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 Greetings from Jim
I hope you are well as we head into a new school cycle, step carefully
through a real challenge for our country/world, and again try to make sense of
9/11. I trust you can use my relationship skill tip, "repeating accurately." But
for this newsletter we introduce Sally into the mix. Her book of Miniatures
will join the list of Petersen publications around Thanksgiving. It will be small like the mini-essays it contains, just right for tucking
into the stockings of your favorite readers at the holiday season.
Sally's
little gems give a deft turn of thought to commonplace happenings in a life
that ranges from a Midwestern childhood to a foray into the corporate world,
touching along the way on mountain climbing, travel, love, creativity and pushing
life to the edges.
Readers
can approach a miniature as a peek into her journal, into what she observed or
felt at the time. It won't tell you everything, but it may set you thinking...
We will keep you informed about availability and the exact publication
date.
In the meantime, because it's September again, here is a piece she wrote
after the World Trade Center attacks in 2001. And a very short Miniature of
less import, though it might grab you the way it did me.
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Petersen Publications
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14815 SW 141ST AVE
Tigard, Oregon 97224
503-590-3979
8:00AM-5:00PM
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Sally's Miniatures
Sept.
11, 2001
OK, let's roll...
Is that really what he said?
Yes, let's roll...
Then it was him. He used that expression a
lot.
When Lisa Beamer
heard the phrase repeated by a 911 dispatcher, she knew her husband had died.
She knew more than that, she knew how he died. She could see him in her mind's
eye, charging, in motion, among the other Patrick Henrys of the plane that
dived to death in Pennsylvania on he day we now call just nine-eleven.
Do school children
still learn Henry's phrase Give me
liberty or give me death? They should. And they should hear it coupled with
the story of our current American patriots, the men and women who made the
Patrick Henry decision far above the ground that day.
Many Flight 93
passengers had an extraordinary, or perhaps in America, an ordinary mix of
sports and competition in their lives. They also had what passengers on the
other three planes didn't: knowledge of the other planes. Strategy is worthless
without information. They had information.
So those
conditioned bodies, fully aware, concocted tactics that we can only guess at,
but which must have been based in their collective memory of being successful
in athletics, sometimes against the odds.
Another saying comes
to mind, now scoffed at as generations have become more cynical but containing
some truth: British wars were won on the playing fields of Eton.
The playing fields
of Eton were exclusive: the competitive sports of America aren't exclusive at
all. Neither is an airplane flight. The aisles of Flight 93 were filled with
average Americans, conditioned toward action, strategic and tactical thinking
by competitive sports. They understood the stakes, and with their great hearts,
decided to go down swinging.
What America got
from the mix that day was heroism-civilian heroism-expressed in terms any
school child can understand.
We must not forget
it.
Beamer's
characteristic phrase should stand in our national memory beside other wartime
utterances:
Patrick Henry, War
of Independence: Give me liberty or give me
death.
Admiral Farragut,
Civil War: Damn the torpedoes, full speed
ahead.
General Tony McAuliffe, World War II, asked to surrender: Nuts!
Todd
Beamer, passenger revolt, Flight 93, Sept. 11:Let's roll...
____________________________________________________
Complication
I'm for movin' on.
He's for holdin'
on.
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A Simple Listening
Technique
Repeating Accurately
When someone accuses you of not listening or the listening
you are doing doesn't seem to help, what can you do? For me? Repeat
accurately, repeat accurately and repeat accurately.
A wife complains, "You
care more about your job than you do for me. You always put your boss' requests
ahead of mine." The husband dutifully and defensively feeds back, "So you're saying that I work hard to raise
money for our family and that I do what my boss wants because he puts the bread
on our table." How's that for semi-sneaky arguing. He slanted his listening
response to make him and his position look better and her look worse.
We are often unaware of giving biased feedback and when someone
points it out, we can hardly believe we're doing it. I like to practice this technique in
workshops, because it's so easy to recognize when someone else skews a talker's
meaning, but so difficult to catch when we do it ourselves. Talkers get
irritated by this skewing habit, which we might better call, "a skewering"
habit.
When we do repeat accurately without distorting another's views,
they feel safe with us, think straighter and the arguments subside. The husband
might have reflected, "It seems to you
that I care more for my job than I do for you and that I always put my boss'
requests ahead of yours...?" And then guess at her feeling, "That must not feel good to you...?" Sound
different to your ears?
Sometimes when listening it feels like the person talking is
getting nowhere. You might feel at a complete loss about what to do? Nothing
seems to help. When this happens to me, I get nervous and want to start giving
advice or avoiding the situation. That's when I try to remind myself to repeat
accurately, repeat accurately, and keep on repeating accurately. Surprisingly,
the log jam often breaks. The talker calms down, starts coming up with possible
solutions, and I get thanks for helping so much.
"Repeating accurately" is one of my favorites listening
techniques. It has bailed me out of more tough listening situations than I can
count. This empowering technique is nearly magic.
So when your attempts at listening aren't working, repeat
their last paragraph, last sentence, or last word or two. Clamp your hand over
your mouth and get ready to do it again and again. Then get ready to be
surprised.
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Book Progress
I'm just ordering a fifth printing of Why Don't We Listen Better?
Communicating & Connecting in Relationships as I'm down to the last
three boxes and have broken over the 5000 mark. It makes me pretty happy to see
so many folks learning to listen better. I'd really appreciate hearing what
you've learned or how you've used it. Please email me at Jim@PetersenPublications.com or order more at our website or Amazon.
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Workshop Coming
I'm leading a free listening workshop on Friday
Oct. 16 from 6-9pm in Beaverton. Samaratan Ministries trains volunteers to be good listening friends to folks in crisis. This communication training works for families, couples, professionals, in business. If you are interested in improving your getting along with people skills, email or call me and I'll give you the address when I find out where it will be. Jim@PetesenPublications.com or 503-590-3979
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