The attitude you bring to a conversation shapes the quality of the conversation. If you have a negative or cynical or indifferent mindset, it is not likely you will care, listen, or communicate. You certainly wonāt connect.
If you want to communicate, it is essential to manage your mindset. In our R Factor workshops, we call it āGet Your Mind Right.ā
Donāt let undisciplined emotion hijack your conversations. Mismanaged emotion doesnāt care about the other personās message, it doesnāt like to listen, and it causes you to speak impulsively and without thinking. It makes a conversation far more difficult, and it damages the relationship.
Disciplined emotion, on the other hand, motivates you to care about the other person and their message, it helps you listen to understand, and when you speak it clarifies and enhances your message. The goal is to listen in a way that makes people want to talk with you, and to speak in a way that makes people want to listen to you.