Straightforward Communication

She said, in her muffled voice, “The happiest thing right now is, I learned to talk openly. It works really, really well. Today, you thought I didn’t want you to come to the Space Needle, so you made a face. That’s insanity. You have to tell everybody what you want, and then ask them what they want. And if I tell you that I don’t want you to go, and you say, ‘Well, I want to go,’ then we talk about it. In relationships, too, you have to always tell what you’re thinking. Don’t hide anything. Take chances.” (View Highlight)

Communication of needs should be a course all students must attend. The plain, clear communicators I know in life have a life that is closer to their vision that their emotional state needs, and have a much easier time untangling themselves from sticky interpersonal conflict.

One of the things that make interpersonal Conflict challenging is that we can never truly control the actions of another human being. We can influence, persuade, inspire, or negotiate, but we can never directly act upon another person’s perceptions or directly change their Reference Levels. (Location 4556)