Hi everyone and welcome to The Tennis Menu.
Today's a topic which I think is going to resonate with a lot of people and could be related to family life, your relationships, in your tennis coaching or in your parenting. It's a little saying that I learned along the way, which is:
"People very rarely push back against their own ideas."
So have you ever felt like you're in a conversation with someone and you express your idea, and they express their idea? And you just butt heads right in the middle because you're both different and seeing it through a different lens? So you're having a bit of a communication breakdown. One person thinks they're right, the other person thinks they're right - that's every day for all of us I guarantee you.
The whole idea about communicating with someone (and it doesn't matter who it is) is that listening is one of the most important skills of communication. If you can listen to what is coming in and re-word and rethink about how you send your message back to that person, (which actually gives them their idea in their head), you make them think that it is all their idea. All you're actually doing is giving them your idea in a different way. People will then start to agree with you.
So I'll give you an example:
You think the colour is black, and you're having a discussion with someone who thinks it's white. You say to them;
"Oh yeah, no I can see how you are seeing that. I thought it was as well, and I think it is white, but I also think there's a part of it that actually looks a little bit black, which is just my perception of it. You're definitely right about the white factor".
I think if you can agree and then come in with your side of it, people then still think it's their idea. We need to be able to not rebut what's coming in, but listen to the information because that will then give you what they actually want you to say.
If you can empathise and look at their perspective first, they open their mind up and then you can have input into it. Give it a try, it's not going to be easy if you haven't done it before. It's really important to make sure that you are listening and understanding the idea of the person you're talking to before you present your opposing idea.