How To Click With People

Alan Kirschner, Husband & Father,Veteran, Businessman, Benefactor and Mentor 1921-2012, RIP

by Dr. Rick Kirschner on May 15, 2012

My Dad has completed his journey and left this earth. On a day filled with so many tears, his passing was an amazing experience. Dad left us just the way he had told us he wanted to in our conversations about this over the years – quick, no great suffering, no sitting around unable to truly live, visited by people feeling sorry for him. He passed with all three of his children around him.

Dad kept his independence through his entire life. A loving father, a devoted husband, a successful businessman, a proud veteran, generous to all, a serving spirit, and a sense of humor and wit that kept surprising us and delighting us through our lives. He faced many challenges, as we all do in life, but with such incredible resilience, will and good humor, that we thought he just might live forever. And in a way, he does.

He lives on through my siblings and myself. Consider: My sister’s compassionate heart and service to others. My brother’s sense of humor and an ability to click with anyone, anywhere. My creativity, intellectual curiosity and my way with words.

Dad looked out for us his whole life. He helped me go to medical school, even when that the type of medicine that interested me was way off the beaten path and the medicine something he knew nothing about. His interest in my life was consistent and continuous, and so, I told him everything. And through all these years, he set an example for me of what a positive attitude, humility and commitment can accomplish in this crazy world. I will forever be in his debt, though he would reject this idea completely.

Life is change. Love at this stage of life seems more and more to be about letting go. We must let him go, and so we do. But there’s much of him that we get to keep, too. I am filled with such gratitude for the time I had with him, for every conversation, every meal. His influence and example will live on through each of us, his children and grandchildren.

Though he barely looked like himself at the end, he was so incredibly beautiful to my eyes and heart in his final hours. Somehow, none of us really saw this moment coming. And now, just a few hours after his passing, in my mind, I see him driving down the road in his convertible, top down, smiling (with that irrepressible and ever present smile) and at peace with himself and the incredible life he so fully lived, my Mother, the love of his life, again at his side, giggling like a schoolgirl just to be around him again. Or I see him as a young man, leaning on a fence, his whole life in front of him, that confident grin on his face and his eyes aglow, eager to see what tomorrow will bring. I think that’s how he’s going forward, even now.

Rest in peace, Dad. Thanks for everything.

If you would like to see some of Dad’s life story, you are invited to view a multimedia webpage I created in preparing for his 90th birthday celebration. You will find it at http://theartofchange.com/Alan/

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Listen Even When You Think It’s A Bad Idea!

by Dr. Rick Kirschner on May 14, 2012

Most people miss out on most the information presented to them, because their listening strategy is insufficient to the task. But listening in a connected way, as I’ve described more than a few times on this blog, can be particularly powerful when dealing with people who seem to think they know everything. (Certain teenagers, parents, and bosses fit easily under this label.) If you tell someone he has a bad idea, his polarity response to your criticism pretty much guarantees that he will have to act on his bad idea just to prove you wrong.

But if, instead of opposing him, you look and sound and talk like what you’re hearing makes all the sense in the world, and then ask a question that reveals the badness of the idea, like “And how will you pay for that?” or, “How am I supposed to do that?” Or, “How do you know that this won’t worsen the problem?” you’ll spare both of you the cost of acting on a bad idea.

If you’d care to leave a comment, I’m listening!

Be well,

Rick

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The Secret To Getting An Emotional Person To Calm Down

by Dr. Rick Kirschner on May 7, 2012

First, the hard truth: You simply cannot reason with an upset person. But did you know that you can get an upset person to become reasonable? It’s true, and in today’s post, I’ll tell you the secret to doing just that.

Ready? Here it comes. CONNECTED LISTENING! Yep, when you look like, sound like, and talk like their emotional language makes all the sense in the world, you connect with people in spite of their emotional state. And then ask a question, and continue to backtrack and ask another question after that, until you have the who, the what, the where, the when and the how of it, you’ll notice that the upset person calms down.

Why does this work? Because when a person is upset, their brain isn’t connected to their mouth. Instead, their stress is doing all the talking. By listening in a connected way, you use your influence with them to engage them and lead them to finding their brain so they can start making sense.

The takeaway? Emotional people become more reasonable, when you listen to them in a connected way.

Got any examples? Or where you tried something else? Your feedback and comments below.

Be well,

Rick

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In Communication, Begin With The End In Mind

by Dr. Rick Kirschner on April 30, 2012

The first question that a doctor is taught to ask a patient is, “What is your chief complaint?” more commonly expressed as “What’s wrong?” or “What’s your problem?” I’ve observed that everyone has the answer to those questions. Everyone knows what’s wrong, what’s the problem, and what is their chief complaint. Everybody knows what they don’t want, including you. And complaining is easy, anyone can complain. But I can tell you what your problem is. The problem is that if all you know is what you don’t want, you will get more of it. In part, this is the nature of sanity. And in part, it is a function of your reticular activating system, a group of cells in your brain stem that acts like radar for relevance to wants and don’t wants.

Tell little Johnny not to ‘bother those people,’ and he will immediately proceed to do so. Tell little Johnny not to ‘play with the cigarette butts in the ashtray,’ and that’s exactly what he’ll do. The radar for relevance kicks in when you’re getting married, and suddenly it seems the whole world is getting married too! Having a baby? It’s a baby boom! Buying a certain car? There goes a truckload of them! What you notice is relevant to what you want, or don’t want. And if all you know is what you don’t want, you will get more of it.

That’s why the challenge in life, and in the Art of Persuasion, is to define a direction, and organize yourself around that outcome. You need to know what you are aiming towards, what you intend to achieve, and why you intend to achieve it, or you just keep cycling back to the easy stuff, the complaints, problems, and obstacles that you can’t seem to avoid.

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Resistance Is Not A Thing Or Character Trait. It’s a RESULT!

April 23, 2012

Some of the best ideas are met with resistance. Important solutions fail to be implemented because of resistance. For our purposes, if you meet resistance, it is useful to assume that you’ve put it there, to think of resistance as a form of feedback about how you’ve gone about your persuasive efforts.

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Is Persuasion Manipulative? The Answer Is Paradoxical.

April 16, 2012

If your concern is that others might use these same skills to manipulate you against your own interests, I have some important news for you. All it takes for you to be manipulated to act against your own interests is to surrender your ability to engage in critical thinking.

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MicroExpressions: See for yourself! Plus, FREE webinar on the 18th.

April 9, 2012

Dr. K’s blog is pleased to share a video from guest posters Patryk and Kasia Wezowski, on how to read micro expressions. If you enjoyed the show Lie to Me, you’re going to love this! And if you’re in business, you’re going to need this, too!

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Guest Post: Reading Micro Expressions and The Art of Persuasion

April 2, 2012

If you’ve ever wanted to learn how to make sense out of fleeting small changes in the face of someone you were negotiating with, this is your chance. Read this article on micro expressions, and then register for the free April 18 webinar.

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