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friendship

Are You Listening?

January 29, 2017 By Michele Woodward Leave a Comment

It’s impossible to win anyone over by shouting at them.

You never change someone’s mind by attacking them.

Sure, you might get momentary cooperation. You might get temporary control. But over the long haul, you only change minds by listening with respect to the other person’s fears, hopes and priorities, and then clearly and kindly sharing your own point of view. And real understanding is generally not a one-and-done deal – it’s an on-going conversation that may need some space.

Yes, this approach takes time. But, know what? It works.

I’ve been called into so many dysfunctional offices where there’s some autocrat – could be at the C-level, could be at the office manager level, might even be at the receptionist level – whose bullying attitude and control issues threaten the entire success of the organization.

[I don’t particularly like these assignments but I take them because the relief people ultimately feel is profound.]

What I’ve learned is that most human beings – yes, bullies, too – really want to know, down deep, that their life has mattered. That all of their sacrifices and difficult choices have meant something. [And I did a webinar for the Harvard Business Review on bullies in the workplace in case you missed it.]

Given the technological advances of the last fifty years, it’s harder and harder for the average Joe to feel like it all matters. Any of us can be fired at any time for any reason – or no good reason at all. Employees have moved from being an organization’s best asset to becoming their largest liability, so cuts happen frequently and seemingly willy-nilly. I once worked with some executives downsized from an organization who, in its big company wisdom, decided to save money and boost profits by getting rid of every employee who’d been at the firm for more than fourteen years. In one fell swoop, the entire organizational memory was wiped clean.

Made zero sense to me, and all those let-go people had an existential crisis, wondering if all of those late nights, bad hotels, Sunday night planes and skipped birthday parties were worth it.

What’s missing today amongst the powers that be is an understanding that belonging is such a critical human need. When I start working with new clients, I ask them to do an exercise to list their top values. Nine times out of ten, people choose things like “being connected”, “belonging”, “being with”.

This is the reason folks stay late, work on weekends and say yes to travel that takes them away from their families – not because they’re getting paid, by and large, but because they care.

Belonging is often the way people feel like what they do matters. 

Yesterday I had coffee with my old friend Tom, and we got on the subject of being hungry. Tom said, “You know, when you’re really hungry, you’ll eat anything. You don’t care what it is, you don’t care where it came from, you don’t care who’s serving it – you’ll eat it because you’re famished.” Wise man, my friend Tom is.

And it’s true. If you’re starved for belonging, you’ll quickly join any group that will have you as a member.

Their goals will become your goals. Their needs will become yours. Their aims and intentions will become yours.

Because they feed you. 

That’s why shouting at folks in an attempt to persuade them doesn’t work. Because you’re shouting about policy or politics or faith or beliefs or performance and the other person is – in their heart of hearts – thinking about belonging. And what they might have to do so they won’t figuratively starve.

So if you find yourself wanting to shout down someone else, here’s what you do instead, whether you’re at an office, in a home, on the street, protesting, marching, gathering, singing, shopping or navigating rush hour: Listen. Invite someone to listen to you. Look them in the eye. Tell them why you believe what you do. Model open-mindedness. Find common ground. Include them.

Because shouting may get you attention for a minute but it rarely gets you the change you seek.

Kindness and openness almost always, however, does the trick.

 

Filed Under: Authenticity, Blog, Clarity, Happier Living Tagged With: arguing, Authenticity, conflict, disagreeing, friendship, getting what you want, happiness, kindness

What’s Really Important

March 11, 2016 By Michele Woodward Leave a Comment

 

 

MTW and LaFo

I’m writing this just before I leave the house to fly to Atlanta for the funeral of my dear friend, the writer and brand strategist Laurie Foley.

You’ve all been so kind these last weeks as Laurie’s condition progressed ever closer to her death.

In fact, you were cheering for her back in 2014 when she went into remission: I wrote this then, You Get To Decide, and I heard from so many of you that her story was inspirational.

And the response to my more recent posts, Real and Raw and last week’s The Price of Friendship have been warm and embracing for me. Just when I needed it most.

So, I thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

And I thank Laurie for bringing friendship, kindness and caring into such sharp focus for so many through her dying process. Even when she had so little strength, the woman had a lot of energy.

Take care of yourselves, friends. And take care of those you love. Make time for them. Honor them. Be kind.

It’s loss like this which reminds us what is really important.

 

Filed Under: Authenticity, Blog, Clarity, Happier Living, Managing Change Tagged With: connection, death, friendship, growth, Laurie Foley, learning, loss

The Price of Friendship

March 7, 2016 By Michele Woodward 8 Comments

 

 

I drove out to the mountains last Thursday and took a solitary drive along the Blue Ridge. I could see a storm coming in from the west, clouds like monochromatic watercolor on the horizon.IMG_5041

I needed the space, I needed the solace of nature.

Because my friend Laurie Foley died that morning.

I wrote about Laurie a few weeks ago, after I visited her in hospice. To get a bigger sense of the life she lived,  you can read Laurie’s obituary in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, too.

Laurie was an amazing person, yes. A PhD in Computer Science at age 26? Hell, yes, she was amazing.

And she was also my friend.

People ask me, “Oh, did you grow up together? Did you meet in college?”, as if that’s the last chance to meet anyone who matters.

The truth is: I met Laurie in 2008 when she was my student in coach training. Then I became her mentor, her colleague, and her friend.

We liked the same books, and the same movies. She had a dog named Mocha. I have dogs named Milo and Bootsy. She had a kid. I had kids. We both loved puns, and British humor. We both took training in archetypes – different training programs, though – and she not-so-secretly thought her program was better than mine. We both disliked fake, insincere and slick salesmanship. We both believed in the things that cannot be seen. She came to visit me a couple of times, I came to visit her a couple of times. In the last few years, we connected every day as she navigated her life with ovarian cancer.

We were grown-up friends.

Earlier, in my late 30s, a slightly older friend moved away and called to talk with me about how challenging it was to fit in to her new community. She said, with a deep sigh, “No one wants a new friend after forty.” This was not happy news because she was smart, gorgeous, fun, engaging and blonde. I mean, if she couldn’t find new grown-up friends, I was destined to become a friendless bag lady living out of a shopping cart by my next birthday.

It’s true that too many of us struggle to find friends – friends at work, friends in the neighborhood, friends at all. And yet the Mayo Clinic says having the connection that deep friendship provides is vital to your health. 

So, having friends is a very good thing.

The downside, of course, to allowing yourself to become deeply and authentically connected to another person is the sad fact that some day one of you will die.

And your heart will break.

And you may think things will never be the same again.

But that pain is the price you pay for having loved deeply, for having cared completely. For allowing another person to have seen you at your best and at your worst – and you them – and loving them anyway.

When you understand just how important connection and friendship is, you can take steps to create and foster relationships. Last year, Koren Motekaitis (also a former student – see a trend developing?) and I spent an entire hour talking about the power of friendships on her How She Really Does It radio show- listen to it here and get some more insight and approaches to growing and appreciating the people in your life.

If you feel less connected than you’d like to be, then today is the day you can start changing it. Be more open. Make eye contact. Find the places where you have things in common with others, and talk about it with them. Make the effort. Be vulnerable enough to be someone’s friend.

You will never regret it. 

This week, I’ll head to Atlanta for Laurie’s funeral. This is a day I had hoped would never come, but it has. And as the sun streams through the stained glass next Saturday afternoon, and people say wonderful things about her heart and her spirit, my every breath and heartbeat will be a simple thank you for the deep and abiding friendship we have shared.

 

Filed Under: Authenticity, Blog, Clarity, Happier Living, Managing Change Tagged With: connection, finding friends, friendship, health, Laurie Foley

Fully Yourself

June 30, 2013 By Michele Woodward Leave a Comment

clasped hand for help

 

 

When it really comes down to it, the only thing that matters is the quality of your relationships.

Young, old. Male, female. Pale, dark. Whatever you are – doesn’t matter.

Also doesn’t matter whether these relationships are at home, or at work, or on the playing field, or at Starbucks.

What I know down in the marrow of my bones about what matters and makes people feel happily fulfilled is this:

That you know someone fully, and allow yourself to be fully known.

The only antidote to all the anxious striving we seem to do in this world of ours is to have a truly safe and secure place to just be yourself. Which is, in my estimation, the best idea of love. The writer Henri Nouwen summed it up when he said, “Love is making a safe place for another person to be fully himself.”

So say what you want about having a flashy car or that fabulous house in the best neighborhood or Kardashian-esque heels, it doesn’t match having a friend who remembers when you both ate ramen seated on the floor because no one had any money for chairs – and loves you as much now as he did then.

Or when you absolutely, truly and thoroughly make a horse’s ass out of yourself – it’s your true friends who wince right along with you and then support you as you pull yourself out of your mess.

Or who stand by you when you have to make a tough set of choices.

Those are moments when the quality and nature of your relationships make a real difference in how it all plays out. On how you get through. Without taking the risk of allowing yourself to be fully known, and accepted, you wouldn’t bounce back as quickly – or maybe at all.

Some folks think so poorly of themselves, though, that they fear that allowing themselves to be fully known would end up…really badly. You know, if other people saw just how stupid, coarse, corrupt, and just plain wrong they are, there is no way they could be accepted let alone “loved”.

They’re sure that there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell of that happening.

So they keep their self-perceived flawed true selves bottled up and hidden away like a crazy aunt in the attic, and the snowball really never does have a chance. And, as a result, these folks never feel the thing they want the most – a real gift of total acceptance.

The real crux of it is that they can’t accept, let alone love, their flawed little old selves. So there’s no room for anyone to return the favor. Which has got to be the first step – if love is making a safe place for another person to be fully himself then surely self-love is making a safe place for me to be fully myself, too.

And it sure is funny how when we start to make a little space, suddenly it turns into a large space with plenty more room than we ever imagined.

Enough space to let love in.

If you’re in that place – and who hasn’t been there at one time or another? – where you’re feeling rather alone… rather unloved… kind of unaccepted…sort of lone wolfish…and it feels…bad…

Create a little space for self-love. Treat yourself the way you’d treat your dearest darling or your closest friend, even if  you don’t have one presently.

Be that which you seek to find.

And, the space you make will soon be filled.

With true, real, loving friends. Who totally dig you.

 

Filed Under: Blog, Clarity, Getting Unstuck, Happier Living, Uncategorized, WiseWork Tagged With: connection, find love, friends, friendship, love, self-love

Random Thoughts #3

June 16, 2013 By Michele Woodward 2 Comments

bigstock-Color-paper-clips-for-a-paper-17211161

 

Sometimes little thoughts flit through my mind, so I thought I’d share them with you…

A person who’s nice to the busboy is my favorite kind of person.

The older I get, the more I understand math and science. Such as: Task divided by Time plus Enjoyment = Fun.

Making new friends at any age is a joy.

Rediscovering old friends is a blessing.

Politics just get weirder and weirder.

Speaking of weird, the Pirates of the Caribbean movies have grossed $3.72 billion dollars. Now, there’s an idea for the federal budget deficit…

It’s only because of the past that we can see the future.

Sometimes the challenge is in making peace with what is realistically possible.

Technology allows me to have clients all over the world. I can visit the Philippines, Brussels, South Africa, Alaska all in one day. And still get to the grocery store.

I need a vacation.

To be financially secure, spend like someone who’s financially secure.

The phrase “in this economy” needs to be banned from use. Indefinitely.

This is a great article about negotiation.

We need to fully honor and acknowledge women heroes.

Little kids playing tee ball for the first time are the most inspiring athletes.

Couples who have been together 45 years and still hold hands inspire me.

There is profound wisdom in pop songs.

Today’s teenagers are more committed to change than we were at their age.

What goes around really does come around. So live your life accordingly.

The only thing I can truly control is my own energy and attitude toward the moment I find myself in.

Random thoughts are not that random after all.

 

Filed Under: Authenticity, Blog, Clarity, Getting Unstuck, Happier Living, Random Thoughts, Uncategorized, WiseWork Tagged With: career strategy, connection, friendship, integrity, random thoughts, work

Investing In Friendships

April 20, 2008 By Michele Woodward Leave a Comment


We’re all so busy, aren’t we? Seems we’re constantly rushing from here to there — gotta get home, to the office, to the kids’ soccer game, gotta take the elderly parents to all their appointments. The dog needs to go to the vet, then there are groceries, laundry, doctors, commitments, obligations, this, that, the other zillion things — and a ton of stress.

Some people tell me that they’re so busy doing all this stuff that they can’t make time for their friends. And making new friends? Forget about it. “No one makes new friends after 40,” said one woman.

Yet, who’s happiest? Research has shown that it’s people with the largest social networks. How’s your friend factor? Have all you need? All you want? Are you making time to invest in your friendships, and insure your own happiness?

If not, don’t worry. There are four things you can do right now to grow your social network.

Make contact: Email is a great tool for nurturing friendships. Though your great-grandmother might be appalled that you’re not penning brilliant little missives on tasteful monogrammed stationery using a fountain pen with blue-black ink… contact is contact. Let your friends know what you’re up to with a quick email. Or, a simple “I’m thinking of you” can brighten a day. And, if you receive a message from a friend, take the time to respond, even it’s just a few lines. Of course, a phone call is swell and a “date” is even better. Read on.

Make time: Regardless of where you work — The White House or your house — schedule something with at least one friend at least once a week. Coffee, lunch, cocktails, cow-tipping, or whatever you enjoy doing together. I sense quite a few spit-takes at that suggestion. Wipe off your computer monitor and keep reading. Sure you’re busy. Are you so busy, then, that you have no time to be happy? When you make time for a friend, you grow and nurture that relationship. Ignore the care and feeding of friendships until you need them — and they may not be there.

Be yourself: The best friends are those who accept and enjoy you despite your flaws and shortcomings. Postponing friendships until you lose weight, or have a partner, or that nasty rash clears up — is just fear talking. Real friends will love having you around, regardless. And if you have to pretend to be someone you’re not around a person or group of people? They ain’t your friends.

Remember: Memorizing birthdays and astrological signs is not required. However, please try to remember the names of your friend’s spouse, and their children. Building a friendship means you need to know your friend’s preferences — when you continually suggest meeting for a nice juicy steak to your vegan friend… you are actually telling them that they aren’t quite important enough for you to remember who they are.

And, want to know the single best thing you can do to bring some new people into your life? Volunteer for something. Yep, volunteering — whether at your job or in your community — creates bonds with others based on shared experiences and interests. The sense of pride and accomplishment plus the satisfaction of giving back are all great side benefits.

Friendships bring joy, comfort and zest to life. Relationships are a fundamental building block of happiness. Staying too busy to have friends and human connection is simply a way of denying yourself the happiness that’s your birthright.

And where’s the joy in that?

Filed Under: Happier Living Tagged With: fear, friends, friendship, happiness, investing, life coach, nurturing, social networks

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