I decided to do another look back at the blog posts I'd done in the last two years of blogging on this day, just to get a handle on what I was thinking and interested in during those times. While I don't want to have this project become the focus of my year, I still want to review the posts from time to time, just to see what was happening.
It's interesting that in both posts, I'm discussing aspects of communication in terms of what is being said and what is really meant. In 2011, my post was about how to ask for help without annoying people. I was using Crazypants Philip from Survivor as my example of how NOT to ask for help. He wanted two girls to help around camp and asked in his usual overbearing and obnoxious way. Neither of them helped him and ended up angry at him over the matter. His communication failed.
In one of the private interviews, Boston Rob pointed out a way he could have gotten at least one of them to help had he framed the request as being more to their benefit than to his. Rob understood this, because the key to a good con is always making sure everyone gets something they want . . . or at least, they think they're going to.
The funny thing is, this season of Survivor has the return of Philip, who is just as crazy and overbearing and unable to communicate as he was on his first season. He thinks he's a lot better, but he's also very lacking in the self-awareness department. In fact, he's already antagonized one insane contestant to the point that said contestant had to leave the show. Another contestant compared Philip's level of annoyance to being around a baby on a plane while the baby is not only crying but has diarrhea.
My post from last year was about how politicians were trying to pass law after law about women's reproductive rights. I wrote about how the politicians will claim they are trying to 'save babies' but clearly are not, as the only thing they were usually doing to this affect involved limiting the rights of women's choices over what they did with their bodies. They weren't trying to make pregnancy safer or more financially reasonable. They weren't trying to offer any kind of support system to perspective mothers. . . just do things that would insure they stayed mothers.
I would say that a year later, there hasn't been a whole lot of progress in terms of people not treating women's bodies like they're public domain. We still have politicians trying to legislate this. We even have private companies trying to weigh in on whether or not their female employees have access to birth control. They still claim it's 'for the babies,' and I still see very little proof of this being true. Their communication is revealing things they probably do not wish to have revealed.
So, as these things have not changed, I guess perhaps it is best I end with some basic communication points.
1. Understand what you really want. Be very honest with yourself about this, because whatever you really want is going to show to everyone else.
2. Formulate a plan on how to achieve your communication goal in a logical and rational manner. Many times, this means divorcing not only your emotions from the situation, but also your ego.
3. Find reasons why person you are wishing to convince will actually and truly benefit from what you want them to do. Keep in mind, this may have NOTHING to do with your end goal, but if it gets them on board with something they really want, then what would that matter?
4. If you are not persuasive the first time, it does you no good to dismiss the other person as stupid or degenerate. Consider other avenues of persuasion. Learn from your effort.
Like I said, I'm really enjoying the occasional look back at my posts. It's something I may continue to do from time to time. Have a good rest of the weekend.
No comments:
Post a Comment