Evolutionary Blog

Conflicts arise. For some of us, they arise more frequently than others. 

We all know this.

Conflicts can arise in our personal lives and in our relationships with other people. They can and do arise in professional contexts. And yes, they can even arise within ourselves.

In our personal lives, they can wreak havoc in romantic situations producing a lack of harmony and robbing us of the joy we expect those relationships to provide. In our professional lives they can corrupt professional associations or derail business deals affecting our financial outlook. When they occur within our selves, they can lead to inner turmoil, when we would rather experience harmony and peace.

This isn't exactly news.

What many of us fail to realize is that regardless of the context or the parties involved, we can use the same simple yet effective communication strategies to not only resolve the conflicts and problems, but to use them as a gateway to increased intimacy and connection, broader and deeper understanding, and ultimately, a positive outcome in virtually any situation--personal, professional, or individual.

With the tools we will cover in this mini-workshop, you will discover, gain, or acquire the tools that will allow you to:

• Find common ground where most are resigned to discord
• Expand the number of perspectives through which you can view yourself, others, and situations in general
• Navigate the delicate and often tricky waters of conflicts in romantic situations
• Negotiate professional agreements more effectively
• Overcome obstacles to an outcome that honor all parties involved
• Validate the other person/parties while still honoring yourself
• Create conversations that transcend the "problem" and communicate directly at the level of values
• Speak to the underlying message, rather then the superficial complaint being presented to you
• Dissolve internal conflicts within yourself where you are "of two minds" about something or feel "torn" between this and that perspective or desire

Decrease conflict and discord in your life. Increase joy, connection, intimacy, and success.

Start by adding the tools we will offer in this free evening workshop:

What: From Conflict to Connection
Where: San Francisco »RSVP« for exact location
When: Tuesday, March 12th, 2013 @ 7:15pm

Cost: Free.
Value: Huge

»RSVP« for exact location

Conflicts arise. For some of us, they arise more frequently than others. 

We all know this.

Conflicts can arise in our personal lives and in our relationships with other people. They can and do arise in professional contexts. And yes, they can even arise within ourselves.

In our personal lives, they can wreak havoc in romantic situations producing a lack of harmony and robbing us of the joy we expect those relationships to provide. In our professional lives they can corrupt professional associations or derail business deals affecting our financial outlook. When they occur within our selves, they can lead to inner turmoil, when we would rather experience harmony and peace.

This isn't exactly news.

What many of us fail to realize is that regardless of the context or the parties involved, we can use the same simple yet effective communication strategies to not only resolve the conflicts and problems, but to use them as a gateway to increased intimacy and connection, broader and deeper understanding, and ultimately, a positive outcome in virtually any situation--personal, professional, or individual.

With the tools we will cover in this mini-workshop, you will discover, gain, or acquire the tools that will allow you to:

• Find common ground where most are resigned to discord
• Expand the number of perspectives through which you can view yourself, others, and situations in general
• Navigate the delicate and often tricky waters of conflicts in romantic situations
• Negotiate professional agreements more effectively
• Overcome obstacles to an outcome that honor all parties involved
• Validate the other person/parties while still honoring yourself
• Create conversations that transcend the "problem" and communicate directly at the level of values
• Speak to the underlying message, rather then the superficial complaint being presented to you
• Dissolve internal conflicts within yourself where you are "of two minds" about something or feel "torn" between this and that perspective or desire

Decrease conflict and discord in your life. Increase joy, connection, intimacy, and success.

Start by adding the tools we will offer in this free evening workshop:

What: From Conflict to Connection
Where: San Francisco »RSVP« for exact location
When: Tuesday, February 12th, 2013 @ 7:15pm

Cost: Free.
Value: Huge

»RSVP« for exact location

In the modern marketplace, if you are in business for yourself or at a high level within a company you work for, it is impossible to avoid social media and its use if you truly want to thrive. That combined with what I believe is an emerging Age of Authenticity ... well, you get the picture.

Just scratching the surface of the broad strokes, it allows you to:

1. Provide value to others
2. Manage your brand
3. Market inexpensively and freely
4. Show your human side
5. Stay connected to others, events, and your own reputation
6. Other fun and cool stuff

This is why I cover social media in depth in the technology module of the Evolutionary Sales course.

But recently, I have stumbled onto a few resources I thought some would find useful and valuable, and I wanted to recommend them to you.

The first is a wonderfully in-depth book I read about a year ago: Tactical Transparency: How Leaders Can Leverage Social Media to Maximize Value and Build their Brand. Whether you are a solo-preneur or you are in charge of PR for an enterprise level organization, its content will be very, very useful to you. Chock-full of examples of both the dos and don'ts and great advice for best practices. I recommend you pick it up at Amazon at the link above.

And since social media is all about sharing, here is an incredibly useful article: 9 Reasons Why Your Content Is Not Shared on Social Networks: New Research. Again, very useful stuff backed by a respectable amount of research. Links to follow in that post as well.

And if you are looking for full education around social media for small or solo businesses, I can not recommend Laura Roeder enough. Just a great person who really, really knows her stuff and is on a scale the rest of us can relate to. She gives away a ton of free valuable content if you subscribe to The Dash.

On blogging [and really, email marketing as well] here is a great piece intended for students, but equally as relevant for solo-preneurs in re blogging, articles, and email marketing on how to write great headlines and subject lines, using, one again, using some of Guy Kawasaki's Genius.

And finally for this post, I thought I would round it out with something humorous/light/fun and also very useful. So many people ask [especially now that Google+ is out to a wider invite pool] which social media service they should join, or what is suited for them, or what is the differences among them, or even, "what's the point". So, via the genius of Guy Kawasaki comes the Social Network Decision Tree. Have fun with that.

UPDATE ::: several people have asked me about facebook fan pages. Without intending the pun, I am not a fan of fan pages on facebook. You can read a prime example of why I do not recommend them »HERE«.

And in general, I have a long-held aversion to running anything in re business where I invest a lot of time, energy and/or money when I do not "own" the data and the DB. I have known a couple people who have lost everything in biz groups as a result of a facebook "oops". You do not really own your data, and your ability to administer it is at least limited on facebook [or any other social networking site].

At the same time, the service is free--you get what you pay for--and we have no right to complain about such a great platform that is offered to us at no cost.

Having said that, it does not mean I will build my business on it in any signifigant way.

How I think facebook pages can be useful is to interact with followers on a platform they are already subscribed to, but I still think the pages should be used to drive traffic to our actual web sites outside of the closed eco-system of facebook.

Update 2:   in re who reads what [links you share, emails you send out, etc. Again, via Guy Kawasaki ::: "Fascinating study by Bit.ly about the lifespan of tweets and updates. It found that the half-life (how long it took for 50% of all clicks to occur that a link would ever get) was 2.8 hours for Twitter, 3.2 hours for Facebook, and 3.4 hours for direct messages (such as email)."

Check out the research » HERE« And speaking of the stream, readmore about the art of the Tweet repeat » HERE«

Update 3: Also ... be sure to check out How to Avoid the 7 Deadly Website Sins.

Update 4: I have been asked about scheduling tools for social media. The tool I currently recommend is Hootsuite Pro. It allows you to scheudle your entire markeitng day [or your social stuff while you are off the grid] in advance. I used to recommend TweetDeck, but sice twitter bough them and took over development, they stripped it of a lot of its functionality.

And if you have not read the email charter, do that » HERE « 

Relationships: Effective Communication | Elegant Navigation

Part 1: The Problem (1346 words. Average reading time: 6 minutes)

In the global marketplace of cultures, ideas, relationships, and business strategies, we can no longer say that there is one way to “do relationships” or that there is an “is-ness” to what form they should take.

 There simply is no global—or even local—consensus around relationships—if there ever was.

Whether we are speaking about arranged marriages still common on the other side of the globe in India, gay marriages—legal in some countries and some U.S. States or other alternative forms of relating from polyamory, or other non-traditional, non-monogamous relationship forms, we can certainly say that what is considered an acceptable form of relating is massively expanding in scope.

Whether you agree or disagree with those life-style choices, it is undeniable that the very idea of relationship is in evolution both morally and culturally.  Not to mention in practicality—in form.

And yet … 

And yet, most people still cannot seem to even navigate the waters of traditional relationships with facility and elegance.  Even many friendships are not always fulfilling and conflicts are rarely navigated effectively—if at all. Sadly, many marriages and intimate romantic relationships often hobble along until people are just in a habit, not a relationship. They’re still “together” on the surface, but the reality, truth, intimacy, and dynamism faded—or died—long ago.

They are in a habit, not an actual relationship.

There are certainly exceptions to this.  Both in relationships and in society as a whole. We have individuals and small “intentional” communities who have it as one of their stated values to become facile at navigating the waters of relationships—including  conflicts and misunderstandings that arise, as well as their internal, individual, personal emotional upset or “charge” that comes along with it—with skill, ease, and a good degree of elegance.

But even after more than 40 years of the rise and expansion of the human potential movement, these are exceptions, not rules.  Heck, they are often not even expected standards, let alone the rule.

But it could be so.  

We can all have fulfilling, harmonious relationships. Even in conflict, there are philosophical approaches as well effective communication models that, if take on, can fulfill on this possibility—and make it a reality.

So…what are they?

 First, let’s look at some of the common problems that arise. And then, together, we will examine some simple solutions.

The Problems

Many of dynamics within inter-personal problems and/or conflicts can be summed up thusly:

• A belief that relationships are “supposed to take work” or “supposed to be hard”
• Dishonesty. Dishonesty in at least two ways
  • Deceit—actual lying
  • Hiding the truth—not just of facts, which we will lump in with the above, but of our internal, subjective experience. Our process. And what is going on for us.
• Blaming others for our circumstances or the situation AND
• Failing to take responsibility for our part in a conflict or misunderstanding
• Simply meaning two different things—or interpreting something in two different ways—that are in conflict unknowingly until the it causes a conflict explicitly and openly
• An egoic need to “be right” put before a search for truth and accuracy
• A lack of emotional choice or facility [being run by our anger, fear, anxiety, guilt, resentments etc.]
• A lack of knowledge around how to effectively communicate through a conflict—a lack of a positive, effective, workable model
• A lack of skillful means with those models
• A collision of values/world-views that are in conflict