Well, I recently had yet another issue where a comment inadvertently hurt another person (similar to what happened in Albany). Like a broken record, eh?
It basically boiled down to a frank conversation with a 28 year old woman about the fact that it is increasingly difficult, though not impossible, to find an appropriate set-up after the age of 30 or so.
I was rebuked...harshly...for being insensitive to her plight. It stung and I felt bad...very bad. Remorseful. It wasn't my intention (though I know that doesn't matter).
Then, after a great talk with my sister-in-law, Nava, a PhD candidate in psychology, who gave me some perspective that I probably have heard from the one who shall remain nameless, but tuned out, helped me realize something critical.
I'm not going to be able to change my inherent nature. Until now, we've been focused on the wrong problem.
What I can do is change the way I respond (I know, very Viktor Frankl of me), similar to how I learned how to adjust the way I communicate with the nameless one.
I guess I realized that in a heavily over-simplified version of the world, there are two types of people.
- People who want, prefer, and can deal with the cold, hard truth
- People who prefer a more sanitized version of the truth that takes into account the impact on their emotions
I think for a while I made a value judgment that Type 1 had it right and Type 2 didn't.
Now, I know better. It's not a question of right/wrong, it's just different styles.
The question I need to ask myself is "is this a Type 1 or Type 2 person?"
I recently signed up for a service called Shozu, which lets you easily post pictures to your blog or Facebook from your phone. They also have a feature called "ZuCast" which is kind of like PodCasts.
The one I was listening to yesterday said the
"single most important thing you can do to succeed in business (or life) is improve your communication skills.
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