📄 The one move that will always change every interaction for the better

Problems and complications between people are unavoidable: no matter how close or functional a relationship is, there will always be moments of tension or struggle or strife.

Can be with a buyer, partner, manager, supplier, makes no difference. You always need to find a way forward, with everyone, if you want things to happen.

There's many ways to handle challenging situations with people, but there's one 'move' you should make before everything else:

Making the other person feel seen.

Because one of the worst things people do to each other, usually inadvertently, is give other people the impression that we don't acknowledge them, that they aren't important, that they don't deserve to be heard.

Of course you're not like that, you wouldn't do that, it's not who you are.

But unfortunately, we all do it at times, especially on occasions when we really care about some outcome, and we really need the other person to see what we're saying.

When that happens, you're working hard to advance your own message, for all the good reasons...

But because that other person doesn't feel acknowledged, your efforts are mostly in vain, if not counter-productive.

The solution?

Make the other person feel seen.

I had that experience a few years ago, when the daughter of a friend was freaking out because of my friend's well-being, spinning out of control, and transferring all her stress and anxiety onto her mother and the entire family.

Doing things for the right reasons, getting the opposite of what she wanted, and making things worse by trying harder.

So I turned to face her, took hold of her hands, looked her in the eye and literally said: "I see you. I see how much you're hurting, and how hard you're trying".

Instantly, her shoulders relaxed, her breathing stopped being shallow, and her anxiety level dropped considerably. After that, she joined us all in helping solve the problems at hand, hardly any stress or anxiety to be seen.

That one move, to explicitly make another person feels seen, is a no-fail, first step to making any interaction or situation better. Whatever other tactic or approach you have in mind, start there.