[00:00:00] Ann: there’s a 10 percent rule. On any conflict, What if you could allow that the other person is at least 10 percent right? And what if you spent your energy in the conversation looking for that 10 percent, that point of connection, especially if it’s somebody that you really love or that there’s 10 percent of the information you don’t have right now that might completely change your opinion.
[00:00:25] Nina: Welcome to Dear Nina, conversations about friendship. Something I want you to know as listeners, whether you are a new listener or you’ve been around, is that when people pitch the podcast, I’m strict. Strict is a funny word, cause it sounds so parental, but I’m strict about the topics I’ll take because I always have the listener in mind first.
This podcast is for you. And for me. I am always interested in being a better friend, having better friends, feeling more satisfied in my friendships. And that is what the episodes are for. They’re for you to also be a better friend, have better friends, feel more satisfied in your friendships.
And so if the pitch doesn’t hit one of those areas, I really can’t take it. So it’s extra exciting when I get a pitch where I can say, yes, I can see very clearly how this is going to help the listener. And that is the case for today’s show. And I’m finally going to tell you who I have.
Ann Imig is an award winning speaker. She is the founder of listen to your mother. Almost 15 years ago she created this storytelling series and a book came out of it too called listen to your mother. the mission is giving motherhood a microphone on stages across North America, 70 cities and counting.
I was in the first cast that was in the twin cities and we talk a little bit about it in the episode. Actually being in that show and the story I did for that show absolutely led me to this place right here doing this podcast. And that was back in 2013.
So I talk a little bit about that in the episode. Ann is a certified life coach at Listen Life Coaching. Ann is really great at practical ways to change the way you are thinking about a situation.
we obviously talk about it as it relates to friendship. She actually gives tools to deal with this judge that we have in our heads: the judge we have about ourselves when we’re in a friendship, the judge we have about other people that comes up, obviously a lot, the way we make assumptions about other people, the way we are so sure we know what everyone else is thinking, but no one knows what we’re thinking.
This brain piece, the judge that sits in our heads. Ann has a lot of knowledge about the way the brain works and she works a lot in positive psychology and she’s going to explain that to you herself because she knows a lot more than I do. Without further ado, we welcome Ann, who I’ve been connected to online for many years, but I’ve never actually met in person. This is the closest we’re going to get, I think.
Hi, Ann. Welcome to Dear Nina. Hi, Nina. So happy to be here. You’ve been such a nice support of the podcast, by the way. Occasionally you’ll send a nice note about an episode. when you wrote to me about an idea for an episode, I was just like, absolutely. Yes.
[00:02:56] Ann: What a great way to be welcomed.
[00:02:58] Nina: . before we really dive into our topic of, how our brains automatically default to negativity, which does interfere with our friendships, I think we need to understand more about your work, exactly what you do and how you got into it.
[00:03:10] Ann: I’m a positive psychology coach, so I’m a life coach, I’m a career coach, but it’s all from a place of positive psychology, which is evidence based, and it’s all about helping people figure out what works and do more of that.
And I got to it really naturally because I actually have a master’s degree in social work. I intended to be a therapist. During that time in my life where I was graduating , with my graduate degree, I had little kids. I started blogging, which is how I met you. I used my earlier theater career as a storytelling vehicle and created this listen to your mother show.
So if anyone happens to have heard my name before, it’s probably in association with listen to your mother. And full circle, you know, during the pandemic and as my kids are getting older, I was like, it’s time for me to figure out what’s next and become this therapist I meant to become. And instead, I decided to continue building what I had already been doing and create a coaching practice.
But it was really important to me if I was going to come into the coaching space to have Evidence based tools that are proven to change people’s lives and positive psychology is it. And I’m so passionate about it mainly because it’s helped me enjoy my life so much more. And I love being able to help people improve their relationships, their friendships specifically is what we’ll be talking about today.
[00:04:27] Nina: I don’t know if you know this, I have to tell you, it’s slightly off topic, but it involves you indirectly. I was in the first cast of Listen to Your Mother in 2013, the first cast in Minneapolis. What was the first year ever?
[00:04:38] Ann: 2010, actually. Just one show, my first show in Madison in 2010.
[00:04:43] Nina: that makes sense. And so it took a couple of years for different producers in different cities to pop up and want to put it in their own town. I wrote about my son messing up his piano recital. It was called the blessings of a botched piano recital.
It was like a humor, you know, and for people who haven’t been to listen to your mother, people read something associated with motherhood, maybe having had a mother or been a mother, some version of that. some of the stories as the producers are putting them together, they’re trying to make it a nice arc for the audience.
So some are sad, some are funny, And mine was more of a humor one. this is 2013, so people were talking about helicopter parenting on that. And it was about me sort of admitting that it was my tendency to be one, but trying not to be one. And so as he was at his piano recital and he kept messing up, but then I wanted so badly to go up there and help him because I couldn’t possibly do that.
That would be, even I knew that would be a crazy thing to do. It was more about me having to sit on my hands, all the anxiety I felt, and how he eventually, and he must have started over 10 times, but he eventually got through it. And he sat down and he never thought about it again. I was like sweating,
and then just reflecting on why should that be awful for me if it wasn’t even awful for my son? Yeah. Separating from our kids. Well, all that.
[00:05:53] Ann: So real.
[00:05:54] Nina: soon after, it was the essay that got me a column in Brain Child Magazine. I first used it for Listen to Your Mother, but then I submitted it, and I have a year long, column with that about parenting.
a friend of mine, came to pick me up for a walk. She was at the show, my son answered the door, and she said his name, She was like, I loved your mom’s piece about the piano recital and he’s like, you wrote about that? not only did I write about that, I performed it in front of 700 people.
It’s on YouTube.
Ann: Yeah.
Nina: And he was a little bit annoyed and that actually ended up being the end of my writing about parenting.
Ann: Yeah. I have a similar story. I have a similar story. Yeah.
Nina: But it was a good run and I liked writing about parenting. That door closed. in 2014, Stephanie and Jessica opened the Her Stories project and it was all about friendship at the time.
I’d written some things about friendship for them, for other people, and they said, we would love to do a friendship advice column. I was like, I don’t know. I love that idea and everything. I’d done advice columns a little bit. I had done a Twitter advice column for a website called Writer Unboxed, and I had done a baby name advice stuff for Kveller.
And I like writing in that advice voice. It’s a great voice to write in like the you instead of i, but I’m like, I’m not a therapist. I’m not a social worker kind of having to do with your work. I had all these doubts. why should I do it? Why? Yeah, but they helped me with that. They’re like,
we’re not going to hide from that. It’s you’re just a regular person with an abnormal obsession with this topic. I’m like, okay, let’s do it. Look all these years later, that is what I’ve been doing for 10 years. A decade, a decade.
[00:07:22] Ann: I love that. I had some, Indirect piece of this. You did! That’s so cool.
[00:07:26] Nina: You did. So anyway, I feel like in your work, I’ve seen you also work with people on career changes and, and that kind of life focus. that was a long story. I didn’t mean to.
[00:07:37] Ann: Yeah, but it was fun.
[00:07:39] Nina: Anyway, we are going to be talking about. Why do we and our relationships tend to assume the worst or to focus on the negative? what jumps out at you first for that?
And not even know that we’re doing it. That is what jumps out.
Our brains default to negativity because of evolution because, in caveman times, we had to know if that thing wrestling in the bushes was a huge predator that was going to jump out and kill us.
And that’s how our brains still work. And it’s obviously in an actual threat. It keeps us alive and that’s very important, but it really wreaks havoc in our day to day life, wellbeing, relationships, and performance. This negativity bias is like the clinical term, but the fact that generally speaking, our left brain reacts to people and situations automatically before we’ve even had a chance to take in the information around us or get the least bit curious.
And you’re defaulting from this very negative place. And most people don’t know that. so what’s so exciting is now through MRI imaging, There is proof that there is a significant portion of our brain that we can change so that we can better access. Generally speaking our right brain where creativity, intuition, curiosity, patience, calm, so much of the good stuff lives. That it’s gonna help us better enjoy our relationships and our lives.
I mean that sounds amazing, right? Because that is what gets in the way of most friendships. It is definitely the answer to a lot of letters I get. The unifying thread of all of them is some sort of negative assumption. We all assume that we know what everyone else is thinking. We know what everyone else’s intentions were. We know what our own intentions are. We know that we didn’t mean to offend somebody, but that person meant to offend us. It’s, it’s very human nature to assume the best of ourselves, to make excuses for ourselves, whether they’re valid excuses or not, like we have those understandable reasons within us.
But we do not assign that to the next person.
[00:09:41] Ann: another way of saying this is we have this judge. We all have this judge that lives in our head. Many of us, especially women are familiar with the judge of self, that inner critic. Or some of us do default to the judge of others and immediately it’s their problem.
It’s not me. what people are less familiar with is the judge of circumstance. And this is a real game changer. We’re right away. We label events, challenges as good or bad. And then that left brain just snaps into the most familiar pathway in our brain. The way we have always functioned. That often actually makes harder things harder. So life is never going to stop giving us challenges, but we have choices about whether those are going to be harder or easier and how we move forward with them.
[00:10:26] Nina: I would love to hear more about how you help people change the way they think. I mean, that’s,
[00:10:32] Ann: yeah, yeah, it is hard and it’s not hard.
So if you think back to some of the greatest times of change in your life, some of the biggest opportunity points in your life, they are often the flip side of very difficult life circumstances. Those things that we label as bad, the flip side, what comes after that, is often enormous growth or opportunity.
And no, you would never say to somebody going through a terrible time, Well, what are the gifts and opportunities that this might bring? It’s like, not in that moment, but if we just start remembering and looking back at these times in our lives, it can change the way we feel the next time one of these big waves tosses us for a loop in life. As much as we wish this wasn’t happening, there might be opportunities and things that we, benefit from that we develop, that we connect with, that we learn about as a result of this thing that we didn’t have a choice about. Can you think of something in your own life?
[00:11:35] Nina: Yeah. I definitely can. And would it be appropriate for me to be there? Yes. If you want to. I’d love to hear. Yeah. It’s not like too personal, but it really is. I mean, it’s personal in that it’s about me, I definitely was a very focused student all through high school and college. I was wanting to go to law school. I had everything lined up and directed towards that, and I chose courses based on that, and I chose my study abroad program based on that, because I was trying to get into a certain kind of law school.
Instead of doing a fun semester or year abroad, like most of my friends were doing, they were going to really fun places where they were frankly living with other American college students, but they were having a blast in, you know, London or Spain, I was in Santiago. I ended up getting a lot out of it, kind of per your point, but at the time I had one very close friend.
I’m so grateful to her. Her name’s Becky. I’m going to shout her out. Together we really had such an interesting year, but we didn’t live together. We each lived with a Chilean family. There was no dorm. There was no like major partying scene. we were going to class entirely in Spanish at a local university.
We were taking the bus. We were sort of living in the suburbs a little bit. I mean, it was just a strange, different year than anyone else was having, and it was nine months instead of just a semester, because their school year timing is different down there. So, we were there January to August. came home 20 pounds heavier, I’m not exaggerating, which was a sign of, loneliness. Yeah. Sort of depression. And when I say lonely, I, I mean, I had Becky. It wasn’t like I had nobody and we were super close and I love our friendship, but it wasn’t the college scene I was used to.
[00:13:06] Ann: And it’s isolating being in a foreign country where even if you speak the language, you’re just dropped into a totally different situation without your family, without all your friends. Yeah.
[00:13:16] Nina: And my Spanish wasn’t that good. Yeah. Like, I was a Spanish poli sci major, but like, it was just okay. I didn’t have like the best grasp on it. So I think that also was very isolating. I was doing research for an honors thesis about women’s, role in the new political parties there, cause they’d been a dictatorship 10 years earlier. when I think about that, that does not even sound like me. I’m like, who is that person that doesn’t even interest me at all now? I came home with all this research.
So like a duffel full of research. I left a lot of my clothes there because I couldn’t fit into anything. And when I came home, it was time to start signing up for LSAT stuff because I was now a senior in college. I was like, I don’t want to go to law school and I don’t want to be a lawyer. And I’m like, I’ve wasted my whole life. I really felt like I wasted. Oh no.
[00:13:59] Ann: Congratulations to you because so many people, it’s much easier even when you’re miserable to stay with the status quo. It takes bravery and courage to acknowledge your body was screaming at you, you know, whether it was the depression or the weight gain or the, all of it that took such courage. Thank goodness you went on that abroad and came back with all that. Who knows, if you had just been partying that whole time, it might’ve taken you longer to even longer.
[00:14:29] Nina: I think I would have gone to law school because I was good at school. that’s what, and then everybody I was in school with was
by the time we got home senior year, they were possibly going to law school themselves or other grad schools, or they were interviewing for consulting jobs, and people had interviews lined up. Everyone was very directed, and I definitely would have just been swept up and like, okay, this is what you do next.
And my whole life sort of turned upside down. And early in my senior year, I met a grad student who was new to town. I mean, he’s four years older and I got engaged to him a year later. . We’re still married now He’s a very on paper the kind of guy any parent would be happy to meet but I was young I was 23 when I got married and my parents were definitely like What?
We’d only known each other a year. I mean, it was a strange choice to make. It really was compared to my peers, but I really can’t imagine any other path. Mm
[00:15:19] Ann: hmm. Yeah. That’s a great example.
[00:15:21] Nina: Okay. Do you have an example, Ann?
[00:15:22] Ann: Yes. Yes. Yes. I use myself as an example all the time because I had a powerful addiction to achievement my whole life.
I saw a goal. I got the goal. which is fabulous, right? I was a go getter. I was goal setter, super organized, achiever, achiever. The problem was I way overused that strength. It made my self worth and my happiness conditional on achievement. I couldn’t even savor and celebrate the achievements when they happen with any kind of addiction it’s like the next thing, the next thing, the next thing. So during the pandemic, I had written a novel and I I’ve done a lot of writing, but this is the closest I got where my agent took it out. Talk about a hard time to sell a book, but people were selling books. The book didn’t sell. It just totally tanked my happiness.
Meanwhile, it’s this beautiful life around me. I’ve been married now for 25 years. I have these wonderful two children, boys that I’m really close with a fabulous friend. I mean, I could go on and on, but I was in despair. And finally I was in therapy. I had my own coach and it was just this moment of like, if you want to change this, you’re going to have to change it.
And that’s when I found positive psychology and became a positive psychology coach and learned how to enjoy my everyday life and separate from that hyperachievement. So yeah, I was so bummed that my book didn’t sell. I wouldn’t choose any other way because if that book has sold, I promise you the minute it sold, it would have been, how are the sales?
Cause this is what happened with the listen to your mother book. Like yes, bit nice advance, rave reviews. I still think it’s a beautiful encapsulation of the project, it didn’t sell how we were, you know, how people expected. So immediately it felt like a failure. If your whole self is based on external validation, you’re just waiting for the next thing and the next thing and the next thing, and it’s never enough.
It’s an unfillable well. And now I know how to fill the well and I help people do that.
[00:17:18] Nina: That achievement piece really speaks to me and it’s so true that the bar constantly moves of what’s going to be the thing that makes you feel successful. I have this a little bit with the podcast where I feel like I’m doing amazing stuff.
I love that this is where the friendship stuff landed. I also had a book that an agent almost took. I didn’t get as far as you did. This is before I started the blog, so this must have been 2009, and it was about a friendship breakup.
So this friendship thing has been in the head, and I feel the same way about you, do you? Like if that book had come out, it’s like how many books, you and I have both read a ton of books in our lifetime. And a lot of them, you know, they. If they make it to the bookstore or even get shown on that front table, it’s there for a short time and then it’s like, what’s next?
What’s next? Yes. What’s next? This work is just so much more satisfying to me and what is the question people ask me all the time that makes me, I really have to do a lot of work on not feeling feelings in my body. Oh, how much money are you making? Oh yeah. Or how many people are listening? Right. Yes. So people ask me that a lot.
They ask me about the money. Yeah. And they ask me how many listeners, a lot of people ask me how many listeners, by the way, it’s not for everyone wondering that it’s not that simple to answer that question. Spotify doesn’t report numbers in the same place that you get the other numbers. do you want me to break out all my apps add them all together?
what are you asking? I know most people are just making conversation, by the way, and which is nice. That’s right. Absolutely right. So I do try to just be like, okay, they’re just showing an interest, which by the way I appreciate because a lot of people don’t show an interest, so it’s something.
It’s the achievement thing in my brain that even makes me react to the money question. That’s the only reason I react to it. That makes sense. So what are some tools that you’re giving people in terms of the way that they can Use this kind of work in their relationships. Yeah.
[00:19:01] Ann: Yeah. Let’s bring it to friendships.
Well, let’s look at the positive of how you can enrich the friendships that are going well. you talked about even just asking curiosity and celebrating and savoring. So you can do this with your friendships, with your family members. When something goes well and somebody shares a piece of news, it’s not just like, yay, it’s tell me more.
Yeah. Yeah. Where were you when you got the news? Why do you think you got offered that opportunity instead of other people? What did they see in you? Like really draw out. This comes from Martin Seligman, who’s one of the founders of modern psychology. And he talks about when his wife got a photography prize and he just asked her so many questions like what was it about your work that they noticed?
How did you feel? What exactly did they tell you? This literally changes our brains. And the brains of the person that we’re talking about in real time, because our brains have neurons that mirror the other person when we’re speaking. So if you and your friend are feeling tense, we’re in a conflict. I mean, we’ve all experienced this, right?
You’re in a meeting, somebody walks in, they’re in a terrible mood, everything shifts because our brains mirror each other. Or you’re in a meeting, everyone’s half asleep. Somebody walks in like whistling in a great mood and everyone perks up. So deliberately savoring and celebrating when something is going well and showing up.
I mean, I know this podcast is all about this is, you’ve heard this before, making plans, Transcribed Taking the time to spend together, this is money in the bank. Being present, showing up, even when you show up in deep curiosity and genuine questioning. And especially when things are going well, because of this negativity bias that we were talking about earlier, It’s harder for us to remember the good things.
So oftentimes when we’re like, I had a bad day. It’s one thing that went wrong and it colored our whole day and maybe after your friend tells you about that bad day You’re like, can you remember anything good that happened today or meaningful? And you help them shift without discounting. You sat with their pain or you sat with what wasn’t going well.
I wonder what else happened today. I’ve heard that we don’t remember the good things. So that’s one example of how you can deepen friendships that are already working and just not taking them for granted too. You really, you have to put the money in the friendship bank for the friendship to keep staying alive and connective. showing up for each other.
[00:21:20] Nina: There’s like two heads to this showing up animal. So just making the plan, keeping the plan, not flaking out.
Yeah. Okay that’s challenge number one: make the plan show up for the plan you made, but then once you get there to show up, ask questions, be curious. I love that. Do not be sitting on your phone is like the most obvious version of looking disconnected and being disconnected.
You will not find this surprising. my most shared moment on social media lately, and I’m talking significantly more than any other thing I’ve created was just me talking about an episode I did It was called, like, The Friend Who Never Asks About You. And it was just me talking about the episode very loosely. This struck people. Mm hmm. clearly That is something that is going on out there That even when we’re on the phone or we’re texting or in person, which is you know I think ideal, people still feel like their friend isn’t really showing up for them.
So there’s something to this
[00:22:12] Ann: Well, some people really never learned. It’s not just the art of conversation. I’ll never forget. I was a freshman in college. I met a friend who. And every time I sat with her, I felt like a million bucks and I couldn’t figure out why she was back for her second degree. It turns out she was 10 years older than me.
She looked way younger. We were both shocked. She thought I was older. , I was 18, she was 28. She just asked me a ton of questions about myself, but it made me feel appreciated I just felt like I was coming alive and I couldn’t figure out why. part of being a good listener is asking questions and then tell me more is a kind of a coaching cliche, but when you really are deliberately invested in someone and you’re saying, tell me more, you find out more, it’s not so basic, but it’s true.
It’s not just, how are you? Fine. Well, tell me more.
[00:22:59] Nina: that’s a great expression. I you’re right. It seems so obvious, it’s such a nice thing to say to somebody because yeah, it shows you’re interested. that you are not just willing to listen, but that you have been listening and you haven’t heard the real depth that maybe you know is there.
Right. Tell me more. That’s what Tell Me More says. It’s like, I know that there’s more to this story.
[00:23:19] Ann: Yeah. And I would also say giving and receiving, you know, a lot of women tend to be givers and givers and givers and pleasers and pleasers and pleasers. But friendship blossoms when it’s both and it can be very hard to receive for us givers and us pleasers. What that means is great I’m an excellent listener. I don’t even want to talk about myself. If somebody is sharing their heart, they’re going to feel a lot safer and more trusting in you if you share your heart back. I’m not saying you have to spill everything. Everyone’s got different thresholds, but yeah. Being a little more vulnerable than you might normally be, what that does is it builds trust and connection.
[00:23:57] Nina: Absolutely. Some of the comments I got on that viral video, a couple of them were of that nature. I mean, I’d say most comments were complaining about the friend who never listens to them or never asks about them. Wasn’t about listening, was more like never says, tell me more, never says anything really.
But a couple of people did say, I try but my friend just gives me one word answers. And There is something to that also. I think that’s fair. I mean, how many times are you going to ask? If the person is a wall and won’t let that wall down? It shouldn’t be that much work. I talk about this a lot, friendship is work and it is an investment, but we get to have many different kinds of friends and it shouldn’t be all work.
[00:24:33] Ann: Right. Like maybe that’s your fun friend. If that friend isn’t the person where you go deep and you get vulnerable and you have long talks, maybe that’s a friend where you go and do something fun and laugh and just keep it light. We can’t all be each other’s everything all the time.
[00:24:47] Nina: So the showing up, showing up when you show up. What are some other friendship things that come up in your work? And I want to hear after that, so don’t forget, how you work with clients. I don’t think people are that familiar with, some people are, but for people who aren’t, how it works working with a coach.
[00:25:03] Ann: I would absolutely love to talk about that. Well, first of all, I want to talk about how it works to, I talked about these two parts of our brain and how we disrupt that judge, that negativity bias in real time. And these are the kind of tools I, I work with people and I help them with, and I use a tool called positive intelligence, which is a learning program and an app that I use every day and just absolutely love.
It’s a game changer. I’m going to show you in real time. How to do this. These are called P Q reps. PQ is positive intelligence and reps is like going to the gym. Like you do reps with the weight. It’s like taking our brain to the gym.
The cool thing is you can do this anywhere: in the middle of a fight before a presentation. When you are feeling nervous, when you are tuning out with your friend and you want to be a better listener. it’s just 10 seconds of deeply tuning into different senses And I’m gonna take you through some of them and then notice which ones really work for you.
[00:25:59] Nina: I’m here for this.
[00:26:00] Ann: Okay. Awesome. So just close your eyes start to deepen and slow down your breaths. So take some deep breaths
and just begin noticing the temperature of the air as you breathe in through your nose and how the temperature of the air changes when you breathe out.
So just breathing in and out of your nose and how the temperature of the air changes when you breathe in and when you breathe out.
And just let go of any thoughts you’re having, that’s totally normal. And now, take two fingers and rub your fingertips together with such a tension that you can feel the fingertip ridges on both fingers. So try to feel your fingertip ridges on both fingers.
And maybe take your fingertips of one hand and feel the fingertips and palm of the other hand. Just notice all those sensations, temperature, texture, maybe different areas of sensitivity on your hand,
and try to notice your fingers on your hand and your hand on your fingers. And then lastly, Listen for the farthest away sound you can hear. Just let go of any thoughts and listen for the farthest away sound you can hear. And then listen for the closest sound you can hear. If you haven’t, notice the sound of your own breathing, and then you could just open your eyes and tell me what you noticed and how you feel.
[00:27:38] Nina: I feel so calm. I really do.
[00:27:39] Ann: So when you feel stress coming on, when you feel anxiety, when you’re in a friendship conversation that’s not going well. You can rub your two fingers together under the table. You can try to feel each individual toe on your foot. These things disrupt that overreactive left brain and just slow you down and give you a little more time to assess what’s going on and make an active choice instead of just reacting.
There’s lots of different PQ reps. It’s sort of like having the benefits of meditation, but in real time, like I said, nobody will know you’re doing this. You can listen for the farthest away sound that you can hear and listen to the sound of your own breath. So people are familiar with take three deep breaths.
And that is a great PQ rep if you’re really feeling your rib cage expanding. And you’re listening for the sound of your breath, not if you’re laser focused on how mad you are. You have to really tune into the senses to just disrupt, get out of that judge channel.
[00:28:37] Nina: I love this idea, Ann, for helping , in a moment of conflict. You could even use it as you feel yourself jumping to a conclusion. And I also like something you said earlier. I found it very useful. I don’t think everybody assumes that people think like they do. you said something that was different than what I would have assumed. I said something about, assuming the best of ourselves and assuming the worst of others.
Mm hmm. And then you said something else about the judge. I guess like some people are very hard on themselves. Yes. I must really be easier on myself and harder on others. Yeah. And then I assume everybody is the same. I assume people are being hard on me.
[00:29:11] Ann: Yeah. So many assumptions. When we get into a friendship tension the judge is at work. We don’t have to sit there and analyze what’s going on. When you are feeling stressed out, when you are feeling irritated and mad, your judge is at work.
You just need to calm yourself down maybe with some of those PQ reps we just did and then ask yourself, What might I not be seeing here? Get curious, even if that means just slowing down and saying, Oh, I recognize that I’m really stressed out right now, let’s talk about this later, if you don’t have any bandwidth to consider anything else in real time.
But also, there’s a 10 percent rule. On any conflict, what if you could allow that the other person is at least 10 percent right? And what if you spent your energy in the conversation looking for that 10 percent that point of connection, especially if it’s somebody that you really love or that there’s 10 percent of the information you don’t have right now that might completely change your opinion.
So just even allowing that you don’t know everything that’s going on, whether it’s from your perspective or actual information can calm the situation down and help you get a little more curious.
And then one really useful question, again, this is all from positive intelligence. I didn’t make any of this up.
At the end of my life, looking back, how important is this? And that can help guide you for how you want to treat this other person. Because so many conflicts are about people getting dug in about positions. and there might be a place of connection that you’re not even seeing right now.
So the goal is to just get a little more curious, to intercept that judge that’s causing the negative feelings,Find a way to calm your nervous system with these PQ reps or deep breathing or whatever works for you, and then just get a little more curious and biggest piece of advice, pick up the phone.
If you’re texting, we make up huge stories about what is happening in our texts with before we even know it. email and texting electronic communication as convenient as it is, it is such an opportunity for misunderstandings. There’s no intonation, especially if this is a relationship that’s important to you.
Be face to face. You’re going to have that resonance between you. Your brains are going to be talking to each other and it’s going to, positive and negative, right? So like you’re going to come, you’re going to have your feelings, but there’s going to be that face in front of you that you love.
[00:31:26] Nina: Yes. This is your friend.
This is your friend. This is supposed to be your friend at
one point.
[00:31:29] Ann: Yes. And this isn’t to say that every friendship should be saved and every friendship definitely has seasons. But when it comes to a conflict. And any sort of decision making you want to make around a relationship you care about, you don’t want to do it when you’re all in that judge mode. You need to calm yourself and get clear and then take an action.
[00:31:48] Nina: Remind me the Q, it’s the P is positive, right?
[00:31:52] Ann: Yeah. It’s eq, I mean PQ or EQ is emotional intelligence. so it’s Q because it’s positive intelligence. The Q positive is like quotient, you know, like a measurement. So it’s positive intelligence.com is the website. they offer the program on the site. If you’re interested in this work, go through the coach, you’ll, you’ll get a better deal anyway, but you want a person helping you through. So to answer your question about what coaching looks like, yes, it kind of looks like what we’re doing.
It looks like doing some PQ reps and taking people through their challenge or their goal and helping people react. it’s beyond just this tool. What positive psychology does is, like I said, figuring out what works. So it’s identifying people’s strengths and how they can use them to better align their lives and their goals and their relationships.
I’m really passionate about doing this work with young people, especially young men is a niche that has been finding me often their parents. Launching looks really different than it used to. And often I hear from a parent who’s like, you know, my son is just. Either he’s back in the nest or he hasn’t left or he is, hates his job and he just seems lost and unhappy and, you know, we’re in therapy, but still, or he won’t do therapy and coaching is not therapy.
I do have a master’s degree in social work with, which I do think helps, so if somebody comes to me and they’re in the middle of a crisis, I will definitely be asking about therapy and, you know, if somebody’s got acute depression or anxiety or ADHD, you know, I want to make sure that they’re being seen by professionals, that they’re medicated if they need to be, and coaching is for a time when somebody has got their feet underneath them a little more.
But have real challenges, whether it’s a huge life transition, career change, or I’m just not where I want to be. And I just am not really feeling like my old self. I don’t even know where my spark went. I work with women around that and midlife. We meet over zoom. And we start with PQ reps. We make sure that we are working on what you want to work on.
And like in the beginning, we’ll establish that and get clear on that. And halfway through the session, I will say, this is what your stated goal was. How are we doing? Do you want to pivot? And it’s me asking a ton of questions and not really giving advice. It’s really asking questions about you and helping you plan and keep moving toward your goal, whether it’s feeling better or a career change, working on that friendship challenge.
And I do offer a breakthrough session for free, and usually it’s a 30 minute Zoom that’s completely free. But. For listeners of Dear Nina, I’m going to give you the full 50 minute session. And I think the link will be in the show notes, my account only,
[00:34:22] Nina: that’s a fantastic offer. No, thank you so much.
[00:34:24] Ann: Yeah, absolutely. I love connecting with people and learning from people and hearing their stories. I’m just so passionate about getting, getting to know people. people these tools that have so powerfully changed my life and the life of my clients. And you can learn more about me and my work at listen life coaching.
com. you can also sign up for a breakthrough session that way.
[00:34:42] Nina: It’s a perfect place to end. You’re just a professional podcaster too. I love that.
[00:34:47] Ann: I love it. It’s easy for me. I love it.
[00:34:49] Nina: closing an episode is always the hardest thing. So you did it. I’m so appreciative because I think we covered a lot of great ground and have some great links in the show notes
go find Ann, everybody. All right. Listeners, as you know, I’m going to say right now. Come back next week when our friendships are going well, we are happier all around.
Thanks. Thank you, Nina.
