A place for us: where do you have your best conversations?

 Try this thought experiment. Think of three wonderful conversations you have had. You might not remember what you said or even what you heard, but you remember the flow of words and the way you felt. Now look around each of those memories. Where did they happen?

Now connect the "where" to the "what." Some wonderful conversations are wonderful because they make you feel so close. You feel that you and the other person (or even a group) are sharing a mind and heart. And often those conversations happen in close spaces, spaces where you share so much in your senses that it is easy to share similar thoughts and feelings.

Other conversations require more space. High ceilings or wide open skies. The room to stretch your legs and create motion. An expanse around you that creates expansiveness in your thoughts.


People get confused by science. They think that because science is rational, the only way to be practical is to pretend that our bodies are separate from our reasoning. This isn't good science. Good science is increasingly studying the links between how we live in our bodies and how we produce good ideas.

In your own life, it makes sense to do two things: observe as much as possible when things are working well and then attempt to replicate all the conditions in new situations. Before you assume that place cannot influence the way two people connect, experiment. Have more conversations in spaces that have worked for similar kinds of conversations, and then notice the results. 

If your thoughts are distinct from the spaces where you think, then you are not risking anything by moving. If your thoughts are linked to your surroundings, you will gradually build an inventory of ways to improve conversations by locating them appropriately.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The hypnotic contract

Under what conditions would you allow someone else to tell you what to think?   If you have watched a stage hypnotist, you have seen what looks like one person exercising remarkable control over the thoughts and actions of another. It is fascinating, in part, because we have all seen it happen in real life. Suddenly someone we know seems to be relying on someone else to do the thinking.  Even if the influence is good, it is a little frightening. The secret is that there are no magic words.  In order to lead someone into hypnosis, that person has to be willing to go there. Often the people you see on stage are more than willing. For whatever reasons, they are enthusiastic about giving up self control and allowing someone else to take charge. They know that there are limits to what can happen on stage and they are only agreeing to give up control within those limits. What you see in hypnosis is an agreement between two people. Like all agreements between human beings, it stretches as far...
Read more

Good with people

What do you think of when you hear the phrase "good with people?" When a wine is good with steak, it means that both the steak and the wine taste better when enjoyed together. If you are 'good with people' that could mean that both you and they perform better when you work together. "Good with people" should not be confused with charm or grace. Many famous leaders have, in the absence of any obvious charm or eloquence, managed to get people to produce at high levels. Some introverts fail to be influential; some extraverts fail to be effective. The most useful criteria for "good with people" is the performance that results when an individual is working with others: does the sum exceed the total of the parts? Or would they all have been better working from separate cubicles? We are entering the season of networking: it's a perfect time to observe the difference between the people who are working the room and the people who are making the room w...
Read more

The fine line between observations, suggestions and commands

I have been watching Tony Robbins this week in the documentary called " I Am Not Your Guru ." You can read a nicely ambivalent review in the Financial Times here.   I think the ambivalence is built into the process, which might be surprising given the loud celebration that characterizes the Date with Destiny in the film. For those of us whose work has evolved from NLP, there are lessons to be learned from modelling the most famous and successful practitioner of NLP (Robbins has far surpassed all the founders by all measures of success). Because he does so much so well, Robbins lets us see how fine the line is between observing and suggesting. Let me explain. Robbins frames his "interventions" both with the exercises and performances we do not see in the film and with his invitations. The film opens with an intervention with a young man who says he is suicidal; it is only later that we see Robbins say he is looking for someone who is suicidal to work with. Since...
Read more