Attract Your Perfect Relationship

Be Word-Aware
When you pay attention to someone’s words and use them back to them, they feel cherished and recognised. Practise like this

Listen to someone speaking on a video, or video an interview.

Act as if you’re talking to them and playing back their phrases, for example: ‘So, Trevor, what you said was that Bush had announced economic sanctions on Zimbabwe.’

Check back with the video that you’ve used the correct words in the correct order and not left anything out or added anything in.
This takes practice, but it’s a really useful skill.

Remember the Three ‘A’s of Listening
Julie Soskin, who runs the School of Insight and Intuition, reminded me of her three keys for listening:

Appreciate the person you are with and focus on the possibilities.

• Give them your absolute attention, be present and enjoy their presence.
• Affection can make a communication go with a real bang and it doesn’t have to be sexual. A smile, a friendly wink, a hand on the shoulder or a pat on the arm are all thoughtful, non-threatening and affectionate forms of behaviour that show someone you care and are there for them.

I’m sure you’d agree that it’s nice to be appreciated, listened to and given warmth.
Facilitate and Empower

Have you ever gone to a friend with your problems and been treated to whole load of advice? Generally, though, you aren’t looking to be told what to do, even if you actually ask, ‘What should I do?’ In these situations, what we really want, even if we don’t realize it, is for someone to listen to us and to help us to make up our own minds.
Attractive communicators do not dish out advice. They know the conversation is more likely to be a positive one if they encourage the other person to make their own decisions. But they aren’t averse to helping them get clear and then throwing in a few subtle suggestions.

When I worked for Henry as a trainer at Happy Computers he taught me the difference between telling someone what to do and allowing them to discover it for themselves. This was a big challenge when helping people to learn something as technical as computer software.

Henry’s cardinal rule was: ‘Ask, don’t tell.’ So, instead of telling people what to do, if I wanted people to do something, I’d point them to the menu and say something like ‘Which menu do you think you select to insert a picture? Look at the menu bar and try it out.’ Of course they all got the emphasized words ‘insert’ and picture’ into their heads and felt jolly good as they found out for themselves.

If they had a question, instead of answering it immediately myself, I’d ask the rest of the group. Often one of them had the right answer.
At other times I’d ask them how they thought they might do a particular thing they’d not yet learned. I’d indicate their manuals and say, ‘Why not look it up for yourselves?’ Once again, they all felt great because they felt as if they’d discovered rather than swallowed the new information. Big difference.

It doesn’t matter how many clues and suggestions you give people, as long as they’re subtle. If people have a sense that they’re making the decision or discovery for themselves, they will feel empowered.