We just love receiving good recommendations, whether it’s for restaurants, movies, great books, or whatever.

Over the years we’ve been asked what books we have enjoyed reading and have made a big difference in our lives, so we thought we’d start putting a list together for you. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but here are five of the ones that make our ‘favorites’ list.

1. The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life by Benjamin Zander

Presenting twelve breakthrough practices for bringing creativity into all human endeavors, The Art of Possibility is the dynamic product of an extraordinary partnership. The Art of Possibility combines Benjamin Zander’s experience as conductor of the Boston Philharmonic and his talent as a teacher and communicator with psychotherapist Rosamund Stone Zander’s genius for designing innovative paradigms for personal and professional fulfillment.

The authors’ harmoniously interwoven perspectives provide a deep sense of the powerful role that the notion of possibility can play in every aspect of life. Through uplifting stories, parables, and personal anecdotes, the Zanders invite us to become passionate communicators, leaders, and performers whose lives radiate possibility into the world.

2. The Soul of Money: Reclaiming the Wealth of Our Inner Resources by Lynne Twist

This unique and fundamentally liberating book shows us that examining our attitudes toward money—earning it, spending it, and giving it away—can offer surprising insight into our lives, our values, and the essence of prosperity.

Lynne Twist, a global activist and fundraiser, has raised more than $150 million for charitable causes. Through personal stories and practical advice, she demonstrates how we can replace feelings of scarcity, guilt, and burden with experiences of sufficiency, freedom, and purpose.

In this Nautilus Award-winning book, Twist shares from her own life, a journey illuminated by remarkable encounters with the richest and poorest, from the famous (Mother Teresa and the Dalai Lama) to the anonymous but unforgettable heroes of everyday life.

3. Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Possibility and Play by James P. Carse

“There are at least two kinds of games,” states James P. Carse as he begins this extraordinary book. “One could be called finite; the other infinite.”

Finite games are the familiar contests of everyday life; they are played in order to be won, which is when they end. But infinite games are more mysterious. Their object is not winning, but ensuring the continuation of play. The rules may change, the boundaries may change, even the participants may change—as long as the game is never allowed to come to an end.

This book had a profound impact on how we see the world and or choices in it.

4. Power vs. Force: The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior (Revised Edition)
by David R. Hawkins

David R. Hawkins details how anyone may resolve the most crucial of all human dilemmas: how to instantly determine the truth or falsehood of any statement or supposed fact.

Dr. Hawkins, who worked as a “healing psychiatrist” during his long and distinguished career, uses theoretical concepts from particle physics, nonlinear dynamics, and chaos theory to support his study of human behavior.

This is a fascinating work that will intrigue readers from all walks of life!

5. Urban Shaman by Serge Kahili-King

If you have ever been interested in the art of shamanism this book is uniquely suited for use in today’s world, Hawaiian shamanism follows the way of the adventurer, which produces change through love and cooperation, which is in contrast to the widely known way of the warrior, which talks about solitary quests and conquest by power.

In this book you’ll discover how to:
• Interpret and change your dreams
• Heal yourself, your relationships, and the environment
• Cast the shaman stones to foretell the future
• Design and perform powerful rituals
• Shapechange
• Make vision quests to other realities

We hope you check these out and, if you’re inspired to read them, that they are as meaningful and supportive to you as they have been for us.

Do you shut down, clam up, and hope they’ll go away? Do you puff up and try to out-bluster them? Do you start explaining, apologizing, or simply flee the scene?

If any of this sound like you, then you’re probably missing the two most important parts of dealing effectively with someone else’s anger, whether it’s a minor upset or full-blown rage.

First, you’ve probably heard someone say, “They are angry at me.” or “I made them angry.” This is the first fundamental mistake most people make when dealing with anger. They falsely believe that someone else can be angry “with them” or that they “can cause” another person’s anger.

The truth is, another person’s upset, anger, or even rage is never ever about you. It is always about how scared the other person is about whether or not they’re going to get something they value, keep something they value, or lose something they value. In other words, it’s always about them and what they value. Always.

Stop Taking It Personally!

When you realize this you can begin to stop taking other people’s anger personally. And this gives you the freedom to really get underneath their anger and create practical, effective solutions that get to the heart of the matter.

Beth and I co-authored an article about this topic that appeared in this month’s issue (Sept. ’08) of the NonviolentCommunication.com eNewsletter. You can read more about this idea of “not taking it personally” there. But I wanted to expand a little bit on one of the points that we made in that article.

And that’s the second most important thing to keep in mind when dealing with anger. And that’s to apply your sharply focused attention on separating the “stimulus” for anger from the “clause” of anger. I say “sharply focused attention” because this is no simple task to separate stimulus from cause, a specially given most people’s lack of experience or training in distinguishing between the two.

Separating Stimulus from Cause

Take the two statements I used as examples above. Both of these statements imply that the stimulus and cause of the other person’s anger is the person making the statement. In fact, it must’ve been something the person said or did, didn’t say, or didn’t do that stimulated this anger reaction in the other person.

But even if you plug in these facts, the statements still do not get to the root of the anger. “Bill is angry because I didn’t return his phone call” “Mary is angry because I didn’t pick her up at the airport on time.” Again, these actions or inactions are only the stimulus for Bill’s and Mary’s anger.

At the root of the anger is their belief that they’re not getting something they value. In this case it might be something like consideration, predictability, or caring. So if you can apply your sharply focused attention to determining what it is that Bill and Mary might value that’s missing for them, you’re much more likely to begin to have a conversation with them about how important those things are to them and how they might be able to get them in the future.

Not Getting What You Want Never Makes You Angry

But even given all that, it’s important to realize that the bills and Mary’s anger is not caused by the fact they are not getting something that is important to them.

So what is the cause? Both Bill and Mary are afflicted with “should” thinking and have adopted the strategy of “being angry” as the best way to get other people to do what they “should” do.

What is “Should Thinking” you ask? Well, that’s the subject of another post.

Until then, I am committed to your success,
Neill Gibson

What do you say–let’s all practice random expressions of gratitude.

If you did, how would you feel? What would your daily life be like? For that matter, what would the world be like if, instead of labeling, judging and criticizing, everyone ran around practicing random expressions of gratitude?

When your mother calls and says, “Why don’t you call me more often?” Say, “Thank you for loving me so much Mom.” When your boss looks over your shoulder and says, “That’s not the way you should do that!” Say, “I appreciate you desire to help me.” When your friend says, “You’re late! I hate it when you’re late!” Say, “I’m so grateful you’re willing to talk to me about this.”

What’s the alternative? Label them as needy, overbearing, picky… Which feels better? Which is closer to the truth? Which one is more fun for everybody involved?

So what do you say? Let’s try it and see what happens.

With love and great appreciation for who you are in the world,

Beth and Neill

It’s that time of year again. Are you, like so many people, thinking about making your New Year’s resolutions?  Do yours usually focus on what you want to have or do, or the things you wish were different than they are?

We believe that in order to make resolutions that really stick and bring you what you truly want, it’s important to look underneath the surface of your desires to what is most deeply important to you. So in light of that, here’s a short story that we’d like to share with you.

A boat docked in a tiny fishing village. A Tourist complimented the Fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took him to catch them.

“Not very long,” answered the Fisherman.

“But then, why didn’t you stay out longer and catch more?” asked the Tourist.

The Fisherman explained that his small catch was sufficient to meet his needs and those of his family.

The Tourist asked, “But what do you do with the rest of your time?”

“I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, and take a siesta with my wife. In the evenings, I go into the village to see my friends, play the guitar, and sing a few songs… I have a full life.”

The Tourist interrupted, “I have an MBA from Harvard, and I can help you create a terrific business from what you already love to do! You should start by fishing longer every day and then you can sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra money, you can buy a bigger boat.  With the extra money the larger boat will bring, you can buy a second one and a third one and so on until you have an entire fleet of trawlers. Instead of selling your fish to a middle man, you can then negotiate directly with the processing plants and maybe even open your own plant. You can then leave this little village and move to a big city!  From there you can direct your huge new enterprise.”

“How long would that take?” asked the Fisherman.

“Twenty, perhaps twenty-five years,” replied the Tourist.

“And after that?”

“Afterwards? Well my friend, That’s when it gets really interesting,” answered the Tourist, laughing. “When your business gets really big, you can start selling stocks and make millions!”

“Millions? Really? And after that?” said the Fisherman.

“After that you’ll be able to retire, live in a tiny coastal village, sleep late, play with your children, catch a few fish, take a siesta with your wife and spend your evenings doing what you like and enjoying your friends.”

The Moral of the Story

You could probably identify many morals in this story, but the one we would like to focus on is about paying a attention to the difference between what you are resolving to do, your strategies, and what you value when you create a New Year’s resolution.

If you look carefully at this story you’ll notice that the Fisherman and the Tourist actually had many similar underlying values. These are most clearly shown in what they list as their concept of an ideal life. Each aspect of the life they describe is the result of experiencing something that they deeply value, and many of the things on their lists are direct expressions of these values, such as; friendship, play, relaxation, intimacy, friendship, etc. Some are hinted at in the activities; sleeping late maybe an expression of choice, ease, or rest. Fishing could be a way to experience beauty, harmony, peace, relaxation, fun, etc.

You could take any of the activities described in the story and, if you have some competency with the use of a values vocabulary, you could identify each of the deep motivations that create the desire for these activities.

Usually when we’ve heard people talk about this story they do so with a sense that the Tourist is somehow “missing the point,” as though creating a thriving, global enterprise was somehow pointless given that it only leads to that same lifestyle the Fisherman already has. We believe that the activities the Tourist describes actually help make our point about the importance of knowing the deep motivations that drive the strategies that are attractive to you.

Some of the values that may be driving the Tourist, both in his having acquired an MBA and his quest to create a thriving business, are his values for; accomplishment, self-expression, success, adventure, and possibly even contribution. Contribution to all those people who would be employed, the families fed, and the opportunities that a growing company provides to its employees.

None of these values could be satisfied in the same way during the retirement the Tourist describes. That’s the time when the tourist will have the opportunity to experience the rest of those qualities that they value.

Does Your New Year’s Resolution Make Sense?

So how does this relate to making a New Year’s resolution? While it’s good to keep the end in mind while making a resolution (such as that ideal retirement) it’s probably more important to keep the beginning in mind. What gives birth to your desire for a particular outcome in the first place? What is the deepest motivation that creates your desire for the particular New Year’s resolution you hope to make, whether it’s eating less, exercising more, having more fun, or accomplishing that goal you keep putting off?

If you can get to the “beginning” of that desire, what you most deeply value, you may recognize that in fact there are many strategies that would allow you to experience what you value. And if you look carefully enough you may notice that the particular strategy you are resolving to undertake actually leaves out some things that are very important to you. In which case it’s important to rethink your resolution so that whatever strategy finally you choose will provide the opportunity to satisfy everything you desire.

On the other hand, by doing this investigation you may find that your New Year’s resolution is the perfect strategy for helping you experience everything you desire, with nothing left out. This can be a good thing as well, because, as we have discovered over and over again, when people are connected strongly to what they value they are much more motivated to take the actions that will help them experience those results. In fact, a clear articulation of one’s values provides the most effective kind of motivation we’ve seen for sticking with one’s resolutions.

So we encourage you to take a moment and reverse engineer your New Year’s resolutions to determine whether or not they will be likely to satisfy everything that you find valuable. If you’d like some help, you can use our free Values Exercise to do this.

Please post a reply and let us know what you discover if you do this little exercise.

Whether you already have good communication skills, you’re taking business communication courses and are practicing what you’re learning, or if you realize it’s time to look into new business communication methods, this article will help you take your business communication to the next level by learning to create alignment with other people.

What do we mean by alignment, and how can you create it? Read on to find out

Alignment – It’s Not Just for Tires

If you’re like most people, it’s likely that the only time you think about alignment is during your regular car maintenance. While that’s not the “alignment” we’re talking about here, it does operate on the same principle.

In order for your car to function at its best, it’s important that your tires are aligned – that they’re all moving in the same direction. The same is true for any business relationship; they’ll be at their best when the people involved are aligned and moving in the same direction toward a result that is  desired by everyone.

What we’re talking about here is not about improving your communication skills or just learning new listening techniques. Establishing effective business communication, or any interaction where people need to work together to create the best outcome, begins with creating alignment.

Think about it this way: in life, we go about the activity of our lives, heading in our own directions while we’re trying to achieve our own results. At the same time, we are all inter-connected with each other. As we try to achieve the results we want, these interconnections put limits on how far we can go in our direction without the involvement of others.

However, when we have alignment with others about what we want and we start sharing the same vision, it makes it much easier to cooperate with the others involved to get our desired outcomes. Alignment opens the way for mutual satisfaction and greater success.

The First Step is Internal Alignment

Before you can create alignment with someone else, you need to identify and be able to express what’s most important to you about the outcome you want. To do this, you’ll need to identify the underlying values hidden within your desired outcome.

As an example, perhaps your team tends to come lat e to meetings and this impacts your ability to accomplish the objectives of the meeting. So you want everyone in the office to show up 10 minutes before a meeting starts. When you dig down to find the hidden value, you might discover that consideration is very important to you, or you might highly value efficiency and effectiveness. Just remember, within every desired outcome there are values that motivate you to want that in the first place.

Key Points for an Alignment Conversation

Once you identify your own underlying values, it’s time to discover the values that you share within the team, partnership or group. You start this discovery process by expressing the values you’ve identified as important to you in your work environment. Then you ask if those things are also important to the others involved, and if they would be willing to explore ways to create that kind of experience.

As you start the alignment conversation, it’s important to remember to keep it as strategy-free as possible. During this beginning stage, we suggest that you make an agreement with the other person to try and identify what’s important to you about the issue at hand , such as starting meetings on time, before you figure out any strategies to get the specifics of what you want. Once you’ve agreed upon your shared vision, there will be plenty of time to move on to the specifics of how to reach your goals.

It’s also wise if you and the other person, or group, agree to avoid spending time talking about the failures of the past. (Bringing up the past can be useful, but only if it is done to understand the values that may have been missing in the past, but not to assign fault or to justify your skepticism.)

Some other things to include in the alignment conversation include:

• A willingness to negotiate strategies that are mutually agreeable
• A commitment to let go of judgments and criticisms
• An agreement to celebrate all wins that come from this conversation

Putting Alignment Conversations to Work

Alignment conversations are the process of discovering your shared values and creating a shared vision. The shared vision you create might be something like: having a more harmonious working relationships, being more effective, or increasing productivity.

Once you are sharing the same vision, you’re now working toward the same end result — the big picture of what you all want. This will make it easier to create situations that produce results that everyone will enjoy. Once you’ve define your shared vision, you’re ready to effectively negotiate strategies to achieve your desired results.

When everyone is making agreements from a shared vision, you’ll start rolling down the road to cooperation and teamwork with far fewer bumps than you encountered before. Alignment and shared vision are the foundation of cooperation and teamwork that will increase productivity and create rewarding results for everyone involved.

It’s That New Year’s Resolution Time Again

In January it’s traditional to make New Year’s resolutions. You plan to go to the gym, get into great physical shape, earn more money, improve a troubled relationship, or get along better with your family members.

But you suspect that in a few days or weeks you’ll get tired of making the effort and your good intentions will disappear. Would you like to improve your chances of making your resolutions stick?

Maybe you worry about how much effort and work is involved, or you think it isn’t possible to have these things. Just like last year, you’ll slip back into your old patterns. Well, there is a fun and easy way to begin to create your ideal life with little effort on your part. It starts by creating an intention.

What is intention?

Intention means knowing what you want and directing your actions toward that outcome. You might want your life to be more peaceful and harmonious. Or you might crave adventure and discovery. You can make intentions for your life as a whole, and also for any situation, relationship, or time period. Maybe you want to create more connection and trust with someone you love. Or maybe, during meetings at work, you want more support and effectiveness.

Why Create Intentions?

Creating intentions takes only a few minutes out of a day, yet it is a powerful tool you can use to set your resolutions in motion…
Keep reading this article at NonviolentCommunication.com >>

In our work, we believe that fear of taking responsibility is a result of being “Domesticated”. We define Domestication as any Training Process that uses a system of punishments and rewards to accomplish its goals.

We enjoy how Don Miguel Ruiz describes this in his book The Four Agreements.
“Children are domesticated the same way that we domesticate a dog, a cat, or any other animal. In order to teach a dog we punish the dog and we give it rewards. We train our children whom we love so much the same way that we train any domesticated animal: with a system of punishment and reward.

We are told, “You’re a good boy or girl,” when we do what Mom and Dad want us to do. When we don’t, we are “a bad girl or boy.”

When we went against the rules we were punished; when we went along with the rules we got a reward. We were punished many times a day, and we were also rewarded many times a day. Soon we became afraid of being punished and also afraid of not receiving the reward.”

Becoming an Auto-Domesticated Animal

The domestication is now so strong that at a certain point we no longer need anyone to domesticate us. We don’t need parents, the school, or the church to domesticate us. We are so well trained that we become Auto-Domesticated animals.”

We can now domesticate ourselves according to the same system of punishment and reward. We punish ourselves when we don’t follow the rules according to our belief system; we reward ourselves when we are “good boys and girls.”

We’ve all grown up in this Auto-Domesticating culture.
(see the work of Riane Eisler: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riane_Eisler
and Walter Wink: http://www.walterwink.com/books.html)

Our culture practices judging whether we are good or bad, right or wrong, appropriate or inappropriate, worthy of reward or deserve punishment …

Integrity vs. Morality

This causes people to confuse Integrity with Morality. We define Integrity as: Being true to your Chosen Values and your Highest Self, vs. Morality, which is: judging the rightness or wrongness of something according to Culturally Learned moral standards. Morality is the practice of judging what’s good or bad, right or wrong, appropriate or inappropriate, worthy of reward or deserves punishment.

In this culture people get Integrity & Morality mixed up so they believe that failing to act as others expect will cause them to be judged as Bad and Wrong, or worthy of punishment. So people fear the punishment that will follow from the judgments of others such as: How irresponsible / inconsiderate / selfish / stupid … or What a jerk / creep / idiot, and so on.

In this situation it’s no wonder there are so few souls willing to martyr themselves to the consequences of these moralistic judgments.

What Would You Prefer?

Given all this, it seems to us that the more important questions are: How do we move from a culture where we try and control people’s actions through fear of punishment and desire for rewards to one where we elicit the actions we want from others by engaging in a compassionate dialogue that is focused on gaining clarity about everyone’s needs in a situation (such as one where someone has acted “irresponsibly”), thereby eliciting a sincere agreement to participate together in a way that serves the highest good of everyone involved?

And as an important prerequisite: How can we gain the level of Values Intelligence needed to focus our attention on maintaining integrity with what is most important to us (at the essential, core, “spiritual” level) rather than being driven by our culturally learned, habitual thinking?

So (as a shamelessly self-promoting plug) if you find these questions intriguing you may be interested to know that much of our work is dedicated to finding practical and effective answers to these last two questions.

A recent report published by the Priory Group addressed the issue of low self esteem,  reporting that millions of British women are suffering from low self esteem that prevents them from having healthy relationships and reduces their overall quality of life. The report, titled, I’m Not Good Enough, surveyed the women on several issues and concluded that these problems are pervasive.

Have you ever seriously thought about your self esteem? Do any of the following statements ring true for you?

1.  I’m just not good enough to get what I want.

2.  At times I feel worthless.

3.  Other people don’t seem care about my needs.

4.  I’m often concerned about what other people might think of me.

5.  From time to time, I worry that there’s something wrong with me.

6.  It seems as though I’m all alone and I must do everything by myself..

7.  Thoughts such as I’m powerless, weak, not safe, helpless often pop into my mind

8.  At times feel like, I’m unlovable or unworthy.

9.  Sometimes in challenging situations, I don’t take care of myself very well.

10. My life is very limited, I have no choice.

If these are things that describe you or how you feel, then low self esteem is most likely limiting you in someway. Interpreting unpleasant experiences from our past often ends up making us think we are less worthy and less deserving of happiness. On the other hand, past circumstances aren’t the only way you might start believing statements such as those above.

For example, have you ever heard someone say something about you and you took it to mean that one of those statements must then be true about you? Now, just because someone says something about you doesn’t make it “THE TRUTH”, but the consequences of believing it is true can have a serious affect on your self-esteem.

On the other hand, self esteem doesn’t just miraculously improve when someone makes a positive statement about you either. Often it’s quite the opposite; many self esteem building experts now suggest we should back off from over-praising our children and making them feel good without having them put forth any effort or motivation.

The truth is, self esteem is not really the goal, it should be considered as more of a result of a person’s confidence in themselves, and knowing what they are capable of achieving. It is often described as a way to explain how well your actions produce results.

Can you learn to build self esteem? Yes, definitely. But only if you are able to transform the limiting beliefs that you hold, these are the things that are preventing you from developing enough competency to make you feel confident.

Before you can build self esteem you must take those limiting beliefs and transform them into new beliefs, ones that lead you to develop new skills or improve old ones. This is not as difficult as it seems. There’s a formula you can apply to help you work through the process, think of it as putting out a fire—the fire that has burned up your self esteem. You’ve most likely heard the phrase, “stop, drop and roll,” and this is what you need to do to build your self esteem.

How does this work? First, you must Stop and listen to the warnings you are hearing from yourself. Then, you need to Drop all judgments of yourself. Finally, you will Roll out a new plan to improve your beliefs.

Stop

Before you can make any changes, you need to identify how you feel. It is often easiest to start with feelings of discomfort—take these as the early warning signs. As soon as you begin to feel this way, immediately Stop and try to identify those judging thoughts that are running through your head. It can be helpful to actually write these thoughts down on paper.

Drop

Once identified, the judgments need to be quickly Dropped. This means you need to know what is truly important to you. When you figure out what you value–that has you make these judgments in the first place–you then shift your thinking from judgments to values and focus on them.

For example, ” I’m just not good enough to get what I want.” might change into focusing on how important accomplishment, or happiness are to you. Try these statements on for size, which feels better? ” I’m just not good enough to get what I want.” How does that feel? Now try this one, “I care so much about accomplishing things and being happy is very important.” How does that feel? Can you feel the difference?

Roll

Dropping judgments can put out those awful fires that have burned down your self esteem. After the fire is gone, get ready to Roll out a new plan, one that focuses on what is most important to you and one that focuses on your strengths. Plan to include two or more specific actions that will support you on your new path to improved your confidence and increased happiness. For instance, if you are looking to find more satisfaction in your career, perhaps your plan could include refreshing and updating your resume and pursuing some new job interviews.

Do you ever have trouble enjoying the time you spend with certain people–even though you may like or even love them? Are there people in your life who you only spend time with when it’s unavoidable?

Everyone we know has certain people in their lives who drive them a little nuts. Often this prevents them from initiating contact, even if these people are family or long time friends.

So what do you do then?

If you’ve ever asked yourself this question then you may want to try a practice we’ve developed that makes spending time with these people a little more enjoyable. The first part of the practice is to remember that everyone is always doing the best that they possibly can.

They’re doing the best they can?

This may sound a little simplistic or even a bit ridiculous, but this practice really does have the power to radically affect your ability to enjoy yourself with these people. And they don’t need to change a bit for this to happen.

However, embracing this practice is much easier said than done. Whether you have a parent who seems to show constant disapproval, a coworker that never stops talking, a cousin who continuously whines about everything that’s wrong in their life, or whoever it is that does whatever they do — the truth is they REALLY are doing the best they can.

How can we know this is true? Well, think about it for a moment. If they are driving you crazy; do you think other people love this behavior? If you are hesitant to be around them; do you think others are eager to be with them? Do they seem genuinely happy while they’re doing whatever it is that bugs you? Does their behavior seem fun for them or effective at helping them get what they truly want? We tend to doubt it.

So if they knew a better way to relate to people — one that they enjoyed more, that they recognized others enjoyed more, and that was more effective at meeting whatever needs motivate their behavior — don’t you think they’d do it that way instead?

They are just trying (unsuccessfully) to be happier.

The first part of the practice we suggest is to see that everything they do is the result of trying to get their needs met or to experience something they value. The problem is that: 1) they just haven’t learned how to get to the core of what is most important to them, and 2) they haven’t yet learned how to behave in ways that help them get what they want.

So, the next time you are with your cousin and he starts complaining and whining about all the problems in his life, first remember he’s doing the best he can. Then, if you want to go a little deeper and have even more fun, you can start applying the second part of the practice, which is playing the Values Guessing Game.

How do you play?

The game is played like this. You start by asking yourself:
“If I was acting like this what would I value that I either want to receive or to contribute in this moment?” Then guess.

Here are a couple of examples.

If your cousin is complaining about his woes in life, and then you ask yourself why you have ever complained to anyone else about anything, you might guess something like, “It sounds like you’d like a little understanding for how hard a time you’re having with this?” Or, “I guess it would be a relief to know that someone cared about how you’re doing these days?” Or maybe, “I wonder if you’d like some support about how to take care of that problem?”

You see, he would probably value the relief he’d get from some understanding, caring, and support. This isn’t mind reading; it’s a guessing game that you play so you can have more fun in the conversation

What if you hear that your mother disapproves of how you’re managing your love life? You ask yourself why you ever offered relationship advice to one of your friends, and then you might guess, “It sounds like you care about me and it’s important to you that I have a happy and successful relationship?” You see, she probably cares and just wants to contribute to you and her disapproving words are the best way she knows how to help you be happy and successful in your relationships.

Being Right or Being Happy?

The guessing game is not about trying to be right;  it’s about trying to connect with them. They’ll let you know whether or not your guess is accurate. And either way they’ll most likely have something else to say, which is just another opportunity to play. And this is not about trying to change the other person; it’s about trying to enjoy yourself more.

We know this may not be the most enjoyable way for you to hear a request for caring and support from someone in need or to receive help for improving your love life. Even so, you’ll be amazed at what can happen when you stop wanting the people in your life to be different than they are, start to recognize they’re simply doing the best they can, and then start playing the Values Guessing Game with them.

Give it a try. We guarantee your time with them will immediately start being more fun for you. (And don’t be surprised if they start seeming a little bit different too.)