OF INTENT can be immensely helpful in a difficult conversation

-If you’re having a conversation with someone, and the VOICE INSIDE YOUR HEAD is screaming something, you’ve got to FIND A WAY to say that

-A common way people mess up their conversations is by not just saying the important thoughts and feelings they have

And I love the way Misha closes the conversation: “The strategies to get what you want happen to be the same strategies for being a good person, which is a happy fact about these situations.”

I’m a huge fan of David McRaney’s work. You can my interview with him on the School for Good Living Podcast here.

I’m eagerly awaiting his next book, How Minds Change, which releases June 21st


Brilliant Miller

I help achievers learn & grow, connect, contribute and have fun.

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