Get the Decision-Maker to Open Up and Share: Breakthrough Communicator Tip #7
Breakthrough Communicators determine who they work with and who they bring into their personal and professional community by modeling the behavior they wish to receive. When we share our authentic, vulnerable child in charge, those individuals we want to surround ourselves with will accept that authentic self and share theirs in turn.
But then how do we get the Decision-Maker to open up and share even more?
Ask open-ended questions.
If you want your other to engage, ask questions which penetrate the protective shielding that is looking to dismiss and shut down trust-building opportunities.
Be A Breakthrough Communicator For Yourself
Breakthrough Communicators elevate their interactions and build genuine rapport by utilizing strategies such as being clear and specific with our action-based intentions and expectations, committing to inquiry-based listening, and being gentle but firm when sharing our expertise, ideas, passions and goals.
But there is one more commitment I want you to make.
One more skill which ensures Breakthrough Communicators develop the loving, secure communities they desire.
That skill?
Take every Breakthrough Communicator strategy you have learned and apply it to yourself.
Don't Be A Nag: Breakthrough Communicator Tip #20
Raise you hand if you enjoy being nagged.
No you don't, put your hand down.
No one likes to be nagged.
By a partner…
A parent…
That guy at work who wants to borrow your truck next week to move a couch…
No one likes to be nagged.
Which is why Breakthrough Communicators don't.
Harder than it seems.
But Breakthrough Communicators avoid nagging by understanding three crucial aspects of nagging:
1) It comes from a well-intentioned place. Your parent/partner/the guy from work needs something. And if the need is great enough to nag, it's probably pretty important. But nagging is so detrimental to our well-intentioned purposes because even if it best serves our other, the risk of shutting down the child in charge and triggering self-defense mechanisms makes it a really ineffective form of persuasion.
Be Gentle, But Firm: Breakthrough Communicators' Tip #18
Before entering the room, my graduate advisor looked at me and said, "Remember, you're the expert."
In the moment I definitely didn't feel like the expert. But in reality, no one in that room put in the time, energy, and effort on that particular production, and the research which informed my approach to it.
Breakthrough Communicators are experts. About themselves, their ideas, their work, their product and service offerings, and their wants, needs, and desires.
If I could go back in time and handle that room of faculty members differently, I would utilize this Breakthrough Communicator technique.
Don't Sweat the Small Stuff: Breakthrough Communicators Tip #17
Accomplishing our intentions and creating influence in our communities isn't easy.
There's years of fear, skepticism, and insecurity, presenting as a protective shield we need to penetrate in order to speak to the child in charge and ultimately build deeper, more meaningful personal and professional relationships.
That's why Breakthrough Communicators don't sweat the small stuff. If we let every objection, rejection, and moment of resistance deter us from accomplishing our intentions, our ideas, needs, and desires would never be fulfilled.
Instead we let the expectation of success drive our intentions and look at moments of resistance as opportunities, not failures.