Make-Wrong Delema

I have a client who came to me last week and said, "I'm so sick and tired of making people wrong and having to be right. It doesn't feel very great when I'm with people and doing this. How can I stop it?!"

You can only stop habits when you are aware of them.

And ALL human beings make people wrong. It's what we do.

Now, I'm being really straight about it here but usually its more covert than this. On this blog you won't get the typical BS that us humans perpetuate throughout the world. The difference between me and you (to make my point) is that I KNOW I'm full of it and you still believe that what you think and speak is the truth!

I'm no better than you because I still speak BS. I just am aware of it being BS.

Making people wrong is as common as breathing. And if you take a wonderful program like the Dale Carnegie Course you can get really good at making people wrong and having them appreciate it!

How about making people right? How about taking on that?

Think about it. The next time you are in a conversation and someone is sharing an opinion that you absolutely HATE -give up making them wrong and think about how you can interact in a way that doesn't make them wrong.

An example...

My father always speaks about how incompetent his boss is. He'll tell me a story about a decision he made that created a real down cycle in morale (according to my father). So when I thought about it I realized that I really wasn't there and I know his boss. He probably didn't intend for the loss in morale to happen but he made a decision nonetheless. I could also see that in my father's world he was completely convinced and if I was looking from HIS context the whole thing would make sense and it would occur to me exactly the same way it is occurring to him. So I dove in and explored his context -his point of view. It was great! No resisting his view, or strategizing how wrong he was and how I could really teach him a lesson that my view is actually the right one!

All of this brought me to having a completely different conversation with him. I asked him "If it's so bad there for you and you do speak about this often -why don't you leave? Why not find a more competent employer/boss?"

He ended up leaving that job and starting something else on his own and he LOVES it!

I was able to really help him and contribute to him whereas before I was only tolerating him.

I love the latter!

Or you could turn yourself in. You could catch yourself right there in the middle of making someone wrong and say, "You know what? I just realized that my intention in this conversation is to make you wrong and I'm just not committed to that."

Once you start to turn yourself in to people you'll stop the habit very quickly. And it will be fun for you!