Try THIS the Next Time You Have an Uncomfortable Conversation | Simon Sinek

Here's a question I get quite often and it's how to

have

uncomfortable

conversation

s. As you know, I talk about the importance of human abilities. Cats don't

have

to work very hard to be cats, it's quite natural for them, but for us as humans. We actually have to work very hard to be human and one of those human skills we need to practice is how to have

uncomfortable

conversation

s. Feeling uncomfortable is part of being human, and some

time

s discomfort is caused by something we have with another person, whether professionally or personally. It is a tension that causes discomfort.

Now there are many ways to respond to that discomfort. We can run away from it. That is an option. Avoiding it is always an option. I don't think it is the best option because then it simply perpetuates the discomfort or breaks up relationships. The best way to deal with it. with

this

is leaning into tension now there are also multiple ways to lean into tension if you want to have a confrontation with someone if you want to lean into that tension and have an awkward conversation too often when I don't have the necessary skills it gets worse and explodes and it turns into an argument and some

time

s also ends in a destroyed relationship, so the ability to have an uncomfortable conversation is essential, that's how I do them.

In fact, I just had one recently with a friend and it was like I need to have an uncomfortable conversation with you by telling them what is about to happen, it allows the person to take a deep breath and know that what is about to happen is leaning towards The tension also allows them to be prepared and be a little less defensive. um, if you're not confident in your abilities on how to have an awkward conversation, then say something like

this

. I need to have an awkward conversation with you. I'm afraid to have this conversation because I'm afraid of saying the wrong thing. or it will go wrong and make things worse so please bear with me while I try to figure this out and tell you what I need to tell you but it is more important for me to have this conversation with you and try to address this situation and then avoid it because this relationship matters to me and I want to go through this with you.

Can we have that conversation? And I always do that. I always ask permission. Can we have that conversation? Can I have this conversation with you now? Because they might not be in the right mindset, they might say, yeah, I'm not going to have this conversation, but can we have it in an hour? Instead of them coming up with it, I have to have enough. I must have an uncomfortable feeling. I have to have an awkward conversation with you. Can I have it now? Yeah, okay, now you want to be involved in something called the FBI. It's just a mnemonic.

You can do it in any order, but you have to have all three, your feelings, the behavior that did that to you. made you feel that way and the potential impact of the behavior doesn't change be specific as you can the feelings work better than happy sad angry I'm really frustrated or um, they made me nervous or I feel distant from you or me I feel uncomfortable because then label the behavior they did that made you feel that way and again be very very specific avoid things like you always put points because they will tell you one time they didn't do it and now you're back off pick the most egregious one or the most recent one and talk about that situation and how whatever they did made him feel a certain way and his fear that if that continues it won't go unnoticed and that something will happen, maybe he knows that there will always be tension between us and the relationship will break down and that's exactly what I did with my friend um he's a relatively new friend something happened that made him uncomfortable um I said I need to have an awkward conversation with you um just discuss this with me No I don't want to, but this relationship matters to me and that's why I want to have this conversation.

I talked about what the situation was and then I said my fear is that if you and I don't support each other in this, now, this, this little Frenchman, this friendship. This uh, this emergence of a friendship that we're having is going to be destroyed and I'd actually rather see it grow and we had a very awkward conversation and it turned out to be fantastic because we ended up opening up to each other and revealing various insecurities. and fears that were brought on by each other and it was just fantastic and the relationship is even better now than before so please practice and learn the skill of having uncomfortable conversations and the way you will practice them is to actually have them