January 2013

“Are you at your computer?” I asked.

“No”, she said. “I’m curled up in a comfortable chair. My candle’s lit.” 

Her phrase referred to a blog post from two days ago, where I wrote about a candle being lit as a metaphor for being completely focused on the other person.

The fact that her “candle was lit” for me was an honor in itself. But this phrase showed how attentive she is. She doesn’t just read my words. She lets them influence her. (I let her words inspire me, too. We’re both better for it.)

Recently a friend called me for a conversation while waiting for a doctor’s appointment. That wouldn’t have been a problem if the call was to relay information. But the purpose of the call was to discuss how we could understand each other better. Some defensiveness had crept into our conversations, and we had planned to talk about how we could change that. 

I wasn’t sure whether to attempt to have this delicate discussion under these circumstances, but after a few preliminaries, I dove in to what I had been struggling to say to her. About 45 seconds after I started, she interrupted me to tell me she needed to go because the doctor was ready.

This is not the way to have an intimate conversation. Fortunatley, we spoke later in the week under better circumstances, and it went well.

More recently yet, a group of my friends and I planned a New Year’s visioning discussion. One of the members scheduled a handy man at the same time. She was texting, couldn’t get where she could receive a strong signal, and clearly was distracted. This is not the way to have an intimate conversation either. 

I once had a mentor who multi-tasked when we spoke. I asked him what the noise I heard was, and he explained he was sortng poetry.

When I spoke with my current mentor about conversations in uncondusive situations, he remarked:

• When you call me, my candle is lit and I’m all yours.

I like the metaphor. Lighting a candle invokes a tone—a mood—that is condusive to tender feeling, safety, and a lack of defensiveness. It sends a signal that you are giving yourself to whatever activity or conversation you are embarking on.

So next time you have a valued conversation, you may not need to light an actual candle, but light a metaphorical one. Create a situation where if you said,

• My candle is lit and I’m all yours

they would feel it. 

He’s talented, dedicated, smart, charming and skilled. He is a man of conviction. There is much to admire. But he has a near-fatal flaw. He likes to be the one with all the answers. He has an opinion on just about everything, which he will share whether you indicate interest or not. 

For a few of my friends, this flaw is a deal-breaker. They like him—they like his work—but they stopped using his services because he hard-sells his ideas.

When one more friend told me she wasn’t going back to him, and why, I had to say something. I consider him a friend, and friends don’t let friends sabotage themselves without input.

So I raised the issue with him, told him why some people I know stopped coming to him, and told him how I sometimes don’t share my thoughts with him because I don’t want to be lectured.

To his credit, he heard me. He did ask if it would be better to be wimpy. I replied,

• There are alternatives.

The same black-and-white thinking that fuels the intensity of his opinions limits his idea of options. Many people think that way: “If you’re not overbearing, you’re wimpy.”

It takes a while to strike any kind of balance between the opposites of life. I find it helps a lot to know you have more communication choices than being passive or being aggressive. While you attempt to strike the balance, I suggest you let yourself err in the direction that is the opposite of your normal imbalance. If you’ve been hard-selling your ideas, balance will probably seem wimpy, even if it’s perfect. 

Yesterday I posted about Jodi Foster’s award acceptance speech. She spoke about her plans to “move people by being moved.”

The one with all the answers doesn’t do that. 

Last summer I gave an associate a stack of items for a project we were planning, and then our focus changed. In a recent conversation, I realized my materials were cluttering her office. I loved her response to my apology. She said:

• It’s a minor thing.

Those words sound more honest than “it’s nothing,” yet they also are forgiving.