06/15/2022
If you were Max, how would you respond to Angela?
Max is coming home from work and sees his neighbour, Angela. “Hi Angela!” He calls and they start chatting and catching up. Inevitably, the topic of the new neighbours across the street comes up. “They don’t have respect” Max complains citing the loud music late at night. Angela responds “What about your parties on the weekends, with your friend when you drink and laugh until 1 or 2 in the morning?”
Suddenly instead of seeing Angela as a friend, the tension in Max’s chest starts to rise and this person in front of him is looking more like an enemy who sounded a battle challenge.
Have you been in that situation? When a conversation starts heating up and your anger/anxiety rises, and your brain turns off?
What Max have subconsciously done is turned a friendly win/win conversation into a win/lose one. When the tensions have risen, your instincts tell you that this is a fight…and someone will lose.
What He needs in this situation is to step back from the tunnel vision of fight/flight, and ask the question: what is the big picture here?
In the big picture; progress is when people decide to work together to solve problems and advance progress. If Max’s goal is for good relationships with his neighbours, he can calmly respond to Angela's challenge and look for a solution together.
He has to ask the question: What is most important here, for the situation, and for the relationship?
Being able to zoom out in your tense moments, and ask “what is the big picture here?” will help you identify what you really want in the grand scope of things and make better choices.
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I help you understand how you create your beliefs & emotions so that you can change them to fuel high performance behavior and massively increase your results