Title: Don’t Shut Up - How To Talk So The World Listens
Author: Prakhar Gupta, Mudit Yadav
Self-Published by
PG Expression LLP
Printed by
Thomson Press (India) Limited
18/35 Delhi-Mathura Road,
Faridabad 121007, Haryana.
Edited by Nishant Mulay and Alex Horn.
Book design by Asim Sayed
Cover design by Asim Sayed and Jai Gurnasinghani
Typesetting by Jai Gurnasighani in Inter and Crimson
Cover photography by Arush Dua
Copyright @Prakhar Gupta & Mudit Yadav 2022
ISBN - 978-93-5659-283-4
Dedicated to my audience- Sher Gang
- Prakhar Gupta
Dedicated to family, friends, and mentors who encouraged my voice
- Mudit Yadav
PREFACE
When was the last time you read a book or consumed content that was
impressive, or brilliant at best, but left you thinking how you can use it?
There is value in producing and consuming such content - wisdom is not a
servant of application. For this book, our goal was different. We wanted to
create a toolkit that you default to when you face a problem, rather than
hunt for a problem once you have the tool. Your success is proportional to
your ability to manage the world and get what you need while building
sustainable relationships. Communication in its various forms is the
technology that allows you to do this. We set out to create our version of a
handbook or a dictionary of communication related situations and how we
would solve them. This is a simple and directly applicable toolkit for a
communication-related situation you might have Tuesday morning for a
presentation, or Friday evening on a date.
This book is a compilation of strategies and principles by two authors who
have led surprisingly different lives and had very different experiences.
Prakhar studied psychology and economics at Columbia University in the
City of New York. He is the host of Prakhar ke Pravachan and PG Radio
podcast, with a following of close to half a million people across all social
media. Mudit is a Chartered Accountant and CFA Charterholder who
started his career with strategy consulting. He transitioned to executive
coaching and works with leaders across the world on their influence,
communication, and presence. This uncanny combination of people coming
together to work on any project, let alone write a book, seems antithetical.
Apparently, that’s why it works. Both of us, despite coming from different
backgrounds, found a common calling in our experiments with
communication.
Prakhar’s experiments ranged from finding a voice in a top college in a
different continent, making friends from different nations, and growing his
social media influence to a many million views in less than two years.
Mudit’s experiments are with senior corporate leaders who need to present
to thousands of shareholders in the next general meeting, executives who
are interviewing for million dollar package jobs, and political leaders who
need to rely on their voice to create impact. It is also for this reason that you
will find distinct writing styles and diverse examples between chapters.
In preparation for this book, we worked backward from what YOU need.
What do you need with friends, dates, college, work, and life? What causes
you to hold your voice in these situations and shut up? We magnified your
life one conversation at a time, and discovered 23 situations which have the
potential to impact your life and happiness. These 23 situations became the
chapters for this book. We split these chapters between ourselves with
Prakhar leading the section on ‘Studenthood to Adulthood’ and Mudit on
‘The Grownup Zone’.
We don’t want this book to live in fancy libraries or downtown bookstores.
We want this book to find home in your backpack. It is hardcover by
intention, because it is meant to last you through adulthood. How to use this
book? The instructions are simple. Read the chapter you need, prepare for
that conversation and when the time comes, don’t shut up.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART I: STUDENTHOOD TO ADULTHOOD
1. “We went to school together”
How to make friends in college. (And keep them)
2. “Hey, are you free tonight?”
How To Ask Someone Out On a Date
3. “So… What’s your favourite colour?
What To Talk About On The First Date
4. “Where’s the dance floor?”
How to Have Fun at Parties (Without Drinking)
5. “That’s a nice sweater”
Striking up a Conversation with a Complete Stranger
6. “Yikes!”
How to be Confident in Nervous Situations
7. Duck Duck Go
How to Turn Around Embarrassing Moments
8. Balm for butt-hurts
How to Respond to an Insult
9. “But dad!!”
How to Have Tough Conversation with Parents
10. “No.”
How to Say No
11. “I’m sorry”
How to Apologise
12. “It’s over”
How to Break Up
13. Enter the grownups zone
How to Convey Disagreement
PART II : THE GROWN UP ZONE
14. It’s a new job!
How to Build Your Personal Brand at the Workplace?
15. “Your highness...”
How to Talk to Powerful People?
16. “I’d like to say..”
How to Present an Argument?
17. “Sell me this pen”
How to nail that interview?
18. Zesty Cold
How to write an impactful cold email?
19. “And what do you do?”
How to network at networking events?
20. “Good morning team”
How to lead better meetings?
21. “Once upon a time”
How to tell better stories?
22. “Check 1, 2, 3,..”
How to deliver a compelling speech?
23. Elephant in the room
How to have a critical conversation?
PART I:
STUDENTHOOD TO
ADULTHOOD
1
“We went to school together”
How to make friends in college. (And
keep them)
Edward Tory Higgins, one of my first professors at Columbia, compiled his
career-long research in social psychology, developmental psychology, and
decision-making by positing a radically different way of seeing human
motivation. In his lectures, he argued, very often and very passionately, that
the common conception of human social behaviour — that people make
friends in order to find food, water, shelter, and mates — was incorrect. In
fact, he argued that the more he looked into human motivation and
behaviour, the more it seemed to him that humans would eat, drink, and
copulate to make friends- to share reality. ‘Humans don't engage with
other humans to continue to survive ,’ he said. ‘ Humans continue to
live to engage with other humans’ . His point was simple- the
fundamental root cause of all human drives is the desire to share your
experience with other people. He said that you so deeply want to agree
upon the shape of reality with someone else, friend or enemy, that you
would rather take bad living conditions with human company than great
living conditions without any company. He called it the ‘shared reality
hypothesis’- a new theoretical conception of the broadest strokes of social
psychology.
I remember sitting with him in his office after the lecture hearing him talk
about it. I thought, ‘if this is true, that would mean that people would
respond perfectly if one could find a way to share reality.’ I was fascinated
and I wanted to test the potency of this new idea. Many months later, I
would formalise the use of this theory as my strategy to make friends in
college.
Theoretically, ‘sharing reality’ meant agreeing upon what exists and how
we perceive it. That made sense, but what would it mean to share reality in
a practical context? When you engage with someone, friend, enemy, or
stranger, you do agree upon some things. You agree upon the rules of the
conversation. You don't swear at them, or look the other way when you talk
to them. It is understood that if you do that they may not talk to you- that
these are the rules they play by. With your friends, you agree upon many
things in the world. You agree about the dynamics of your relationship,
your interpretation of the world and our times, how politics works and
should work, or if that movie you saw last night was good or bad. With
your enemy, you at least agree about the disagreement between you.
The more I thought about it, the more It seemed to me that at every point
you communicate with people, you enter into a negotiation about what is
your shared reality. Think about your friend talking to you about their
problems. They tell you how their world, their circumstances- their current
reality - looks, and they expect you to either say something, nod, or stay
silent in the agreement. As soon as you express disagreement, even
unconsciously, they are bound to notice it even in the way you pause or
look at them. If you disagree with them too much, they no longer wish to
tell you their problems. That is why, very often, people will say things like
‘I don't want you to tell me how to fix this, I want you to listen.’ What they
are expecting, at that moment, is for you to at least express silent
agreement. What they are looking for is shared reality.
Shared reality is the basis of childhood psychological development too. The
child shares reality with his mother, father, and peers and picks up what is
right and wrong, what is to be liked and disliked. More precisely, the child
learns how to feel and think about the world from sharing reality. It would,
then, make sense as to why we have deep and special bonds with our
parents and childhood friends. We have shared reality with them for the
longest time, or have shared a more naive and vulnerable reality with them.
To my young mind, this was fascinating. I didn't care as much for scientific
accuracy. I was in no position to verify it anyway. I just took this idea and
began to apply it to social relationships and I began to quickly figure out the
Chemical X of making friends.
Sharing Reality: In Three
Let us begin to understand how the concept of ‘sharing reality’ applies to
our lives and particularly our social lives. You will make friends for one of
these three simple reasons- you have either shared a reality in the past with
them, you either share your present reality with them, or you will share your
future reality with them at some point.
Let’s take the first one - sharing reality in the past.
Past Sharing: I feel you, almost
Past sharing is the simplest form of making friendships. You try to relate to
each other’s memories, and the very idea that you can both feel, or come
close to feeling, something from each other’s past makes you like each
other.
I am still very close friends with my first ever friend. We met when we were
about two years old, and we have been friends for roughly 25 years. We
grew up living across the street from each other. I became friends with him
as a toddler because he was just at the right place, at the right time, and with
the right toys. Then, we went to the same schools. We both played the same
sports and we spent our free time watching the same cartoons as boys.
Around the time we were 13, our interests began to diverge. He became
more musically proficient and I understood nothing about music. I began to
get stage friendly in a different way. I was leading debate teams and quiz
teams and he was the charming guitarist that girls would chase. More
people began to flood into our lives, and different tastes and opportunities
shaped our futures. Right after high school, I spent a month in London.
When I came back, he had been admitted to a college rather far away and,
so, he moved out.
We have spent the last 10 years mostly away from each other. I have been
between the United States and India. He has travelled with his band across
the country, spent some time in the UK and now runs his own business. Our
worlds have become unrecognisably different, but we haven't stopped being
the best of friends. I wonder, often, if we would have been friends for so
long had we met at a different age and in a different context? Or conversely,
why is our friendship still so strong after all these years of living away and
living differently?
The answer is simple. My friend and I have shared a reality I have shared
with no other. We have raced toy cars on all fours and have exchanged
pokemon cards. He knew me in the classroom, in the cricket field, on the
chess board, and at home. We have seen life and death together. Even if our
lives look nothing alike any more, I share my past with him and that is what
makes our bond so strong and deep.
There is a reason why Indians who live abroad make friends with other
Indians (or South Asians in general) around them. They have a shared past.
They can feel each other’s experience from their pasts. Or, at least, come
close. They have the relevant context. They know when they say ‘mera
pind’/ ‘humare khet’/ ‘chai aur Parle G’/ ‘college hostel’, the other person
can see it, smell it, and feel the buzz from that place.
In college, when trying to make friends, one of the easiest ways to do is
establish symmetries in your past. You will likely meet a lot of people who
have had similar circumstances as you. They have experienced similar
things, been to similar places, felt similarly about growing up, and loved
and hated similar things. All you have to do is be curious and expressive.
Curious because you want to know their past. Expressive because you want
to establish commonalities between your past and theirs. Remember, it is
not that you have to agree with everything they say about their past. All you
have to do is acknowledge it and communicate that you understand their
circumstance and you can relate to it. You understand the unsaid parts of an
‘argument with your sibling’ or ‘being bullied’ or having a ‘first crush’.
However, past sharing is not guaranteed. College is often an interesting
melting point of identities. You meet people from diverse histories and it is
not always the case that you will be able to share the past with them. In
those cases, you will need to find a way to share the present or the future
with them.
Future Sharing: Mission Sharing
The best way to understand future sharing is to think of it as mission
sharing. Future sharing is one of the best ways to make long term
friendships in life. In fact, my guess is that beyond childhood friendships, it
is the friendships forged out of sharing a common mission that survive the
longest and appear the strongest.
In college, the liberty of your future is dawning upon you. Your eyes are
being opened to a new type of freedom and you are beginning to explore
your potential and the world’s endless possibilities. It is wise if you realise
then that the highest mountains aren't scalable alone. When you realise this,
you are likely to look for teammates. Now these teammates could be for the
purpose of your career, which is the first place the mind goes to when one
employs language like this, or for other goals of your life.
I had left India a fitter man than I have ended up becoming. I had more
muscle and less jiggle and I was very precise about my exercise and eating
situation. My roommate, who at first I found very dislikeable, had only one
thing common with me- his desire to be physically fit. Over dinner one day
we began to scope our interest in working out and keeping healthy. It turned
out he was far more interested and knowledgeable about it. He would keep
a stack of supplements and herbs and he would experiment with a variety of
diets and workouts. Very quickly, I went from disliking the guy to wanting
to explore more of this common mission. The more I spoke to him, the
more his mission and my mission were in each other's way, and the more
we became friends. Soon, we discovered our common interest in
philosophy and psychology.
He and I would spend hours talking. We would take a philosophical maxim
about our lives and debate it out all night. For instance, I was convinced
happiness was supposed to be sought by humans, he believed that the only
way forward was taking on challenges and suffering. Our views were
fundamentally opposed, and we had many civil conversations about it.
Eventually, we got sick of each other's faces and decided to take this to a
larger group of participants at our university. This was the origin story of
the free speech discourse and discussion group Colloquia, that we found
together at Columbia. Early adopters of our model became closely
involved, and within a span of 8 months, I had a fully functional friend
group of extremely smart and articulate people at Columbia. We all shared
the same ideals for discussion and growing through conversation. In that
enterprise, we all believed in the value of free speech. Beyond this, we
disagreed on almost everything else. But our missions were common and
that bound us all together.
Eventually, the press and opponents of our cause came lurking. We were
written about harshly and spoken about ungracefully. We were labelled as
morally questionable and intellectually dishonest by our detractors. I
remember talking to the same roommate-friend about the morale of the
group. He said they’d hold tight. I wanted to see it. At the next board
meeting, the crew showed full support for each other. The spirits were high
and everybody felt supportive and supported. The full spectrum of
friendship was emerging. I went home that day thinking what had exactly
happened such that this friend group only grew stronger when outside
pressure was applied? It dawned upon me soon after. This group of people,
loosely tied in their values, finally had a complete mission. They knew the
enemy, they knew their path and they knew their cause better than ever.
Initially, this was a hobby group, people shared their future to the extent of
their interest in the values of discussion and free speech. Now, their
interests were threatened and suddenly everyone converged on their
purpose. They shared the future in a sharper and more exact way and this
made all of them better friends.
Since then, almost all of them have graduated and gone their separate ways.
Not everyone is in touch with each other. However, if you pick any one of
them and ask them they will confirm that their best friend from college was
from this group. Each of these people were very different individuals of
different races, ages, backgrounds and genders, and each of them found
close friendships under the umbrella of a common cause.
The point of the story is not to emphasise the righteousness of our cause.
Who knows if us mid 20s college students were right about free speech and
our philosophy of conversation. The point is to illustrate how people make
friends regardless of being right and wrong. You buy into or come up with a
vision of how the future should be. Then, you share it with other people. If
other people agree, you and they form a team to go after that mission. In the
course of completing that mission, you spend more time with each other
and share more about your past, present, and future with each other. This
makes the friendship deeper and stronger.
‘It seems obvious that it would be this way, bro’ my friend said to me as we
drove past the darkness of the night towards our home. My friend Ashish is
an entrepreneur in the content and tech space. We were in the same class
through middle and high school and he is also my neighbour. Ashish now
runs this company with Amit, who also lives close by. Amit was a few
years younger, and we would take the same bus to school. ‘People made
friends in war in our past. They made friends because they had dangers to
fight. It is, then, natural that we make our deepest friendships when we
share common missions of the future, common dreams about what is to
come.’ When I asked Ashish about how he decided he wanted to start this
company with Amit, he told me the simple secret behind what might be a
lifelong friendship. ``We just kept a conversation going for many years
about wanting to do something in content and tech. We waited patiently and
worked on our skills privately. As soon as we had the opportunity, we
pounced and we made sure we pounced together.” Ashish and Amit are glad
for their friendship.
In college, when trying to make friends, one of the easiest ways to do is
establish symmetries in your future. Find the people who share the same
vision for the future as you. If not, find the people whose vision of the
future most impresses you. Align your vision of the future with them.
Vision could be as simple as getting good grades and finding a great job or
finding a problem and solving it at scale. The vision could be as
fundamental as wanting to move to Silicon Valley or as trivial as waking up
at 5 am to go for a run.
The more common missions you find, the more common enemies you
promise to tackle, the more immediate paths you have in common, the
deeper friendships you'll make. All you have to do is be curious and
expressive.
The Constitution of a Mission
To understand what creates a complete mission, take the analogy of a
soldier or a commander preparing to go to war in ancient times. Your
mission does not have to be as intense or dangerous as that of a warrior, but
the analogy is helpful because it helps amplify the illustration of what a
mission must be.
The first thing you need when you begin sharing a mission is a cause. A
cause is a future call to action. You believe in the substance of one position,
say for example that we need to improve the condition of the rapidly
polluting Earth or we need to lose weight to become healthier. Second, you
need to have an enemy. No mission is complete without opposition. You
persevere against opposition. You go through trying times, feel the pressure
and resort to hope. When you fight a common enemy, you bond to protect
and serve each other. This strengthens a friendship like almost nothing else.
Note that the enemy doesn't have to necessarily be a negative that needs to
be destroyed or nullified, that is, it doesn't have to be someone or something
bad. Your enemy could just be the fossil fuel dependency in the automobile
industry, and you and your friend are on a mission to create a more
sustainable fuel source for cars. The third thing you need is a path. If a
soldier doesn't know what road to walk, all his preparation is useless. Often,
this road is dictated by his commander, usually by their ‘king’. When the
soldier is a commander or a king, the road is dictated by his higher moral
purpose. If your mission does not have immediate small, even stealth steps,
you will lose out on the shared mission. It’ll fade beyond memory and you
will never get to war. This is to say if you do not manage a few and regular
coordinated movements towards your mission, your connection will slowly
fade.
Growing Older: A Soldier’s Conundrum
There is a fourth ingredient to a mission. These are the tools and techniques
of a soldier. Very often, to share a mission you must begin with a similar
resource pool as your fellow soldier. If you are not as skilled and
resourceful, you may not be allowed to fight this great war. To solve a big
problem, you need the chops, the network, the resources or the access to it.
Very often people come together to pool their capabilities, but you have at
least got to have something to offer.
This ‘something’ is rare when you are a kid and are in college. You have
just woken up from a decade long slumber of being hand-held and force-fed
in school, and you are only beginning to become a complete adult in your
own right. There is no way you are equipped with resources to pool
together for bigger missions. In fact, you can even be unsure as to what you
can offer at all. It is alright. As a college student, you are not expected to
have much. However, let us try and optimise for what you do have.
Present Sharing: Emotion Sharing
At the very least, you have company to offer. You have a near infinite
supply of company as a college student. You are free, unburdened by
responsibility and full of wonder. You are naive enough to share
embarrassments and vulnerabilities and energetic enough to make
memories. Above all you are in the exploratory phase of your life in
college. All these make for great ways to share the present and build deep
connections.
Present sharing is about sharing emotion. You see, the experience of life
is made out of events, objects, people etc., but the flavour of the
experience is always emotional.
In past sharing, the emotion is nostalgia and relatability. In future sharing, it
is the thrill of completing the mission and having the joy of doing it with
someone. In the present, it could be anything. If you are able to hack into
the emotional state of others, they will respond to you so much better.
I ran this experiment almost by accident back in my early days at Columbia.
In my first and second semester at Columbia, I rushed a lot of frats (which
is jargon for ‘I toured a lot of fraternity socials to see if I found a fit’). I met
a lot of kids, from my year and seniors, and made acquaintances. In the
course of these meet and greets, I'd come across some regulars. There were
two athletes in the mix at almost all the frats I was frequenting. Every time I
would meet them, I would greet them on a high note. ‘Heyyyy’ I would
exclaim ‘how you doing boys?’ Initially, they liked my uplifting expression.
Very quickly, around the third or the fourth meeting, they got comfortable
with it and started reciprocating with an even higher note. ‘Yooo bro!’ they
would go ‘it's so nice to meet you.’ We would bump into each other at these
frat socials for almost a full semester before I decided to drop out of the frat
scene. By then, I had built solid familiarity with them, although we had
never spoken at length to become friends. We just knew each other's names
and were happy to see each other. Nothing more.
Many months after that, I bumped into Allistor, one of the two boys at the
college gym. At this point, we had not seen each other for a long time.He
was walking out and I was walking in. He saw me as we crossed each other
and his eyes lit up. Before he even knew, he went ‘yooo bro! How are you?’
I was mentally preoccupied and did not respond with the same vigour or
warmth ‘I’m good bro. How are you?’ I said softly. His expression froze
into that of confusion. He looked at me, unable to figure out why he had
greeted a stranger with so much warmth. I could see him adjusting to a
softer emotional note throughout the rest of our short conversation, almost
as if he was struggling against his preprogrammed instinct to meet me at a
happier, emotional note.
I felt at least amused by the episode. Not only did I recognise that the
several months of infrequent bumping into each other had programmed him
to meet me at an emotionally strong and happy note, it was also that he and
Jack (the other boy from the set) needed that emotional strength and joy.
And this is not just limited to them, it also applies to me and everyone else
on this planet.
Life is tough, and we all carry our private miseries inside our head. We all
have problems and all the solutions to our problems are uphill battles. We
slog day in day out to deal with them. Our lives are programmed to be grim
and intense. However, this is the exact reason why we value someone who
passes on joy. If your company is in infinite supply, joy is in infinite
demand and all you have to do is find a product-market fit. My energy,
every time I met them, induced them to realise the small joys of everyday
life and they valued it without knowing it. I valued it without knowing it.
Eventually, when the dream snapped and our connection collapsed after
many months of not seeing each other, our shared emotions still peeped out
to create a friendly meeting right outside the gym. That is the strength of
sharing your present properly.
This example is not sufficient to explain the depth of the concept, but it is
sufficient to make a point. Beyond joy and simply saying an infrequent
‘hello’, some people need to share other emotions. You cannot meet
someone’s vulnerable stories about their life with a ‘YOOO BROO!’ You
have to adjust to the circumstance and share the emotion that is demanded
by the situation. That involves both awareness and finesse and that comes
from practice. Secondly, friendships are not limited to one emotion. The
more complex the set of emotions you share, the more reality sharing
occurs. Your friendships in college may begin because of joy, but to nourish
your bond you will have to share sorrow, anger, panic and enthusiasm too.
I met my friend Vinamre back in 2013 because we both posted facebook
statuses of rock song lyrics from The Doors. He reached out to me and told
me it was great to find another person who admired the lyrical genius of
Jim Morrison and crew. Our respective feelings for Jim Morrison, a small
part of our reality, became the foundation of our friendship. I was 17 and he
was 15. I was freshly out of school and he was starting 11th grade.
Eventually, I started to tell him about my life and its many complexitiesmy relationship with my family, my relationship with poetry, travel, and my
girlfriend. He would listen to my sob stories and enthusiastic adventures.
Shortly afterwards, we went on our first adventure together to South India.
We were lost in forests, dealt with inhabitable guest houses and food
poisoning and discovered beauty and fear alike in strange lands. The tryst
bonded us closer. We shared more emotion and agreed upon the meaning of
our experiences. We became better friends through exchanging the
complete spectrum of human emotion over the course of years.
A year after our first meeting, we met on the premise to enjoy rock music
together. Eventually, I started to tell him about my (naive) creative vision.
He started to like it and shared his own creative vision. A year after our first
meeting, we launched our first creative project together. Apart from just
present sharing, we were also future sharing. As he moved away to the
United States, I stayed back in India. He would visit often and we would
talk about our hometown, our friends, and our adventures together. At
parties, we would tell people stories about it. In private, we would revisit
our history and gain joy in the imagined pleasure of each other’s company.
Now, we were also sharing our past. Ten years later, when I see him, I see a
brother. I see a man who can look me up and down and remind me who I
am. I see a man who comes closest to understanding my essence, I see a
friend who understands my experience, my life and my reality. I am quite
certain he experiences our friendship similarly. We don't agree on a lot any
more. Our music preferences are now radically different. He is in India
doing his thing and I travel between the US and India, doing my thing. His
experiences in his recent past are radically different from mine, but we are
still capable of holding each other in our misery and comforting our souls.
We understand each other, and nothing can take that away from us. We
were bonded through a complex set of emotions, some overlapping past and
a once common vision for the future. Now, we have less and less of that,
but it doesn't matter. The foundation is strong and unbreakable.
A Simple Formula
Now, let us apply these concepts to your context and arrive at a simple
formula for making the best of your social life in college. There are two
major problems to be solved. The first is accessibility- you need to be
accessible to people and people need to be accessible to you. The second is
that of bonding, and to that extent we will apply the principles of shared
reality.
1. Say hi to everybody and introduce yourself. You think it would
bother people, but it won't. People need a name for your face and
a face for your name. It offers familiarity and it warms up people
to the fact that you are friendly.
2. Ask people about their interests and backgrounds without being
too intense at first. People don't want to share big parts of
themselves immediately, but they are happy to share musical
preferences and favourite sports teams or sitcoms. Find common
ground.
3. When you meet people, always start at a high note (unless it is
obvious that they are not in the mood). Start with offering joy.
Most people are looking for a reason to be happy and you could
be their reason today. This lets you hack into their emotions and
create a shared present reality.
4. Gauge the situation and offer to move your conversation
somewhere else. The more things you do and the more distance
you cover, the more psychologically inclined they become to like
you.
5. Join as many groups and societies initially as you are interested
in. You will find enough people with common missions in those
places. Societies and college groups tend to aggregate similar
types of people with similar backgrounds and missions.
6. Share, but share carefully, your past with others. Ask, but ask
carefully, others about their past. The more common ground you
can find, the faster you become friends.
7. Create experiences together. Very often people make dull plans
and even though it does account for spending some time together
and sharing some emotion, a more intense experience would
make a deeper friendship in the same course of time. Figure out
things you have always wanted to do and do it with your college
friends.
8. If your college friends do not have the same sense of adventure
or the same courage for the future, inspire them to see things
your way. It incites nerves, but taking the lead is one of the more
immaculate ways of creating friendships. People don't just like
you, they respect you too.
Groupism and Peer Pressure
‘Group-ism’, as it has come to be known, is one of the common social
problems you’ll face in your college life. On the one hand, you can be
outside a group, or all groups, and never be accepted into one. On the other
hand, you might be inside a group and never experience what is outside. We
shall tackle these one-by-one.
Left behind: ‘Fitting in’
Very often, when college kids meet each other for the first time, they fall
into friend groups too quickly. People who meet each other first, like each
other first, sit close by, exchange contact information, end up becoming
friends faster. These groups readjust a bit initially but then become more
and more sedimented as time passes. Very often, in this musical chairs of
friends, some people get left behind and never make friends. Initially, these
people may not feel the loneliness, although eventually almost everyone
feels the rejection of it. It hurts, at first, but eventually one gathers
themselves to try and make an attempt and get inside a group. Usually,
these attempts don't work and only invite further shame and rejection. This
enterprise becomes a self-serving loop where shame invites some attempt to
make friends, the attempt gets rejected, and the rejection invites more
shame.
This loop is the entire experience of some people’s college lives and the
problem in this is with the loop itself. If this is you, the first thing you need
to understand is that these friend groups are not based on some exclusive
‘cool’ factor. These groups are usually made because of convenience- these
people either just meet each other first, live in the same area, have the same
shared past, have similar average interests, or the worst- because they all
look similar. You are not left out because of a fault. You need to understand
this to liberate yourself from your imagination that you are somehow
inferior.
Secondly, you are now technically trying to ‘Fit in’. By definition, you will
mould yourself horizontally and vertically and in all shapes and sizes to fit
the requirement of your environment. In all fairness, this is how people
learn to navigate social environments. This is what teaches people how to
interact. However, this process can go into overdrive where in order to learn
new ways you start contradicting your own inner self, where you start
trying too hard to fit in. You need to be aware of that. It is a common and
hurtful outcome of trying to socially interact in college. The more you find
people who accept you for who you are, the better you grow into yourself.
Then what is to be done at all? How must one make friends and socialise in
college once it’s ‘too late’, once everyone has solidified their friend groups?
The secret is to pull people towards you. If you are a person that carries
emotional gravity, that your life by itself is so interesting, intense or
intricate, that it brings out a more attractive version of you. Your life defines
what emotions you feel. A person that lives an interesting life, is involved
in his goals, in touch with his past and immersed in his reality, will carry it
into rooms with them. People are inherently attracted to this variety of a
person. In some way, it has the opposite effect than that of showing
desperation. It has the comforting effect of your friend saying ‘no, I'm full’
when you offer them the very small plate of lunch that you have, and the
follow up joy of them saying ‘wait, I have some more for you’. People will
want to be part of your adventure. Now when you interact with them, it
doesn't come across as ‘hungry’, it even offers some from your plate.
Besides, you are never trying to fit in. You are only leaning in to who you
really are. You are growing in the way you should instead of trying to force
yourself to fit in the imaginary confines of other people.
A Note on How to Assert Yourself
Another common tough college experience can be that of marginal
acceptance. A lot of people are only marginally included in groups, that is,
their presence in a social group is contingent on them ‘playing along’. They
are either made fun of, shamed, invited selectively or feel insecure about
some type of status or physical difference between them and their friends.
The idea is that these people are part of a friend circle but they do not feel
that they belong there. They are not able to be themselves and thus not able
to speak up for themselves.
These people understand instinctively that they are on the fringe and that if
they speak out for themselves, they might attract the wrong kind of
attention and might be laughed at or be excommunicated from the group.
They are a perfect example of the truism that one would rather take bad
living conditions with human company than great living conditions without
any company. If one finds themselves constrained and confined and unable
to voice their ‘reality’ in the company of their everyday friends, then one
must know this is the diagnosis of their problem.
Very often, unknowingly, we let our friends become a core part of our
identity. Then we are afraid to confront them where necessary because that
might lead to fighting with a part of our ‘self’. Another version of the same
problem occurs when one convinces themselves that they may never find
company if they lose these friends. In truth, if one cannot speak your heart,
stand up for themselves or feel grounded and certain in their environment,
they are probably not with ‘friends’. They are probably holding on to
strangers, calling these strangers friends because they do not want to be
lonely. These people need to learn that there is no real virtue to a company
where you cannot be yourself. They need to learn to be okay with losing
people to actually discover who they are. These people need to learn how to
assert themselves. They need to find a way to make their case and hold their
ground. You need to become independent of this need to be with someone,
or diversify your friend group.
A Note on Insecurities
College students will often compare themselves with their peers and feel
insufficient. Part of the problem is ‘the cool factor’ that may be associated
with money, good looks or status. Part of the problem is not understanding
the paradox that life is very big, but your existence is very small. First of
all, do not be impressed with people from afar and never try to impress
someone from afar. The real beauty of you as a person needs to be felt with
time, with patience as your personality unfolds through the complexity of
life. Anything else is selling yourself short. The same is the case with
others. Comparing yourself with others on the basis of good looks or status
is a very distant comparison. You do not understand the intricacies of their
living situation and usually you end up comparing the worst of you with the
best of them. The comparison is unfair in its conception.
Secondly, understand that life is a long process. You will get everything in
its time, and once you get it it would seem so normal and every day that you
may wonder why you worried about not having it before. The point is to
learn to enjoy the process of life. Then there is the issue of ‘How will I get
everything in life?’. The answer is simple. You will learn, as you grow, that
you can only care about 2 or 3 things in life. You do not have the time and
energy to care about everything, and thus everything is not that important to
you. This need to be rich, good looking, famous, high status or cool fades
and gives way to more mature desires. It's an illusion created by all the free
time you have and the novelty of the worlds you are discovering for the first
time.
Give up on the comparison and focus on creating an adventure out of
your life.
2
“Hey, are you free tonight?”
How To Ask Someone Out On a Date
Part I: Be Simple and Precise
There was a brief period in my life where my buddy, Prajwal, and I would
walk around the streets of New York trying to meet beautiful women. Our
tasks were simple: if you see someone you are attracted to, walk up to them,
introduce yourself, have a conversation and see if you’d like to go on a date
with them. It sounds strange, but the idea behind it was quite effective. For
starters, this was New York. All types of awesome and beautiful people live
here. Second, we were both young, single, and attractive men. Third, we
wanted to make sure we met enough people to learn what we like and
dislike. We wanted to experience the dating life in New York City. But
more importantly, we did it because it was exhilarating. The entire process
would take our breath away. The fear of rejection, the fear of being laughed
at, the excitement of discovering someone entirely new and the wild
confidence boost you would get from executing a random, high stakes
conversation well- all rolled into one. This was an adventure sport-level
adrenaline chase on the streets of New York.
Besides, New York was kind to us. People did not always appreciate being
engaged by random strangers, no matter how attractive or charming, but the
spirit of New York tolerated us. A lot of other places in the world do not
allow for this kind of experimentation, but the worst New York ever offered
us was a ‘no, thank you’ with a forced smile. I don't blame us. We were, as
they say– young, wild, and free. I am even glad we did that. The rejections
hardened us and the attempts that worked gave us a sharp instinct for
reading conversations and interactions. The process of just pushing
ourselves to do that created a well of confidence in us. We came out smarter
from our experiments.
My golden takeaway from our phase of experimentation is that
communication around dating worked best when it was kept simple. People
spend too much time thinking what to say, what to text, what to think, what
to expect, and they inevitably complicate their situation. People think there
is some kind of a magic formula to dating, something unattainable or
beyond their reach, and thus they make exaggerated attempts at finding a
partner. In truth, dating should be a lot simpler, a lot more natural and a lot
more mutual. So, as the first step of trying to learn how to ask someone out,
I must insist that you unlearn all that you have learnt from culture about
dating. No grand gestures, no over-promising, no playing games and no
witty one-liners.
The golden words to ask someone out on a date are simple, precise and
honest.
Repeat after me these golden words-
“Hey, I think you are very interesting. I'd like to take you out on a date and
get to know you better. Would you like to get <insert beverage, food, activity
etc> with me at some point:”
That's it. Then wait for their response.
Part II: Four Possibilities
There are four possible responses. A ‘yes’, which is a green light and you
must now proceed to make concrete plans for sometime fairly soon. A hard
‘no’, which is a red light and you must politely excuse yourself away from
that situation. Clearly you were misreading the situation, and there is no
loss in owning up to it with maturity and poise. However, you will rarely
ever hear a hard ‘no’, especially in in-person instances. People don't say
hard ‘no’ in these circumstances because either they do not wish to invite
retaliation from you or they don't want to hurt your feelings, or both. In
these cases, people say a soft ‘no’. A soft no in itself is a signal of slight
discomfort because there is a difference between what is said and what is
felt. You have to be sharp enough to catch them trying to do that and
immediately give the other person space enough to feel comfortable and
free with you again. The fourth type is a hesitance. It is usually
communicated in some type of confusion about the prospect of you dating.
It is often a signal that there is a certain obstacle in the prospect that the
other person foresees. If you are met with hesitation, ask them politely
‘What’s gotten you confused?’. From there, try and see if you can solve that
problem. If yes, great. If not, no problem.
It is of concern to me, and thus I should mention this, that people confuse
response type 3 and 4 very often. This confusion is not small and can have
bad consequences. Men and women end up over-committing to a ‘soft no’
by thinking that it is ‘hesitation’ and that there is some kind of an obstacle
they can solve. This leads to a bad outcome, where one person remains over
committed to a fiction in their head and spends massive amounts of emotion
on it, and the other cannot get rid of a person who sees something that they
don't. If you ever find yourself in a situation where you are unsure whether
their response to your ask is a 3 or a 4, ask them. ‘Hey, are you just
hesitant? Is there something I can do to see if this can work? Or is this a
no?’. You will know exactly what to do from there.
Part III: In truth, there is no symmetry
Men and women make dating choices differently. The instinct and culture
around dating was formed on the backbone of the evolutionary need for sex,
and sex is inherently different for men and women. For men, sex is cheap.
They have a near-infinite supply of sperm and no 9-month gestation period
of pregnancy to worry about for themselves. For women, sex is expensive.
They have a limited supply of egss and a long pregnancy and postpregnancy period to worry about as a consequence of sex. This difference in
gametes leads to difference in how people interact around sex, and thus
around dating. Men can be carefree about sex. There isn't as much to lose
and thus the minds of men are programmed to make choices of attraction
quickly. Women have to be more careful about their choices. Their
investment is more and thus they are programmed to make choices of
attraction slower. However, both men and women don't understand this
about the other. Both men and women think the other makes dating choices
in the same way as they do. In truth, there is no symmetry.
Armed with this information, let us try and unpack how to go about asking
someone out successfully. In all fairness, asking someone out is a type of
initiative that rests with the man by default, and thus a lot of the following
parts will be framed from the point of view of men. Women, if you are
interested, feel free to peruse.
Part IV: It is All in the Prep
In an ideal scenario, most of your work to ask someone out should be done
before you even ask the question. The seamlessness of asking them out is
the best indicator for how well your interaction has been with them up until
now. It should be organic, as if going on a date is the next logical outcome
of this and you both recognise it. That is the magic territory. For that to
happen, you need to remember three basic things- intrigue, intent and
comfort.
Part V: Intrigue, Intent and Comfort
If leading up to the ask out, you have managed to establish these three
important messages in your communication, your ‘asking out’ will be
smooth. The first is intrigue. Intrigue is not mystery or suspense, intrigue is
interest. The funny part is that our mind closely associates what we find
interesting to be what we find attractive, especially when you are young. If
you give a child a set of ten toys, the child will automatically pick only one.
The child’s instinct guides him or her towards what they find attractive.
What do you expect the child to do when they pick up the toy? Play with it,
try to move it around, piece it apart, throw it around. Basically, explore
every possibility with the toy– basically, ask the toy as many questions as
the child can.
We are attracted to what we find interesting, and the formula for building
intrigue in a conversation is very simple- Only say what is required of you,
and ask as many questions. This is the opposite of ‘selling yourself’, which
is what men commonly do with displays of status, wealth and power. This is
not to say hide yourself, or the many aspects of you. This is to only say, let
the other person decide what they want to know about you a lot more than
what you want to show them. This is the most organic way of developing
intrigue in an interaction. The more Machiavellian/Robert Greene way of
saying this is- Don't say everything. Leave something unfinished. Leave
something to be asked.
If from here, you receive interest from them, in the form of questions,
opinions, plans- conversation in general - you are good to go.
The second thing you have to establish is intent. It should be clear to her
that you are interested in exploring a dating possibility with her before you
ask her out. She needs to have given it some thought. Remember, for her it's
almost always a larger investment. You must communicate your interest in
her at least a little bit. Mention to her that you found X thing she did cute,
and that you appreciate Y about her, and try and not always make it about
how they look. This solves the problem on two levels. One, it saves you
from the legendary labyrinth of the friendzone. If she does not want this,
you will know beforehand. Two, it allows her time to think about you in
that way.
The final piece in the puzzle is comfort. Comfort is an important
consideration, especially in sexually conservative societies. In societies
where people care a lot about who is dating who, women are the primary
victim of gossip and badmouthing. Besides, there is always the threat of
physical danger for a woman when she is in the company of a man,
especially if the man is a stranger. Thus, women often have the need to feel
safe before considering dating possibilities with someone. You will even
find, hopefully from experience, that most women that respond with
hesitation to an ask out, often have concerns around comfort more than
intrigue or intent.
So what builds comfort? Comfort is built from sharing. Comfort is built
from sharing information, sharing stories, sharing vulnerabilities, and
sharing space. People play when people share. If one person feels that
somehow the other will get more from this interaction or that they might
lose more than they will win, they will not pursue that interaction further.
Very often, men move from a mindset of ‘getting sex or getting love’ and
not ‘sharing sex or sharing love’, and thus appear nervous or untrustworthy
in their interactions. If one could move with the intent of sharing a
memorable time with each other, it would automatically communicate
sharing rather than taking or getting. From there, just follow your instinct.
Ask questions about what you're curious about, tell them about yourself
where it is useful or it is asked. Show opinions and passions. Tell them
about your past and your future and you will build immense comfort.
Exactly like you do with the rest of the world.
Part V: Executing the Ask-Out
Once you have built intrigue, communicated intent and established comfort,
you are ready to move on to delivering the ‘ask-out’ or the ‘proposal’.
Step 1: Where and How?
Do this in the private company of each other– face to face or over a phone
call– the closer the better. Don't text her a proposal and don't put her on the
spot in front of her friends. Ranbir Kapoor attempted an ask-out in front of
Nargis’ friends in Rockstar and Nargis rejected him harshly. No one likes to
be put on the spot.
Step 2: Do not be over convinced of your proposal
Men in India and around often think of asking-out as a proposal that
magically transforms you into boyfriend-girlfriend. Maybe that is the case
for your social environment too. Maybe people around you desire
commitment faster. However, you ask-out should not communicate rabid
desperation to commit and own the other person. This is the Bollywood
rub-off on all of us, where either romance is intense or it doesn't exist.
Healthy romance exists in the performance of a relationship, not in the
chase of it. Don't over commit in your ask-out. Truth is even you don't
know if you'll truly like the other person or get along and they may not
know that about you either. Frame the ask-out as an opportunity to get to
know each other better so you can then decide if you want to be together at
a later, more mature stage of your relationship.
The converse of this is that you should be asking out potential partners
sooner than most of you actually do. Don't ‘fall in love’ in secret.
Fall in love in the company of each other. Enjoy the process of seeing
each other and slowly descending into love.
Step 3: Actually say it
Look at them, pause for a second, smile earnestly and then say it. This is
going to be the most difficult step for a lot of you, especially the younger
ones. It was very difficult for me to learn. You have years of conditioning
behind you. The world has taught you that talking to the opposite sex and
considering anything sexual is forbidden. It has also taught you that
romance is pure and ultimate. Neither is true. However, your body might
respond with nervousness and fear. Face your fear. Think- If you can't own
up to your own fears, how will you take care of someone else? Face your
fear and say it.
Say - ‘Hey, I think you are very interesting. I'd like to take you out on a date
and get to know you better. Would you like to get <insert beverage, food,
activity etc> with me at some point?’
Or some variation of this. Tailor it to your context. It helps to start with
‘This may sound a little out of the blue..’ or ‘Forgive me for being totally
upfront..’. This pre-framing helps you ease them into the proposal.
Step 4: Making Plans
Assuming they accept, formulate the set up for the date in proportion to the
warmth of their acceptance. If they are very excited, you can make plans
right there and then. In that case, you can be concrete about time and plans.
If it's a softer, somewhat unsure yes, tell them you'll plan with them over the
phone or tomorrow. The point is to give them breathing room if they feel
overwhelmed. Let them make sense of this prospect alone for a little bit.
Don't push too hard.
Part V: How to Deal with Rejection
Rejection is tough and frequent. Believe it or not, everyone gets rejected.
I've gotten rejected, my friends have gotten rejected, the most attractive
men and women I know have gotten rejected. Rejection, if not looked at
properly, inspires fear. People think that a rejection to their ask-out is a
rejection of them. It is a very selfish way of looking at the world, as if the
only thing that matters is how ‘good’ you are. People make their choices for
1000 reasons, and we will never figure out what those are. Separate
yourself from the rejection.
Secondly, rejections are good because you are filtering out the people it
would not work with. Think about it. So many people are convinced that X
is the one and even if X rejects them. X says they are not interested in them,
but those people go on living like X is the one. What is the evidence? Some
strong, yet vague, feeling you have? How do you know you cannot have
that feeling for someone else? True love is found in mutuality and in
sharing. True love is a two-way street. Romance can be a one-way street,
and sometimes a very toxic one-way street. What is the difference? That is
an issue for another book. What is important to know is that rejection is a
filtering process. It is the strongest indicator of the fact that maybe this
person isn't the one. You just have to get past your ‘dreams’ of them and see
them for the ‘reality’ they are.
Maybe, if you can manage to truly see rejections in a non-personal way, you
can be excited about rejections. However, it is difficult. Usually rejections
are deeply tied to self worth, and a rejection means a deep scepticism about
one’s self worth.
I have found the most real alternative to handling rejections is building
a strong emotional base in the things you do everyday.
You should do things you respect. You should be proud of your day, your
week, your month and your year.You should work in a way that you respect
and love, and your self worth will not get tossed into a salad every time
someone rejects you.
Beyond all this, rejection can be a portal to learn, to be strong– as the many
cliches go. However, you need to get the precursors right to arrive at this
indifference. Be excited about discovering it. However, for the sake of
clarity and in the interest of repetition, let me state the larger point more
clearly. Do not pine upon them after the rejection. Let rejection be a natural
signal to move upward. Do not waste time trying to win them, trying to
impress them, or worse trying to intimidate them. Don't waste time
fantasising about them and don't waste time thinking about what it could
have been. Take your story forward without them. This is a test of courage
and grace, and this is where self worth is built. Don't be the weakest version
of you when you need yourself the most. Who knows what fantastic person
awaits you after this rejection?
3
“So… What’s your favourite
colour?
What To Talk About On The First
Date
Blank Canvas and Contours
A first date is supposed to be a blank canvas. It is very important to
understand the freshness of an official first date. It does not matter if you
have known this person forever or only been acquainted with them recentlya first date is a fresh start, and thus it is important you begin that way. So
what does a painter do first with the blank canvas, a landscaper with barren
land, a sculptor with a mould of clay? Establish what they want from this
exercise. Much like with every conversation you have that is planned, you
need an idea of where you want to take it.
So the first thing you need to be asking yourself, not just for the sake of
better communication but for the sake of making sane decisions throughout
the interaction is where do you want to take it. Do you like this person?
How much do you like them? What are your doubts about them? What part
of you do you want them to meet? How do you wanna make them feel?
What should be the story they will tell their friends the next day? This last
question, essentially, captures the essence of all other questions. Do you
want them to say that you were ‘a fun person, full of ideas and life,
adventurous and exciting’ or ‘a boring person who doesn't know what they
want and doesn't know how to communicate themself’?
This is the essence of the first date- Your job is to establish the contours
upon which the following parts of your interaction will be based. In the
landscaping metaphor, think of the first date as sowing the seeds of what
will grow on this land. In the painting metaphor, think about it as painting
the lines around which the figure will come to life. This is the framework of
your future together, so make it solid and good.
The First, the Last and the Decorative
The general conversation on the date can be about whatever, but there are a
certain few things you need to remember for the first , the last and the
decorative aspect of it. For the first, make sure you greet them in a way that
communicates intent. There are varying degrees of greeting with intent .
The cheapest way to do so is to tell them how they look. ‘Hi, how are you?
You look beautiful’ is just fine. It defines a premise for this conversation. It
says ‘This is a romantic setting and I'm interested in you’. You can scale the
strength of the premise by leaning into them and kissing them on the cheek,
or kissing their hand. Measure how you want to establish intent depending
on your circumstance, your context and your personal degree of interest in
them, and don't forget to communicate it.
The next thing you want to remember is to not half-ass the interaction. Be
genuinely curious. You are testing to see if this person is worth pursuing,
and they are trying to do the same. Ask them things you want to know
about them. Tell them things they ask you about. One of my favourite ways
to transition into the ‘getting-to-know-each-other-seriously’ phase is by
switching to a game. I will ask them a tough question and then immediately
say, “Let’s play this game, where each of us asks the other a question and
neither of us can lie.” This makes people feel safe because they know that I
will be shedding my performance — exposing my vulnerable side — as
much as they will be. Using the game, we can truly begin to get to know
each other deeply, by slowly ramping up the intensity of those questions.
Another important aspect to remember about dates in general, but
specifically the first date, is that it is more about what you say than what
you do, and more about who you are than who you show. A lot of the first
date interaction is about the implicit, rather than the explicit. More than
how famous, rich, beautiful or successful you can demonstrate yourself to
be, your date will be engaged by how playful, confident, and exciting you
are. Those material markers of status do matter, of course, but they are only
part of the picture. Therefore, as you attempt to learn more about your
partner, remember to also decorate your interactions with jokes, playful
banter and teases. You are, essentially, in the process of creating a new
language for yourself and them — a new way of exchanging lives, a secret
code that only you two know. Sprinkle on the ‘getting-to know-you’
process a few jokes and a few teases and you are already in ‘bonding’
territory.
Let Your Body Talk
It is like the old cliche, ‘communication is only 10% verbal’. Especially
when you are trying to fall in love. Depending on your context,
circumstance and interest establish physical proximity.
Loving her company while you're on a candle-lit dinner for two? Take her
hands in yours. He’s crazy, you like him but you are in a public setting?
Crack a joke and nudge him on his shoulder. The bodies let each other
know more than the mind can say. Throughout the ‘getting-to-know-eachother’ phase, while you are joking and bantering, continue to make your
interest clear. Use your body, and occasionally your words, to say that you
are interested in them and attracted to them.
The Eyes, Chico..
If you want to make sure you check off all the boxes in the sub-verbal
communication zone, you need to know what the eyes can do.
The eyes alone, but especially together with the smile, can communicate
without a single word all that needs to be said. A strong eye contact
communicates intent and interest.
A long eye contact with a mischievous smile communicates ‘I’m thinking
about the many things I want to do with you.’ Make sure your eyes
communicate that you are calm and fine with being in this situation: you
must show that you are neither frightened by the other person, nor by the
romantic context you two are in. Unflinching eye-contact communicates
and confirms confidence, and as such, it is deeply attractive.
Awkwardness
A very frequent point of concern is awkwardness. Here is the singular
solution to awkwardness or any kind of weirdness that you might have
communicated: address it vocally. For example, “I know this is kinda
strange..” “I said something silly…” “I do some tactless stuff sometimes..”
are all perfect ways of expressing that you understand the other person’s
situation and that you are socially aware. Notice the words ‘strange’ ‘silly’
and ‘tactless’. ‘You could have just as easily used words like
‘uncomfortable’ ‘weird’ or ‘awkward’, but those words have negative
connotations that could influence your date’s perception for the worst, like
painting a beautiful painting in ugly colours. By using more neutral words,
but still addressing the issue clearly, you demonstrate humility and selfawareness without putting yourself down. The point of addressing these
concerns is to establish connection, not to belittle yourself or actually make
them uncomfortable. You will find as soon as you talk about the
awkwardness of the situation, it is no longer so awkward or weird.
Awkwardness is a meta-emotion. You are awkward when you know
someone (or you) has done something awkward but they either don't even
know, or cant say or don't say that this was a faux pas.
It's in trying to bury awkwardness with silence that we really make
awkwardness last and linger. Admit it, accept it and the situation itself
will move on.
Gauging Interest
Another frequent issue that people naturally discover on first dates is the
struggle of gauging the interest of the other person. Gauging interest is
difficult on dates because you cannot be upfront about it without risking
ruining it: you must approach indirectly. Romance and sexuality come alive
in mystery and die when exposed to the sun, so gauging the interest of your
date is essentially guesswork, but you do have a constant stream of clues.
The skill of accurate gauging interest must be developed like a craft,
through experience: however, the following universal litmus test may be
helpful. A person that is interested in you will try and mirror your thoughts,
postures and feelings and reciprocate positively. If you touch them slightly
on the arm and they don’t run away from the date, trust yourself that they
like you. If you offer an opinion and they don’t look at you like you’re
weird, you’re doing fine. If you suggest a new plan and they don’t pass on
the offer either directly or indirectly, they probably enjoy your company. Of
course, common sense applies, and I always suggest men to be cautious and
conservative, for more than one reason, in their judgement of where they
are in the interaction. However, the general idea remains the same — mirror
and reciprocation. This is how interest and affection are communicated sub
verbally.
Close, but with WHY
What you do at the end of the date is dependent on too many factors to
consider. These factors include the time of day; the type of date; the quality
of the interaction so far; the availability of time and privacy; and more. All
of this information will inform your next move. However, in all cases,
understand that your task now is to close out the first part of the painting
smoothly. The contours need to be steady and intact, enough to make the
rest of the painting an easy process. Make sure you reaffirm your sentiment
towards them when you say goodbye. To put it simply, show intent again,
but this time do it slightly differently. Tell them, along with the fact that you
had a great time and that they are fun and that you'd like to do this again,
WHY you think they are fun, WHY you had a great time and WHY you'd
like to see them again. You don't have to do all three, just do one. “I'd love
to hang out again, you are so energetic and full of life’ ‘I had a great time
your stories are so intriguing’ ‘You are so cool, I love how you live your
life with no fear’ or whatever fits the occasion. What you're passing on at
that point is that you observed them and CHOSE them for a reason. That
there is something unique, if not special, between the two of you.
This is how you create a whole new world, albeit small at first, for the two
of you.
Basically …
Now that we are done talking about the interaction part of it, we should
cover some basics.
1. Dress for the occasion. Make it look like you cared enough
for your date.
2. Pick a nice, fun but safe thing to do. People appreciate that you
put thought into what you want to do.
3. Talk to the people around you with confidence and don’t be rude
to the staff — you are being screened for how you speak to
everyone else except your date.
4. Inside jokes, callback humour and specific banter between the
two of you are your best friends in trying to establish rapport.
5. Start the interaction at the level of energy you want to set the
tone of the interaction with. Excited you meets excited them, dull
you meets dull them.
6. End the interaction with the level of energy and emotion you
want them to recall the next time they speak to you. They will
subconsciously carry it until next time.
Pro tip : In the process of getting to know the other person, shed a few of
the layers behind which you hide. Tell the truth. Be honest and vulnerable.
There is something very unique about letting a new person change your life
with the beauty of their lived experience. Just don't go overboard and
destroy the point of the conversation by being overly self-centred. Give
them time to speak up and be honest and vulnerable as well. The first date
is an ‘us’ affair, not a ‘you’ or ‘me’ situation.
4
“Where’s the dance floor?”
How to Have Fun at Parties (Without
Drinking)
Part I: Be the cause
Here is a perspective that will separate you from the 99% of people at a
party or social gathering. 99% of people think that their mood or experience
depends on the party, where in fact 99% of your mood depends on only one
thing- you. Boring parties are boring not because of some magical, hidden
flaw in its design, but because the people haven't figured out a way to have
fun. This is where you step in. Stop waiting for parties to be fun and make
the parties you go to fun.
The first commandment of having fun at parties is to BE THE PARTY. Life
is too short to wait for it to be fun. Fun should go where you go. You should
be the cause of fun where no one is having fun. 99% of people don't get
that. They wait silently in one corner, holding their drink, hoping fun
happens, either because of alcohol or other people. They say their meek
hellos and avoid the people they don't know at the party. Some indulge in
excessive alcohol to feel free. They may have a little more fun at parties,
but, in their case, the fun happened because of the alcohol. None of these
people wait and think, “maybe I could make the party fun”.
You be the cause of that fun.
Part II: Vibin’
Say you walk into a party. It is a group of 20 or so people. They are
standing in groups in different corners. The vibe of the party is lowkey. It
seems like people are only talking to people they know, which they do all
the time outside the party anyway. No one is dancing or laughing or visibly
enjoying themselves. All of them have gathered here to do nothing but have
fun, and the only thing they cannot figure out is how to have fun.
This is a simple problem to solve. Start by talking to most people. You don't
have to talk to all of them, but just be social enough where people expect
you to be social. This sets them up to be warm to you and warms you up to
be social to them.
When you talk to strangers for the first time at a party, avoid opening with a
question. Open with a statement instead. It could be something as simple as
introducing yourself or offering a compliment or cracking a contextappropriate joke. You need to be careful to match the tone of the party. If
this is a light, soft music day time setup, you speak softly and from afar. If
this is a crowded, loud music, night time setup, you speak loudly and closer.
It is a lot more okay to ask questions in the softer setup and it is a lot easier
to communicate in statements in a louder setup. Beyond this, just have a
normal conversation.
Once you are introduced to people, introduce people to other people they
may not know. These 20 people do not even know how much fun they will
begin to have if the tension of unfamiliarity is released between them. Act
as a mediator for a few conversations if you like. It helps to crack soft jokes
on other people’s behalf in these conversations to create an informal
situation. The more random people you bring together, the more the party
will begin to have fun.
In being the cause of the fun, you do not have to be the centre of attention.
People know how to have fun, you just need to remove the obstruction.
Part III: Vibin’ Harder
Now people are likely vibing with each other already. You look around the
room, feeling that you have done a good job. People are abuzz, exchanging
quick words and giggles. Some of them already seem to be laughing and
dancing. You see from the corner of your eye a group of 3 or 4 people
sitting by themselves, feeling isolated or awkward. You need to bring them
in. Maybe they do not know how to get past their awkwardness. Maybe
they’re having fun but they could be having more fun. You want them to
vibe harder. What do you do?
You be the cause. You walk up to them and try to raise their energy. Raising
energy or vibing harder (or creating arousal, as psychologists would call it)
is done by matching the tone and raising it a couple notches. Say for
instance you walk up to this group of people and say ‘what's up?’. They
look at you, smile a little and say ‘nice party, dude’ to be polite. Say their
smile is a 6 (10 being a full glee) and the volume of their voice is a 5 (10
being speaking over the music and other people), you respond to them with
a smile that is a 7 and a volume that is a 6. Say what comes naturally, don't
fret the ‘what’ part. ‘What’ you say is marginally important. What is more
important is HOW you say it. Your job is to add more fun into the
conversation with your voice and body. People are known to mirror states.
They will feel the same energy and mood that you project at them, and
eventually start vibing more.
This is a neat trick you can use in any conversation. This is one of the ways
to guide the flow of an interaction. Remember to amp the energy
incrementally. Going from a 1 to a 9 will scare the other person away, and
always be aware of the tone and the context of the party.
Part IV: Engage in the Stupidity
Serious people don't have fun. Serious people are too preoccupied with
serious stuff. To have fun you must let go, and serious people hold on to
their seriousness with pride. The good thing is that there are no such things
as 100% serious people. People alternate between moods and psychological
states. Some parts of your day and life are reserved to be serious. Parties are
not one of them.
People come to parties to have fun and let loose from their otherwise
focused and laborious lives. However, the same people are too afraid to
appear stupid in front of other people. They dress up and travel to have fun,
but without alcohol they find themselves chained to a strange seriousness
about their ‘self’. You need to be the reminder, to yourself and others, that
no fun is ever produced from taking yourself too seriously. If you are a
party where people are not letting loose, lead the charge for stupid
behaviour.
The famous American bar call for ‘SHOTS!’ is a perfect example of this. In
probably 8 out of 10 scenarios, shots are not a good idea. However, the call
for ‘SHOTS’ unifies people. It reminds them that they are there to have fun
and gives them a clear action to have that fun. For a lot of other people it is
‘LET'S DANCE’. The formula is the same. Unify people in the spirit of the
party so they can forget themselves, and then do something stupid (but
safe!) together.
Stupid does not have to be spectacular and it doesn’t have to be risky. It just
has to be off script. In a party where no one is dancing, take people to
dance. In a party nobody is drinking, order shots. In a party where nobody
is eating, create a table and invite people to taste and discuss food.
Create scenarios where people can be part of a group and mingle. Keep
them involved. They will produce most of the fun and throw it at you.
Part VI: A Note on Social Fear
The only significant obstacle in doing most of the above mentioned
prescriptions in parties is social fear. There are a few things to know about
feeling nervous/underconfident/awkward that you should know about.
Firstly, everybody in a party is usually feeling some variety of uncertainty.
Everyone around you has their insecurities and awkwardnesses. You are not
alone or special, at least not until you decide to take the first step to help
everybody get over their nervousness. The second thing is that social fear
can be trained out. In fact, if you go through many social interactionsparties, conversations, etc., and push yourself to do one new thing every
time, you will begin to relax into your body and mannerism. You will find
out that people often don't care enough to judge you aloud, and even if
strangers judge you, it doesn't take from your life experience at all. You
slowly become more sure of your way of life and your self expression.
Indeed, the road is long and tough, but the destination is liberating. Don't let
fear stop you.
5
“That’s a nice sweater”
Striking up a Conversation with a
Complete Stranger
Let me say this in no unclear terms:
The ability to chat up a stranger and establish a connection is the holy
grail of conversationalists.
It is at once the most difficult, most frightening, the most exciting and the
most rewarding of things you can do in the social world.
Hesitation and Premise
Getting good at striking up a conversation with a stranger involves both
mindset and technique. The mindset part is acknowledging your social
conditioning and changing it. Most people hesitate to initiate a conversation
with a stranger. The common social construct compels you to only talk to
someone if you have a reason to talk to them. The reason could be ‘we have
business to do’, ‘we are in the same class sitting next to each other’, ‘we
were introduced by a common friend’ at the very most, and ‘we work in the
same industry’, ‘we are at the same party’, and ‘we have common friends’
at the very least. This initial connection is called the premise, and the ability
of a conversation to initiate and then continue is typically tied to the
strength of the premise.
In the absence of a premise, you falter. You invite awkwardness and
hesitation into the conversation. Having learned from various attempts in
your younger years that awkwardness is painful, you shy away from talking
to new people unless they have a readily available pretext to do so: a
premise. Thus, in the many cases where there is no immediate premise, you
miss out on the opportunity to make new friends and social connections.
You close the door on infinite opportunities because of an invisible,
unspoken rule that you learnt when you were a kid. This rule must be
unlearned.
The truth is that you don't need a premise to start a conversation. You can
create the premise as you go. You certainly don't need prior familiarity with
the other person to start a conversation, because you can build that as you
go as well. It is immensely hard to unlearn the childhood rule of forced
premises. It is hard to admit that nothing is stopping you from talking to
others, except for your own fears. But it is essential that this skill be
conquered. Talking to a stranger is an act of rebellion. By approaching
without a premise, you tell the other person that you are not bound by the
normative rules set by society, and that you are able to connect with them
solely on the level of your shared humanity.
The Technique
This rebellious mindset is essential, but theory can only get you so far. It is
equally important to master the technique of ‘talking up’ strangers. In order
to do so, let us consider the following analogy, which, while an imperfect
parallel, is nonetheless instructive.
Every random conversation is like a car stuck on the street with a chokedup engine. The only way to make the car start is to manually push it until
the engine kicks in; this initial push requires great effort, but once you get it
moving, the process is a lot smoother from there on in. Just like the car,
when you converse with a random stranger, you must keep pushing till a
point where the organic engine of the conversation takes over. From there, it
is like any other car ride, like any other conversation. That is the purpose of
technique — to hit a point where the hesitancy of the initial conversation
evaporates.
The Perfect Opener
Even with a change in mindset, most people will still hesitate to open up
random conversations because they will overthink and worry about the first
thing they’re supposed to say. In conversational theory, this ‘first thing’ is
called an opener. People want their openers to be spells: a magical wave of
the verbal wand that will result in their potential conversational partner
immediately opening up. But there is no such thing as a perfect opener —
and this is lucky, because it means you do not need to waste effort searching
for one. All you need is an opener that’s good enough to break the ice. Let’s
examine a real-world opener in effect:
One fall, many years ago, I was hanging out at a high end bar in New York
CIty. You could feel the approaching winter in the air. People stood all
along the balcony, watching the majestic flow of the East River. The Statue
of Liberty gazed away from us at a distance. Everyone in the bar looked
beautiful: this was the weekend before New York Fashion week. All famous
models, their wealthy partners and their influential friends swarmed the bar
with joyous jokes and loud laughter. I sat with my friends in one corner. We
were young and all of us were students.
We looked around, joking about how we didn't fit in the crowd. But my
friend Peter refused to admit that. So, I offered him a challenge. I told him
that if he could bring the nearest group of models and their friends over to
our table, I would admit that we were wrong and he was right. Peter got up
without hesitation, and I got up with him to observe. He marched forward to
the group and I put my ear right behind him. He opened with a “Hi, excuse
me” that was loud enough to be heard over the music but not too loud, and
then he waited for a second for them to notice.
This, in conversational theory, is called a pre-opener. The purpose of the
pre-opener is to direct the attention of the people towards you, so that they
aren't surprised by you suddenly appearing from the crowd and beginning to
talk to them. Notice that there is no magic with a ‘Hi, excuse me.’ It is
common, unsurprising, but clear and confident. The real magic is in the way
it is said. He said those bland words with the confidence of ‘I deserve this
conversation’ and then he waited a moment for the attention to be directed
towards him.
They looked around at us. I immediately felt awkward and nervous. All my
years of social conditioning had taught me I wasn’t allowed to do this. I felt
strange, but my friend continued. “Hi, you all look so gorgeous and fun, I
had to come say hi.” All of their sceptical looks quickly transformed into
smiles and they all broke out in thank yous.
This was Peter's opener. Simple and to the point. Notice how, with the
opener, Peter is establishing a reason for him to open this conversation. He
is in fact setting up a temporary premise. He clearly conveys, ‘I am here to
talk to you because you look beautiful and happy’. Only very few people
would dislike that statement. Peter isn’t looking to get something with his
opener, at least not overtly. He is only trying to offer good emotions, and
nothing more. By doing so, he puts the impetus on the other party to
respond to him with equal positivity. It is hard to ignore the goodness of
another man.
“Thank you” the nearest model said to us. Her smile extended ear to ear. I
felt more comfortable. Peter then pushed the compliment further. “Looks
like you guys are going to set the Fashion Week on fire” he said. They all
laughed further. “I'm Peter” he continued, “and this is my friend” he
gestured towards me. I shook everyone’s hand and introduced myself.
Notice how Peter’s follow up to the opener wasn’t a question. Asking a
question is a natural temptation that many people fall into when opening a
random conversation. You want to know more about the person to have a
conversation, and so you ask questions. Asking questions is not the worst
approach, but changing the question into a statement does a lot better at
engaging strangers than just the question.
Peter could have said “Are you guys here for the fashion week?”, but such a
question is boring. It can be answered with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’, and does
not naturally prompt more conversation. By transforming the question into
a sentence of appreciation, Peter managed to get information he wanted,
while adding more conversational meat to the interaction. Once he saw that
his guess is correct, not that it mattered if it wasn’t, he continued to
introduce himself.
Now that there was some premise (Peter wants to talk to beautiful and
happy people) and some familiarity (our names have been exchanged), we
were approaching the point where the engine of a normal conversation
would kick in.
“So, who are you walking the ramp for?” he asked, looking at a model. She
was in conversation with another man in her group, so Peter insisted. “By
the way, I love your necklace. Very elegant.” She noticed and smiled. She
told us about the designer she was working with. With this encouragement,
Peter began to ask individual questions to each of them. “Where do you
work?” “What do you think about this bar?”. He went around the 5 people
group slowly initiating conversations with them. Between questions he
would add his opinion, so it did not feel like a question-answer round at
some TV game show.
Notice how Peter opened by addressing the group at large, but then shifted
to engaging individual members. In starting a conversation with a random
group, you have to begin by addressing the group at large, before you can
talk to people one-on-one. The group needs to acknowledge you
collectively, and then you need to connect with the individual members of
the group, to maintain engagement.
From there, Peter went around talking about himself, offering opinion and
information, to build comfort. He made sure it did not feel like an interview
by throwing in a joke, a compliment, a story from his life or sometimes
even just plain information about himself, me or our friendship.
Eventually, when he felt enough engagement and comfort was built, he
looked at them and offered “You guys want to sit down?” They hesitated,
not entirely unconvinced. He gestured to our table, where our friends sat
five feet away. “It's not far” he said jokingly. They smiled and obliged. 15
minutes into the conversation, they were sitting with us, laughing and
joking like new friends. Peter introduced the group to each other. We shared
drinks, stories and laughter – the typical New York way. Later Peter went
on to do business with one of the fellows from that group.
The last key thing to notice is how Peter dealt with the resistance of new
connections. People also feel similarly about random conversations. They
are taught that without the presence of a complete premise, one shouldn’t
engage with strangers. So after offering a temporary premise and
familiarity, Peter offered to invite them to our table. They were hesitant,
unsure of who we were. Peter dealt with it by removing the friction by
saying ‘it isn't far’. This line communicates 1. Peter feels it is normal for us
to make friends like this 2. They don't have to make a lot of effort. That
acted as the final convincer. The engine kick-started shortly after they sat
down with us.
General Rules and Principles:
The story helps to illustrate a few important principles of starting a
conversation with strangers:
1. Assume it is normal to talk to strangers. Without the
assumption, you will not be able to open with comfort and
people will not respond to you as well. Remember: if you want
them to feel at ease and comfortable in the interaction, then you
must lead with example.
2. Use a pre-opener to get their attention. An ‘excuse me’ is the
perfect predecessor to an opener. It optimises the effect of an
opener by bringing the attention to you. What is important is to
wait after the ‘excuse me’ for their attention to arrive at you.
3. Open with a compliment. It is easier than you think. Make the
compliment unique. Don't say generic stuff like ‘you look great’
or ‘you look interesting’. Make the compliment more descriptive
and specific to the circumstance. In our story, the group was
composed of attractive and happy people. Peter made sure that
was his compliment-opener. You can use other ways of opening
too. The idea behind an opener is to establish some kind of
temporary premise. For instance, in a Zara store at a mall you
can open with “Hi, excuse me” *pause* “Do you think this
colour suits me better than this colour?” as you show them the
two shirt options you have. This has given a temporary reason
for you to talk.
4. Establish familiarity by introducing yourself.
The interaction becomes comfortable as soon as names are
exchanged. All exchanges of personal information establish
comfort.
That doesn't mean you give an hour-long lecture on the story of
your life. The best way to do it is to ask people about them, and
once they answer add your answer. “What do you do?” “Oh I
work in fashion” “That must be exciting. I'm a student of
economics and finance.”
5. Use statements instead of questions. People are not opposed to
meeting random strangers, however people do not want random
burdens. They don't like a random stranger who makes them
think, act, or engage without them knowing what they will get in
return. Statements are a good way of not doing exactly that.
Firstly, most statements are implicit questions and cue your
partner to share more. If I say “You look like you work in
fashion”, it begs the question “Where do you work?”. Secondly,
statements are more expressive. You can express a lot more
emotional content with statements than with questions.
Statements allow you to say more about what they are getting in
return from this interaction. When you say ‘I'm sure you love
working in fashion’, you are also communicating that you are
here to have a fun and easy conversation. Thirdly, you add no
cognitive pressure on your listener. They don't have to think and
produce answers all the time. This is not to say don't ask
questions at all. It can be quite fun to ask a stranger questions
and learn about them and from them. This is only to say don't
make questions your only way to interact with strangers.
6. Re-introduce the premise wherever engagement is lost. It might
be that in your interactions with random strangers, you feel that
either or both of you are losing engagement in the conversation.
This is symptomatic of the fact that you need to reload the
premise into the conversation. Either introduce a new premise‘Hey, dude, your football team is doing pretty bad these days,
huh?’ or re-insist on the old one ‘So, how do all of you look so
beautiful and fun? What's the secret?’. You have to feel out the
situation. You cannot reintroduce interest without being attentive
to the context. Ideally, in the course of your initial conversation,
you have to figure out common premises between you and the
stranger that can be used later on to reignite interest if the
conversation begins to die.
7. Offer friendship before you take something. In most cases, you
cannot offer a random stranger something except your
friendship, or as it is said in colloquial terms- “good vibes”.
Good vibes cost nothing, so always be the first to offer it.
Conversations are like a dance. People fill up the space left by
the other. So when you offer good vibes, it invites the other
person to mirror you and offer the same good vibes in return.
More than that, it tells them that they can trust you and what
exactly is your intent with the conversation. When you ask for
something before it is clear what you want or what you have to
give, people develop a resistance. Now they distrust you and are
sceptical about their safety and your intent.
8. Remove resistance. Not all resistance is bad. In fact, resistance
tells you that the other person is at least considering your
proposition. Resistance occurs because your ‘ask’ is too big for
your established level of engagement and comfort. What is the
‘ask’? In the story, it was Peter asking the models to come sit
with us. They knew us and were kind of engaged and
comfortable with us. Their resistance meant that our ‘ask’ was
probably too big for our level of connection. Peter brazenly
responded with ‘it's not far’. This response smoothed their
concern. We were not asking for something huge. Besides, the
way he said it was kind of casual and funny. This let our new
friends feel more relaxed and reintroduced the premise ‘we are
only having fun’. Lastly, and most importantly, that statement let
Peter insist on his suggestion without literally insisting on it.
The idea is to figure out the underlying resistance to your ‘asks’.
Empathise and notice what is the real reason why the other
person feels hesitant to participate with you in your suggestion
and see if you could smooth it over without applying too much
pressure.
9. Reach a ‘hook point’. The idea is to reach the point where the
conversation acquires a life of its own: a ‘hook point’, where you
are both ‘hooked’ (i.e. enthusiastically engaged) on the
conversation and each other. It takes a little while because
strangers go through many rounds before they are able to
suspend their concerns for each other to feel free and safe. At
first, you have to open, then establish a premise. From there, you
have to build familiarity and then move on to building
engagement and comfort. Even from that point on, depending on
the context of the situation, it takes some time before people feel
like they can be themselves in that interaction. Your purpose is to
stick the initial awkwardness out and reach the hook point. You
will know it when you see it. You will stop feeling the effort of
pushing the vehicle of conversation forward, and will begin to
feel it moving by itself. The best marker of a hook point is when
the other person starts asking you questions. That tells you they
have bought into the premise and your company and are, thus,
now willing to participate.
6
“Yikes!”
How to be Confident in Nervous
Situations
Part I: Two Lives
I have until now lived two distinct lives. The first was in Faridabad, India.
That life was inherited. Things existed for me in a certain way as I grew up.
My parents did well for themselves, my school trained me to be sharp, and
my peers taught me how to be courageous. In this life, I was me before I
even knew it. It just happened. My second life began when I moved to New
York at 21. This life was to be constructed. Nothing in this strange land had
existed for me. I had no family and no peers. Everything in this life had to
be created, and I remember seeing the difference very clearly when I first
felt nervous in a classroom at Columbia.
I was a lost little boy when I came here. I sat in a classroom with a horde of
extremely smart (some would say the smartest) kids from around the world.
Both the context of these classroom interactions and the content of the
discussions would go over my head. I didn't know what was what, and I felt
sweaty and nervous in every classroom discussion. I wasn't used to it, given
how free and confident I felt in my previous life. I loved putting my point
across and I could find no reasonable way to get past that nervousness and
even attempt to express myself. I spent all of the first semester silent and
nervous.
It was a random night in early December in 2017. I had been working in the
library all night to write a paper. A senior from the film department was
helping me review my writing. It was around 3 am in the morning when I
showed him my final draft. He went over it slowly, and then turned to me
with a grin. “Good Job”, he said “I couldn't write it as well”. I felt
overjoyed. I had spent the entire semester feeling like the stupidest guy in
the classroom. I had felt confused because in my origin story I was the
opposite- confident and self-assured, and all of a sudden I had not known if
I was even making sense in these classes. All this while, I had felt NOT at
home. I felt like I did not belong here. But here was a guy, looking me
squarely across in the eye, promising I was going to ace the class. For the
first time that semester, I felt like I could. We left the library for home soon
after.
I remember walking home in my first snow in New York City and thinking
to myself how I could be so wrong in my assessment of myself. When I
clearly had interesting things to say, why did I feel under-confident? That is
the day I understood the difference between my two lives, and I saw how
confidence operated.
Confidence is very contextual. You are differently confident in different
circumstances. You are more confident playing music for your friends than
your family. You are more comfortable in a selfie you click for yourself
versus a selfie you click for social media. You are more comfortable today
in your classroom or office than you were on day one. Confidence has a lot
to do with knowing what to expect.
To be precise, confidence has more to do with being ok with what to expect.
However, to be ok with what to expect you need to know what to expect in
the first place. That is why being ‘at home’ is such an advantage. Now, the
natural follow up question is, ‘when am I ok with what I'm expecting?’. The
answer is simple ‘Mostly, when you know that you'll get what you want.’
Herein lies the conundrum of confidence and nervousness.
People who go into a situation knowing they will win tend to be more
confident, and more confident people tend to win more.
So it's very easy to be confident if you are already winning, like I was in my
first life by the grace of circumstance and my parents. But it's very difficult
to start when you have zero wins. In this virtuous cycle of Belief: I will win> More Confidence-> Win-> Belief: I will win, where do I find the first win
to base my first belief on. This is why it was more difficult to be confident
in my second life. It was because I needed the first source to kick start this
cycle of confidence building. So I went looking for this initial kick.
Part II: Experiments with Confidence
All self-help advice is useless if it has to be remembered. The only
improvement that ever happens accrues as your instinct. You cannot remind
yourself to be confident, you have to feel it without trying. That is the true
essence of progress- you have to acquire in a way that you can forget. If you
acquire in a way that you cannot forget, you will always be occupied with it
and you will never move any further than your present obstacle.
I am a very forceful man when it comes to carving away my obstacles. I
experiment very heavily and I seek to understand and eliminate the source.
In the course of my experiments, I came across many promises of
confidence. Some sources prefer a symptomatic approach. Fighting the
symptoms reverse engineers your mind to expect to win. A popular one in
the west is cold showers. When you take icy cold showers in the winter, you
go very quickly from flinching at the touch of the water and thinking ‘it is
crazy’ to becoming calm and collected and doing your mundane shower
activities in the same icy cold water. This micro victory gives you the initial
belief that you can win against unfavourable circumstances
Some take a meditative approach. Meditative traditions realised the power
of the mind. They figured out in their philosophies that a lot of why we
suffer is because of how our mind creates a relationship with the outside
world. “We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”, said the
famous stoic Seneca. We suffer more, and more privately, in anticipation
and expectation than we might with the actual consequences of our lives.
Look elsewhere- Krishna invites Arjun to reconsider his profound
‘nervousness’
on
the
battleground
of
Kurukshetra.
“Karmanyvadhikarastemafaleshukadachan” said Krishna, asking Arjun to
shed the burden of the outcome when he goes to war. One way to look at
the Bhagavad Gita is that it is a song Krishna sings to provide Arjun with
the moral, epistemic and metaphysical confidence to fight the Great War,
the Mahabharata. Then, there is Gautum Buddha who propounded the idea
of shunyata- that there is no inherent value in anything external to our mind,
so one must not attach themselves, must not create expectations at all. All
these traditions invited their followers to reconsider their expectations of
what is to come- win or loss. These traditions sought confidence in
performing your life out with a moral code in every moment. As opposed to
our everyday nature, these traditions did not rely then on the boosts of
confidence that accrue from winning in intervals. They sought confidence
in the present rather than the expected future or the reaffirming past.
Some take a psychological approach. A popular one is the practice of
‘reprogramming your subconscious’ using affirmations. The idea is to insist
upon yourself so vigorously that you are confident, that you perform out
your confident self almost as a subconscious mistake; that you forget that
you are not confident, and in that forgetting you automatically act from this
reiterated notion that you are confident.
Some even take a physiological approach. For instance, You can search the
internet for several breathing instructions or ‘bioenergetics’. You will find
enough people who will say exercising and Yoga gives them confidence.
All of them make sense. Eventually, if you are truly confident, all of these
versions make sense. You recognise them for what they are- entry points.
However, no solution is useful until it is tailor-made to one’s problem.
Gautum Buddha was famously an employer of skillful means , that a person
must be given a dose appropriate to their illness, even if the doses
contradict each other across people. In my long tryst with confidence in
America, I found that with a journey as personal as self-confidence, one
must do similarly. One must borrow from sources in trying to understand
their problem statement and customise their solutions accordingly.
This is my precise attempt with the following chapter. I intend to offer a
custom solution for comfort and confidence in a particular solution. I also
attempt to tackle something fragile, because this chapter is not as skillbased as it is mindset-based, with the same kind of force as I use with
myself. However, the reader must exercise temperance and self-awareness.
They need to wield the tools with the knowledge that they are fighting for
themselves and not for a third person. Be compassionate, be patient, be
aggressive and be just, be whatever may be required from you in the
moment, in your delivery of the dose to yourself.
Part III: Nervous Situations: A Tale of Two Roads
Socially speaking, there is nothing worse than feeling nervous. Apart from
the interaction itself, nervousness also murders the experience of the
interaction. You probably do very badly in interviews, but then also come
out of them not wanting to give more interviews. What could be worse?
So, then why are you nervous? What is nervousness? Nervousness is the
absence of confidence. Think of your interaction as a road. You and your
interlocutor are in a car together, deciding where it will go. You have a
straight road in front of you. Ever so often it branches in two, and you know
you want to avoid one of them. All the roads (call them RED ROADS) you
want to avoid are fear, shame, embarrassment, loss and rejection. You want
to keep the conversation on a road that is safe, comfortable and going
towards the final destination you want to arrive at (call them GREEN
ROADS). As soon as the RED ROADS look like a more likely possibility
than the GREEN ROADS, you get nervous. An expert driver of
conversations does not worry about driving into the RED ROAD once in a
while. It is easy for the expert to remanuvere or even use the RED ROAD
to his advantage. For the people prone to nervousness, RED ROADS
usually means an inevitable crash (however, the nervous can luck out once
in a while and get a small, one-time version of the rewards the expert gets
regularly from engaging with the RED ROADS).
More on this analogy later. Let’s look at the kind of social situations that are
most likely to make us nervous
1. Talking to Someone More Attractive or Powerful- The
nervousness stems from the fear of getting rejected. This can be
commonly found in the anxiety men have in talking to beautiful
women, and the excitement people have when they see a
celebrity. It's the same nervousness- you don't want to be
rejected, thus you don't know what to say or how to behave
appropriately. If you have ever met an industry leader or an
inspiration of any sort, you will find yourself being tongue-tied.
Your mind has done the mental maths of giving the other person
all the power and you are now at the subject of their acceptance
in your own head. No surprise that you start censoring yourself
and get all confused- you are trying to fit your behaviour to
someone else’s standards and you don't even know what their
standards are. Read the chapter on talking to powerful people to
know more.
2. Talking to your direct senior (at work) - It is rather sad that
people are nervous to coordinate with their bosses, given how
language evolved as a means for humans to cooperate in teams.
However, this happens in the 21st century and it happens
because there is fear of loss. You fear losing your reputation, you
fear losing favour, you fear losing your job. An employee refuses
to take risks because he is afraid of the tyranny and whims of his
boss. The fear is not unfounded, but with a little craft and
practice, you can turn it in your favour.
3. Public Settings and Public Embarrassments - We are
programmed to never lose the favour of the crowds. In our
evolutionary history, the crowds were the judge and you could
rarely run away from the people you saw. You were in tribes,
stuck with each other’s opinion of you. You had to be either
liked, respected or feared, or you were nobody. If you were
laughed at, it would be worse. You’d be below nobody, you’d be
someone no one wants to associate with. That is the biological
reason why you are afraid to go up on the stage and perform.
More closely, you are afraid of not knowing how people,
individually and collectively, are thinking about you. You have
an undeniable necessity to look at yourselves from the eyes of
others, and you are afraid some of the mirrors will reflect a
stupider, lamer- a worse version of you. Public embarrassment is
the fear of rejection en masse. The beautiful part is that the same
fear that stops you, becomes an irreplicable high after you’ve
learnt to master it.
4. Sharing your vulnerabilities - Everyone has a need for privacy
and once in a while, everyone must invite others into those
privacies. For some it is art, for some it is emotion, for some
experiences and for some it is memories and secrets. However,
without exception, we are all called upon to share ourselves with
others. In these cases, one might feel nervous. The nervousness
is the fear of what the other person’s reaction might be. Will they
see you differently? If they see you differently, will you see
yourself differently? How do you see yourself right now? All
these questions flood your mind with different answers. Truths
hidden at the bottom of your psyche float up. You are nervous
because you confront the unknown and fear rejection, shame,
loss and embarrassment.
Sharing yourself has more intricacies than just confidence. One
must be tactful, self aware and well-tempered. However, there is
a certain beauty to be found in being able to share yourself.
Confidence sets you free to share yourself when the right
opportunity arrives.
These are all nervousness of different varieties, but stem from
the same root emotion- fear of the unknown future, fear of the
crash, fear of the RED ROADS.
Part IV: Treating the RED ROAD SYNDROME:
So how do we treat the RED ROAD SYNDROME?
1. The first obstacle to overcoming nervousness is physiological of the body. When you feel nervous, your body goes into fight or
flight mode. You feel anxious, sweaty, your knees shake and
your movements get sudden and awkward. This is very normal
and mostly because of habit or programming. You have, for
some reason, a code in your software that makes your hardware
malfunction in certain situations. The solution is simple- write
over the code such that you see no malfunction. Note that this
overwrite is what transmutes the fear of being on stage to the
high of performing for a crowd for stage artists.
However, how overwrites work with humans is different from
computers. Humans overwrite with repetition. You need to
practice being in nervous situations and slowly feeling
comfortable. You have to practice being nervous and still
performing, still interacting. You have to expose yourself to what
makes you nervous and show your mind there is nothing to be
afraid of. This teaches the mind not to throw you into fight or
flight physically when confronted with nervousness. This is
called exposure therapy.
2. The other thing to know is that it is absolutely okay to make
mistakes and mess up. It is okay to end up on the RED ROADS
and even crash. It is the nature of learning. If you know it is okay
to end up on a RED ROAD, you are more likely to relax while
driving. Secondly, ending up on a RED ROAD gives you the
opportunity to remanuvere. It forces you to incorporate wit and
charm into your interactions. Experts use RED ROADS to their
advantage in many ways, one of which is to display charm and
self-assuredness.
3. The ultimate fear is losing the opportunity if you end up on the
RED ROAD and crash. The meditative traditions would remind
you to be outcome-independent, to not suffer in expectation, to
give no value to everything external. However, we are all at
different stages of realising that and the ultimate truth may not
be accessible to everyone. While you must strive towards caring
more about performing your best self than the outcome of it, say
for instance in an interview, it is unreasonable to expect you to
not care about getting the job at all. The only way to fight this
fear is to create true abundance, true security. If you are great at
what you do, if you are a person full of life and with enough
opportunity, you will never fear losing one of them. You will
allow yourself to be more yourself when a new opportunity
arrives.
True confidence lies in true abundance and true abundance
can be created by true competence.
4. A very nifty hack to diffuse nervousness is what is known as
pre-framing. If you feel nervous, try admitting it in an
interaction. When you have already set the expectation of
another to expect nervousness from you, you feel a lot more
relaxed and can in turn actually come out of your nervousness.
Similarly, you can pre-frame using disclaimers. When attempting
something bold, admit to it. Say ‘I'm about to say something that
I'm unsure of/ that I understand is bold, etc.’. This pre-sets the
expectation of the other to a different context, and it allows you
to relax into your attempt to express through nervousness.
5. Finally, you must understand that social interaction is a lot about
performance. People interact by getting into performative flows.
That is why it is so hard for people to break character, or ‘see the
other person’s point of view’. Expressing yourself is a
performance, and you can learn to interact through habit
building.
You must cultivate a habit to commit. Nervousness makes you
self censor. You have an instinct, and before you can express it
the censor tells you that you shouldn't. One way to beat this
censor is to commit to your instincts. Every time you feel the
censor come in the way, commit to your instinct and express.
You will find that saying the first few words is a lot harder than
the words that follow. It gets easier to express as you express.
This is why you have ‘days’ when you feel social and days you
don't. You are just warmed up, you are just in flow, and there is a
way to build the habit of flow - commit to your instinct and
follow it through consistently. You will come to learn how wrong
the censor was.
7
Duck Duck Go
How to Turn Around Embarrassing
Moments
Most of your nervousness in communication stems from a pre-emptive
feeling that you will say something embarrassing when it is your turn
to speak, and that you will not be able to recover from it.
I have found in the many people I have trained in communication that if
you manage to give a person a feeling that they do not have to worry about
a faux pas, or that if they did commit an embarrassing slip they could
recover from it, they ease into their performance a lot more. They feel more
themselves, and they communicate better overall. We discussed, quite at
length, this preemptive nervousness in the last chapter. In this chapter, we
intend to discuss the actual happening of this faux pas. If you somehow DO
end up on the RED ROADS, how do you manoeuvre yourself from there
like an expert? How do you come out of an embarrassing conversational
moment with charming ease?
We have all seen someone handle an embarrassing moment in a social
setting, either in person or on TV. If you do not remember a specific case, I
am sure you can at least conjure up an imagined scenario of someone doing
that. With skills like communication, it is very important to learn from these
natural occurrences. There is no better source of literature than what is
happening in front of you, because communication is a skill you learn better
from imitation than theory. Thus, we will keep these examples of effortless,
charming ease front and centre in our minds as we begin to decode the
antidote to making a faux pas in a social setting.
Invisible Embarrassment
The first naturally occurring example we need to consider analytically is a
little tricky to spot. For the sake of simplicity, we will call it invisible
embarrassment. This embarrassment is invisible because no one spots it.
Even if someone spots it, it usually goes unmentioned, and even if someone
brings it up for everyone to notice, it usually does not lead to a fuss. These
are embarrassments hidden in plain sight.
Here is a straightforward example. Imagine your boss walks into a team
meeting with his fly open. Initially, you'll notice it, and it might make you
giggle, but soon you’ll tell yourself you need to be an adult and attend to
the more adult issues in the room and let that potential embarrassment hang.
You might wonder if someone else notices it too, but you won’t bring it up.
If someone did bring it up, say another senior, it wouldn’t result in a big
deal. No one will laugh, or mock and business will go on as usual after your
boss corrects his open-fly situation. This example is straightforward, but
probably not the best. A better example would be to help you notice
something less visible- something truly invisible. Run this exercise the next
time you are sitting between your friends. Notice carefully what the ‘leader’
of your group says or does throughout the length of the interaction. Later,
imagine doing that stuff yourself, and you'll find that you cannot pull off the
same stuff as they can. A lot of the stuff they say, they can get away with
but you can't. Those are the truly invisible embarrassments. No one notices,
no one talks, no fuss is created. We take it in our stride, as if they were
meant to be the case, as if that is the normal.
So what are these ‘leaders’ of social settings doing right that no one notices
their faux pas? The succinct answer is this - They don't even know they are
committing an embarrassment. Partly due to how sure they are of
themselves, partly due to their position in the social dynamic (both of these
things are interconnected) they neither question themselves, nor are they
questioned by others. They perform themselves, others admit their
behaviour and the group ignores it or accepts it. No further scrutiny. In fact,
here is the kicker- a faux pas committed by a ‘leader’ of the social group
can create the space for others to feel comfortable in their embarrassments.
I learnt about this ability in my podcasting adventures. I had somewhat
always known this instinctively, as I'm sure a lot of you do too. However,
watching it play out episode after episode, guest after guest, made me
realise how much power could be wielded from channelling your
conversational mistakes the right way. In the hyper-sanitised, hyperconscious environment of a Zoom podcast conversation, I would make
purposeful conjectures while I'd speak to my guests. These conjectures
would be wide and polarising. The purpose of these conjectures was to
place myself in a precarious position. In making those guesses or
articulating those opinions, I would place myself in a position of
vulnerability- I could be rebutted, or worse corrected, by random trolls on
YouTube. Added to the fact that this was my show, and that I would
conduct my conversations with an air of authority and always ‘lead’ the
agenda in a conversation, I saw a lot of my guests became far more
comfortable making their conjectures about social, political and scientific
situations. They felt more at ease guessing and being wrong than they were
before I offered an invisible embarrassment.
A great example, although extremely niche, of this is Samdish Bhatia- an
online journalist from India. Samdish has an extremely unique interviewing
style, such that he communicates with his body and words several ‘faux
pas’ or ‘awkward things’ and that helps him bring out the candid side of
some of the hardest script-reading political and journalistic figures in India.
I very often wonder what his guests feel like when they leave his
interviews. They have undoubtedly over-committed and said stuff that they
would usually try to swerve past in interviews, and they have done so
smiling, giggling, and laughing like young boys and girls, and not like
hardened men and women.
Wielding Invisible Embarrassments
Samdish takes the emotional and thematic lead in a conversation, and then
goes on to do things that are entirely uncharacteristic of interviews. Since it
is his show, no one wonders why he is sitting with his feet on the sofa, or
why he makes extremely cutting remarks with a smile and then changes the
topic or when he engages in comical hugs with his guests. These are all
invisible embarrassments and he owns them as his character. That is himwe see it, the guest sees it and we all admit it. What happens from that point
is that the guest feels so much more relaxed, at ease, comfortable and
candid, that they end up committing to stuff and doing or saying things they
never thought they would do. This is the power of welding invisible
embarrassments.
This formula became evident to me once I started podcasting. The formula
is to take the lead of a conversation, own your peculiarities and perform
them without doubt. Some people do it instinctively, but if you are someone
who does not learn this golden nugget, the following points are for you.
1. The rules for what is right and what is wrong in a conversation
are more malleable and flexible than you think, and to truly test
them you need to be in the experimenter’s chair. This means
leading the conversation. If people recognise your role as their
herder, as someone they should listen to, attend to, follow along
or not cross, if they understand your power, you can get away
with more embarrassments than you'd think.
2. Commit to your behaviour. Too many people make a gesture or
say a phrase and wait for others to signal approval before they
continue being themselves. Most people perform themselves
from a place of deep uncertainty. You have got to go all-in on
yourself and people will accept your peculiarities. Articulate
your words and body in a way that you are sure of.
3. Make the kind of embarrassment, faux pas or courageous
conversational move that you wish the other to mimic or feel
comfortable around and own it. This will create a space for the
other to repeat the same embarrassment in their own way. WIth
every gesture or mannerism they mimic, your interlocutor will
find themselves more comfortable with you. Win-win
Not the ‘Leader’
The catch with using the invisible embarrassment formula is that you
cannot always be the ‘leader’ of the room. A lot of times you will be in
strange rooms, with strange company, sometimes even with more powerful
and in-demand company,and you cannot assume people will follow your
lead. To put it simply, becoming the ‘leader’ of the room depends on more
than just some conversational hack or skill, and you must equip yourself
with other tools to manoeuvre out of the RED ROADS in those cases. To
understand this, we will conjure the image of the quintessential charming
person from our memory or imagination. It is unimportant what they said in
that memory/imagination to smoothly move themselves (and by proxy
everyone else in the room) over their embarrassing hump, so don't sweat it.
Focusing on conjuring up their mannerisms.
Say, a famous bollywood celebrity is doing a rare one-on-one interview
(one-on-one interviews happen to be the most sanitised form of observable
conversation. They remain undisturbed by other randomness or noise and
the purpose is clear but open ended: to continue talking. However, they are
not the perfect petri dish experiment for real world circumstances) with a
journalist. The journalist slow-plays his hand and asks easy questions for a
while to soften the celebrity’s guard. Then, suddenly, in a moment of
candour, the journalist throws in a tough question about a controversial
personal aspect of the celebrity’s life. The celebrity has now found himself
in a warm place with an extremely spicy question at hand. They can't
suddenly get offended and risk their reputation. Now, imagine the celebrity
using a witty one liner, a comeback or a deft deflection to handle the
awkwardness of that question. How do you imagine their mannerisms?
Hold the tension or Release it: Frame Battles
The first thing you can concur with from your memory or imagination is
that the celebrity cannot lose the expression battle. Their expression must
remain the same. They must appear unmoved in their body, face, and
tonality. In such cases, it is a quick move one has to make, but one must
accept that this awkward moment has happened, instead of rejecting it with
anger, spite or shame. The key is to be able to hold tension instead of
reacting to it. Being unhinged by the introduction of awkwardness (or after
making an embarrassment) communicates a sense of certainty with yourself
and people absorb that. This puts the ball in your court. You can now
introduce more tension or diffuse it.
If you react- appear agitated, hurt or embarrassed- people will absorb that.
They will find importance in that issue and dig it further. In conversational
theory, this is known as a frame battle. If you react to an embarrassment,
you have admitted that the view that others have on this aspect of your
reality, their frame, is more powerful than your own version of reality, your
frame. The first step in handling an embarrassment is to maintain frame so
that you are in-charge of the next move. The next move could be whatever,
you could either hold this tension, amp it up, or release it, but to have that
privilege you need to maintain your frame.
Tension Hold or Release
Tension is produced by anticipation and uncertainty in an interaction. This
happens in the form of awkward questions, embarrassing mistakes, insults,
challenges and so on. A new conversational object is introduced, and now
everyone must deal with the anticipation it creates. You can feel it in a
movie, as the movie progresses deeper into the plot you feel more tense.
‘What will the protagonist do?’, you wonder. This is tension from
anticipation. Release happens when a climax or a conclusion occurs. This
can be in the form of an explanation, a joke as an explanation, a change of
topic or some form of calcifying the ambiguity that was presented by the
tension. Comedians are masters of building and releasing tension. Notice
how a comic will sometimes not even change their expression as they
deliver the set up of their joke. They are trying to give no information away
about the future of their joke. They want you to feel as convinced in the
anticipation as they appear to be. Then, suddenly, when you are not
expecting, they throw in the punch line. The punchline is an explanation of
sorts for the set up of the joke, but it is so tangential that you find it funny.
The release happens in laughter.
Imagine you standing up to your father. You talk back “I think you are
wrong” rather sharply. He stands still. Your mother and sibling observe this
from a distance. For a second, emotions are in suspension. Everybody is
looking at your father for the climax- you have thrown a challenge at him.
How does this uncertainty end? Your father couldRespond with a joke. Everyone would laugh a little extra as
tension would escape their systems.
He could punish you and ground you. A conclusion has arrived
and thus people are more comfortable. They are more relaxed
knowing a bad outcome than not knowing any outcome.
He could walk away or raise the stakes. He could say something
like ‘is this how you will talk to your father now?’. No
conclusion, no explanation. Tension is felt more. You can
imagine your mom jumping in right at this minute to prevent an
explosion. Even she feels the rise in tension.
This is the subtle process of holding tension and releasing tension. This is
your sharpest tool when combating embarrassments. Depending on the
response of your audience, and if you have held your frame right, you can
now either build more anticipation or release it.
For instance, read the following transcript from Aap ki Adaalat by Rajat
Sharma
Rajat: Dilli waalo se maine poocha, unhone kaha ki school mai itne (Shah
Rukh Khan) shararti the, ki unki roz pitai hoti thi? (I asked the Delhiites,
they said you were so mischievous in school that you would get smacked by
the teachers?)”
Rajat has forced Shah Rukh into a RED ROAD. Shah Rukh Khan, the
world’s most popular film star, has been reduced to the mischief of a child
in front of the country.
SRK takes a second, allows the most naughty teenager smile on his face,
and says the following:
Shah Rukh Khan: “Meri toh abhi bhi kayi jagahao par pitayi hojati hai (I
still sometimes get smacked for being naughty)”
Everyone laughs, tension is released and the conversation goes forward.
Parallely, let us look at another popular talk show from India- Koffee with
Karan. Karan Johar invites the most high status, gossiped-about, soughtafter, Bollywood and other celebrities and asks them rather personal
questions on his extravagant set. Part of the celebrity-ship of all these
individuals feeds off the mystery and gossip around them, so this show
makes for a beautiful natural example of charm and wit. In one of these
episodes, Karan is doing a rapid fire with Emraan Hashmi, an actor
notorious for being rather sexual and kiss-friendly on screen. Emraan
knows that. He understands how that aspect of his character tickles the
audience. So when Karan begins asking Emraan questions, Emraan
maintains a steady confident expression and responds to each question
instantly with the most provocative, dirty or unsafe answer. He mixes it
with some humour here and there, but he largely builds more and more
tension through the interaction. You can see Karan getting slower with his
questions, almost operating out of performative shock of how far can
Emraan take it. This is a perfect example of building tension. Play into the
anticipation, play into the embarrassment. However, this is only possible if
you are steady, emotionally unreactive and committed. You may be able to
half-ass a release, but you cannot half-ass building tension.
Karan: Have you ever bitched about another actor?
Emraan (instantly): Yes I have! Always…
You cannot get away with that without a rock solid frame. Karan goes on to
give a gift hamper to Emraan saying that is the best rapid fire round he has
seen in four seasons of his show.
The idea of Tension: Hold or Release is to realise that the embarrassment is
not the end of the game. It is, in one way, the beginning of a new one. You
are now in position. Tension has been introduced and your tools are either
to release or build. You stay with it for a second, feel the room out. You
sense how your audience is perceiving it, and depending on that either you
release it or hold it or build on it. The point of change occurs once you
realise that the embarrassment itself is not the end of it. Now you are ready
to get creative with it. Find your wit.
8
Balm for butt-hurts
How to Respond to an Insult
Part I: Insults, and the Unique Challenge They
Pose
Insults are one of the hardest things around which to manoeuvre in a
conversation, for several reasons.
Firstly, insults are employed in a myriad of ways, with many different
underlying interests and motives provoking them. In order to effectively
respond to an insult, one must become adept at identifying the cause of the
insult .
Secondly, insults involve an emotional flavour. It is almost always harder to
respond to an emotionally charged statement than to a purely logical one,
because the listener is at risk of being carried away by the speaker’s charged
emotion. This risk is especially bad in the case of insults, because they
involve negative emotional flavour. The human mind clings much more
strongly to negative emotions than to positive ones. It is therefore much
harder to separate oneself emotionally from an insult than from a
compliment. Case in point: if someone calls you good-looking or
interesting, you will likely be affected positively by that compliment. But if
someone else calls you ugly or boring, it will drive the compliment right out
of your mind, because the negative emotion is so much more intense.
Thirdly, and most importantly, insults are a challenge to the sub-text: the
underlying fabric of a conversation. When talking, whether one-on-one or
in a group, the conversation exists on multiple levels. On the surface, the
conversation exists only via the words being said, and concerns itself only
with the topic being discussed: the literal ‘text’ of the discussion. But
beneath the surface, all conversations include a sub-text, which governs the
roles and power of each participant, and the way in which they view each
other.
All conversations involve more than one party, and each party
subconsciously acquires a role within that conversation. This role becomes
a status symbol: the rough measure of the respect they hold in that moment
from the other people in the discussion. These roles exist in all
conversations, but they are especially obvious in settings that require
teamwork and cooperation. To see this in action, think back to your school
or college days and remember a time when you were assigned a group
project. Usually, in an academic group project, neither the teacher nor the
group itself will elect to appoint an official leader. However, in almost all
these instances, one person in the group assumes the role of an unofficial
leader. Even if the other members do not recognize this verbally, they do so
implicitly, through their actions. Some group members, less than interested
in the project, will exist on the periphery and try to do the minimum work
possible: these people are only too glad to do as they are told, because the
leader’s instructions saves them the time and effort of thinking for
themselves. Other group members may have been just as interested in the
project as the leader, but lacked the natural leadership or charisma of the
leader. These runner-ups typically act as intermediary authority -‘lieutenants’ to the leader -- and will organize the less motivated members
to follow the leader’s instructions and execute the project.
These roles may seem obvious, but only because we have all spent our
entire lives existing in situations like these, governed by the same unspoken
rules of social interaction. Consider the following:
- When a major disagreement occurs, the leader is expected to resolve
it.
- The ‘lieutenants’ are expected to do more work than the lessmotivated people, even though there is no official difference in
responsibilities between the two.
- If the lieutenants disagree with the leader on an issue, but remain
loyal to the leader, they will address the issue with him or her
privately first, instead of in front of the group at large.
- One member of the group, typically one of the less-motivated
people, becomes the group jester: i.e. the butt of all the jokes. The
entire group will bond by using humour directed at this person’s
expense. This humour is seen as harmless and positive: but if the
same joke was directed towards a different group member, no one
would laugh.
Who decided all of these rules? Where were they written?
In the subconscious of our minds.
The explanation is a little longer and has everything to do with the need for
efficiency in communication in our environment of evolutionary adaptation
(EEA). We were supposed to move quickly against danger and the only
strength our bipedal ancestors had was numbers. Thus organisation of
groups evolved as a natural instinct in humans, and it plays out
subconsciously. In this subconscious play, we each acquire a role, and this
role denotes a temporary status. This group based status constitutes a major
component of the sub-text of any given conversation.
Insults, however, interrupt that status, and therefore they are so unavoidable
when they appear in conversation. So what do we do about them?
Part II: The Causes of Insults
The cause of insult is a guesswork you need to be involved in real-time. To
properly respond to an insult, you need to know the place it is coming from.
One can easily imagine Karan getting overly defensive when his friend
Arjun insults him as banter. The room gets silent and everyone notices that
Karan overreacted. In the subconscious status play, Karan lost points.
Likewise, a lot of us have been in places where someone in the room is
being purposefully mean to you with insults and you continue to remain
silent or laugh it away. After a few rounds of insults, everyone can notice
that these insults are not ‘friendly banter’ but come with an intent to hurt or
put you down, but you continue to exist in that space not knowing how to
stand up for yourself. Figuring out the cause of insult is the number one step
to decoding a response.
1. Banter
Friends will engage in insults as banter. To understand why, you
need to ask yourself what forms the basis of any friendship at all?
What is the invisible thread that ties me to my friend? You might be
tempted to say ‘memories’ and ‘tastes’, but you may have common
memories and tastes with other people you do not think of as friends.
In fact, common memories and tastes happen to be a consequence of
friendship more than the prerequisite for friendship. The answer to
what keeps a group of people together in harmony is the culture of
the group, and insults form a significant part of that culture.
I used to know a guy many years ago in New Delhi. His name was
Pranav, and Pranav had a rabid taste for insults. For whatever reason,
Pranav loved bantering with insults. So naturally, the friends he
made were people who were at least ok, if not joyous, about his
insults. Some times, his friends would complain about Pranav’s
over-inclination to insults. Pranav would respond, rather
unapologetically, ‘that is my way of showing love. If I can insult
you, and you can insult me, and we don't mind it, then I know our
relationship is so deep and pure that I know we won't stop being
friends for menial reasons.’
Pranav was an extremist manifestation of this philosophy, but Pranav
wasn't wrong. People use insults as banter to subtly establish the
depth of a relationship. ‘If I can insult you and you don't mind, we
must definitely mean a lot to each other.’ don't be like Pranav, but
learn from his ways, I remember telling myself.
2. To measure each other
When you encounter strangers in a somewhat competitive
environment, you will find that the competitors need to measure
each other before they compete. It's both a natural instinct and a
good strategy. This is very obvious in the pre-fight press conferences
or the weighing ceremonies between boxers and MMA wrestlers.
The fighters, about to enter the ring in a few days, will scream
personal insults at each other for the crowd's entertainment and to
acquire a psychological edge. They will try and figure out what
makes their opponent lose their cool, ie what is my opponent
insecure or afraid about. Part of the fighters’ trash talk is
performative. They want to sell more tickets, create a spectacle, add
some drama, but the rest of it is an actual attempt to gain
information. This is more obvious in less public settings, like for
example when you are starting a new job at a new office. One of
your co-workers is going to try and float a rather public dig at you,
and then try to measure how you stand up against it.
3. To actually put you down
A version of the following has happened to youA friend of mine from many years ago came to me to talk about his
college friends. He said that there was a particular guy in his group
who was always after his case. He would crack a lot of jokes, and try
to pass off a lot of insults as humour. I asked my friend if any of
what that guy said hurt him. My friend was unsure. He wanted to say
yes, but he had an explanation in his head which is very similar to
what we mentioned with Banter . My friend, Rajesh, seemed to
think it was somehow his problem that he could not stand up to the
harmless banter that his college friend Suyash threw at him. I asked
him if he was sure that Suyash was only interested in friendly
banter? Rajesh remained silent. He didn't know. I asked him to run a
test. I told Rajesh to go back to college tomorrow, and hang out with
his group of friends normally. At a certain point, I told Rajesh, either
before he has managed to ‘banter’ with you, or when you do not
particularly feel angry or helpless, throw an insult-as-banter on
Suyash. Make sure, it is only banter and not angry revenge. Be calm
as you say it, as you might say it to me after a night of happy
hanging out.
Rajesh came back from college the next day and walked straight into
my study. ‘So I did it’ he said ‘I insulted him in a funny, friendly
way’ ‘And did people laugh?’ I asked. ‘Yes, they liked the joke I
guess’ ‘And how did Suyash respond? Did he laugh or play along?’
‘No’ Rajesh said. ‘He got pretty angry, it seemed. He doubled down
on his insults at me and they became more hurtful.’
‘That's not your friend, Rajesh’ I said. ‘Insults, when used as banter
between friends, are a two way cooperation. If he is okay insulting
you as a joke but not okay receiving it similarly, he is not interested
in keeping this friendly. He wants power over you. He wants to put
you down to feel his superiority over you. Never confuse pettiness
for friendship by adding the grace of your own forgiveness.’
‘So what should I do?’ Rajesh asked
Part III: Common Responses to Insults: Staying
Silent or Laughing it Off
‘Silence’ or ‘laughing it off’ is the most stable response to an insult.
That doesn't mean it's good.
Well, to be fair, silence or laughter to an insult can produce either a very
good outcome or a very bad outcome, but rarely ever in the middle. What
does this mean? Let’s try and unpack it.
Remaining silent to an insult or choosing to laugh along with it is good
because it does not show reactivity to the insult. In conversational terms,
this is called frame control. Silence and laughing along with the joke is a
kind of frame control, a way of saying ‘This doesn't affect me’. However,
most people do this out of fear. They don't want to be picked on and they
don't know how to respond, so they freeze and either imitate everyone else
in the room or try to hide. This is a powerless type of silence. It does not
invite respect, it invites pity, and most people who do this do not get away
with it. They no longer communicate ‘This doesn't affect me’, they
communicate ‘I am okay with this’. I have met many friends in many social
groups who are the most picked on, sometimes even viciously, but choose
to tolerate it with a smile, a chuckle or silence. They hope that other people
would understand and stop, but they do not understand that on a
subconscious level, they have acknowledged the role of the bully and their
own as the bullied. The bully continues performing his role, uninterrupted
by morality in that moment. The bullied keeps pleading in silence. The
vicious cycle continues.
The same is imaginable when it is not an established friend group but a new
social situation. A competitive colleague wants to measure you out, so he
throws out a dig. You cooperate by smiling sheepishly or laughing along.
Now he knows he can pick on you infinitely and this is how you will
respond. Your roles have been established. You might choose to eventually
respond differently, but by then, odds are, you will be carrying so much
pent up emotion that no matter what you have to say people will find it
reactive and excessive. It's a lose-lose situation if you do not act quickly.
Part IV: Drawing Boundaries
Have you ever wondered why you get picked on and not someone else, or
how easy it is for others to pick on someone but how difficult it is for that
someone to respond? It is partly because of the frame/role that you acquire
in communication. A lot of the role acquisition happens in body language
and situation. If you are the president of the cricket club, it'll be less likely
that someone will insult you in the cricket club. Or if you are 6 feet tall and
well built, people will think twice before insulting you. The rest of it is in
your behaviour, and people try to tease it out by producing reactions from
you, the same way a matador controls the bull with a red cloth.
So that is rule number 1, do not react. When presented with an insult,
always take an extra second to respond. Look them deep in the eye, with a
calm sense of ‘do you know what you are doing?’. Take that second to say
without saying. Let them feel it, and let the tension build in you. This
tension can be new and make you anxious or nervous or aroused in general.
Hold it. Then go on to use the least amount of force to draw a boundary.
Say something, anything, that reminds them what the boundary between
you guys should be. If the insult was very obvious, just look them in the eye
and slowly say “That is not okay my friend.” or a variant of the same. Keep
it small and crisp. don't let the emotion come in the way.
If the insult was more subtle, do the same except say something subtler.
“Did we wake up salty today?” “Are we feeling a little hurtful today?”.
Notice the use of the we-frame. The roles are no longer me vs you, but WE.
Also notice how these short sentences very subtly indicate that a line has
been crossed, without saying so. In fact, these are questions, asking the
instigator to answer if they want to play this game. It's a warning of types.
The general content of what you say can change and adapt to a situation.
However, the form should remain the same. You should remain emotionally
unreactive. Your eyes should meet theirs. Your body should be relaxed.
Your tone should be unaggressive and you should take your time saying it.
Part V: Persistence
At this point, you should either find that message was delivered
successfully- in which case they would back off, or that it failed- and they
would come at you stronger. You have to trust that you have given them a
fair condition to your relationship. ‘This is my boundary and I'd be open to
you only if you don't cross it.’ Very rarely should you repeat it again.
If they learn and adapt, you can now try and give your relationship a better
flavour. If they persist, you have a broad variety of options. Everything
from verbal confrontation to walking out is possible. However, the key part
is that you maintain your frame. You remain emotionally unaffected, calm
and always take an extra second to respond if you feel reactive.
It is important that you draw a boundary quickly in the relationship.
Whenever you find the first instance of violation, make sure the other party
knows that they have crossed a line. Do not expect them to understand from
your silence, humans are more prone to roles than rules, and silence is
usually seen as cooperation, unless used with strength.
Part VI: How the Strong use Silence or Laughter
as a Tool
There is a more powerful way of choosing silence or laughter as a response.
The basics remain the same, but the conviction behind your calmness in that
moment needs to be unquestionable. You can get away with putting on a
strong front if you are going to respond verbally, but if you choose to
remain silent or laugh along, your frame needs to be rock solid.
When presented with an insult, stand your ground. Look the person in the
eye and let your face say ‘how f***ing small’. Then, gently take everyone’s
attention and guide it to a new topic. This is hard to pull off, but very
powerful if done right. The point is to produce a strong interruption to his
role by using just the weight of your presence. Then, without having to say,
convey that the insult wasn't worth our time.
When using laughter as a response, laugh only when you can actually
laugh.
The only person who wins from a verbal war is the one who remains
most unaffected.
So laugh when you can actually find it funny, and that can only happen if
you are truly unaffected. However, if you can't, do the same thing as you do
with silence. Take a second, challenge them with your eyes, and then laugh
performatively to signal ‘that wasn't funny’.
Message delivered.
Part VII: Respond To the Cause of Insult
Remember to respond symmetrically to the other person's intent. You
probably don’t want that boundary between friends. Probably, the whole
point of your friendship is not to have that many boundaries. Probably, your
friends and their banterful insults can be a diagnostic tool for introspection.
Probably, your friends help you discover who you are by pointing to your
flaws while insisting that they don't care about them.
The idea is that there is only a certain category of insults that deserve a
response, and you have to be active in trying to establish it. Non-reactivity
should be a default. Avoid being in situations where you are being picked
on. Avoid being around people who like the weakest version of you. Walk
out of these situations if you must.
However, if you must face this kind of behaviour in the pursuit of your life,
try using a strong frame of silence and establish boundaries. If that doesn't
work, I have a few pro tips. These must be exercised liberally before one
expects to get a grip on these tactics.
Part VIII: How to Tactfully Respond to an Insult:
A Pros Guide
What you want to tell the other person in these kinds of situations is ‘shut
up.’ However, saying ‘shut up’ to say ‘shut up’ is too literal. It invites
conflict, and the first visibly reactive person always loses the round. You
don't want to be that, but you want to make sure a ‘shut up’ is
communicated. These are the snap back moments we love watching on TV,
and they are generally made out of the following tactics (non exhaustive)1. Misinterpretation:
Misinterpretation is one of the most commonly found ingredients in
the response to an insult. There is a very interesting example of this
phenomenon from a Green Room conversation between Bo
Burnham and a few other comics. At one point in the conversation,
Bo, the youngest of them all, is telling the lot about his comedic
inspirations. Bo mentions a Dutch absurdist Hans Teeuwen, who
would often perform with a black sock on his hand. Clearly Hans is
a ventriloquist. When Bo mentions the sock, a senior comic in a
ventriloquism manner responds with "See, I already do not like
him’. The attack is on the sock and the ventriloquy, and it is intended
to shake Bo’s frame. The senior comic has not just challenged Bo,
who is a very young comic at this point, but also Bo’s early
inspiration. You can even see Bo let out a ‘yeah’ in agreement before
he recomposes himself and responds with some of the best display
of the misinterpretation tactic. Here is a rough transcript from that
moment.
Bo: “He’s a Dutch absurdist and one of the things that he does is
that he brings out a sock puppet, which is a black sock..”
Senior Comic: “See, I already do not like him”
The Audience erupts in laughter
Bo: “Alright, alright” in a resigned fashion, “It was a white sock”.
Immediately, the sentiment turns, and the insult is deflected back.
What exactly happened? The essential things to notice here are the
following
a. The use of minimum force : Bo used one sentence only,
and said it almost in a resigned fashion, not charging his
words with the emotion of vengeance
b. The insult was left unacknowledged : Notice how Bo did
not try to defend Hans or himself. He just let the insult
hang, as if to say it is not even a strong enough insult.
c. Misinterpretation : Bo purposely misinterpreted the
subject of the insult to be not the use of a sock or
ventriloquy but the colour of the sock- black or white,
implying racial preferences on the part of the senior comic.
So by misinterpreting the protein of the insult, Bo flipped
the onus on to the insulter to defend themselves against
racism.
This is the general thesis about misinterpretation. You take the
subject matter of the insult and consciously twist it in a way that
reflects badly on the one who threw that insult at you.
2. Flipping the script
Flipping the script is an extension of misinterpretation. All you have
to do when presented with an insult is to open your mouth and say
“Are you saying, _______?” and twist it in a way that suits you best.
One of the most common transformations of the insult is that into a
compliment. Take a few very simple illustration
Friend 1: “You aren't good enough to do this”
Friend 2: “Are you saying I am good enough to do a lot of other
things but not this?”
Friend 1: “You are annoying”
Friend 2: “Are you saying you think of me so often that it has begun
to annoy you?”
Other times you can also flip the script back at them
Friend 1: “You are such an idiot”
Friend 2: “Are you saying you are an expert on idiots? An expert
idiot?”
You don't necessarily have to stick to the ‘Are you saying…’ model,
even though it is helpful
Friend 1: “You can't handle this”
Friend 2 (very slowly, almost as if confused): “And you know that
because you are the expert on tough things?”
The process is the same- take the subject matter of the insult (good
enough/annoying/idiot) and mould it into something favourable
towards you. In the Misinterpreting tactic, the purpose was to mould
the subject matter so the insult is deflected back in a new way. In the
Flipping the Script tactic, the purpose is to mould the subject matter
so the insult loses its potency.
3. Raising the stakes
Raising the stakes is a tactic that comes from the ‘Yes, and ____’
technique of improv comedy. The idea is that the tension of an insult
or a joke is not resolved until someone disagrees, so when a joke is
made at your expense you always have the ability to accept the
insult and raise the stakes. Take the following illustrations
Friend 1: ‘How can you eat all of this?’
Friend 2: “I can also eat everything at your home, so you don't
complain this much”
Friend 1: “You cannot kick this ball for shit”
Friend 2: “Maybe, but I can kick your butt”
Friend 1: “Do you always behave like this in public?”
Friend 2: “Yes, particularly on the weekends”
The purpose of raising the stakes is to admit the insult with an
exaggeration (eat all your food), a transformation (ball -> butt) or an
absurd variation(weekends). The response communicates how trivial
the insult was to you, because you did not even mind taking it one or
many steps further.
However, these are all objects of wit. These tactics need precision and
timing to be executed properly, and therefore they flow naturally only after
a lot of practice. The key condition for all of this to work is emotional nonreactivity and a rock solid control of your frame.
Part IX: A Note on Frame Control:
I know we have used the term ‘frame control’ and ‘frame’ quite a few times
in this chapter. This note is a brief explanation of what frame or frame
control means. Earlier in this chapter we discussed how people acquire
roles in their social environments. These roles change the way people look
at and interact with the world at that moment. The way people perceive the
world and their reality in a particular role is their frame. If your role as an
employee is to be bullied by a boss, your frame is going to be submissive,
compliant, and fearful. In that moment, when the boss is screaming at you,
you forget that you are you, a person with whatever definition of selfrespect and dignity, you play a version of you, interlaced with this role.
Frame control generally means to hold the frame of your own ownership
without getting reactive. It is to present yourself as such that your version of
reality is unmistakably taken into account, that you are not reduced to a
role, that you remain you, whatever that might mean. Let's go back to the
boss and employee example. In this case, as an employee, frame control
would mean letting your boss finish and saying something like ‘Sir, I
appreciate the feedback. I'd really feel a lot more encouraged if you said it
more calmly.’
Ground held? Check. Emotionally unreactive? Check.
That is what makes up frame control. To not get swept into the emotional
charge of someone else’s utterance, and then be able to offer your version of
reality where required.
I understand that this concept might feel a little advanced to some of the
readers. However, from now, notice people interacting in different social
settings and how different they feel in those settings. Notice levels of
formality, informality, what they tolerate, what they excuse and what they
confront in different situations. You will begin to notice roles, and you will
begin to notice frames.
9
“But dad!!”
How to Have Tough Conversation
with Parents
This chapter is written in the interest of resolving the legendary parent vs
kid complication in Indian sub continental cultures. The perfect artistic
representation of this phenomenon is Farhan Qureshi (played by R
Madhavan) in 3 idiots. Farhan wants to be a wildlife photographer, but his
fate has been sealed by the generational lack of agency in family-based
societies. ‘He is to be an engineer’, his father says when he is born,
caricaturing the idea that very often in these parts of the world, a kid’s
career is baked into his life and is decided by his parents. There are
variations of the same phenomenon. Some people are not able to tell their
parents that they have a different marital preference than the one their
parents are looking to arrange for them. Some are never able to ask their
parents to go on trips or stay over at friends. Some are never able to escape
their small towns and their inherited limitations because they do not know
how to navigate the extremely difficult conversation around it with their
parents. All in all, this chapter exists to resolve these kinds of
conversations- conversations where you are asking for more liberty in a
predominantly conservative environment.
The attempt of the chapter is not to give you a Rambaan for your troubles,
but teach you how to approach a conversation of this nature. You must
understand this as a principle- the closer you are to someone the harder it is
to navigate DIFFICULT emotional territory with them. You don't care about
a fight with a stranger, but to fix one with a loved one takes effort. You
might not care about an argument with a coworker, but to think of
confronting your father sweats you out. This is the nature of relationships.
The more you care to not lose the person, the trickier it gets to navigate
tense conversations. The second thing you must understand is that this
friction between the parent and the child does not magically vanish away
one day. I have met people in their 50s who are still afraid to tell their
fathers the truth. In fact, most people never solve this fundamental problem.
They either hide throughout their lives, living in shame and discomfort
around their parents or run away so that they have no need to confront the
incompatibility with their parents. Most people lose out on the privilege and
joy of being close to their parents simply because they do not know how to
tell their parents the truth, how to bring their parents ‘in’ or how to make
friends with their parents.
Part I: Long Term Friendship and Friction
The long term solution to this problem is to make friends with your parents.
The complication with that is that neither the parent nor the child ever wake
up to this reality. The parent is used to parenting, as the parent has done
over the first 20 or so years of your life. The parent is used to telling you
what is right and wrong (and thus assuming you don't know it yourself), the
parent is used to protecting and coddling (as if you couldn't handle the real
world) and the parent is used to expecting (as if you wouldn't deliver). You,
on the other hand, are used to being told right and wrong, which makes you
doubt your judgement. You are used to protection and coddling, which
gives you no reason to acquire strength, and you are used to being expected
from, which prepares you to have no initiative in life. The parent parents,
and the child childs. Then, one day, the child becomes an adult in his nonhome life. The child learns from the world outside, his peers and
competitors, what it means to grow up. However, the child is never able to
confess this desire for adulthood at home. The parent has no reason to wake
up to their child’s maturity. The child, now an adult, explores in the outside
world and represses at home. This creates a conflict in the mind of the
child. He or she acts up. The parent is surprised. Their ‘parent’ guess is that
the child is acting up, instead that an adult is demanding their freedom.
They try to solve the problem by telling the adult-child that they are wrong
and they, the parent, is right in the following way. The child feels more
alienated, more rejected in their adulthood and less friendly with their
parents. The distance grows.
Common enough, right? Common and tragic. This is the long term friction
most people inhabit in their family life. However, this long term friction is
just a confused reaction because neither have taken the time to build a longterm friendship. The parent has not taken the time to understand the child’s
normal desire for freedom, exploration and agency and the child, as we all
learn when we grow up, hasn't realised just exactly how dangerous and
merciless the world can be. This is the distance we have to bridge.
Step 1: Have the Tough Conversation
Later in the chapter, I will address the granular design of a safe
conversation of this nature. For now understand the symbolic value of
having a tough conversation with your parents. A tough conversation might
be awkward or tense, but it is so for a reason. A new truth has been
unearthed, and people don't know how to deal with it. The most common
response to such a truth is rejection and dismissal or even silence. This is
your parents waking up. You can see it if you look closely. They are
realising that you are a different person than they assumed. This is
important. Also notice how heavy the thought of telling your parents a
private truth feels. Imagine how heavy it would feel to actually tell them
that. This is you waking up to your reality. This is the burden of integrating
the many characters you play- at work, with friends, with family. This is
important.
Don't worry too much about the first conversation being proper. It
could be awkward and rough.
Don't worry too much about the anger, rejection or disappointment that your
parents might throw at you. Have the conversation. Open the door, loudly
or softly, for this rebellious strand of truth in you. You could be wrong, or
naive or entirely unaware of what you're saying, but say it regardless.
Announce that a new person has been born. This is your chance to find
freedom inside your own home and this revolutionary change can begin
with a bang. No big deal. Children who children all their life are very afraid
of an angry or upset parent. Accept to yourself that you've grown up, and let
them be a part of your future.
If you are motivated to do this, here is a simple place to begin. Think of the
smallest truth you can tell your parents, something that is easier for them to
digest, and something that you either want to share or think must be shared.
We can all think of something like that. Please apply common sense and
don't bomb the living room wih something super intense very quickly.
Slowly step your way in.
Step 2: Bring Each Other In
This is an opportunity for you to build a common future together.
Bring each other into your worlds.
You must explain to your parents your wishes and desires. In doing that, be
as honest as you can. Don't hide your doubt about your desire because you
are trying to convince your mother that you are right. Many people make
the mistake of defending a position instead of telling the truth. It is a
common reaction to a rejection- you get defensive. You want to convince
them and some part of yourself that you are right. However, who is right is
irrelevant if it is not the truth. For instance, let's say, you want to be a
musician, and you tell your parents that, and they react with a cold
rejection. ‘How will you feed yourself?’ they say. Notice your temptation to
defend the profession. You might want to say, ‘Oh you know nothing!
Musicians make so much money bla bla bla’. Deep down you understand
that it is only a few musicians that make millions. The rest make something
more modest, and a lot of the rest just struggle. In truth, this is a concern
you have too, but now that you have defended it, you are trapped by your
own desire to be right. Now you have the added pressure of making it work
as well as the added tension of trying to convince your parents they are
wrong where you don't think they are entirely wrong. Instead, admit to their
concern. ‘I have the same concern. However, I would hate not giving this a
shot. In fact, I want your help in figuring out how to do this most
effectively.’
Notice the feel of the statement. It is so relaxing. Statements like these will
incrementally diffuse the tension in the conversation. More importantly, it
will instil faith in your parents that you are capable of being more than
rebellious. You are capable of being sensible. This invitation is how you
start to build trust. To build trust, you must consider each other’s concerns,
not discard them. Likewise, invite your parents to share their concern with
your requested freedoms. Help them bring you into their world. Comfort
them by making a genuine attempt to see the world from their eyes. Invite
them to co-create a solution. If they cannot help, reassure them by saying
you will keep them informed and constantly keep in mind their concerns,
but your life beckons and thus you must do what your heart is set on.
Step 3: Set Up Controlled Freedom
Freedom is not a complete positive. With freedom comes great
responsibility, and you have to admit to the possibility that you may be
unprepared for it. Either you are young or inexperienced, or you understand
that life has the ability to hit hard. You don't want to speed your way on a
new road. You want to develop a feel of the drive and then manoeuvre
yourself. If you are even slightly unsure of your decisions and opinions,
take the help of your parents to build a plan for controlled freedom. If you
have successfully brought them into your world, they will begin to
understand you, even if reluctantly. Ask them for help in coming up with a
plan where you can explore your curiosities without going all-in in alien
territories. At the very least, they have seen more of the world than you, no
matter how much you’d like to think that they don't understand the world.
Ask them for help. The most simple example of this can be something like
“Papa, I'd like to drink with my friends. However, I understand that
drinking can be dangerous. How do I do it more responsibly?”
Step 4: Continue to Build Trust and Respect
I know the drinking example might have shocked some people. Also, this
example is not meant to encourage alcohol but rather an example of a tough
conversation many young adults might struggle to have with parents. Some
of you cannot ever imagine telling your parents you indulge in alcohol. You
imagine saying this and you are suddenly struck by how they would react.
You know they will react aggressively. They will be angry, you think. You
think that their reaction comes from rejection, and thus you are better off
not pissing them off. In truth, their reaction comes from unfamiliarity. All
that this signals is that an adult-to-adult relationship hasn't been built
between you two. I understand that to build this relationship is simply
impossible in some cases, and too straining in others. However, a vast
majority does not fall in this category. They simply assume that they do.
That majority has not tried to find the ‘person’ in their parent, and continue
to live in the fear of ‘the parent’.
A parent-child relationship can be built on love and protection. An
adult-adult relationship is necessarily built on trust and respect.
Trust and respect is built by telling the truth and making an effort to
preserve the relationship through tough disagreements. Building trust and
respect is not always comfortable. It may require some uncomfortable
moments. Most of all, trust and respect is built over time and effort. You
may not be at the level of familiarity with your parents yet, but if you
continue to pursue your truth with them, and you show courage and
humility, and you make an attempt to keep them involved, you will get to a
point where that conversation will not feel so strange.
I'm telling you because I think I made friends with, who I thought, was the
most terrifying and autocratic father in the history of fathers. Turns out, he
is a sweetheart and immeasurably in love with his kids. I just had not
reached out to the ‘person’ within him. I was busy hiding from the ‘parent’.
Part II: Farhan Qureshi and the Curious Case of
the Indian Father
Lets circle back to our dear friend Farhan. Farhan, as most of you might
recall, is the second lead and narrator in 3 Idiots, played by R Madhvan. His
father, like a typical Indian father might, decided Farhan’s “destiny” at
birth. The father then continued to pursue that dream he had for his son
without ever asking him. Farhan went on to become a marginally elite
student in an elite engineering college, while secretly being in love with
wildlife photography. Farhan is, at best, a reluctant engineering student.
Eventually, the game of hide-and-seek collapses and Farhan and his father
have a confrontation. The confrontation is never shown but Farhan’s
friends, Rancho and Raju, are invited to the Qureshi house in the aftermath.
In this aftermath we witness a piece of the conflict between Farhan’s
father's expectations from Farhan and Farhan’s desire for his own life, and
we get to see how the confrontation between the father and son may have
played out. If you are reading this, you can probably imagine that
conversation, or worse are too afraid to even imagine it.
The question we are trying to answer here is the following- how could this
conversation between a rigid, high expectation father and an exploration
hungry son played out better? How could this conflict in future visions be
communicated with the least amount of emotional friction, such that the
message is sent and received by two rational individuals and not two
emotionally charged agents wishing to win a battle?
Part III: The Granularity of a Tough
Conversation
Here is the laundry list. The first part of having a tough conversation with
your parents is to set it up right. Right or wrong, fair or unfair, you live in a
certain society and in your society people behave a certain way. There is no
point fighting the bigger ‘unfairness’. Focus on your situation and focus on
trying to make that work. If you are stuck too long at the general
‘unfairness’ of not having your freedom handed to you, that is if you
continue to insist it is a moral issue, you will probably never focus on your
private issue strategically. First, set the conversation up.
1. Come up with your argument
In your head, or on a piece of paper, express your argument in its
detail. Go over each point and only be attached to finding truthful
answers in you. You do not want to say something you don't believe
in when you try to say something you believe in to your parents.
Farhan, say, should think ‘I like wildlife photography. I want to be a
wildlife photographer. I have no clear direction and I'm also scared
to say it to my father because he will reject it and I will feel
discouraged. His approval matters to me, maybe because I'm tied to
him from birth. I want him to be more warm to this, maybe help me
figure out how I can pursue something of that nature.’ Maybe
Farhan wants to Google some directions to figure out how he would
approach this career change. The point is that you need to be able to
present yourself without getting caught up in emotion and for that it
is best you have the clarity of argument already in place. Most
people jump into something like this, or find themselves in the
middle of a ‘confession’ that they blurted out of anger or spite, and
they find they did not express themselves properly later. We have all
had the ‘this is what I could have said in that argument’ moment
after a heated conversation. For EXACTLY that purpose, lay out
your argument and ensure you know the important parts before.
2. Come up with possible counterarguments, questions and
responses
Once you know what you will say, anticipate what they will respond
with. Think of this conversation as a game of chess and count the
many ways in which they might respond to each thing. Come up
with only truthful responses to them. Remember your goal is to
bring them in, not convince them of your view. There is a sweet spot
between agreement and disagreement called ‘amicable
disagreement’, the kind you have with your friends about sports
teams and celebrities. You see the disagreement, but you understand
your trust in each other and support for each other is bigger than
this. This kind of trust is built from telling the truth.
Whatever you are unsure of, like Farhan might be about how he
might pursue wildlife photography, are concerns that your father
might raise too. Farhan should ideally anticipate that, as well as the
emotional diatribe (‘we got you this AC’ etc.) that might be thrown
at him. Farhan’s job is to tackle all of these pushbacks with clarity
and emotional composure.
Another common mistake that people make is to use quick slips and
clever comebacks to get their way in a conversation. If the issue in
front of you is huge, and possibly life changing, you want to be as
sincere in tackling it as you can. It doesn't help to win a verbal
argument with rhetoric, you must actually contend with the
substance of your parents’ concerns. So do both of yourself a favour,
and in anticipating how your parents might respond to your desire to
move to Bangalore, sharpen their argument for them. Your father
might say ‘How will you survive?’, what he means is ‘how will you
make a sustainable living?’ or when he says ‘Why do you want to
move away from us?’ what he is probably saying is ‘I want to see
you as often as I can, how can you make it possible?’. This is not an
exhaustive list of what he might mean, but your attempt should be to
see his legitimate human concerns. This sets you up to say ‘I know
you want me to be around as much as I can be, but…’. Repeating his
concern to him in an emotionally lighter or logically sharper
language will make them feel closer to you. He will feel that you
listen and that you understand. Besides, if you both can narrow
down on the real concerns with this change of plan, you can begin to
solve for it. There is more on this technique in the chapter on having
critical conversations. In the information age, very few are blind to
reality and very few are without access to means to remain
connected. Things are solvable once they are agreed upon
peacefully, so prepare yourself to hold the emotional wreckage down
by anticipating as much as you can.
3. Tell them you want to have a conversation a few days in
advance
I wonder very often if Farhan’s dad would reject his dreams so badly
if he ‘kinda sorta’ knew about them. Would the circumstances have
been different? My friend wanted to marry this girl back in 2017, but
his parents had no idea. They had begun asking him about the
prospect for an arranged marriage. I remember us talking about his
predicament one night as we drove back from a social event. He
didn't know if he should tell his parents about his girlfriend because
they might be shocked and reject the idea. They were a conservative
family. So I told my friend that he should casually expose them to
her. That he should have her around sometimes at home, or talk
about her to his parents. It need not be a pointed conversation like ‘I
have a girlfriend’ but that he should at least create the conceptual
existence of this person, give her a face and name and mannerisms
for his parents. The more they know her, the warmer they are to the
general idea of her. In the same way, had Farhan just mentioned,
from time to time, to his father growing up that he had this other
interest in photography, the father would be in general warmer to the
idea. He wouldn't react with ‘Dimaag kharab hogaya tha, kehte the
wildlife photographer banenge’.
The idea is that exposure creates familiarity and familiarity builds
comfort. My friend went on to have his girlfriend around at parties
or in conversation. Eventually when he was ready for marriage, he
asked his parents to arrange it with her, since he knew her and had
been in a relationship with her for a while. His parents were
concerned at first, but grew warmer to the idea as they talked. The
couple got married in 2019.
The same system applies on a more granular level. People will often
suddenly begin a tough conversation at the dinner table. Very often,
the initial rejection that follows is a shock reaction. If Akshay had
just brought up Rachna at the dinner table with his family one
random day, his parents might have been like ‘who Rachna? No no,
we will marry you the traditional way.’ Now that they knew Rachna,
and had unconsciously thought about her, had somewhat of an
impression of her, the parents could begin, at the least, with ‘Why
Rachna?’ which is already several steps ahead of ‘Who Rachna?’
If you are about to have a tough conversation with your parents, tell
them in advance. ‘Hey mumma, I want to talk about something
important related to my career (or xyz).’ ‘Sure, tell me’ she might
say. ‘Not right now, maybe in a couple of days’ you should say.
‘Why later?’ if she asks. ‘I want to be sure of what I say’, you say.
Now both of you can sit and wonder and anticipate a tough
conversation. You are both kind of prepared to have a calmer, less
shock-provoking conversation. You have set yourself up for a
possible couple of days of tension but you have ensured the
conversation will be calmer and more rational. The exposure to the
idea has led them to wonder and create familiarity in their own head,
which will cause more comfort in the eventual conversation.
4. Do it peacefully sitting down
This is kind of a non-tip, but it helps for amateurs. Sit down, and
make it comfortable. People confuse their mental states very often.
If your dad is on the treadmill and his heart rate is high, don't try to
come out of the closet then. He might read his high heart rate as
coming from your confession and push back harder than he should.
Settle them down, settle yourself down and then talk. It even
eliminates the possibility of aggressive hand motions and body
language. You are in general feeling calmer when you are sitting
down at your own home in the comfort of your walls.
However, apply this advice frivolously. Maybe you figure a drive is
the best time to talk about it, or your mom’s morning walk. You
make the choices depending on your circumstance, but you must
remember to set the conversation up in both space and time to
absorb the density of the subject matter. There will never be a
perfect time and place, but you can make it at least slightly more
comfortable than not.
Part IV: The Conversation
At this point, if you have managed to do the above, you have completed
your homework. You are now set to have a conversation. Now, the
conversation must happen. It will feel scary and you will be nervous. You
might feel the desire to not have this conversation, but you must remember
that no great changes were made without discomfort. Arm yourself with
your preparation, and begin by taking the first step towards true freedomfreedom from fear and freedom from hiding. In the attempt to make that
conversation, say like Farhan might in his living room with his dad seated
on the couch, you must remember the following few things to make the
conversation smoother and more effective1. Begin by warming them up
This is similar to setting expectations in other forms of
conversations. Ask them trivial questions about their day etc, get
them talking and get them feeling involved in a conversation. Then
go on to say something like ‘This conversation might be tough, or at
least I expect it. I just want to be honest and I want to ask for your
help in being honest. I want you to listen to my proposal carefully
and help me come up with a solution. Please try to not reject it, it is
already tough for me to say this…’ so on and so forth. Temper this
monologue depending on the sincerity of the situation and your own
personal context, but make it deeply honest. Let them feel that a
friend is talking to them, not a ‘lost-in-life child’.
2. Allay their fears
Once you have set expectations and given disclaimers, allay their
fears. Tell them you anticipate their fears and that you understand
some of them. Fact is, that there is no right in life. The career, the
partner, the lifestyle, the city your parents might choose for you
might not work out as much as the ones you choose for yourself.
Making choices in life is a trade off. When you tell them you
understand their fears and consider them, they understand that you
understand this deep truth about life and that you understand the
costs of your choices. “I know you think there is a financial struggle
with doing wildlife photography” Farhan Qureshi said towards the
end of the film. His father immediately calmed down and had a
different reaction altogether to his son’s desire after that. The parent
is as much a human as you, and even if they may not agree
immediately, they understand.
Pick at each fear and respond to them. ‘I know you think I'm
immature and too exploratory for my circumstance, but I think this
is my route to learning. I do agree that my circumstances dictate that
I be smarter and more conservative, and I want your help in figuring
out how to do that, but I definitely want to pursue creative design as
opposed to law. I want to make some mistakes myself and figure life
out’. Your humble attempt should be to leave your parents with the
least amount of mental effort to make once you have laid out your
problem statement. They must know that you understand their
concerns, so they can focus on solving them with you. Tell them the
problem statement, the plan and what you know and what you
understand. Tell them where you agree with them graciously and
where you disagree with them humbly. Then ask for help in areas
you don't know how to solve.
3. Speak precisely to your point
Don't get trapped in the ‘unfairness’ of the past. Don't get trapped in
trivial tangents to your point. Don't get caught up in emotional
outbursts. Focus on getting the point communicated and making
your decisions. Your parents might get angry or even say something
provocative. Deflect it. Ignore it. This is life’s way of asking you to
grow up. Don't respond to what doesn't serve your purpose. Display
the freedom, the responsibility and maturity that you think you
deserve. All your preparation should help you accomplish that.
4. Stand by what you believe in, with humility
Don't get bullied by loud voices and chest thumping push backs. If
you are calm enough to not explode, be calm enough to not collapse.
This formula doesn't guarantee success. In fact, often enough, there
is no way to ease a tough conversation. Regardless, if you have been
genuinely thoughtful of your situation in your preparation, and you
are genuinely listening to your parent’s concerns, no matter how
they express it, you will find that standing by what you truly believe
in is not tough.
‘I see why you think that way, but papa I think about it differently.’
is the calmest expression of a disagreement. You stood by what you
believe in and you did not try to aggress upon what he believes in. ‘I
see why you think I won't be happy with wildlife photography,
because I won't make as much money as I might as an engineer, but
I'll be happier with less money doing the thing I love’ Farhan said to
his father, and you could see Farhan’s father register this difference
of life choices. Notice how Farhan did not force his father to see his
point of view, he only communicated what he felt and left it for the
father to consider his point of view. That is the power of humility- it
makes the other person feel like they are not helpless and powerless.
When the father saw no threat of feeling helpless, he could finally
focus on the subject of Farhan’s problem and concede to his
mistakes.
Pro Tip: Appeal to their youth
This is a pro-tip I'm pulling out of Batman toolkit that you must exercise
carefully, for it works more often than not. Don't be smug about it, and use
it as a medicine of last resort only. Note, that even this may not guarantee
you perfect success, but it makes the point louder. Look, your parents have
been through the age you have and they have found they could have done
things better. They think it's their life’s mission to give their kids what they
did not have, including stopping them from making the mistakes that they
might have made. However, in every 40/50-something there is a 20something’s memories. Some part of them still understands what it means
to be young and learning from life first hand. Appeal to that. Tell them,
"Hey I know you think I'm wrong, but think about your youth. You learnt so
many lessons from making mistakes. Help me make the most out of my
choices. Together, we can maybe make it work, if not I'll learn a lot. Like
you did.”
This puts any honest parent in a cognitive dissonance.
A shift in vantage point can cause a shift in perspective.
They have to contend with their reality as a young adult and their reality as
a parent, and they see your point better, from their personal point of view.
10
“No.”
How to Say No
Part I: Courage to be your true self
People who do not say ‘no’ have a hard time with self-identity.
‘No’ is the verbal boundary that separates you from the world.
It is long known in philosophical, religious, and scientific thinking that the
mind learns through ‘negation’, or through the process of establishing what
‘it is not’. Some schools of philosophy and theology even claim that the
human mind does not allow us to know what ‘is’, but only what it is ‘not’.
These schools claim that there is no direct access to reality, and that the
only way to truth is by saying no to what is false. If you thought of the
Hindu-Buddhist idea of ‘Neti, Neti’, you are thinking in the right direction.
The point is, in some sense, the word ‘no’ is more fundamental to who you
are than the word ‘yes’. It is my belief, thus, that a culture that does not
teach its kids how to say no, does not teach its people how to separate right
from wrong, good from bad, and ‘me’ from the rest of the world. A culture
that does not teach its kids how to say no, teaches them to be a crowd, never
individuals. ‘No’ is the verbal boundary that separates you from the world,
and it is with learning how to say ‘no’ that you acquire the courage to be
your true self.
Part II: Setting Out on the Journey
The good part of saying ‘no’ is that learning how to say ‘no’ is terribly easy.
People have a hard time saying ‘no’ because they are afraid of the
consequences of taking a separate stance. People worry that if they separate
themselves, they might get noticed, rejected, and even shamed. People
worry that saying ‘no’ would upset the other party, and that the other party
might decide to withhold further affection. You see, people like to be liked
by others, and people are afraid that saying ‘no’ will make them less
likeable. Our childish instinct is very prominent and alive at this point in
our behaviour- we do not want to be uninvited from the game that everyone
is playing.
In truth, while not saying ‘no’ may simplify your external life in this regard,
it massively complicates your internal life. You never learn what you truly
like and no one else ever learns what you truly appreciate either. Neither do
you have a sense of self for yourself and neither do people have an idea of
your personality. You are often caught in moments where you wish you
were doing what you truly wish to be doing. You constantly live in the
anxiety of being on the border of rejection, and you feel like you're always
making compromises for people to like you. You feel trapped in your own
reality. When you cannot say no, you have stopped being true to your core
and this has rendered your psychological life unhappy.
So before we venture into the technical parts of how to say an effective no,
we must pay attention to the lesson from our default condition. You must
always try to be true to your core self, and thus you must learn to say no
more often. That is it. Get in the habit of saying no. Get comfortable
holding tension in an interaction. Get used to asserting yourself to yourself
and to others. That’s the first piece of advice I have for you.
Part III: The Art of saying a Boring ‘No’
Before we begin to investigate the formula for a charming ‘no’, you must
understand the purpose of saying no. Unless you are trying to scare
someone away, your purpose of saying no is not to start a fire, but to merely
establish your preference. Read that again- ‘merely. establish. preference’.
What a dull and boring thing to do. That is exactly what the emotional tone
of your ‘no’ should be nine out of ten times.
I insist that you understand that the purpose of no is not to start a conflict,
because very often when you are trying to say no to something, you bring
into that interaction some kind of emotional history. My cousin Saransh
used to have a lot of trouble with his father growing up. His father was
authoritative and Saransh never really got a fair chance at saying no as a
young boy. When he grew up and started to mature, starting to form his
own personality, he came across many cases where he wanted to say no to
his father. ‘No I do not want to do engineering’ ‘No I don't have the time to
go to this family function’ ‘No I do not want to live in this city forever’.
Because of the nature of their relationship, Saransh’s father would expect
things from Saransh and Saransh would always have to hide his true
feelings about stuff. Eventually, when Saransh felt pushed enough, he
would burst out loudly. All of what Saransh swept under the rug up until
then would show up with an ugly face. On the rare chance that he was able
to say ‘no’ to his father, he would burst forth with emotion of all the
repressed no’s he was holding in. This would inevitably lead to a conflict.
The father-son relationship struggled because of this.
Eventually Saransh understood that the manner of his ‘no’ was hurting the
relationship more than anything else. He learnt to detach his history from
his actions. He learnt how to say a boring no. Things became calmer. The
father-son felt like they could now, at least, talk, however they still did not
feel connected. Saransh’s father, my uncle, always felt that the son was not
interested in anything that he was interested in. Saransh felt that his father
was always asking him to do things he did not have the time to do. Saransh
had recently started a new job which was taking a considerable part of his
day. Besides, Saransh was very passionate about puzzles and preferred to
solve puzzles in his free time. He was truly uninterested in family functions.
His father would feel that Saransh must interact with their extended family,
and Saransh understood that. He even agreed to some extent, but he just did
not want to be doing it as frequently as his father wanted. Now that he had
weeded out the emotion from these discussions, he could see things clearly,
but he still did not know how to put himself across in the same clear
fashion.
Most disagreements are of this form. They are complicated and have many
different moving parts. People have partial agreements and conditional
agreements, but they disagree with the larger point overall. Sometimes
people agree with the larger overall point, but do not agree with the smaller
ones. Then, at first, we have the tendency to involve our emotions and
complicate it. We try to assert ourselves either by force (anger) or by hiding
(by not staying no at all). Once we get past that, our need to be right and
safe- our own selfishness - comes in the way. We are so concerned with
getting our way that we only ever see a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’, instead of
appreciating the disagreement in all its detail. Truth is, if you listen
carefully to what the other person is saying, you can transform an emotional
‘no’ to a boring ‘no’ and a boring ‘no’ to a charming ‘no’.
Part IV: The Art of Saying a Charming ‘No’
Spoiler alert, Saransh is now extremely close with his father. My uncle feels
like he understands Saransh. Saransh feels like his father respects his
boundaries and individuality. All of this became possible because Saransh
learnt how to say a charming no. But what exactly did Saransh learn? Well,
let's look at the secret mechanism of how to convey the charming ‘no’.
Step One: LISTEN CAREFULLY FOR TRUE MOTIVATIONS
This is not the same as the cliche of making the other person feel heard by
looking like you are listening intently. There is nothing more fake than that,
and as a general rule, avoid being fake as much as possible. People have
natural instincts for filtering out the pretenders.
You must really make an attempt to listen to the other person if you want to
be charming in your disagreements. What people truly feel is often not in
their words but behind their words, and if you let yourself get too occupied
with your emotions or you desire to be right or liked, you will miss the
truth. Then you will be stuck disagreeing with the superficial point, and
both parties will feel like the other doesn't understand them properly. This is
exactly what was happening with Saransh when his father would invite him
to family events. What his father wanted was for Saransh to spend time
with their family. Saransh understood that that was what his father truly
wanted, but he never addressed that point specifically with his dad. He was
so caught up in trying to take a stand for himself, he never considered
addressing his dad’s true motivation. Thus their disagreements never moved
them forward, and they always felt stuck.
As soon as Saransh could take a step back, he realised a fundamental truth
about humans. People are only able to verbally convey a slice of what they
truly think and feel. To fight over that little piece of someone’s truth is not
as important or effective as understanding the larger truth of their situation
and addressing it. If you listen carefully, you will notice what people truly
want. It appears between the lines of what people say, and even if people do
not say it, listening to them carefully will create the opportunity for you to
ask people about their true motivations. Saransh understood that what
people want is that their deeper desires be met, however people are only
able to express a superficial version of it.
Take the example of peers pressuring you to drink alcohol. Unless your
peers are absolute degenerates, what they truly want is to have fun with
you– play a common, shared game with you. Drinking alcohol happens to
be only a slice of what they truly want. Let’s suppose you don't want to
drink. However, in order to feel liked, you do not say no and give in; or to
feel your own moral superiority, you say an abrupt ‘no’ to end their offer. In
either case, at least one party, and sometimes even both parties, are no
longer enjoying the moment. In the first case, you are trapped as a
consequence of your own lack of courage. In the latter, your friends are
taking the brunt of your desire to assert your good morals. However, If you
could move past either obstacle, you could see what your friends truly want,
and maybe that might help you create a win-win for both parties.
Step Two: Appreciate the offer/ concern to the degree you agree
Start a disagreement with ‘I hear you’. You do not know how powerful the
statement is when said meaningfully. Most conflicts begin because the other
person feels unheard. The surest way to upset or distance someone from
you is to give them the impression that their version of reality doesn't matter
to you. Now, you may be right in not drinking alcohol. If it is undoubtedly
right for you, you are encouraged to stand by your values. However, if you
give your friends the impression that you do not care about their idea of
having fun, or their taste for drinking, you will slowly separate yourself
from them. You do not have to agree that drinking alcohol is good or fun,
all you have to do is let the other person know that you understand how
they think about the world. It immediately puts them at ease and makes
them more open to accepting differences.
Follow the ‘I hear you’ with restating their true motivation. Nothing makes
people feel like they’ve been heard more than when you show them that
you understand their true motivations. “I hear you Dad. You want me to
spend more time with family so I can have a deeper bond with them,”
Saransh said one day. His father immediately relaxed. His face stopped
being tense, and even with all the residual anger he was holding, all my
uncle said was ‘yes’. By making his father feel heard, Saransh created the
space for him to be heard by his father.
Once you have restated their true motivation to them, give them the space
to correct you. Pause for a second and ask ‘right?’. People will usually add
small edits to your understanding of their motivations. Nod, acknowledge,
accept their version of reality. Now, begin by stating what all you agree
with them on.
“I agree that family is important. I should meet my family more often. I also
agree that you and I should find a better way to communicate”, Saransh
continued. His father looked at him open mouthed. He felt completely taken
aback by this style of apology. He waited open mouthed, unable to find a
way to remain angry. ‘But..?’ My uncle asked, trying to find out what
Saransh disagreed with still.
This is exactly what will happen when you tell people all the parts you
agree with them about. They will be left quite amazed. Firstly, they will
recognise the similarities in your realities and feel closer to you. Secondly,
they will see the exact point of disagreement more clearly. You both have
managed to isolate the problem and contained it from affecting other issues.
Thirdly, you have led them to offer you a peaceful opportunity to present
your disagreement. This is what Saransh’s father did with the ‘but..?’.
Finally, because you began with what you agreed with, they will never feel
it's a complete loss or a complete breakdown. Both of you have begun to
‘win’ already.
In the case of your friends pressuring you into drinking alcohol, you can say
some version of the following. “I agree that we should hang out and spend
time with each other. I also love having fun with friends, especially you
guys” and notice how your friends say “but..?” That is your window of
opportunity to convey your disagreement.
PS- This is also a helpful tip in disagreeing with someone’s opinion.
Mention to what degree you agree with their opinion. Find all similarities in
your goals, processes and principles. Then move on to the disagreement.
This makes the process of disagreement a lot smoother. More on this in the
chapter on how to convey disagreement and the chapter on how to have a
critical conversation.
Step Three: Disagree and counter-offer
“I agree that we should hang out and spend time with each other. I also love
having fun with friends, especially you guys and I want to do it more
often.”
“But…?”
“But I do not have fun on alcohol. I like remaining sober and in control. I
don't think drinking alcohol is for me.”
The disagreement is simple. It’s not an attack and it doesn't invalidate your
friends’ preference for drinking. The response doesn't come from fear or
moral superiority. It comes from personal preference, and people can't
really change your personal preference. This is the ‘boring no’ that Saransh
had been saying after his first realisation. He was trying to ‘merely establish
preference’, but he kept finding out that it wouldn’t work. The truth is that
the secret to transform a ‘boring no’ into a ‘charming no’ has nothing to do
with th" disagreement itself but the set up. It is the careful listening, the ‘I
hear you’ and the ‘I agree’ that transform the disagreement from win-lose
or lose-lose to win-win. At this point, it becomes clear why saying ‘no’ is
terribly easy- you are just trying to say what you like. It’s the simplest
thing. The trick is to make sure you build up to it properly.
However, there is one more thing you can do to add charm to your
disagreement. This trick is usually part of negotiation theory, but it is very
helpful in these circumstances. Follow your disagreement with a counter
offer. The counter offer will obviously include the other person’s true
motivations and will also usually be an edit on top of their initial offer to
accommodate your disagreement.
“But…?” Saransh’s father inquired
“But I love my work, and it takes a large part of my energy and day, and I
think at this age I should be focusing on work a lot more. Besides, I am also
very fond of doing my own thing on my own time, and thus I don't think I
can spend as much time hanging out with family as you’d want.”
“Then what do you prefer, since you say you agree you should spend more
time with family, but you also say that you like to do your own thing?”
“I’m very happy going to a family event once a month, and I'm happy to be
present for all the important ones, but beyond that my time is best used
doing my own thing. I prefer it and it is in line with how I want my life to
be in the future.”
Notice, that at this point, the disagreement has effectively become more
than a disagreement. It is now a negotiation and both you and your
interlocutor are trying to find a common ground to meet all your common
needs. You are actively accommodating each other, while ensuring the other
is heard. This is the formula to create win-wins in social environments.
11
“I’m sorry”
How to Apologise
Part I: Why are Children Upset? Why are Adults
Upset?
People get upset when they do not get what they want. This is like a child’s
view of people’s tendencies, but anger is itself a child-like emotion in
people, and, thus, it is very fit to equate upset people with children. They
are convinced that their version of reality is true and that you have done
something to offend their perception of the world. Now, take this thesis and
apply it to all the common situations where one has to apologise.
You got to your lecture a little late, the professor is angry because you
violated the responsibility he assumed you to take. ‘What kind of a student
are you!’ the professor asks rhetorically. ‘You will never be successful in
life if you cannot be in time for class.’ Clearly, his version of what is right
and wrong was violated. He almost threatened you with ‘you will never be
successful.’
You got into a fight with your brother. He wants the motorcycle for himself
this evening, but you want it for yourself. You push him hard, or say
something unbecoming of you. He is hurt and won't even look at you now.
When you ask him ‘what’s up?’ He says ‘is this any way to speak to your
brother?’. Clearly, the way he saw the world was violated by your actions.
He asks ‘is this ANY WAY…’ As if there is a universal protocol of
communication between brothers and that you have broken it.
Notice how your brother is convinced that he knows this ‘universal
protocol’, but YOU are out of order. That is EXACTLY how convinced he
is of his version of reality.
Your girlfriend won't call you back. You have left her 29 text messages and
11 phone calls. You know she is out with her friends and probably not
around her phone, but the feeling of insecurity is so overwhelming that you
persist. At this point you are convinced that you deserve at least one
response. You call her and message her every four minutes until she picks
up. Eventually, she does pick up and says ‘Hey baby’. She sounds jovial.
‘How can she be happy when I am sitting here waiting for her?’ You think.
‘Don't start me off with that hey baby. I have been calling you for the past
hour and a half’ you say, expecting her to apologise and explain herself.
Notice how unreasonable this behaviour is. Not only are you convinced that
she must respond to you because you are reaching out to her, but that she
cannot be happy because you are unhappy. This is a petty and marginal
thing to fight over, but imagine the conviction that goes into fighting with
your ‘loved one’ for this.
Part of what separates an adult from a child is the adult’s ability to
understand the world from the perspective of someone else.
The fact that the adult can imagine what the world looks like from someone
else’s eyes prepares them to make adjustments and compromises. A child
simply demands. A child is either oblivious to the fact that others have a
different perspective, or if the child knows, it continues to insist that their
need comes first. This is what upset/angry people behave like- an
unchecked conviction that they have been faulted and deserve an apology,
like the child that has to pee in the middle of the road trip and thus deserves
a stop.
Part II: Conviction, Not Fairness
I've chosen the above mentioned examples rather carefully so as to not
focus on the right-wrong dynamic in each of those equations. Instead, I
focused more on the convictions of the hurt/angry person (HAP) in each
equation. Whether someone’s hurt or anger is fair or not is a secondary
question. What comes first and foremost from HAP is the need to be heard.
People often get tangled up in the right and wrong of the situation too
quickly. They do not want to bend or give way when they think they are
right. However, people forget that the purpose of most arguments is to
resolve it, not to appear victorious. What ends up happening is that people
debate right and wrong at the level of fact and opinion, but no one offers the
other the satisfaction of feeling heard. These arguments go nowhere.
The first step in an argument is to make the other person feel heard. Appeal
to their conviction. First, the HAP must feel safe and looked after. If they
see you calmly listen to them, they would be tempted to mirror that. If they
see you play ‘fair’ in this way, they will be less antagonistic of you.
Next time you are in an argument, wait patiently for the other to express
themselves. Then, start with ‘I hear you.’
It is important that you don't just say ‘I hear you’ when you are busy
coming up with what smart comebacks you rejoin to their rant. Remember,
the purpose of their rant or anger is not to hurt you, but to reach you.
Snapping back is only going to confirm their initial fear- that you cannot be
reached or made to see the world from their point of view. So do both of
yourselves a favour and listen.
Part III: Listen to the emotions
Emotional people say more than they should and they tell you all sorts of
things about themselves without knowing. Even if their speech is haphazard
and their arguments are unorganised, they are telling you more about
themselves than what appears. In that, somewhere, you will find the true
cause of their hurt. You need to find that to be able to address that. This
‘true cause’ is the root of their pain, and if you apply the balm of apology
on exactly that, it will heal both of you. To the untrained eye, it might be
difficult to spot. However, any person that has spent enough time making
mistakes and apologising will be able to notice the true cause of hurt
without much difficulty with only careful listening.
For instance, your professor might say ‘you are irresponsible’ but what they
really mean is that they do not like that you are uncommitted to their class.
Those things are not entirely different but they aren't the same either.
SImilarly, your brother might fight with you for keeping the bike, but what
he is really mad at is the disrespect his younger brother (you) showed
towards him. Here the difference between what is said and what is felt is
huge and noticeable. Most arguments get trapped at the level of what is
being said, when in fact the grievance is somewhere deeper. You must
recognise that deep point of hurt and appeal to it.
Part IV: Restate and wait for corrections
The best way to follow up after a sincere ‘I hear you’ is to pause and let it
register with the HAP. Once you see their facial expression kind of relax,
and you find them giving space for you to speak, you should begin by
restating their problem statement. ‘I hear you. *Pause*. So let me see if I
understood you exactly. You are saying ..(restate their problem).’ After you
are done giving them the satisfaction of being heard, you are now giving
them the satisfaction of being heard carefully and completely. Expect them
to correct your restatement. In fact, you are allowing them to correct you in
THEIR world view. This will make them feel really in control and it will
confirm to the both of you that you understand the problem correctly, that
you are looking at the exact same thing and that you are on the same page.
Now you can begin apologising.
Part V: The Apology
The apology is an admission of your wrongdoing. Don't use the apology
as a defence against their accusation. The apology is not an escape from
the conflict, but the assimilation with the other person’s hurt.
You are, in fact, trying to see where their world view is fair. It might not be
fair for you, but what you have to say might not be fair to them. You have to
evaluate fairness for them. Is their complaint fair to them, even if it is not to
you? To each of those fair points in their complaint, apologise. ‘I see how
that could have hurt you’ or ‘I see how I was out of line for you there’.
Then apologise for the ‘true cause’. You can never be sure of what the true
cause is, but with time and as and how you get to know someone better,
your guesses become sharper. Apologise for the ‘true cause’. ‘Brother, I am
sorry I spoke to you in a way that made you feel disrespected. That was not
my intent.’ Even if it doesn't land, they will appreciate your effort to look
deeper and reflect.
Beyond this, wait for them to forgive you. People sometimes need time and
space. Give them that and wait patiently. You have done your job. Only
when they have forgiven you can you begin to put your case. By this point,
the atmosphere should be more relaxed and both of you will find yourself to
be more perceptive to the other. You would both be more willing to listen
and make amends. Now your complaints are more likely to be registered.
You have engineered a more compassionate argument.
Pro Tip- In some hard apology cases, it helps to invoke good memories.
‘Hey, you know I am not the worst version of me. Remember all the great
times we have. Don’t let this bad instance leave a bad taste in your mouth.
We will be better’
Don't set bad precedents
As a principle, you shouldn’t apologise for what you don’t think is wrong.
Sometimes, this comes at the cost of relationships, and I still highly suggest
that you still maintain integrity between your inner thoughts and outer
actions. Firstly, apologising for something you don’t think is wrong might
lead to you to repeat the same mistake (because you unconsciously are
convinced you are right). At this point, trust might come under question and
it is very hard to rebuild trust. Secondly, you will have a very hard time
surviving a relationship where you feel suffocated, pressured or boxed. If
being with someone creates a large discrepancy between who you are
within and who you perform outward, it will create deeper conflicts and
issues. It is, thus, best to tell your truth calmly. Thirdly, your mind learns
what to do next from what you have done before. In psychology, this is
known as the need for consistency. If you tell yourself that giving a false
apology is a perfectly normal way to escape conflict, you will forever be
stuck in the loop of lying to get out. At first, it'll have a smaller impact.
Eventually, this might erase the very meaning of the words ‘right’, ‘true’
and ‘apology’ from your relationship. That is a dangerous relationship to be
in. Don't set bad precedents in a relationship.
12
“It’s over”
How to Break Up
Breaking up is hard. You are about to close a proper chapter in your life, no
matter how small. It is not just the death of you sharing a bond, but also the
death of how you see the world. Everything, all things small and big, begin
to change. That is why most people are afraid of breaking up. They are
afraid of having to figure life out again. However, things might need to be
broken for life to reassemble itself. Very often, great things have to be
sacrificed for great causes. Circumstances change, people change, opinions
change and people must part. There is no way to make the parting easier.
However there is a way to make it more graceful, and that will be the
attempt of this chapter. With this chapter, I aim to provide you with a rough
blueprint of how to break up gracefully and effectively.
Part I: The Purpose
The purpose of the break up is to, simply, break up. That means moving
apart and ahead in different directions. It means closing the joint bank
account you have and moving your funds and future prospects away to
somewhere else. It also means re-thinking all the past memories you have
with them and the meaning of those memories in the light of what has now
happened.
If you look at the purpose more closely, you realise better what it means to
break up. First, the break up isn't a comma. It's a full stop. That means
breaking up with the attempt to draw the other person closer to you, your
needs and your POV is silly. It only decreases the meaning of the break up.
People often break up because they enjoy the drama of the push-pull or try
to break up to give a fake ultimatum to their significant other. This usually
falls flat on their faces. Second, a break up must mean you must move away
from each other. You don't want the break up to be so ugly and
confrontational that the splash-back from the break up doesn't let you be
free from it. If you are choosing to break up, you are choosing to move on
from the person. What is the point if the absence of the person keeps you as
occupied as their presence?
Part II: The How-To
So the first thing to do is make up your mind. Only attempt the break up
when you know that is exactly what you want. Don't use break up as a toy
gun in a Mexican standoff. Your actions lend meaning to your words. If you
break up often and patch up, the actual break up will never arrive. Your
story will become of the boy that cried wolf and you too will get eaten up
by the toxic need for each other. If you are trying to make a point and they
won't listen, use other less aggressive and ultimate ways of being heard.
Break up only when you are sure.
Secondly, break up in the same spirit as the relationship. Unless things have
gone extremely sour, try to break up in the same emotional spirit as you led
the relationship with. If you notice carefully, a happy day and a sad day are
two different feelings in your head. These different feelings inspire different
types of actions and reactions. When you are breaking up, break up with the
feeling of having a good day in your mind. Put yourself in the emotional,
psychological and verbal state of a good day with your significant other.
Feel how grateful you are for them and how many great memories you have
spent together. Know how they have changed you and how you have
changed them. Be happy about your beautiful encounter in life. You will
feel more vulnerable in doing this. You might even feel the tragedy of
breaking up properly. You might cry. All for good. The truth is flooding out.
When you break up from the mental state of a ‘sad day’, you are more
likely to look out for yourself and your interests. You are in a fearful state
for your own mental happiness. It's scarce and you don't want to lose what
is keeping you afloat. Thus, operating from a ‘sad day’ state of mind likely
will lead to an ugly break up, because both of you will be selfish and
confrontational. The tricky part is that you are literally in the middle of a
sad day when trying to put up a ‘happy day’ state of being. In the interest of
that internal conflict, I suggest you take a few days after you've made up
your mind about the break up to make peace with it. This makes you see the
bigger picture and be the bigger person in the break up. It makes you
empathise with them more and understand how sad the break up is or how
much the break up is for the better. Time puts things in perspective, and you
can spend this time doing the same type of build up activities as you would
do when you are having a tough conversation with your parents.
When you have the conversation, try to do it with as much emotional
proximity as possible. As hard as this might for you, it is harder for them.
They are the one being told about their break up. Give them the respect of
doing so when you look them in their eye, or at least say it with your voice.
Text break ups are disrespectful and escapist, and to speak the complete
truth is to be courageous.
A truth hidden is a lie of omission, and if you wish to be completely free
from your past, you must unburden yourself with the truth.
So if you can, say it to their face by meeting them, if you can't, call them
and tell them. Don't hide.
An effective communication tool for conversations like these is the
Effective Confrontation Technique by Simon Sinek. He acronyms it to F-BI for Feeling-Behaviour-Impact. “Tell them exactly how you feel”, Simon
says. “Do better than happy, sad, angry. Don't be generic.” That's the feeling
part. ‘I feel very restricted…’ you might say, and then follow it up with
what specific behaviour they do that makes you feel this way. Again, don't
be generic. ‘I feel very restricted with you when you don't trust me to be
loyal to you when I'm hanging out with my friends’. Then, beyond this
point tell them the impact. In this case it would be ‘and thus I've decided to
break up and figure my life out by myself.’ but you can also use this
technique for less ultimate forms of confrontations, like for example ‘and
thus I feel like I can't be myself with you. I want you to give me space and
trust me.’
Part III: A Note on ‘Being Friends after..’
If you are looking for a life away from each other, why try and be friends.
This is not to say you can't be friends, but I fail to see how one will move
on while still letting that person be in their life. It may be possible, even
necessary in some cases, but I think at least a short break from the other is
necessary to fully move on. Maybe after that life brings you back as friends.
One cannot hope, because the hope doesn't let you move on. Neither does
the sorrow. Moving on is moving on completely, and it takes time and
distance. So don't fool yourself with the ‘being friends’ lie. You can be
amicable, at least that is the attempt of this chapter. That, if not friends, you
learn to be friend-ly. However, I think you must let your existence breathe
without each other and then re-construct a friendship, if at all.
13
Enter the grownups zone
How to Convey Disagreement
Misconceptions:
Here is a list of things most people get wrong about disagreements.
1. FALSE: Disagreements occur when one party is wrong and the
other party is right
Disagreements are SOMETIMES about right and wrong. However,
in most cases you will encounter a point of disagreement, it won't be
as evident to you what is right and what is wrong. The disagreement
would be about preferences, beliefs, values and worldviews that are
morally or strategically grey areas. A perfect example of a
disagreement is one between scholars of two different religions. To
say one is right and the other is wrong is to deny that full spectrum
of human existence. Ofcourse on some issues one might be
absolutely right and the other absolutely wrong, but for the most part
their differences are based on stories, myths and values from their
cultural past. Think about a disagreement between the commander
of an army and the President/Prime Minister of a country
strategizing an army mission. They could have different strategic
ideas and thus their plans might be completely distinct. In this case,
there might not be a clear right or wrong. Both strategies would
probably have a trade off, and the common objective would be to
figure out which trade off is desirable.
2. FALSE: Disagreements occur when one party is ENTIRELY
wrong.
This is an extension of the previous point. One of the most common
unchecked beliefs surrounding disagreement is that if one disagrees,
the other is entirely wrong. Very often, what people disagree with is
a part of the argument itself. That part may be important enough
such that because of that difference your opinions differ drastically.
The subtle indication here is that people never look for what they
agree on when a point of disagreement presents itself, and thus end
up fighting a monster larger than there actually exists. For example,
a disagreement between a son and a father about the son’s career
choice can have massive differences. The son may have made up his
mind about wanting to pursue music and the father might want him
to become an engineer. However, what is it that they agree upon
behind this drastic difference? Well, for starters they agree that the
son needs to have some career. They also agree on the need for a
certain amount of income from that career (however, that amount
may be judged differently by the two). If the father and son talk to
each other, they may even find that both of them care about a certain
degree of societal respect that might accrue from a career. However,
they might disagree on 1. what that respect looks like and 2. who the
people in consideration are when one says ‘society’. The son would
probably imagine his friends and the father his own friends when
they both say ‘societal respect’.
You are already beginning to see how sorting for agreement makes a
disagreement sharper. More on this later.
3. FALSE: Disagreements are about power.
People will more often disagree in order to prove a point, rather
than in order to make a point.
This is a crucial distinction: let us unpack it. Very often, people will
commit to an argument for the sole purpose of proving that they are
right and the other person is wrong. When the sole goal of an
argument is to be vindicated, the natural and necessary process of
disagreement devolves into a simple game of power-grabbing. All
conversations include an element of power: this is an undeniable
reality. However, it is precisely the people who can choose to forfeit
the contest of power who create the kinds of conversations that
people enjoy, cherish, and remember.
If your only goal in a conversation is to achieve victory over the
other person — vindicating your own point and vilifying the other
point of view — then you forgo your ability to pursue the point of
the conversation. In your narrow quest to win, you have entirely lost
sight of the purpose of conversation, which is to pursue the issue at
hand. Conversations are fundamentally co-operative enterprises.
When one or both parties lose sight of their common goal, the
conversation fails.
We have all experienced situations where the entire flow of a
conversation is side-tracked because of a trivial, tangential
disagreement that appeared in the process of discussing the main
point. A very famous example of this phenomenon in pop culture is
a meme about an Indian spiritual guru who gets pissed off when a
questioner accidentally slips the word ‘yaar’ (a casual Hindi word
for ‘friend’) into her question. Rather than address her question, the
guru focuses in on her overly intimate choice of words. The entire
conversation derails, the original question becomes unimportant and
the sole focus of that interaction ends up being ‘ Mind your
language. I’m not your yaar .’ Ironically, this arrogant behaviour
comes from a self-proclaimed spiritually enlightened man: but that
fact only demonstrates the universality of this issue.
This is the defining feature of unchecked disagreements: the
discussion becomes overshadowed by the ego of its participants. In
this example, the guru is more interested in being right about the
respect he deserves, than he is about moving forward with the larger
question that the questioner puts to him. He is so convinced that he
didn’t get enough respect from the questioner that he forgets about
everything else that might be more important and useful in that
moment. The guru doesn't care that the questioner could have had a
slip of tongue, or that her ‘yaar -ing’ him is a part so unimportant
that it could just be overlooked. The Guru has let his rage power the
disagreement and hijack the conversation.
A further consequence of this power-grab style of disagreement is
the fear that comes from disagreeing with someone more powerful.
Employees are afraid to express disagreement with their bosses
because of the underlying assumption that disagreement is a display
of power, and the employee isn't more powerful than the boss. If you
are that employee or you are that boss, you understand what I'm
talking about. ‘Don't disagree with me, don't you know i'm your
boss’ or ‘I can't disagree with him, I must never forget I am his
employee’ is the common form of this fear trade. All of us can
imagine a case where a bright employee refuses to speak his mind in
a meeting because of fear and the company makes a poor decision.
At that point, the false assumption that ‘disagreement entails power’
has cost the company money and life.
It might sound very basic, but next time check with yourself when
you come across disagreement. Is this about power? Can I make
myself and the other forget about the power dynamic and focus on
the meat of the conversation? Can we try to find a better solution, a
more convincing argument, instead of bickering over the remains of
unuseful power?
4. FALSE: A disagreement is an end to a conversation
This is an extension of the previous point. If both parties view
disagreements as power struggle, then the mere appearance of a
disagreement could create enough shock or distraction for people to
exit the conversation altogether. This behaviour is not just
counterproductive: it is based on a faulty premise. Conversations are
not about power; they are about communication, and it is in the
nature of communication to encounter and accept the other . I
purport, therefore, that disagreements are not the end of a
conversation at all. They are, in fact, the fodder to create more
interesting and engaging conversations. All disagreements stem
from conflict between two visions of the world. Every argument,
little or small, is a chance to see beyond the limits of your own
perception. If you and the other person can communicate honestly,
you will help each other to find your own blindspots. In short, you
will learn from each other.
Disagreements are opportunities for change — and it is precisely
that ability to change, grow, and learn that marks a successful
conversation.
Remember the point above: the goal of conversation is not to gain
power for yourself, it is to gather knowledge for all participants. A
conversation is successful if all participants exit the discussion
‘better’, in some way, than before. A common form of this idea is
expressed in the aphorism ‘engage to learn, not to confirm.’ Only
when you attend to disagreements without their underlying power
dynamic, can you focus on the substance of the disagreement, and in
doing so you may learn interesting details about your assumptions,
preferences and values in contrast to your partner’s.
It is my experience that conversations that have no disagreement are
boring and prone to stagnation. They are also forgettable and
useless. In my experience, the most fun part of conversations begin
after a disagreement has been placed on the table. Now, there is a
new hole to dig, a new truth to find, a new territory to explore.
Disagreement illuminates the dark corners of your mind from the
light borrowed from someone else’s conviction.
A rather vulgar yet insightful aphorism that sums up our discussion
up until this point goes as follows – People’s disagreements are
usually masturbatory and seldom exploratory.
Part II: Disagreements, classified – many types,
many styles
There are many ways to express a strong and useful kind of disagreement.
However, the style of disagreement that you should follow depends on the
kind of outcome you want from that disagreement. There are a bunch of
different possibilities from a disagreement –
Type One Disagreement: ‘The Sensitive Disagreement’
You disagree with the other person and want them to understand your
point of view.
This is the most common form of disagreement you will encounter. You are
in conversation with your family, your romantic partner, your business
associate or even friends and colleagues, and it has come to a point where
you have to express what you feel. However, you are unsure as to how you
should do that. In this case you either remain silent, or express
disagreement in a way that is so forceful that the other person registers
nothing about the difference. You both go to bed unconvinced of the other
party, often confused as to why you could not make each other see your
individual points of view. This is the kind of disagreement that breeds silent
frustration and then an eventual implosion of the relationship.
Most people, when they think to themselves as to why this disagreement is
so hard to negotiate, end up with one hypothesis – the other is uncaring or
unresponsive to my view of the world. They blame the other more often,
and seldom ask what they could have done better. “Well, what do you want
me to do, I told her my truth”, my friend said to me after he had had a
heated argument with his ex-girlfriend about something I cannot remember.
I asked him in turn, “What did you say?” He looked at me like I was daft,
“Bro, I told her she is wrong about the issue…” and then he went on to
impress upon me how his version of the events was the ‘right’ version
instead. That night, I gave him a checklist of things to work with the next
time he wanted to communicate a sensitive disagreement.
1. Mention what you agree with and how that makes you feel
“Scratch the surface to see what you both agree upon”, I told him.
He said, “But there is nothing.” “Well, for starters, you both agree on
the fact that you want to be together, right?” “Yes,” he said “but that
doesn't mean anything.” ‘Well, you also agree that this series of
events produced certain hurtful feelings?”, I continued. “Well, yeah”
he said. “See, now you have common ground. You know you both
share a certain version of reality. You two are no longer running the
risk of scaring each other. You are no longer looking at the same
situation from completely different points of view. Starting with
what you agree upon establishes the common goals for the ensuing
conversation. It creates trust. It creates the feeling that you are there
to solve the problem and not be right about the interpretation of the
problem. That's a good start.”
“Hmm, I see what you mean,” he conceded. “Now think about it like
this. If you offer agreement until a certain point, you also become
sharper at focusing on what you disagree about. The question is no
longer whether you want to be with her or not, or whether what the
both of you did was harmless. It's more specific. It's asking “how do
we solve for the possibility of being hurt in the future given that we
want to live together?”” He agreed. “Now make it one degree
sharper by also telling her how you feel about the stuff you agree
upon. It will cement the trust and it will make her see your point of
view as that of coming from a person who has emotions and is
concerned with more than just being right or selfish.” “So how do
you think should I phrase it, bro?” he began to open up to my idea.
His anger had subsided, and was replaced by curiosity.
“You should say exactly as follows: Hey Ankita, I agree with you
that regardless of this fight I want to be with you and I also agree
that what we did tonight hurt the both of us. I feel very guilty for
doing that but I'm glad we still have a life beyond this fight.” “Wow”
he exclaimed. “Watch their expression change when you do that,” I
told him, “now you both are ready to get to the tougher part of the
conversation, together.”
2. Mention what you disagree with and how that makes you feel
This is the tricky part of the conversation. Wait, if you must, for her
reaction. She may say more about what she feels. She may talk
about the disagreement beyond the point of agreement herself.
Acknowledge all of it. Make sure she feels heard, something as
simple as “I hear you” works. Then do the following. You tell her
exactly what you disagree with and exactly how it makes you feel.
“Hey Ankita, I disagree with the fact that you raised your voice with
me in front of other people. It made me feel humiliated and it made
me feel like we do not have the kind of faith with each other where
we can work through our problems in private.”
“You think that’ll help?” he asked. “Well, you are doing your part
right. There are certain things you can never help, but this is the best
way to get your point across. You negotiated a common ground and
a common vision, you made the other person feel heard and
accepted and then you specified exactly what made you feel
whatever you did feel. Think about it from her standpoint, she is no
longer fighting an ‘enemy’, a kind of strange ‘other’. She is trying to
solve for the problem that hurt another human, a human she cares
about and wants to spend her future with. This is the strongest and
the most encouraging way to talk about your disagreement.”
“What if that still doesn't work?” he asked. “In that case, either she
still feels unheard or she hasn't registered the gravity of her actions
according to your version. You must check to see if she insists on a
certain part of her version and acknowledge and respond to it. If
there is none or if it has been resolved, move on to step 3.”
3. Extend disagreement to a projected future problem
Step 3 is an extension of your present predicament into the future.
Sometimes, people you disagree with might not really see what is
the problem with their version of reality. In this case, you must
extend the current disagreement into the future and predict what it
would lead to.
“All you have got to do is tell her how this part of her behaviour can
be an obstruction to your otherwise beautiful relationship in the
future. Tell her some variant of the following: “Hey, I don't know if
you understand where I'm coming from here, but if you do not see
what is wrong with you raising your voice at me in front of people,
you will continue to repeat it and then I'm always going to walking
on eggshells when we are in public. Eventually, I might not want to
meet people with you and I don't think that’s healthy for our
future.”’
“Game over?” he asked. “Game over” I said. “You have done
everything you can. Now let her decide.”
Type Two Disagreement: ‘The Neutral Disagreement’
You disagree with them without caring for if it changes their mind
This type of disagreement is rather simple. You are not seeking to change
the other person’s mind: you simply want to make sure that they are clear
on your point of view. This is the kind of disagreement you will come
across when discussing politics or economics in living room conversations.
The disagreement itself is inconsequential with respect to how the political
situation might change or how the economy might behave. The topics don't
have to be that far removed. Your friend could say something about your
lifestyle that you don’t think is wrong, so you want to put your point across
but you don't necessarily care if they concede to your world view. In this
case, be flat and upfront. ‘I hear you, but I really think it's this other way.’
That’s it. Don't indulge any further. It’s a waste of time and energy because
you don't care about convincing others. You care about standing up for
yourself politely and you ensure that by making them feel heard and then
communicating what you think. End of story.
Type Three Disagreement: ‘The Plant-A-Seed Disagreement’
You disagree with the other person but do not want to confront them
immediately; instead, your goal is to lead them towards your way of
thinking in the future.
Imagine if you are on the other side of this friend-lifestyle disagreement.
You want to impress upon your friend the need to clean up his room. He
lives in a mess and you think that it's not a good habit. The conversation
goes as follows:
“Hey Jitu, dude your room is gross. You should clean up” you say
“Bro, I prefer the mess, man. Besides, I'm very busy these days”, he says. It
seems like he has read this book. He isn't trying to convince you. He is fine
with the mess in his world view, and at this point you should know that you
can't convince him either. At least not immediately. The harder you try, the
stronger he will defend. Eventually, if you keep persisting, he will stop
defending his world view and instead start defending himself from you. It's
futile. In these cases the best thing to do is to plant a seed in their head and
then wait for it to grow on its own time.
“I don't know bro. This situation worries me for you. You could fall sick,
and I don't think this mess is good for your focus either, you know? And at
this point, both you and I know you should be focused, right?”
Notice what we did. Firstly, we used as little force as possible: we
employed the fewest number of words possible. Secondly, we did not try to
force your version on Jitu. We expressed only our concern. The idea behind
using the least amount of force is to deflect the responsibility of Jitu’s life
on Jitu. What happens very often in the case of, say, parents trying to insist
on a world view to their kids is that they use so much force that
subconsciously the kid understands that the responsibility of his or her life
is on their parents. Now the kid has no reason to change for himself.
Thirdly, we employed only questions. We tried to flip the script. Instead of
you making Jitu realise, the questions force Jitu to introspect. This further
insists, subtly, that the onus of Jitu’s life is on Jitu. It could even have the
effect of making Jitu feel like he came up with the idea of cleaning up by
himself because he realised how important it is for him to have a clean
room. It is empirically and statistically true that self realisation is more
likely to inspire action than a forced realisation.
Lastly, notice the last part of your appeal to sanity. ‘And at this point, both
you and I know you should be focused, right?’ The keywords here are ‘both
you and i’ or ‘we’. This is called an ‘us’ frame. It's very useful in
negotiation. The idea is to frame your appeal such that you both fall on the
same side. It makes it easier for you to transfer your concerns about Jitu to
Jitu’s consciousness. This might inspire Jitu to consider his messiness in
light of his need to focus and might lead him to mend ways.
Type Four Disagreement: ‘The Subordinate Disagreement’
You disagree with someone in a position of power or authority.
This is the toughest act to execute, at least in real time. We have discussed
the assumptions underlying this phenomenon earlier in the chapter. The idea
that disagreement is about power is a historic evil. Many men, innocent and
innocuous, have been executed or exiled because they chose to differ with
their kings, queens or commanders. Galileo was condemned by the
Inquisition because he disagreed with the prevailing neo-scholastic
doctrines of how the world works, and so were countless other people in the
past who sought to bring a fundamental change to our worldviews. No
matter how much we change our point of view about disagreements and
power, we cannot ensure someone else will see the world the way we do. So
what do you do when you are in a boardroom meeting and you have to
disagree with your boss?
Start with acknowledging the possibility that you might be speaking
uninvitedly. “I’m sorry, this might not be my place to say so, sir, but…” The
idea is not that it is literally true that you should not speak at the meeting. If
you are in the meeting, the odds are that it is totally fine to speak your
mind. However, you want to account for all types of power dynamics that
might change because of your boldness. When you start with something as
humble as that, you ensure your boss doesn't feel like you are going to make
a point to show him in a bad light. It communicates a sense of urgency.
Why else would you say it when you know ‘this is not your place to say’. It
must be urgent and important. Why else? And thus it adds gravity to what
you're saying too.
Then go on as follows: ‘I'm sorry, this might not be my place to say so, sir,
but don't you feel we should consider the fact [insert your disagreement] ?’
The idea is to place your disagreement as a question. This lets you
communicate disagreement without challenging the authority of that room.
They hear you better and are more likely to incorporate it. They may even
offer you the permission to ‘speak your mind unafraid’ in the future if your
disagreement had substance. Worst case scenario, they don't like your point
or have already accounted for it. In this case, no harm no foul. You did not
disturb any boundaries, did not cause any upsets, and in fact,on the plus
side, you put yourself on the map for the future.
Type Five Disagreement: ‘The Useless Disagreement’
You disagree with someone but do not care to correct them or
communicate your point of view.
Walk away. Don't engage. It's futile. Don't waste your energy. If you don't
care to correct them but you are still engaging, know that you are only
trying to convince yourself. In which case, you must ask yourself ‘are they
really right about what they are saying?’
PART II
THE GROWN UP ZONE
14
It’s a new job!
How to Build Your Personal Brand at
the Workplace?
A small, intentional, consistent effort above the bare minimum over a
period of time builds your personal brand. Building a personal brand may
feel like growing a chinese bamboo tree. The tree does not sprout above the
ground for 5 years; but once it does, it grows up to ninety feet tall in six
weeks! In those moments when you pursue the additional effort, you may
notice no change in how people perceive you. One day however you wake
up and notice you are perceived differently.
Building a personal brand is important because it opens doors.
You don’t have to start from zero in every interaction or task; your
personal brand gives you a head start.
It might often feel like too many bottles to juggle, but I have noticed it often
boils down to a few key principles related to respect, performance, and
aesthetics.
Here are 13 rules to help you build your personal brand at the workplace:
1. Push the chair back in.
When people leave a conference room or any place they have sat in
temporarily, they pick up their stuff and walk out. What gets left behind are
the chairs in a disorderly fashion; quite unlike how you found the room
when you had entered it. As you get up to leave, take a moment to push the
chair back in. This rule largely dictates that you should leave things either
in the same or a better state than you found them in, but never worse. Make
sure you leave the public toilet clean and the wash basin dry when you are
done with your stuff. When returning somebody’s stuff, whether a book or a
board game, make sure you organise and clean it before giving it back.
When you borrow a car, return it with more fuel than it had when you
borrowed it. Most people would not reciprocate your kind actions, and it
might often get frustrating for you to see them being unappreciative, but
remember that your goal here is to build your own personal brand, and,
rather, not police other people. Remind yourself in those moments that that
is one of the reasons many people fail to build their personal brand.
2. Never approach from behind the desk
“Aur bhai kya chalra hai?” (What’s going on, bro?!)
A colleague found it amusing to stroll over from behind my cubicle and ask
me this question every few hours. He always asked this with the same
expression, and with one hand on my chair’s headrest while the other held
his seventh cup of tea. At times when I was deep in the middle of a
calculation, that sudden shudder of my chair and his shrill voice pulled me
out of my semi-trance state as I alt-tabbed to hide any confidential data and
turned my chair around to entertain his novel question.
When you approach people from behind them, you catch them off-guard.
When you keep catching people off-guard, it is hard for them to like you.
Your eyes are in the front and evolutionary you are more averse to being
approached from the behind. Also, they might have something on their
screen they do not want you to see. When you approach people from the
front, you allow their reaction to settle and their response to take over.
Those few moments to prepare for the interaction give people a sense of
safety in the conversation.
3. Never criticise the ‘person’
When a colleague presents you with work that is substandard, there are two
ways you could respond in the moment. The first is you say, “you are
terrible”. In this case, you attack the person. The alternate way is to say
“This report is not up to the mark”. Here, you are not criticising the person
but rather their work.
There is never a good time to attack a person. When you do that, you
permanently damage your relationship with them. People often criticise
other people personally when they react emotionally. The larger application
of this rule is to control your emotions at the workplace.
Angry emails and passive aggressive responses to the boss are good for
movies. The world is more connected today than ever in human history.
Everything that you say or do has a record and background checks are more
thorough than ever before. Never do something in the moment that you
might regret years later on. When you sense your emotions taking over,
teach yourself to delay your response. The farther you can respond after the
input that emotionally charges you, the saner and more logically you can
respond to it.
4. Dress like its Day 1
We were heading for a client meeting. It was me, my colleague Amit, and
our boss, Sanjeev. It was an important client and this was to be our final
presentation, arguably the most important day of the project. We were in the
elevator of our office heading to the basement where our cars were parked.
Sanjeev was debriefing a few final points when he suddenly paused, and
after a long silence uttered “Amit, have you been playing football in the
morning?”
I was confused about that remark, but I quickly understood what he meant
when I looked at Amit’s shoes. They were black formal shoes plastered
with mud and filth all over them. This was Amit’s second month with our
team. I recalled the first day he came to office – dressed impeccably in a
white shirt, crisp trousers, set hair, and clean shoes. So clearly, he was not a
person to not take his wardrobe seriously. What changed in two months? It
wasn’t day one anymore. Now, sleeves folded to the elbow, unkempt hair,
creasy trousers, and dirty shoes were the norm.
Every single day, dress like it is Day 1. When you dress better, you
constantly send a message even when you do not open your mouth. People
generally treat you better when you are better dressed because they know
you take yourself seriously. Is it expensive to dress well every day? Yes, in
both money and time. As a long-term investor, I don’t look at the price tag
of the stock today, but rather it’s potential value tomorrow. Treat your
wardrobe the same way – an investment in your brand.
Wear branded clothes. They not only usually have better fit and appeal, but
last longer. Buy belts and shoes that are slightly more expensive than your
budget. I have tried buying cheap shirts – they start sagging before the
afternoon. Cheap belts and shoes start melting and withering away before
the turn of the year. Branded products often last years if you maintain them
well; which actually makes it a good deal in the long-term.
Wear good perfume and polish your shoes every day. Also carry a perfume
and shoe sponge for especially heavy days.
5. Hold a pen
When in meetings, always hold a pen in your hand and have a notepad on
the desk. You may or may not find opportunities to make notes in meetings,
but it gives people around you the impression that you are listening. It is
only a little effort that helps people see that your time is important and that
you are a person of action.
Some people like to make notes digitally, myself included. During physical
meetings, if using a device like a phone or tablet to make notes, I often
check in the beginning “Is it ok if I take notes on my device?” That way
they know that I am not texting while they are talking.
During digital meetings, I like to hold the pen in my hand even if I might
often put it down to take notes digitally. Work from home has got people’s
attention dispersed to more tasks as compared to being physically in the
office. The pen is the sign that your interlocutor has your complete
attention.
6. The thank you rule
When in doubt about saying “thank you” or not, say it. If we receive a
courtesy from new people or those we meet once in a while, we thank them.
Often, we take these courtesies for granted with the people who we meet
and work with every day. One of my managers never thanked anyone on the
team for their work. If we ever emailed something and received his call a
few hours later, we assumed that something was incorrect or he needed
something more; and our guesses were usually right.
People have a need to be acknowledged and recognized. A simple thank
you note goes a long way in making them feel that way. Be generous with
“thank you’s” even if they are for small or obvious tasks.
7. Always arrive before time
During my internship, my boss and I were to meet directly at a client’s
office at 10:00 am for a meeting. He was a disciplined man and I wanted to
ensure I reached the location on time. I arrived around 9:55 am and wished
him good morning.
“Good morning! How are you late?” he asked
I glanced at the watch and looked back at him quizzically.
“Always arrive 15 minutes before time. When you walk to the building and
take the stairs or the elevator, your breath needs time to get to normal. You
may need to use the washroom or take a moment to fix your tie. Now come
on, time for us to go inside.”
I wasn't particularly a fan of this boss, but looking back, I am glad I took his
advice, which has helped me immensely. I have very rarely even been late
to my commitments thanks to him. Isn't it the case that when something
goes wrong on a particular morning, maybe you missed the alarm,, the
whole day turns out to be a series of wrongs, almost like a black hole
sucking you into a void of cascading clumsiness." Well, when you’re ahead
of time, you have so much more control on these events.
Also, when you arrive earlier, you have an opportunity to adjust to your
environment and manage your state of mind. When you arrive in a rush,
you are catching up to things rather than controlling them. Being early is
being in control.
8. You’re being watched rule
In long meetings, many of us including me often have the tendency to zone
out into our imaginary lands. After one of these long meetings, my
colleague told me something I always keep in mind “Mudit, the show is
always on”. When in the workplace, always assume that you’re being
watched. Far too many times, you might just be right.
When you sit on your desk, activate the lumbar support and sit tight. It is
not just ergonomic but also projects that you are present. When tired, get up
and stretch, but do not sit loosely with your back-rest resting all the way
like a lounger. When you walk, walk with purpose. Keep your shoulders
broad, sternum lifted, and your chin just a degree upwards than you usually
do. Walk mildly faster when you need to project that you are busy and walk
slower when you wish to project power. When you agree, nod once
assertively; nodding too much and too fast is the sign of a yes-person.
Avoid using your cellphone for trivial or social media related uses unless it
is your break time.
Take moments to refresh yourself and be hydrated. If you avoid doing these,
you may look weary at the end of a long day. Take moments to look at the
mirror and make tiny adjustments to look and be fresh through your day.
9. “I don’t know”
Himesh was a senior associate in our consulting team. I was new and found
him to be fairly knowledgeable. My other colleagues were once having a
discussion on a question. We found ourselves unable to answer it and
explored approaching an expert on the topic to understand it. One of the
team members exclaimed “Or even better, let’s go ask Himesh- he would
definitely know the answer”. Everyone burst out laughing. Know the
feeling when everyone around you gets the joke, except you?
After multiple interactions with Himesh over the next few months, I finally
got the joke. When asked a question or part of a discussion, Himesh used to
jump in with his opinions, irrespective of his expertise. He wanted to sound
smart and add something in every conversation that he was part of. The
team nicknamed him “the expert”. I do not encourage gossiping about any
one, but the team was not completely wrong. Himesh had a serious problem
saying three words, “I don’t know”.
Socrates was one of the wisest men of his time. In Plato’s account of him,
he is attributed to have admitted “I know that I know nothing”. For one
being able to admit their ignorance and challenge their assumptions is a
sign of wisdom.
Many people shy away from admitting they do not know something. In the
short term, they may find their way to project themselves as smart. This is
however a poor long-term strategy in trust-building. I recommend the
gladiator approach to responding to questions. I have introduced it in the
chapter about interviews. In this context, here is how it works:
If you know the answer to a question, attack! Answer it directly.
If you do not know the answer to a question, defend! Take a step back and
say “I don’t know”
If you’re not sure about the answer or know only a part of it, deflect! There
are two options to deflect: first, saying: “I am not sure about the accurate
answer. Can I make an estimate?” and second “here is what I know for
sure… and here is what I don’t know…”
In the short term, not knowing might put you in a spot. In the longer term, it
is a pillar in your personal brand. When you speak, people know they can
trust you. Also, the acceptance that your knowledge has limitations keeps
you curious and humble. Socrates wasn't exactly a fool.
10. Politics, sex, or religion.
Unless your work requires you to, do not engage in conversations around
politics, sex, or religion at the workplace. These topics easily trigger an
amygdala hijack and can escalate the conversation beyond its intention.
Avoid making sexual jokes with your colleagues even if they are indulging
in them. In the office, there is a blurred line between sexual jokes and
sexual misconduct; when you cross it, the repercussions are often careerruining.
11. Listen more, talk less.
They say we have evolved two ears and one mouth because we’re expected
to listen twice as much as talk. Although the veracity of this evolutionary
claim is questionable, the principle is solid - listen more, talk less.
Everybody loves to talk. Even introverts love to talk; they are just pickier
about the topic and person. How many times have you narrated an
experience to your friends and someone, rather than expressing interest in
your story, began to share their experience immediately after you finished?
Isn’t it frustrating? That jewel of an incident straight from your memory’s
treasure trove, which was just waiting to be heard, gasped at, laughed at, at
least reacted at, took a crash landing just because someone pulled the
limelight off it. I have noticed that people say that I am good company
when I tell jokes. and that I am great company when I laugh at their jokes.
Isn’t it easy to ask people about their opinions, their experiences, their
selves, and just sit back and enjoy the show? It sure sounds easy, but it is
not. It is natural behaviour to want to respond to someone’s experiences by
drawing parallels to your own and immediately start talking about it.
Asking and listening are skills that need constant and conscious effort to
develop.
Even if you have an agenda to fulfil with somebody, genuinely listen to
what they have to say. We need to learn to zone out of our personal agenda
during conversations which involve the other person. Until we learn to lose
ourselves in the conversation, we cannot expect the other person to even
consider our agenda. It is in line with the age-old maxim “Give before you
can get”. You can access a knowledge and emotional repository of
somebody’s lifetime by just listening to them.
Talking should be treated as a strategic tool, only as a requirement to
facilitate others to share more.
When you listen and wait for your turn to speak, your words command
authority; and then, everybody listens.
12. The rule to receive feedback
The broad challenge is that very few people can stomach honest, raw
feedback. You will notice a clear sense of irritation developing on their
faces if they ask for feedback and you begin to critique their work. The
lines on their forehead deepen if they give an excuse to defend their work
and respond with a counter argument.
Feedback is the breakfast of champions; but most people looking for
feedback want to eat only the pancake and not the oat cereal. If we are
willing to be better at what we do, we will need to develop the will to
stomach honest feedback. We should really be looking for people and
feedback that will highlight our shortcomings and point to where we can do
better. As we discussed in the previous chapter, there are rare people who
will give unbiased, honest feedback. If you have found somebody like
them, do not defend against their argument with your excuses but rather
listen, ingest, and then filter if necessary.
When receiving feedback, follow these stages in a mutually exclusive
fashion; i.e. the next stage begins only once the previous stage is completed.
The first is the ‘feedback stage’, when you are listening to
feedback. Be eager to listen and absorb like a sponge everything
that is being said. Do not filter or judge the feedback yet. Just
listen and make notes. This will enable you to absorb the most of
the feedback provider’s knowledge and capitalise on it.
The ‘filter stage’ is when you reflect on the feedback. Identify
any inherent biases. For example, some good comments could
just be a sugar-coat to the bitter pill. You will need to sniff and
eliminate that. Some feedback could be biassed by the feedback
provider’s own knowledge and experience. Identify and modify
the feedback accordingly. Filter any feedback you believe is
inaccurate or improper. Usually people merge the feedback and
filter stage when they are defending or judging feedback. It is
necessary to separate them.
The ‘action stage’ is when you apply or redo work incorporating
the filtered feedback. Evaluate whether the feedback is
actionable and how it has impacted your work. Some things
sound great in theory but are not actionable at all or do not yield
desired results. Once the work is ready, you ask for feedback and
the cycle repeats itself.
13. Do it, and then go a step further.
Most people will finish exactly what is expected of them and nothing more.
Some people, however, will not be satisfied unless the output is perfect as
per their standards. An important aspect of building a personal brand is
going the extra step for even the smallest of tasks.
I am often asked “but my job does not require creativity or the opportunity
to go an extra step – what can I do?” Every job, even the most basic, has the
opportunity to go a step further. It was the winter of 2017 and I was a part
of a large excursion group visiting various towns and villages of India. The
organisers asked for crowd-management volunteers who could be stationed
at key checkpoints, maintain us in orderly queues and guide the excursion
group through various places. Most volunteers stood helplessly trying to get
us into queues, while our excessively enthusiastic group paid little heed to
their commands. However, one volunteer, Ravi, seemed to be obsessed with
this mundane job of keeping people in queue. Even if a person was an inch
away from the queue, he would keep nudging them back inside. We walked
as orderly as ants on a mission. His body language was like that of a wartime soldier coercing us to “move fast, stay in a line”. The whole excursion
group developed abhorrence towards this volunteer. Soon, the group began
to understand his passion and began to fall in line even when they saw him
approach from a distance. Gradually, they began to respect him for what he
was doing even though he was not required to do it. On the final day of the
tour, he received a standing ovation from 500+ people in the excursion
group.
The organisers stated that this was the first time in the 10-year history of
this excursion that a crowd-management volunteer received a unanimous
standing ovation. How was a person, with a small and mundane task, able
to establish his impact on the minds of so many people? It was only because
he went the extra step; and that step is in such short supply that the people
who take it, shine.
When I take a radio-cab in the morning, the driver requires me to share a
code from my mobile application to enable him to start the ride. Usually, as
soon as I board the cab, the driver exclaims “Sir, code please”. It is nothing
unusual; I share the code and we are on our way. Once in a while, though, I
meet a driver who begins the conversation as “Good morning, sir! How are
you doing?” and after some pleasantries says “Sir, if you may please share
the code, it will help us start the ride.”. Such an interaction just makes my
day and is a small but big factor in re-booking cabs of that company more
often. While it doesn’t take much effort, that small effort to go take that
extra step makes a big difference.
15
“Your highness...”
How to Talk to Powerful People?
It was the first week of my first job at a top consulting firm. The people
who lead such firms are usually known as partners. To put things into
perspective, I was a ‘consultant’ at the firm and ‘any’ partner was my boss
x 5. I had heard a great deal about a partner, Rajeev, who seemed to have a
Rockstar status in the industry.
Rajeev had called a meeting, and our whole team was boarding the elevator
to meet him at a conference room on a higher floor. I had only seen him in
pictures and videos so far and just the thought of being in the same room
with him made me sweat. I was rehearsing my introduction and handshake
with him in my mind and I did it perhaps a dozen times in that slow-moving
elevator.
We finally entered the conference room and there he was in flesh and blood
beaming at the incoming team. Somehow, I ended up in front of the pack as
he walked towards me, adjusted his spectacles, extended his arm, smiled
and said in a firm voice “Hi! I’m Rajeev”. I grabbed the edge of his fingers
in what can be called a poor handshake, and with all my strength mustered a
meek “hello”.
He kept smiling but his eyebrows took a mild quizzical curve as I took an
eternity to realise I hadn’t said my name. All those mental rehearsals were
in vain at that moment as my state of mind was in tatters. As other
colleagues gathered around, he kindly excused himself and moved on to
speak with the others.
It is usually not easy to speak with somebody far more powerful than
yourself. You probably look up to them and then finally have the
opportunity to look at them eye to eye. Since that meeting with Rajeev, I’ve
had the opportunity to meet and often work with powerful people including
CEOs, political leaders, social media influencers, and Bollywood
celebrities. It’s ironic that the majority of my clients today are directors and
partners of consulting firms. After all these experiences, the anxiety of
meeting a powerful person has not diminished for me one bit; the only
difference is I have now learnt how to channel it and developed strategies
around what to do before and during the meeting with that powerful person,
and to make the most of that time. What you are looking for is not just more
information about them, but perhaps the causes that concern them.
One of the key reasons you feel nervous before interacting with a powerful
person is because deep down you believe that you are there to take
something from them. The hand that takes is always below the hand that
gives. When you establish this status quo in mind, you automatically begin
to feel your confidence diminish. Take a moment to think about why the
other person decided to have a meeting with you in the first place. Time is a
valuable resource and even more valuable for powerful people. Yet, they
decided to invest some of it with you. You have something to offer. You
have something of value which they might want or need. Focus on this
value when you feel anxious before the meeting to become more centred in
the moment.
Before you meet a powerful person, read about them. Listen to any recent
podcasts, read blogs and news articles, and read their website and social
media handles. You are not just looking for more information about them,
but also causes that concern them. If they care about animal welfare, or
geopolitics in Europe, it would be nice to know at least some basic stuff
about these topics, in case the conversation steers that way. Do not pretend
to be an expert at something you are not. Powerful people meet snake oil
salesmen everyday, who are trying tricks from the book to win their
favours. Should the conversation shift to a theme that you do not know
much about, admit that you are not an expert. Know enough to ask an
interesting question.
I always have a list of questions ready to ask them, and if the conversation
flows naturally, they may not be needed. Sometimes, however, you might
have those long moments of awkward silence where you might need to
navigate yourself out of a tough corner. Have a genuine, thoughtful question
to ask in these moments. To be clear, short silences are important for any
conversation – don’t rush in to fill them. These questions are your lifeboats
for when the conversation feels difficult to continue.
About the questions, don’t ask something that is out of a rut bag. Be
thoughtful and intentional about asking something that adds real value to
you, to the conversation, and that makes you come across as a diligent
person who has taken the time to read and research. A good question will
propel you to the 1% category because it will require them to think and
appreciate verbalising something they may not often think about. When
asking a question, always set the context first, so as to not make it sound
like an interrogation.
“What does your typical health regime look like?” may come across as
sudden.
“I struggle to maintain my health regime with my work schedule. You seem
to manage it quite well despite your calendar. Can you tell me how you do
that without losing it?” is an example of setting context before a question.
The other aspect to manage in these meetings is your status at the moment. I
say ‘in the moment’ because your status beyond that conversation is not the
focus of this chapter. How your content, voice, and body behave in the
moment of that conversation defines your status in that interaction. Content
largely comes from the reading, research, and the preparing questions
portions that we discussed. We have discussed using voice in the chapter on
storytelling.
As a consultant, I often had to wait in clients’ boardrooms. We wore sharp
suits and kept adjusting our ties. Our bags by our side and notebooks at the
ready, palms on our knees and shiny boots. Then the client walked in, often
swinging himself across the room, throwing his phone and other stuff on the
table, and leaning back on his chair with a heel over their other knee.
Your body projects your status based on how you use stillness and
space, strategically.
The thumb rule is that more stillness and more space project you as more
authoritative. Less stillness and less space usually project you as more
approachable. It is not about good or bad; it is about the need of the
conversation. When you talk about your work, you may choose to appear
more authoritative; whereas when you are offering or seeking help, you
may choose to be approachable. When you talk about a subject of
importance, choose to look authoritative; and when you are approaching a
sensitive topic, you may project yourself as approachable.
Is managing your body to reflect your status a form of manipulation? I
would disagree. Your body is always sending a message; and often that
message is involuntary and not one that you intended to send. The invitation
through this chapter is to be strategic about the message your body sends in
these conversations. I also often notice that people (including me) who feel
low status in a conversation smile excessively. There is perhaps no better
tool for projecting approachability than a simple smile; however, it again
boils down to being strategic about your level of approachability in a
conversation. Salespersons who catch you in the middle of your mall stroll
often smile excessively to project approachability, usually at the
compromise of authenticity and authority.
Powerful people are also often used to meeting many starry-eyed admirers
who drool all over and ask for selfies and autographs. When you have a
meeting with a powerful person, feel free to express your admiration for
them and their work, but I suggest you do so assertively. You have the
opportunity to converse with them, unlike a lot of people who would love to
but have not been able to do so. Look them in the eye as an equal and be
centred. That is a breath of fresh air for most of them.
When in situations of high stress, many of us tend to talk fast and rush in to
fill pauses. These are behaviours which exhibit lack of confidence in the
moment. It is natural for that to happen in these and similar conversations.
Give yourself the permission for a breath before responding. Create space
between words when needed and don’t lose your natural communication
style merely because of the presence of a more powerful person in the
room.
Many of the above techniques are related to your state of mind in the
conversation.
Your state of mind is influenced by many factors, the majority of them
being external stimuli. However, you can influence your state of mind right
before a high-stakes meeting by working on your physiology.
Top athletes have a physical regime before they get on the field or right
before they take that shot. In 2013, psychologist and Nobel Prize winner
Daniel Kahneman conducted an experiment at the World Economic Forum
in Davos. He asked some participants to put a pencil in their mouth
horizontally and asked the others to do so vertically. Those who held the
pencil horizontally in their mouth (forcing a smile) reported higher
happiness levels than those holding it in their mouth, vertically (forcing a
frown). What you do with your body has the power to impact your mood.
This is also called biofeedback. You clap when you like something and
laugh when you are happy. Clapping and laughing, even without any
external stimuli, has the power to put you into those moods.
Before you move into these high-stakes meetings, build yourself a ritual to
prime your body. I personally like to stretch my cheeks to form a smile,
stretch my arms and chest sideways, and listen to upbeat music. I give my
body the permission to occupy space and express myself before these
conversations. Often when you are unable to do these, take a pause and an
intentional deep breath. It will allow you to reset your state and stop that
catastrophizing anxiety that is pulling you back.
16
“I’d like to say..”
How to Present an Argument?
Your opinion is as good as your ability to argue it.
What do top states-persons, debaters, and lawyers do in common that allow
them to argue their point more effectively? This chapter breaks down some
of these strategies and rules to help you present your next argument with
confidence.
“Confuse them if you cannot convince them” Have you heard this before?
This is a great strategy to win the argument and lose the relationship.
Complicating what is simple is the mark of a charlatan. Simplifying what is
complicated is the mark of an expert.
Communication is the bridge between the islands of disagreement;
complication extracts a heavy toll to use it.
The other rule is to maintain efficiency in words. Use words as if you’re
paying to use them. When you talk more you might think that you’re
strengthening the credibility of your argument, but it often has the opposite
effect. If you are unsure about landing your point in a few words, end with a
question, check for clarity, and then continue if necessary.
When the opposing argument is complicated or aggressive, take a moment
to zoom out and focus on the context.
“Why does X (person) always have to do Y (past action)?”
“It sounds like it is important for you that Y does not happen. Would you
rather prefer Z (future action) because…”
With this elevation and reframing you acknowledged the argument but
shifted the subject from talking about X to discussing an action plan going
forward. Acknowledgement of the other argument before proceeding to
make your own often enhances your credibility because you chose to
address it head-on rather than deflect. When elevating to reframe, be
cautious about being presumptuous. In the last example, we began the
counter-argument with “It sounds like” to highlight it as our interpretation
of their opinion.
Many indulge in whataboutism when cornered in arguments. It is shifting to
a different topic without completing the one at the table. We suggest you
not use this technique but know it so you don't take the bait when someone
uses it on you.
““Why does X (person) always have to do Y (past action)?”
“Well, what about A (person) who always seems to do B (past action)?
If you take the bait, the conversation will quickly move to a completely
different tangent - from X and Y to A and B. Make sure you keep them
accountable to one argument before letting them take you hostage with
branches.
To make a solid argument, you should separate opinion from fact.
Irresponsible arguments present opinions as facts. Facts are indisputable
and quantifiable whereas opinions are subjective interpretations of facts.
“The meeting lasted for 4.5 hours” is a fact.
“That was a long meeting!” is an opinion.
To present a strong opinion, you can back it with evidence. What comprises
“evidence” in a speech? Here is the order of priority:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Statistic
Fact
Example
Anecdote
For example, you state the argument “The Indian economy is growing faster
than it has in the last decade.”
Back it up with at least one of the following:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Statistic: Recent World Bank report pegs this growth to be at
9.8%, higher than the decade’s previous high of 9.2%.
Fact: This can be observed from the fact that our exports are at
an all-time high and unemployment at an all-time low. (notice
there are no numbers)
Example: Let’s look at SBI and how their lending rate is higher
than the last few years with rock bottom default rate.
Anecdote: For instance, I have personally observed in the area
where I reside that the number of shops has increased and their
owners cannot procure enough to sell!
When researching or presenting arguments, beware of some biases and
logical fallacies. Let us discuss some common ones that you can avoid. The
first bias to check is the representation bias.
“Dad, I want to drop out of college and become an entrepreneur”
“That’s a dangerous route, my dear. What if you fail?”
“But dad, look at Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg. They made
it big as entrepreneurs despite not graduating”
When you try to find facts to support your initial opinion rather than
building an opinion based on existing facts, you are a victim of
representation bias. In the above case, the student’s opinion is to quit
college and he has conveniently sourced only those facts that support his
original under-researched opinion.
A logical fallacy to watch out for is circular reasoning. This is where the
argument uses its own premise for the conclusion.
“Because fat people eat pizza, all those who eat pizza must be fat”
Here the premise and conclusion circularly rely on each other to support the
argument.
Another logical fallacy to watch out for is treating correlation as causation.
This kind of argument incorrectly asserts that because two things happened
at the same time, one caused the other.
“The governor was travelling when the mall fire took place. If she had been
in her office, the mall would have been safe.
This argument incorrectly assumed that the location of the governor caused
the fire incident.
Logic or logos is just one pillar that helps you hold up a strong argument.
The other two, often ignored, pillars are emotions (pathos), and ethics and
authority (ethos). Humans are emotional beings and while facts appeal to
the logical part of our brains, a good argument also appeals to specific
feelings. Be intentional about the emotions you want your audience to feel
when you present your opinion.
For example,
“40% of children in country A are below the poverty line” appeals only to
logic.
“4 out of every 10 children sleep hungry” appeals to logic, emotions and
ethics.
Finally, a quote that is widely attributed to Aristotle asserts “ It is the mark
of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
It might help to understand that our upbringing, experiences, and
environment impact our opinions. Your version of the truth may not be the
only truth. What many seem to lack today is the ability to consider and
understand the opposing point of view before accepting or rejecting it. The
lens of our bias kicks in sooner to automatically reject it even before we
consider weighing it against our opinion. Reclaim your ability to be able to
understand, reflect, and then if needed, disagree.
17
“Sell me this pen”
How to nail that interview?
An interview is a formal conversation – usually with someone asking the
questions and the other answering them. For the majority of us getting
interviewed, it is not an exciting process. An interview is a high-stakes
conversation and most people will go to lengths to avoid any high-stakes
conversation, let alone an interview. It is essential, however, that you learn
the skill of becoming better at interviews because here is the bad news: you
will need to go through this process in different contexts, whether it is jobhunting, a promotion, when as a CEO talking to the board of directors, or as
the managing director when discussing with stakeholders. For any highstakes conversation, including interviews, the three things that you need to
manage are state of mind, content, and delivery.
State of mind
Nobody who is convinced they do not deserve something can convince
another that they do.
One of many reasons why an interview is scary as compared to a
conversation with friends is because of the power differential. The person
interviewing you usually has, and you also perceive them to have, more
power than you do. You need a job, you have got this interview call after
applying for months, and there is a line of candidates with resumes in the
reception area who are interviewing for this same role. These factors skew
your state of mind to feel inferior. It is hard to achieve peak performance
with this state of mind.
There is an incident from the Mahabharata about Shri Krishna and his elder
brother, Balarama. Once both brothers were passing through the forest and
travel had made them weary. They decided to take turns to sleep while the
other remained on guard. As Krishna descended into a deep slumber,
Balarama heard a huge roar and thunderous thuds of heavy footsteps. He
turned to see a monster with large teeth and dark eyes approach him and
was terrorized by fear. As Balarama felt afraid, the monster grew in size
while Balarama shrunk in size. He managed to wake Krishna up before
passing out. Krishna woke up and understood the situation. He reserved his
fear and challenged the monster. The monster began to shrink in size while
Krishna grew larger. Finally, the monster was as small as Krishna’s thumb
and easily disposable.
Your fears for a high-stakes conversation make it seem scarier than it is and
make you feel less capable than you are. What I ask out of you requires
conscious practice and constant work in progress. Tell yourself that it is just
another conversation, one of millions of conversations you will have in a
lifetime, and that you are ready for it. Your mind is a movie theatre which
constantly runs horror movies in high definition. Here, grow yourself in size
and imagine that potentially scary conversation or interview shrinking in
size.
Think of an interview as a conversation, not between a recruiter and a
candidate, but, rather, one between potential partners.
There is a common need, i.e., the opportunity to work together, and you
both are having a conversation to understand if that common need is indeed
expected to be fulfilled with this potential partnership. They have an
opportunity to choose between candidates and you have the opportunity to
choose between recruiters. I am not discounting the work that it takes to
land an interview; but there is always an opportunity out there that needs
you – you will need to keep digging to discover it.
Content
There is a lot of ground to cover in this area and some of it is contextual to
the particular role, and technical expertise based on which your interview
will be structured. In this chapter, we take a wide swinging bat and outline
techniques that apply context-agnostically. As part of coaching, I have
mock-interviewed more than 700 people, from students to C-suite
executives, and their common mistakes are the inspiration for this chapter.
Most questions in an interview are from five categories: behavioural, case
study, technical, general awareness, and abstract.
Behavioural questions
The purpose of these questions is to understand your personality. I highlight
the most popular behavioural questions and techniques to frame your
response:
Introduction to yourself
Most people begin their introductions in an ascending order – where they
are from, school, college, work experience, and so on. It is logical because
you are explaining your life and work in a chronological order. However,
from the perspective of the interviewer, what you did recently is more
relevant than what you did many years ago. I recommend that you follow a
descending order chronology – begin your response with what you are
doing now and go backwards in time to highlight noteworthy projects and
achievements.
The tricky part here is to know how to land the response i.e. your final line
before you close your response. Most people close their response when they
run out of things to say or on some weird moment like their hobbies or a
college achievement and smile into the void with the awkward silence that
follows as the interviewer tries to gauge if you are done with your response
and you are wondering if you have spoken enough or still need to add that
part about your dead grandma. End your response to this question with the
goal for that particular interview. For example, “I am looking forward to
this conversation and to be working with XYZ as a project manager”. This
statement readies the canvas for follow up questions and allows a tone of
finality in your response.
Strengths and weaknesses
When most people are quizzed about their strengths, a typical response is as
such “I can work under pressure” or “I work well with a team”. There is
nothing fundamentally wrong with the response except that it does not have
any evidence. To create depth and authenticity in your response, quickly
follow up your strength with an example.
“I can work under pressure. Last year, our largest client was preparing for a
big tech upgrade scheduled for 48 hours later, when they discovered a major
bug. We had worked six months on this project and it was a herculean task
to go through the meta-data to find the source of the problem and solve it. I
quickly mapped the problem to the four most probable causes and divided
our team to work on each independently. After countless cups of coffee and
an endless stream of calls from the client requesting status updates, we were
able to solve the bug 11 hours before launch. The CEO was so ecstatic that
he recommended our team to his counterparts in other geographies.”
When responding to a question asking about your weakness, there are three
key things to remember: first, be authentic. Nobody likes a “I am so
obsessed about perfection that I often delay on my deadlines.” Tell a
weakness that you believe is really one of the things you think at which you
could be better. Second, do not mention a weakness which contradicts the
skills required for that particular role. For example, you would not say “I
have bad handwriting” when interviewing for a calligraphy instructor
position. Third, always back your weakness with an example of how you
are consciously working on it. You could say “Public speaking has always
made me nervous. Since the past many months, however, I have joined a
public speaking class and have tried to pick opportunities to speak to an
audience to become better at this skill. I still have a long way to go”
Concise responses
Many behavioural questions require you to share an incident, story, or case
study. People are either too long-winded in their answers or often too
concise to delve into necessary detail. I recommend that none of your
responses go beyond 60 to 90 seconds. If you are close to breaching this
deadline and still have more to say, pause and ask “I can go into more detail
if you like?” The interviewer may then ask you to continue or shift gears.
STAR is an interesting approach to share what is required concisely and
completely. STAR stands for Situation, Task, Action, and Result. Situation
means explaining the problem. Task is what you/your team had to achieve
to solve the problem. Action is what you/team did on ground to solve that
problem. Result is the happy ending to the whole story. Let us take our
example above and map how it works.
Last year, our largest client was preparing for a big tech upgrade scheduled
for 48 hours later, when they discovered a major bug. (Situation)
We had worked six months on this project and it was a herculean task to go
through the meta-data to find the source of the problem and solve it. (Task)
I quickly mapped the problem to the four most probable causes and divided
our team to work on each independently. After countless cups of coffee and
an endless stream of calls from the client requesting status updates, we were
able to solve the bug 11 hours before launch. (Action)
The CEO was so ecstatic that he recommended our team to his counterparts
in other geographies. (Result)
Technical and General Awareness questions
Here is a thumb rule: never try to bluff your way out of these questions.
There is a small chance you may succeed but it is almost always never
worth the risk. To filter your response to these questions, I have created
what is called the Gladiator approach. When you are facing your opponent,
the interviewer, who is constantly attacking you with technical and general
awareness questions, you can counter with one of three moves: Attack,
parry, or defend.
When you are completely sure about the question, it is easy - attack!
When you are completely unsure about the question, defend!
This means that there is no point beating around the bush with shallow
words. Keep it plain and simple: “Excuse me, I do not know the answer to
this question”.
When you are not completely sure but want to take a stab at the question,
parry!
If you attack, you will feel inauthentic. If you defend, you may miss the
chance to respond to that question. When you parry, you say “I am not
completely sure about this, but would like to try. Can I do that?” Some
interviewers will allow you to try. In that case, if you fail, you have a soft
landing because of your disclaimer. If the interviewer in an occasional case
asks you to answer only if you are completely sure, then end your response
by defending.
Body language
Pre-work
I remember my first ever interview for an internship in 2012. I read many
articles and watched countless videos and remembered that I needed to
‘smile’. Come the day of the interview and I was led into the icy cold cabin
of the interviewer. I walked the plush carpet and was gestured by the
partner to sit in a tall chair with hand rests beyond my chest. As pleasing as
the interviewer was, I was finding it impossible to get myself to smile. He
had to take an urgent phone call and turned away from me for a minute. I
literally kept my palms at the edge of my lips and tried to make it curve
upwards but to no avail! Needless to say, Dr. Frankenstein did not get that
internship.
Here is what I do now before each interview, speech, presentation, or high
stakes conversation. I arrive well before time and accustom myself to the
environment – the temperature, people, seating etc. I visit the washroom
and stretch my arms wide like I’m hugging an elephant. I then laugh
without making a sound but making sure I see almost all my teeth in the
mirror. I raise my hands towards the ceiling as if I just completed a full
marathon. By these simple exercises, I prepare my muscles to be free and
prepared to act in their natural habitat. I invite you to do these exercises
before your next high-stakes conversation.
During the interview
My gym instructor said something which I follow every time – never let a
crease develop between your shoulders and chest. This means that you need
to keep your spine erect and chest broad. Just doing it as you read this will
make you immediately feel more confident. When invited to sit in an
interview environment, make sure you sit all the way to the back of the
chair and have your feet firmly on the ground. When your back and feet
have support, you feel more secure and do not tire easily.
Feel free to move your hands like you would in any conversation. There is
no need to keep your hands locked on your thighs under the table like
lovers with high libido who meet after a decade of separation. Your hands
need to move in natural synchronisation with your body to be able to fully
communicate. Look into the mirror and talk about your last vacation, but as
you do it, fold your hands. No, really, try it before you continue reading.
Something feels off – it doesn’t seem as exciting as it should be. It is
because you would never talk about something that excites you with your
hands folded. Why should it be any different in a high stakes’ conversation
like an interview?
18
Zesty Cold
How to write an impactful cold
email?
Emails have dominated being the standard communication medium in this
overwhelmingly digital world. I distinctly remember the time when my dad
created a Gmail account for me. That sweet feeling of receiving an email
and clicking it open with brimming curiosity. The 13-year old me clicked
on some “free music” link and submitted my email id. Don’t judge me! 90’s
kids would remember the pre-Spotify era when nothing was more exciting
than free access to the new Linkin Park album. The rest is history. I have
68,411 unread emails in my inbox as I type this (actually 68,412 now) and
receiving every new email feels like swallowing a reminder pill of the
travails of adult internet life. Having said that, it is the bitter pill four billion
email users willingly swallow every day for convenience, comfort, and
efficiency.
Receiving an email is not exciting any more - it is a chore I quickly want to
get done with and move on. In the middle of this, if I receive a cold email
from an unknown sender for something that reeks of selfish motives, what
is the probability that I will open that email, let alone respond to it? Email
still allows you to access the virtual doorstep of almost any person in the
world, and it is important that you learn how to execute this e-knock
gracefully.
An email is characterised as “cold” when you send it to somebody who
does not have an existing connection or introduction to you. It is the digital
counterpart of “cold calling” that people who work in sales or customerfacing professions usually indulge in, where they have to constantly keep
raking in the numbers. Before, when the Internet and phones didn’t exist,
people would just go up to strangers' doors and start with their preaching.
This was the ancient precursor to cold-calling and cold-emailing. Cold
emails can be sent individually or in bulk (email list, newsletter, etc.). In
this chapter we will focus only on writing effective one-to-one cold emails.
Here’s an example of a poor cold email:
Dear Sir/Madam,
Greetings!
I am the Founder of Annoying Tech Pvt. Ltd. and on a mission to change
the nature of retail forever.
As a serial entrepreneur, this is my third venture and I am confident that it
will help me reach millions of businesses and help them sell better.
Some Details about my product:
1.
2.
3.
ABC
DEF
XYZ
Think we can help your business? Let us get in touch!
Best Regards,
Gill Bates
Founder
Annoying Tech Pvt Ltd.
Website link
Random award winner, go-getter, X Magazine 40 under 40
An example of a good cold email:
Hi <First name>,
I read your latest blog and seemed to understand that you are exploring
contemporary channels to sell your new product.
The reviews of the product on Amazon and other websites helped me
understand that people seem to love it, and yet sales are lagging.
We have been working on a tool that enables detailed customer insight
compilation. This allows for accurate selection and budgeting of marketing
channels. Here is a case study for a product that grew 82% in 11 months
after signing us: <Link>
I am the founder of this product and would be happy to discuss how we can
work together. How is Monday 11 am or Thursday 4 pm for a 15-minute
zoom call? Let me know if any other time works better.
Warren À la carte
Founder
Relevant Tech Pvt Ltd.
Website link
Personalization
Lack of personalization is perhaps the most common folly in cold emails.
You have a common subject, a salutation that begins with something like
“Dear sir/madam”, and talks about you, your achievements, and your
requirements. Of my 68,414 unread emails, how would I possibly find the
will to completely read this kind of an email?
In 2019, I was travelling to Singapore for a workshop and decided to cold
email the CEO of one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges at the time.
My ask was to get a slot on his calendar for a meeting to learn about him
and his work. Before I approached him, I took some time to read recent
news articles, latest blogs, and social media posts. I personalised the first
few lines in my message based on this information.
I heard back from him the next day with an offer of a 25-minute slot on a
Thursday noon. We had a fun conversation and as we shook hands to take
leave he said “Mudit, you should know that I receive hundreds of messages
every week asking for a meeting like this. Do you know why you came
through? I saw the first 2-line preview before opening the message and
thought – huh, this guy understands what I’m doing here!”
It is an investment of time to research and personalise your subject and
email. Do not assume that this is a magical strategy that guarantees a
response. In my experience, personalising the message increases the chance
of a response manifold. In case you have to write emails to a lot of people
and do not have the time to deeply personalise each message, try to add at
least one personalised and relevant line before you dive into the rest of the
content
Specificity
When my email notification chimes and I see an unknown sender and a
generic subject, I already have my antennas looking out for “OK now what
does this person want out of me?” There is an ice-cold barrier between the
sender and receiver. The reader’s focus is not on the content of your email
but rather on the process of evaluation of the relevance of the email. A mere
“I will solve your problems” is not enough to melt this barrier.
When you appeal to the person’s specific problem, it begins to shift
their focus from the evaluation of the email to their own specific
problem.
Your recipients begin to see themselves and you on the same plane and
having a common objective. For example, “I want to discuss how you can
increase the sales of X product as you are expanding in Y geography” – a
specific address of the problem will allow this transition in your recipients’
minds. A specific address of the problem also helps you come across as
more authentic and an authority on the subject rather than a charlatan who
wants to swindle their recipients’ money, or data, or both.
Brevity
You probably have an interesting life story, but that first cold email may not
be the best place to share it. The longer it takes for you to get to your point,
the greater is the dilution to your authenticity and status. Most people tend
to write long emails, especially to more powerful people to be able to share
their passion and excitement. It really should be the other way around
because powerful people have less time on their hands.
Make sure that the subject and content of your email addresses the
following in the fewest possible words: why are you writing that email/the
importance of the email to the recipient, the problem you wish to solve for
the recipient (if any), your brief introduction, and finally, the call to action.
Another critical area of the email where brevity is important is the subject
line. The subject should ideally be not more than six to eight words. The
subject is the doorway to your email. You would not stay at a hotel with a
dirty reception and you would not open an email with an irrelevant subject.
It should be relevant, brief, and appealing.
Call to action
Every good form of communication ends with a call-to-action. What do you
need your reader to do at the end of that email? The call to action must be
specific and open-ended at the same time to allow respect to your recipient.
An example of my usual call-to-action is “Does Tuesday 12 pm or
Thursday 5 pm work for a 15-minute Zoom call? Please let me know your
preference from there (or some other time) and I can share a calendar
invite.”
Follow up
One of the ways I differentiate between an email received really intended
for me vis-à-vis that being sent out to a lot of other recipients, is by the
quality of follow up. Most senders who send emails to many recipients do
not have the time and patience to follow up on their emails. This allows you
an opportunity to stand out. If your cold email does not elicit a response, I
suggest sending a follow up email after a week. Typically, after two followups if your lead does not respond, I would suggest either looking for
alternative communication channels or dropping that lead.
Email is a form of faceless communication and has its own challenges. I
sincerely hope that you will apply the above techniques to make sure your
cold emails hit the landing.
19
“And what do you do?”
How to network at networking
events?
I have spent far too many conferences and networking events listening to
men in suits conjure gyaan out of thin air, waiting for lunch time, and
enjoying the free cookies with the evening tea. Well, that is one way to
attend an event; the other is to use the event as your playground like a
networking ninja. People have polarising views on conferences and
networking events – some consider them as sort of a time and money sink,
where too many people with different agendas are put in a large room;
others consider them to be a hotbed of creating new connections. I believe
that these opportunities, if used well, can open doors you didn't know
existed.
To help you make the most of that upcoming networking event, this chapter
has been divided into three sections,viz., your pre-event preparation, what
to do during the event, and post-event actions.
Pre-event preparation
Update your social media handles, especially LinkedIn and Twitter. If you
have a personal website, go through every page again and ensure everything
is up to date. You would not invite an important person to a dirty office.
Social media is your virtual real estate and it needs to be ready for visitors.
Make sure you plan your wardrobe in advance. Go through the proposed
agenda of the conference and plan your dress accordingly. If you are
confused about the tone of the event, it is not an overkill to reach out to the
organiser to confirm it. In general, this is what my wardrobe contains for
on-site formal networking events:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
One jacket/formal suit (plus one if the agenda has a formal
dinner)
One formal trouser for each day of the conference
One formal shirt in white/light blue/pink for each day of the
conference (plus, one extra)
One tie for every day (plus, one extra) and cufflinks
One pair of black/brown formal shoes and belt
One pair of business casuals (polo T-shirt/checked casual shirt
with semi-casual trousers and shoes)
One pair of casuals (shorts, jeans, and T-shirt)
Appropriate layers depending on the weather
Next, practice how to represent yourself most effectively in the shortest
amount of time. This is more important than you might think. At these
events, people meet a lot of people and there is limited space to hear your
life story. I recommend practising a 10-second introduction. When asked
for more, also ready a 30-second follow up intro.
It is said that when President John F. Kennedy visited the NASA Space
Center in 1962, he noticed a janitor with a broom. He walked over and
asked him what he was doing. The janitor replied “Mr. President, I’m
helping put a man on the moon.”
Most of us in the janitor’s place may have responded with something like “I
mop the place” or “keep the lavatories clean”. Instead, the janitor explained,
not what he was doing, but rather the value of what he was doing. As part
of your introduction, don’t talk about the nuts and bolts of the tasks that you
do, but rather speak about the value you create.
This is the 10-second introduction I used to offer (task-focused):
I work as an executive coach, workshop facilitator, and keynote speaker.
This is the 10-second introduction I offer now (value-focused):
I partner with executives to help them be more influential.
Research the participants who might be in the conference, especially the
speakers and special guests. If you have the opportunity to run into them,
what will be your opening line? In 2017, I went to an event and researched
about one such special guest. When I ran into him, this was my opening line
“Hey Amar, do you know we have two things in common? We are both exPwC and have spoken at TEDx events.” We exchanged a two-minute
conversation and went our separate ways. After eight months, I received a
message on social media where he requested my partnership to coach him
for an upcoming presentation. He then recommended me to his
organisation, and since then I have coached more than a dozen senior
executives.
Not every planned opening line will snowball into a large business
opportunity. The purpose of this example is to convince you that an
intentional opening sets you apart from other people who approach with a
simple “hello, how are you?” Enough of these stand-out approaches and at
least a few will yield tangible outcomes. Further, if you are able to find the
industry where most participants are from, read about the typical jargon and
latest trends in that industry. This will make it easier for you to have
valuable short conversations.
Finally, have a goal. Why is this upcoming networking event important to
you and what is your goal? Is it finding a job, getting more clients, listening
in to the sessions, or just building relationships? A clear goal or set of goals
will allow you to have a precise approach in your preparation.
During the event
Humans have lived together as units or tribes since the prehistoric age. Few
things make us feel more powerful than hanging around people who we
know well. I often notice that people in conferences take seats beside their
colleagues or friends i.e. people they already know. I know it's comfortable
and cozy to do that in a sea of new people around you, but I challenge you
not to do that. Take a seat beside someone new, have lunch with someone
different, and have tea with someone else. The digital age allows us to meet
new people but the opportunity to meet new people in person remains
comparatively scarce.
Conversations with different people changes the way you think,
impacts your thought patterns, and helps you build confidence in your
individual identity.
Networking is a volume game; relationship building is a value game. We
will discuss relation-building, but first let’s talk networking. When at one of
these events, spread out and start small, simple, low value conversations
with as many people as possible. Deliver your 10-second pitch, hear what
they have to say, exchange contact details, and move on. You have to
intentionally go out there and interrupt people going about their day to
create space for your conversation.
Some might argue that business cards are passé. I would say better be safe
than sorry. There are business circles who still request a business card.
Better to have one and not have to give than to come up empty-handed
when requested for a card. Here is where my approach is a tad conservative
– I do not offer my business card unless requested. It is not a marketing
brochure that is handed out to every passer-by in a mall. A business card
should only be offered in three situations: when someone requests it, when
someone offers theirs, or in exceptional cases when neither happens but the
potential relationship is important.
When storing contacts in your phone, open the notes section and add a
small detail about the conversation. Did they mention someone in their
family, or a recent promotion, a vacation that they took, some interest or
hobby, or their favourite book or movie? When you reach out to this person
weeks, months, or perhaps years later, you will need a jumpstart to a
possibly awkward conversation. This little piece of info in your notes will
serve as your trampoline.
After the event
This is quite possibly the most important section of this chapter.
Networking means little if it does not evolve into relationships. Your
research and approaches will not lead to much if you do not reach out to
these people after the event. In most events, you usually only have the
opportunity for shallow, low-level conversations. It is after the event that
you have the space to be professionally intimate.
Within 24 hours after the end of the event, send each person you met a
personalised message possibly quoting one take away from the
conversation.
After 7-10 days of the event, send a gift. A gift could be a link to an
interesting video or article you read that relates to their work or a copy of
your favourite book.
Within 7 days from the gift, reach out for a phone conversation just to catch
up. If they accept, keep this conversation under 15 minutes and seek to be
curious. When you have the space, parachute any value that you add again
but do not force it or be salesy.
Send them a message after this conversation and put a recurring event on
your calendar to reach out to them again in 2-3 months.
When you have had a few of these conversations, you can more confidently
state your request. The overarching focus of your conversations must
however always be generosity and curiosity.
Seek to give and seek to learn; let the tangible advantage to you be the
by-product of this relationship.
20
“Good morning team”
How to lead better meetings?
Do you wake up in the morning barely able to hold the excitement to go
through their meetings in the day? If yes, we may have a different problem
at hand. Most people hate meetings; and a large part of the reason has to do
with how meetings are conducted. You may or may not yet be in a position
to be the leader of most of your meetings, however, the strategies discussed
in this chapter will help you conduct more engaging meetings.
When ideas come together, they don’t just add to each other, they multiply.
Meetings are opportunities for ideas to come together. Humans have
historically achieved ambitious goals not individually, but in groups. Before
diving in to leading effective meetings, it is worth diagnosing the problem –
why do most meetings suck?
The Bible narrates the story of the tower of Babel. Humans came together
in Babylon to build a tower that would touch the skies and reach God. God
descended and the Humans’ blasphemous behaviour made him furious. God
confounded the people so that they speak different languages. With no
common language to communicate, the tower could not be built.
One of the reasons for bad meetings today is people speaking different
languages; not literally, but rather because they have different agendas,
priorities, and needs.
With this lack of common business language, achieving a common
objective is an uphill climb. The other reason for bad meetings is the usual
clear demarcation between those speaking and those listening. Often leaders
believe that the way to efficient meetings is for them to be at the centre and
the other members to revolve around them like planets of the human solar
system in the boardroom.
I was coaching a senior partner at one of the top strategy consulting firms
on the planet. Let’s call him Rajeev. I often shadowed him in meetings and
that day was a project kick-off meeting. They had five people in the
meeting – Rajeev, the project director, the project manager, a senior
consultant, and an intern.
During the meeting, Rajeev looked curiously at the intern and said “What
do you think we can do differently?”
The intern was noticeably taken aback and gathered his wits to begin
sharing some feedback.
Rajeev leapt on his seat, grabbed his diary, and began to make notes.
After the meeting, I asked Rajeev “You have 26 years of experience in this
industry. Your team combined has another 26. What can an intern possibly
tell you that you don’t already know?”
“Mudit, here’s the thing...” Rajeev smiled as he responded “… we don’t
hire the best people from top institutes because we need an extra pair of
hands. It is their ideas that I am looking for. Their fresh perspective helps us
recalibrate what seems obvious and notice blind spots”
Every person in the room is worth listening to. As the leader of the meeting,
it is your responsibility that they sense a safe environment to share their
ideas without the fear of rebuke or ridicule. I heard a quote from an
American business consultant, Alan Weiss, who says “so many
organisations just breathe their own exhaust.” Often, people who are new to
an organisation and those on the front lines are not given their due.
Meetings are an opportunity for those insights to come together.
Most participants in the meeting need implicit permission to speak. They
join expecting to be receivers of information and are typically in the ‘listenonly’ mode. After a 45-minute presentation, when the leader asks “any
questions?”, how are they supposed to break the inertia of their silence to
share their thoughts or ask questions on a critical subject? A subtle but
warm method to let your participants know they are “allowed” to speak is to
get their voices in the room early on.
Invest the first few minutes of the meeting in getting your participants to
share something in the meeting, preferably non-work-related, but not overly
personal. For a Friday meeting, you may ask people to each share in 2-3
sentences about their weekend plans. You may begin a Monday meeting
asking 2-3 sentences about what they did during the weekend? You may not
individually call out each person to do that. Preferably answer the question
yourself first, call out the person to go next, request them to share, they call
out to the next person, and so on. Depending on the number of people and
time at hand, you may ask a set of questions to which each person responds.
“What was something great that happened last week?
“What is something you’re looking forward to this week?”
“How do you feel at this moment?”
For virtual meetings with many participants, you may ask each one to type
the response to your question in chat, and then request some people to share
more about their chat response.
Next, you address some implicit questions that your participants may have
and obtain their soft buy-in for the meeting. You may talk about the overall
context of the need for the meeting, acknowledge some challenges that the
participants may have, and clearly highlight “why” they need to be present
in this, and how their contributions are helpful.
After the soft-start and context setting, it is important that you set the
agenda for the meeting. Ideally, this should be shared in advance, however,
it never hurts to take a moment to highlight it. With the agenda, you may
also set the ground rules. Can the participants ask questions anytime or do
they need to wait till you begin the Q&A session? Can they jump in
anytime or would you prefer them to raise their hands first? Who takes
notes for the meeting if that is not already specified?
When anyone joins in, especially a senior person, ensure you make a quick
reference to them and welcome them to the call. Once the quorum of the
call is met or you are three to five minutes into your meeting, you may start
setting context and share the agenda.
One significant challenge with debating ideas in meetings with humans is
our set of unconscious biases.
Authority bias
When the boss shares an opinion, it is hard for people to convince
themselves that they may have a different, better opinion on the matter. The
authority of the person who shares the idea often outweighs the merit of the
idea.
Halo and horn effect
When people believe someone to be a good person (halo effect), or do not
like them for one reason or another (horn effect), they may process their
ideas with that existing bias.
Confirmation bias
You may not like scented soaps, but the target market of your organisation
might love them. Your personal beliefs and desires may tend to push you to
make decisions rather than the merit of those ideas.
Some ideas to reduce the biases are to use anonymous polls. If everyone
writes their idea, opinion, feedback, or question on yellow post-it notes, it is
hard to know whether it belongs to the boss or the intern. Virtually, you
may use polls to allow participants to vote on an idea without fear of
ostracization.
After the COVID-19 pandemic and the exodus towards the work-fromhome culture, workplaces will never be the same. Most organisations are
expected to permanently evolve, if not to a completely decentralised
workplace, then at least to a hybrid one. Whether you like meetings or not,
as a knowledge worker, they are an integral part of your life. Now that most
meetings take place virtually, you better get better at them.
The little box on Zoom, Google Meet or any video platform is the window
of the world to you. When you go to a physical office, you don’t dress
poorly because it will misrepresent you. You need to take similar
precautions by making sure your digital frame does justice in representing
you. The easiest way to level up your meeting frame is by using a face light.
Better lighting goes miles to highlight your facial features and expression. It
also makes you appear more energetic and more present in the meeting. If
the lighting in your room is inadequate, consider getting a decent face light
under INR 1000 (USD 15) and watch your frame game level up.
The other, unspoken, pandemic is people having their video camera at weird
angles. Some look down on their camera like they’re looking into a well
while others keep it too high and look like the subject of a drone footage.
There are people who have an objection showing their shoulders on the
video call and prefer to be seen as a floating head looking for its lost body.
Make sure the camera is at your eye-level. Some people keep the camera
too close to their face while others prefer social distancing with their own
computing device. It is recommended that you align your frame such that
you are able to see minimal space above your head and around your
shoulders. The bottom of the frame should ideally be limited at your chest.
I personally prefer you have a clean natural background over a virtual
background. If you prefer to keep objects in your background, use ones
which are not very distracting, for example, books, plants, or souvenirs.
Your virtual frame reflects your personality and is an opportunity for you to
represent yourself beyond your work. Should you use a virtual background,
do not use the very fancy ones and limit unnecessary movement to avoid
looking like you’re moving in and out of the Matrix.
As a participant in a video call, it is important to observe the convention in
your organisation/group regarding video and microphone. However, I
highly recommend that you keep your video on whenever possible – it
keeps you present in the meeting, represents you better, and allows for a
better experience for others. For the microphone, you may keep it on if you
think there is no background sound, otherwise, keep it off and unmute only
when you need to speak.
When you are calling out someone for a comment or question, bear in mind
that they may have subconsciously wandered off to their upcoming beach
vacation and you do not want to catch them off-guard. How many times
have you noticed someone being asked a question, only to be followed by
awkward silence, followed by a breathless “Sorry, I had a connection issue.
What was that again?” When possible, let people know in advance you will
come to them for a comment. For example, “Before I come to Pooja for a
comment, here is my opinion on the matter.” You just gave Pooja about 30
seconds to frame a more structured response. A step further is sharing the
chain of people who are inviting questions and comments. “Let me ask
Pooja first, and then Maria and Amit….”
I suggest you take the name of the person first followed by your question or
invitation. Their name will trigger a neural response and they will make
sure to listen to the rest of the sentence.
If you are making a presentation or speech as part of the meeting, it is best
to pause after every few sentences to check in to see if anyone has a
question or a comment. This pause is also necessary to check if your
internet and audio is functioning smoothly and that people can in fact hear
you. In one meeting, an executive spoke breathlessly for 20 minutes only to
realise her audio completely stopped working midway and people did not
hear one word. Nobody dared to interrupt because she was speaking
without a breath. I sincerely hope you will never go through such an
experience after reading this chapter.
Finally, when the meeting is near close, highlight key action points and next
steps or let someone know in advance that you would expect them to
summarise. If that is not possible, let them know that they can expect to
receive the highlights and action points on email. Before closing the
meeting merely on the logistics of who does what, take a moment to share a
few sentences to re-elevate your participants by connecting them to a larger
cause to give meaning to their efforts.
21
“Once upon a time”
How to tell better stories?
“The human mind is a story processor, not a logical processor”
- Jonathan Haidt, American Social Scientist
Storytelling comes naturally to human beings. Our ancestors passed lessons
through stories and art depicting stories. Recall the last time you narrated
something to your best friend. Wait! Before you read ahead, really take a
moment to recall that story, incident, experience, or gossip that you shared
with your closest confidant. If it was a secret, your voice becomes low and
hushed, like that of a Soviet spy in American territory. If it was a story that
made you furious, your voice stiffened and your fingers formed a fist as if
you were in a fight during your narration. If it was something scary or
exciting, you raise your voice (and eyebrows) and speak at your highest
pitch as the climax of your story approaches. Are your hands in your
pockets or folded? Of course not! They are all over the place in magical
synchronisation with the tone of your story.
It is storytelling in a high-stakes environment that squeezes the creative
juices out of you and makes you sound like a 1990s news reader. Imagine
that college or client presentation, interview, or a conversation with your
crush or a first date. Are you still modulating your pitch and animating your
body language? More often than not, you are admiring your own feet and
looking for imaginary spare change in your trouser pockets. If you want to
become a star storyteller in all environments with people listening to you
and absorbing each word with rapt attention, this chapter is for you.
It is important to tell great stories because people are wired to learn from
stories. Remember as kids we had bedtime stories and in school many
stories ended with “moral of the story”. The hare and the tortoise, the boy
who cried wolf, and the wolf and the crane – don’t you remember lessons
from these stories even decades after you first heard or read them? If you
want to drive home a point to adults as well, lean in to their conditioning
and tell a good story. Shed the inhibition to tell a good story to adults – the
best marketers in the world understand this. Understand the power of stories
and how they should be used as a weapon to enhance reception and
retention in your listeners.
The Natya Sastra was written by Sage Bharata Muni around 3000 years ago
in ancient India. That’s right - 3000 years! The text is popular, among other
things, for the Rasa theory. Rasa means sap or liquid or a flavour. In broader
etymology, it can be said to mean ‘taste’. The wisdom of the Rasa theory
even today inspires many art forms in India as well as the world and much
has been written about it by scholars including Susan L. Schwartz and
Daniel Meyer-Dinkgräfe. In the Indian performing arts, a rasa is a sentiment
or emotion evoked in each member of the audience by the art. The Natya
Sastra elucidates 8 such rasas or emotions: Hasyam (humour), Raudram
(anger), Bhayankam (Horror), Veeram (Bravery), Karunyam (compassion),
Sringarha (beauty), Bibhatsam (disgust), and Adbhutam (amazement).
According to this theory, entertainment is a by-product of performance arts
and not the main goal. The primary goal is to spin a parallel reality and
teleport the audience into it. In that parallel reality, the audience will
experience “ the essence of their own consciousness, and reflect on spiritual
and moral questions.”
As you weave your story, you too can use rasas and immersive details
to help your audience traverse that journey with you.
Immersive Details
The challenge with telling a story is that there are two simultaneous
versions of it as you narrate it. The first is the version in your memory that
is playing like a film in your head and the other is the verbal version which
you narrate to your listeners. The level of detail between both of these
versions is different. Let us understand this with an example of narrating a
movie experience to your listeners.
Usual version:
“We got in our seats and the movie began. It was a great movie and the
action sequences were amazing! Especially, the entry of the superhero
where he fights like thousands of these weird bird creatures with his new
lighting axe.”
There is nothing wrong with this version, except that you have picked up
and narrated only conscious details. If you really want your audience to
experience that story like you did, you will need to bring in subconscious
details as well.
“We were barely able to control our excitement as the aroma of buttered
popcorn invited us to the food stalls before we settled in our red recliners.
The movie began with a flash of blue lightning through which the superhero
emerged! The sky was filled with these sabre-toothed flying dinosaurs like
creatures. We had goosebumps when he hit one of those creatures with his
crackling lighting axe!”
Here are some details to consider:
Fragrance
Example: “The aroma of buttered popcorn”
Smell is a powerful memory trigger. Everyone who goes to a movie theatre
can relate to the scent of popcorn. In the Avengers: Infinity Wars movie,
when Spiderman is sent a new suit in the middle of an action scene, he
exclaims “Mr. Stark, it smells like a new car in here!” In my TEDx talk,
‘Make yourself uncomfortable’, I narrate an incident from my childhood
swimming lessons and mention “the smell of chlorine” to teleport my
listeners to a swimming pool. The scent of mud when it meets the rain (it
has got a name – petrichor!) or the cologne that your father has settled on
for the longest time, or your partner's favourite shampoo – the olfactory
system of your body has a special relation with memory. Use it to activate
your listeners and transport them to your intended destination.
Colours
Example: “Red seats” and “flash of blue lightning”
You learnt to recognize colours as a toddler. Colour is an important aspect
of how your audience builds the scene in their head. Any renowned author
of fiction knows their limitations – they have only text as a medium for
their reader to replicate the picture they have in their mind. The best fiction
writers thrive on this limitation to an extent that you often hear the phrase
“the book was better than the movie”. Storytellers are flamboyant with
describing ‘colours’ to take their listeners on an experience.
Describe, don’t tell
Example: “The sky was filled with these sabre-toothed flying dinosaurs-like
creatures.”
The expression “the sky was filled” immediately describes what I want to
convey. If I just say “thousands”, it is a number that requires an extra step
of processing before your listener replicates the scene. “Sabre-toothed” is a
more descriptive expression than just “long and sharp” because it is more
accurately relatable to the scene.
Describe the internal journey
Example: “Barely able to control our excitement” and “had goosebumps”
People may have different reactions to the same stimulus. If you want your
listeners to feel what you felt, tell them what you felt! Do not assume that
they will process your feeling exactly like you felt it.
Sounds
Example: “crackling lightning axe”
With fragrance and colours, you appealed to the olfactory and optic systems
of the body. When you add the layer of sound, you appeal to the auditory
system and make your storytelling more intimate
In my opinion, the absolute master in sounds and storytelling details is the
comedian, Gabriel Iglesias. Obviously, he takes it too far with the sounds of
everything from shutting doors to driving cars, but watching his videos will
help you understand the power of simple stories when narrated with details.
Emotion
Most stories do not resonate because the speaker is either not excited or is
unable to convey emotion. If you do not relate to your story, do not narrate
it! It is tough to make listeners feel excited about something that does not
interest the speaker. Most people tell a story when they believe it to be
exciting, however, are not able to convey the same level of excitement. The
tools and techniques in this chapter will allow you to become the fibre optic
of stories – to convey excitement with almost no loss in energy. Ok I guess I
got a tad too excited there.
Pitch
Do not confuse pitch with volume. Volume is loudness. It is an indicator of
excitement but can be tiring if overused. Pitch, however, is Do Re Mi Fa So
La Ti (or Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni in Indian Sargam). I asked Mumbai’s
favourite English Radio Jockey, Hrishi K,
“Hrishi, if you could control only one of these elements of communication
– pitch, pause, or pace; what would you choose?”
“Any day I would choose pitch, Mudit”
“Why is that?”
“Well, imagine a Good morning said at your default pitch and a Good
morning wished with two notes higher! Makes almost all the difference in
the communication”
Watch the video of a professional vocalist rehearsing this scale. When they
sing a particular note, they have an intentional pitch. However, when you
speak, there is a high chance that most of your communication is on one or
two of these notes. A lullaby has the same couple of repeated notes; and
guess what lullabies do? Put the listener to sleep! Imagine if someone
shared this secret with Jigglypuff – people would not get their faces painted
on. (If you did not get the Jigglypuff reference, crawl out of that cave!) A
storyteller is able to command an influence on the audience’s heartbeat. It is
why the best movies make you feel part of the action and not just the
viewer.
Identify your default pitch. Almost always communicate a story a notch
above that pitch. When the exciting moment drops in, raise the pitch all the
way high and when the protagonist is through the climax, bring it back to
normal. When peace and sanctity prevail in your story or you are sharing a
secret or intimate emotion, speak at a pitch lower than your default pitch.
As a professional speaker, it is important for me to keep my pitch
intentional to convey the excitement that I feel. Here is an exercise I do
once a week and before any speech to practice modulating my pitch. Say
the following out loud and increase your pitch by a step in each subsequent
statement, such that your first statement is spoken at your lowest pitch and
the final one at the highest.
I (lowest pitch)
I can
I can control
I can control my
I can control my pitch
I can control my pitch and
I can control my pitch and inspire
I can control my pitch and inspire you (Highest pitch)
22
“Check 1, 2, 3,..”
How to deliver a compelling speech?
I walked out of one of those little aircraft on a small military-cum-civilian
airport in eastern Uttar Pradesh. The luggage was already waiting for me,
and I picked up my small trolley bag and found my way out of the airport.
My sunglasses are no match for the bright afternoon sun beaming in its full
might. A white Toyota Innova was waiting with the Indian flag proudly
fluttering on a little metal rod above the right headlight. I sat in the car for a
two-hour drive to head to a cluster of villages where I was to coach a client
to become more influential in his speeches. But this was no ordinary client
and no ordinary time. He was a political leader of one of India’s largest
political parties and he asked for my help in framing his message and
polishing his delivery for the upcoming Union elections.
As the car did a constant 80kmph on the two-lane highway in the middle of
the forest, the trees racing past me took me to the time when I was in the
fifth grade and spoke on the stage for the first time. It was a story-telling
contest, and my story was called the camel and the pig, or maybe the camel
and the sheep, either one of them. When little Mudit won that contest and
INR 500 as the prize, he got some appreciation that made him a lifelong
student of public speaking. In this chapter, I want to share my most
important lessons and secrets which I learnt on this journey – from telling a
story on the school stage to coaching top leaders.
All great movements, revolutions, and tectonic shifts in ideas were born in
the mind of a person who propagated them through communication. Oneto-one communication is effective but comparatively inefficient with time
being the bottleneck. Public speaking is leverage - the opportunity to
multiply impact. It is difficult to get 15 minutes of uninterrupted speaking
time in a one to one conversation. Imagine having 15 minutes with 100
people in your audience and a microphone in your hand – that is 25 hours of
prime, uninterrupted communication time! What you say and how you say
will multiply your influence in either direction. If you do well, that gets
multiplied, and if you bomb it, unfortunately, that gets multiplied too.
Perhaps, this is one of the reasons public speaking is one of the most
common fears of people. Nevertheless, this exponential impact opportunity
is the reason why you need to be great at this skill. If and when you have
the opportunity to hold that microphone and impact lives, we want you to
be ready. While this segment deserves a separate book of its own (don’t
give us ideas!), we will address the most critical points here to get you
started on your journey towards becoming a terrific public speaker.
Content
We discussed this in the chapter on presenting better arguments but it might
be important to revisit: ‘Complicating what is simple is the mark of a
charlatan. Simplifying what is complicated is the mark of genius.’ As
Einstein once said, if you can’t explain it to your grandmother, you haven’t
understood it.The best speakers in the world have the ability to condense
their message, ideology, goal, or call to action in one simple message. For
example, “I have a dream….” urged the audience to end racial divide and
move towards equality. It delivered this point through a beautiful tapestry of
stories, analogies, and poetry, though it was just one key message. Why is
this necessary? When you say too many things to your audience at once,
think of it like throwing a dozen darts towards the board all at once. Not
many will hit the board, let alone hit bulls-eye. Think of your audience’s
attention span as that board. With one dart at a time precisely aimed at the
board, you have the opportunity to be surgical in your goal. Too many, and
you lose them.
Your one key goal, message, or call to action may be dissected into up to
three sub-messages. These sub-messages may further be elaborated through
sub-sub messages each, but, ultimately, they all have to build up to that one
key point.
During my career as a strategy consultant, I was once heading to a client
meeting when my boss’ boss’ boss decided to join us. No pressure at all,
right?!
On the way he asked me “So Mudit, what are we telling our client today?”
I began my long rant about our research, traffic study, and regression
analysis. Then he interrupted me sharply after 30 seconds, and assertively
asked,
“Mudit, if you had to just say one sentence to the client before they walked
out of the room, what would that sentence be?”
The silence that followed was deafening and seemed to last a lifetime. I had
worked on this project for three and a half months and we had 574 slides in
our presentation. Now, I was being asked to condense it into one sentence!
That bitter lesson taught me the importance of brevity and of having one
core, clear, concise message.
Writing the speech
When I sit down to write my speech, I write this one key message in 10 to
15 words. It is not a short exercise, but one that takes significant time and
multiple edits. Most people begin writing the speech from its introduction
and almost immediately meet a block. Once you lock your core message,
everything else in the speech can be written and edited around this, like the
planets around the sun.
The core message of your speech should ideally drive your audience to act.
It is good to define the emotions your audience will feel after your speech,
however, what the speech drives the audience to do is key. Feelings inspire
action, but action alone drives results. Once you have your core message
pinned, the next section to write is the conclusion of your speech. Think
about what are the final few sentences they will hear from you before you
step away. If they forget everything that you have said but this, what would
it be? This is where you hit the nail on the head and inspire them to act.
Without this call to action, your speech is only a feel-good time filler.
The third section you want to write is the introduction of your speech.
The introduction is a sales pitch for the rest of your speech.
If you don’t hook your audience in the first one to two minutes of your
speech, you have probably lost them for the rest of it. The final step is to
write the body of your speech – key points that you want your audience to
know.
Introduction of the speech
The goal of a speech is to empower them to do; the goal of a speech’s
introduction is to engage them to listen. You cannot influence a disengaged
audience. At the outset of your speech, you need to convince yourself that
you’re worth listening to. This is done in part by making the introduction
relevant to your audience and not about your own self. It doesn’t matter if
you are Megan Fox. In the hierarchy of well-being, people usually put
themselves first. Many speakers begin their speeches making it about them!
A little metric that I learnt from Communication Expert Peter Meyers is to
balance the “I/You” ratio in the introduction to your speech. Typically, the
more “You’s” than the “I’s”, the safer your audience might feel in knowing
the speech is about them. You may often have more “I’s” but the
overarching principle to remember is staying relevant to your audience.
Many pieces of advice about starting a speech range from asking a question
or telling a story, to surprising them with a fact or statistic. All or none of
these approaches may work depending on your natural style as a speaker
and the setting of your audience. A method I use for building the
introduction is thinking about the emotion I want the audience to feel in the
speech’s introduction. Most speakers imagine themselves on stage when
they are planning their speech. I follow a seemingly counterintuitive
approach – I imagine the audience. This helps in two ways; helps me build
from their perspective – I want them laughing, surprised, anxious, guilty,
attentive or motivated when I am speaking about a particular section.
Secondly, it manages my state of mind – when I step on the platform, I feel
as if I have already seen this audience a dozen times and am fully prepared
to deliver to them. I often ask my organisers to send photos of the location
of the speech and the seating of the audience to further bridge the gap
between my vision of the speech and its reality.
Body of the speech
A lot of what we have already discussed applies to the body of the speech. I
will share some highlights which help you become more influential through
your speech.
Here are two thumb rules that govern content when I partner with my
executive clients to build their speeches: Be lavish in praise and specific in
critique. Cede credit when it goes well and take responsibility when it goes
sour. Here is an example of two contexts to explain this:
“The company has surpassed its revenue target once again. Each one of you
here has made this possible!”
“The company has missed its revenue target once again. We need to
evaluate what went wrong and what we will do differently going forward.”
Did you notice the difference between the “you” and “we” usage? I invite
you to explore how you can use either or both in the context of your
speeches.
When you state an opinion or argument, always back it up with evidence.
What comprises “evidence” in a speech? Here is the order of priority:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Statistic
Fact
Example
Anecdote
To understand using this in more detail, refer to the chapter on presenting
better arguments.
Delivery
Body language
If you were alone and faced a thousand archers in an open battlefield with
their bows loaded, would you stand there with open gestures or run to
crouch under a rock? One of the reasons public speaking feels scary is
because you are on stage, usually alone, facing hundreds of people in the
audience. The spotlight is on you, and hundreds of curious eyes are piercing
you from around the room. You begin to feel nervous and while there is no
rock to crouch under, you take comfort in folding your hands or in the
warmth of your pockets. Would you, however, crouch under a rock when
you were with your loved ones in a safe place? You would rather be
comfortable and relaxed. This is why you are all animated with your hands
when sharing a story with your friend.
You need to trick your biology to consider the stage a safe place for you to
open your body and face the audience. When you face the audience without
fear and use your hands and body in synchronisation with your content. The
other important aspect about the body is walking on stage. Many speakers
either settle on one spot on the stage, like a newsreader, or pace from one
end to the other as if waiting outside the operation theatre. When you walk
on stage, do it with a purpose, with slow and conscious steps. Remember
that you need not just walk sideways but can also move towards and away
from the audience. When I make an important point that I want to impress
on the audience, I move toward them right at the edge of the front of the
stage to highlight its importance.
Your eyes are as important for conveying your message as your tongue.
When you don’t look at your audience, you risk losing them. Here is a
technique to make eye contact with most of your audience without
constantly turning around like a table fan. Divide your audience
geometrically into six equal sections. Speak a few sentences looking at one
segment and then move on to the next and so on.
Voice
Flat pitch and constant rhythm – describe almost all of the verbal business
communication today. Please read the chapter on storytelling to understand
why and how to work on this.
Group discussions
In this section, we have highlighted specific techniques to assert yourself in
professional group discussions and add value to them.
Short ramps
Often people will do immense context-setting in a group discussion
scenario before arriving at the heart of their point. Remember that you may
have a maximum of 60 uninterrupted seconds under which you need to
ramp, make, and conclude your point.
Finding your way in the discussion
Sometimes, in the heat of the discussion, you may find it difficult to sneak
your point in. There are not enough gaps for you to come in, and cutting
somebody off appears rude. Here is a technique to sneak in without waiting
for the gap and without sounding rude. As you notice that the person who is
speaking is moving towards his conclusion after presenting his main point,
jump in to acknowledge what they said and then advance. Example: “Rahul
has a point there. To build on that…” If you want to disagree, it could sound
like “Thank you for bringing that up Rahul. It is important but I had a
different line of thought…”
Not sure about the topic
Never comment about a topic about which you have no clue. In the short
term, it is a gamble to sound smart and it may work out sometimes;
however, in the long term, it is not good for your personal brand. Wait for
others to present their facts and opinion on the topic. Once you have enough
data to make at least one opinion confidently, you may present an opinion
with a disclaimer “Not an expert on this topic, but here is what I
understand…”
Changing your opinion in a discussion
It is a group discussion, not a debate. When presented with facts and
opinions that impact your initial views, be comfortable in being vulnerable
and having the humility to verbalise this shift in opinion. For example,
“Based on what I am hearing, I think there is some merit to believe…”
Impromptu speaking
I have a confession to make. There are times when I am at an event, sitting
in the audience, minding my own business, when out of nowhere the master
of ceremonies launches a surgical strike by saying “Mudit, can you please
share a few words?”
My stream of subconsciousness gets interrupted by applause from the
waking members of the audience even before I can protest. My feet get a
mind of their own and begin to walk me towards the podium. I try to buy
time by checking the microphone and embarrassingly smiling back at the
audience, and then the show begins.
Three minutes later, as I walk off stage, some members of the audience
inquisitively ask how I managed to speak “spontaneously” riddled with
facts, humour and stories, all in three minutes, I let go of an embarrassing
forced laughter as if I have no clue what they are talking about.
Through this confession today, I wish to uncover how I deliver those
seemingly spontaneous speeches.
1. Prepare for spontaneity.
If I have the slightest hint that I may be called on stage, I mentally
start rehearsing the speech. I gather one or two comments on previous
speakers, pull up a humorous story around the event or theme, and
think of one key message that will help the audience.
2. Keep my story-lens on all the time.
When I see little children playing, pigeons fluttering, insects hopping
from plant to plant, sitting in a public location or travelling, I keep
looking around for stories that have lessons. You will not find them,
because you were busy scrolling through your Twitter feed as these
stories were happening. If I notice even the smallest of noteworthy
stories, I pull up my phone and immediately store them.
3. Listen.
We are either speaking through our mouths, or in our heads. We do
not have the time or patience to silence ourselves and immerse
ourselves in someone else’s story and feel what they feel. As I walk
around the room listening to people, I gather a sense of their
preferences and it is no coincidence that the impromptu speech that I
deliver later was so bespoke that they feel elated.
4. Be brief.
Good speakers know when to speak; great speakers know when to
shut up. People often compensate for their lack of preparedness on a
topic by speaking for longer. However, most of it is rambling without
much content. Be crisp and get off the stage before people stop
listening. Return of attention per unit of time on stage needs to be
maximised; not the time on the stage itself.
Feedback and improvement
I thought I was a fantastic public speaker until I watched a video of my
speech. Perfection is not a goal but a journey. At any point, if you believe
you have delivered enough speeches or know it all, it is a dangerous place
to be in. After delivering 1600+ speeches and workshops to 450,000+
people from 48+ countries, I still think there is a lot to learn. Here is how I
get better:
1.
Watching videos of top speakers
I watch speech videos thrice. The first time, I consume it like a
member of the audience. The second time, I switch off the video and
focus only on the content and voice. The final time, I mute the audio
and observe their body language.
2.
Watching my own speech videos
You are your most critical judge. Watch your own speech videos at
least three times like I explained above. Believe me, initially you
won’t be very proud of yourself. Make notes about what you did well
and be critical about what you could do differently.
3.
Feedback
Hunt for feedback on your speeches from anybody who would give
them. I used to take feedback only from people who I thought were
expert public speakers. Once, right after a speech to 1700+ people in
a large auditorium in Mumbai, I was waiting backstage with people
queued up for photos and questions. One 19-year-old boy came to me
and said “Can I share some feedback for you?” I will be honest – I
felt as if someone had punched a hole in my big, fat ego and I felt a
rush of rage towards my face. It took effort to collect myself and I
requested him to explain.
“English is not my first language. You spoke some things so fast and
the others in such complicated vocabulary, I could not understand.”
Take feedback not just from experts but from everyone who is willing
to offer you one. You may also use the feedback cycle outlined in the
chapter around building a personal brand at the workplace. I humbly
accept feedback from anyone who has heard the speech, regardless of
their expertise on the topic. Not all of the feedback is relevant, but
some of it is; stay hungry for it.
23
Elephant in the room
How to have a critical conversation?
Have you ever scripted an important conversation? It is not a bad idea. The
problem is that your interlocutor, more often than not, is also following a
script – only a different one! You both walk out of the room dissatisfied and
thinking about all the things you could have said and how that could have
gone completely differently. I call this the curious case of clashing scripts.
You might wonder why this is. Well, you need no Sherlock to solve this
particular case because it stems from our common primitive need –
prioritising ourselves over others. In a critical conversation, both parties
have different scripts, each yielding them a greater benefit than the other.
They are not “selfish” people; they are just, well, people.
A critical conversation for the purposes of this chapter is any conversation
that is high-stakes and may involve conflicting priorities where you need to
convince, influence, or inspire to move closer towards your intended result.
There is a typical path these conversations take: The parties start the
conversation with some forced small talk, start pushing their agenda and
highlight its importance, play a verbal tug of war on the priorities, numbers,
and logistics; and, finally, either one person or both walk away disappointed
and wondering if they want to continue with this relationship for much
longer.
Identify and acknowledge their outcome and
emotion
In your preparation for a critical conversation, identify the agenda of your
interlocutor and their emotion associated with that agenda. Let’s pick an
example. A manager needs to meet with a team member, Arun, who is
expecting a promotion this year. However, due to some reasons, he cannot
be promoted this year and the manager is the person to feed him this bitter
pill. Let us assume the small talk is through and we are stepping in to the
thick of the action.
Manager: So, as you know Arun, the company has had a difficult few
quarters overall, and, ultimately, we as employees need to share that burden.
Arun: Uh-huh, what would that mean?
Manager: Well, we are pausing most promotions for this year and you have
been impacted.
A: Are you serious right now? Our team’s revenue has only grown and I
have been amongst few of the top performers!
M: Yes, I agree. Unfortunately, the company does not have the budget to
sustain these promotions in this cycle. I am sure if you repeat a similar
performance, we can consider your case next year.
A: But what about all the work I did this year? I really needed this
promotion and you know that!
In this conversation, Arun’s agenda is to defend his promotion – he
obviously wants a higher compensation. But, the emotion goes beyond that
– he has a need to be recognized for this good work and he trusts the
organisation to duly reward him. In this conversation, however, notice that
none of Arun’s needs are being met – neither the outcome nor the emotion
associated with it.
Let us explore an alternate way this conversation could’ve taken.
Manager: Arun, your performance year-long has been splendid. We all have
been expecting your promotion this year. Quite frankly, I think you deserve
one.
Arun: Glad you think so. I was wondering if this was being noticed; you
know, in the middle of this slowdown and all. Anyway, why bring it up?
M: I’ll come straight to it. Our team has broken all past records and this has
largely been due to your efforts. Unfortunately, the overall impact on the
company has not been great.
A: Uh huh, what do you mean?
M: Despite your and our best efforts, it looks like the company will not be
able to offer you a promotion this year.
A: But how is this my fault? We have done better than any year for all I am
concerned.
M: You have. And we all see that. There is no doubt that you deserve this
promotion this year.
A: I don’t know… I was really looking forward to this. Not sure how I’ll
share this with my family.
M: It is indeed difficult. How can I support you here?
A: Can I at least get a better raise if not a promotion?
M: Yes, I am sure you could do with a better raise. I am already talking to
the management about it. I have presented your case as well as I could. I am
confident it should go through. What else?
A: Also, we are heavily understaffed in the eastern region. Can you try for
more budget?
M: With your performance in the other regions, it should not be a difficult
case to make. On it. What else?
A: I guess that’s about it. This is really disappointing, but thanks for trying
your best.
Arun may not be completely pleased with the above conversation because
he still has not achieved his intended outcome. However, by taking the time
to understand and specifically acknowledge Arun’s emotions in the
beginning and throughout the conversation, the manager has been able to
protect Arun’s relationship with himself and probably also with the
organisation. He left the room feeling recognised and understood. When
you begin a critical conversation with someone, identify what they need and
how they feel; acknowledge these, and then push your agenda.
Separate the problem from the person
The other barrier to having an effective critical conversation is
presuppositions about the person. When you know somebody and they are
in your “bad people'' bucket, you carry the conversation a lot differently
than how you would with someone else. In such cases, practice separating
the problem from the person. Let us understand this with an example. Any
similarity to actual persons, especially to those who’re married, is purely
intentional.
Wife: I have told you so many times to clean the basin after you shave.
Why are you so dirty?
Here, the wife has not separated the problem from the person; she has
attacked the person. The husband will most probably become defensive and
argue about what is not dirty because now his ego is on the line.
Wife: I have told you so many times to clean the basin after you shave. It is
a dirty habit.
This may elicit a less animated reaction from the husband. The problem of
the dirty basin has now been separated from how the husband is as a person.
Frame your response in a solution-oriented
language
Wife: I have told you so many times to clean the basin after you shave. It
helps keep it clean for when I use it.
It is harder to argue with solution-oriented language and it is more likely to
elicit a defensive response. A solution-oriented statement also facilitates
more communication and leads to action, rather than the parties getting
dirty in the mud fighting over the problem.
Examples:
Problem-focused: Why is this report so terrible?w
Solution-oriented. How can this report be better?
Problem-focused: Please do not be late.
Solution-oriented. Please be on time.
Problem-focused: Can you not leave the door open every time you walk in?
Solution-oriented. Can you close the door every time on your way in?
Problem-focused: Why do you always stink?
Solution-oriented. Can you explore using a different soap or a deodorant?
The power of powerful enquiry
Clarity is not an addition but rather a subtraction game. The more
assumptions and trivialities you are able to subtract, the more clearly
you are able to see what lies ahead of you.
It is unfortunate that in many conversations, we treat our assumptions as
facts and plan accordingly. Human beings have multiple levels of
consciousness and what is being said often stems from a deeper feeling or
reason. Often for a conversation that requires invasive surgery, you only
end up scratching the skin.
Inquiry is the weapon that allows you to drill into the subtext of your
interlocutor and identify their needs and emotions. A good inquirer is lavish
with questions and stingy with statements. She will not accept what is given
to her and will use questions to seek to understand what lies beneath the
surface.
Why vs How questions
The first simple trick to perform a powerful inquiry is to replace your
“why” questions with “how” questions. “Why” questions elicit defensive
responses and push them to further dwell on the problem and justify it.
“How” questions help frame an action-plan to crawl out of the problem and
figure out the next steps.
Examples:
Why question: Why is this report so terrible?
How question: How can this report be better?
Why question: Why are you so late?
How question: How can you try to arrive earlier next time?
Why question: Why did you do that?
How question: How can you do it differently?
Open-ended questions
When you ask close-ended questions, you get close-ended responses. This
may be effective when you are looking at a binary (yes or no) answer but
not relevant to your exploratory mission. Ask open-ended questions and the
responses will be panoramic.
Examples:
“I feel so frustrated at work. I don’t know what to do!”
Close ended response: Did you try speaking to your manager?
Open ended response: I understand. Tell me more about it?
“She just won’t respond to my texts!”
Close-ended response: Did you try calling her or visiting her?
Open ended response: What are your possible options here?
Acknowledging with meaning
How often have you shared something and heard them say “I understand”
and you sit there and wonder “Huh, did he really understand?”. While any
acknowledgment is better than no acknowledgement, let us explore how to
take it one step further.
“I have been working for the last 6-7 weekends. My health has gone for a
toss, my weight is over the roof, and I haven’t spoken to my parents since
ages. Hating this!”
“Oh yikes! Feels like the work is really taking a toll on your personal life.”
Here, the acknowledgement is more specific and goes a step further to
summarise what the person is feeling. Most people would respond to it with
something along the lines of “Hey, why don’t you look for another job?” or
“Can you try doing some interval training before your day begins?” While
your intentions for them may be well, selling a solution is not
acknowledgement. You cannot convince someone about your solution if
you have not convinced them you understand their problem.
If you want your inquiry to feel meaningful and not like a police
interrogation, you can embed acknowledgement in the process.
“Oh yikes! Feels like work is really taking a toll on your personal life. What
will your next few weeks look like?”
Most acknowledgements begin with “Oh so what you are saying is…” This
seemingly harmless way to begin your sentence may have two challenges.
First, it may make them defensive and they may follow up with “Oh what I
really mean is…” Secondly, they may respond with “Oh no, that’s not what
I am saying. Everyone on the office floor agrees. Ask Pooja!”
Begin your acknowledgements with “So what I’m hearing is…” With this
little transition, you transfer the accountability of the success of the
communication on yourself and put your interlocutor at ease.
Pauses
We all hate awkward pauses in a conversation. Do you rush in to fill the
silence of a conversation? After you ask a question and they finish their
response, let the silence sit and do not disturb it to the point it might even
get slightly awkward. People usually share a ready-to-use answer for most
questions. However, when you let the silence sit, more often than not they
will rush to fill it and share something unscripted. That little piece of
unscripted sharing is your key to go deeper in your exploration. Pick up
from there and move forward. Pauses also help them realise that you are
really processing what they just said, and it gives them breathing space to
collect themselves.
Zooming out of the content
“We cannot pay 5 lakhs for this contract. It’s just too expensive.”
“Sir but I need to pay employees and have costs. I cannot do it below this
price”
“I know but we also have bills to pay, you will need to reduce it”
“I have already given you the maximum possible discount sir. I cannot do it
anymore.”
“We had told you we were tight on budgets this year. Please consider it”
“We have tried to do our best to give you the lowest quotation sir.”
This is an example of a common theme in business communication – both
parties keep highlighting they want something and why they want it while
the other party responds with their version of the same thing. They both are
playing in the mud, getting dirty, and not getting to an outcome anytime
soon. The focus in the above conversation is the “price”.
This is not unique to business communication today but rather to humans in
general since time immemorial. It was the month of May in 1453 and
Mehmed II, the sultan of the Ottoman empire, had been firing at the walls
of Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) in an attempt to capture it. It was
slowly dawning on the residents and the army of the Byzantine empire that
their beloved capital might be finally taken, if not for some divine
intervention. Meanwhile, it had been reported that inside the walls of
Constantinople, in the middle of this invasion, the generals were bickering
over who would have the most guns at their disposal to ramp up a defence.
The leaders had to remind the generals that if the walls fell, it would be the
end of their empire and hence they needed to look at the larger picture to
cooperate.
Unless you shift the focus to something larger and mutually beneficial, it is
difficult to achieve a reasonable outcome.
“We cannot pay 5 lakhs for this contract. It’s just too expensive.”
“I understand this is expensive for you. I also know that this is time
sensitive and you need to share confidential data for which you need to trust
us”
“Yes, that is true. But the price is too high”
“We want to have our best people on your project and don’t wish to
compromise on that. This will allow us to complete this project in record
time and also ensure the data is in good hands”
“I appreciate that. We expect nothing less from you”
“We do not want to compromise on either of these to sell this project to you.
I trust you will allow us to feel comfortable in being able to afford this team
we will assign to you for this project”
When you lift your interlocutor in a virtual drone and show them the birdseye view of the situation, you impact their perspective. They are not just
thinking about one thing, but rather all things important to them. Take that
opportunity to step out of the mud and refocus on the subject of the
conversation. When going in loops on the content, zoom out and highlight
the context.
Reframing your questions
“Do you want your team to grow?”
I was pitching to a top executive of a consulting firm for my coaching
services. He seemed reluctant to purchase my service for various reasons.
At that moment, I asked him the above question.
“Yeah, well, they are already growing” he responded.
I knew he did not want to continue the conversation. I wished him well,
pushed the chair back under the table, and walked out. Being a lifelong
student of communication, I began to analyse how I could have driven that
conversation differently.
I had another pitch meeting the following week where I won the contract. I
have abridged a section of it below.
“Do you not want your team to grow?”
“Of Course I do not want that!”
“Well then, let’s get to work?”
When you reframe a question, remove the focus from what they would
want. Focus on isolating what they do not want. This is a little tricky to
understand and apply. Let us consider some more examples:
Original frame: Do you want to work out?
Reframing: Do you want to remain unfit? or What does it cost you to
remain unfit?
Original frame: Can you increase their salaries?
Reframing: Would you want them dissatisfied with their salaries? Or Can
you afford for them to lose interest in this work?
Original frame: Will you please help them?
Reframing: Will you sit back and watch them struggle? Or What will
happen if they don’t succeed by themselves?
Closing a critical conversation
As you draw close to the conversation, summarise (or ask to summarise) the
next steps, timeline, and persons responsible. This is important because in
the myriad of agendas and opinions discussed in the meeting, the outcome
may get lost. Further, for a combined agenda, people may not know if they
are responsible or not. This helps immediately clarify both of these. The last
thing you want to hear in a follow-up meeting is “Oh I didn’t know I was
supposed to do that”
Finally, as advised in the chapter around better meetings, never close the
conversation on logistics. Always take a moment to highlight the purpose
and context of all parties involved. This ensures the participants leave the
meeting on a high note and in sync with each other.