📚 A&B #129

🙏  Support:

This week's newsletter was made possible by Audible.

I'm posting about this again because it's the best Audible deal I've seen AND it ends TOMORROW (February 20th). Sign up and you'll get your first 3 months for free. There's never been a better time to try audiobooks.

Get 3 months of Audible for FREE here!

👋 Hey everyone,

Here are a few popular posts you may have missed:

• 10 Ways to read books for FREE (100% legal).

• What men like to read vs what women like to read.

• An interesting breakdown of who hasn't read a book in the past 12 months.

PS: If you sign up for Audible but don't know which audiobooks to get here's a list of 20 amazing audiobooks.

🤓 Course Update:

Thank you to everyone who responded to last week's email!

I received 100+ responses and 95%+ of replies were for "A) Self-paced course for $149" so that's what I'll be building.

To the people who preferred a live-course, maybe I'll include an add-on option to join a live Q&A or something along those lines (still TBD, stay tuned).

Once again, if you're interested in the course and want to stay updated on it, reply "A" to this email and I'll email you personally when it's available for preorder!

📚 Book Summary:

This week's book is Nonviolent Communication by Marshall B. Rosenberg.

 This book will change the way you talk to people forever. It will show you what healthy communication looks like and help you unlearn bad communication habits such as being passive-aggressive, blaming or judging others, and much more. 

Here are 3 key lessons from the book:

📖

1) Look For The Need In The Negative

Imagine your wife saying the following statement to you: "You've been working late every night this week, I guess you love your work more than you love me."

Most of us would get defensive or try to justify working late, but that doesn't make either person feel better.

What you want to do instead, is find the need in the negative. Ask yourself, "What need isn't being met?" In this case, your wife is upset because her need for intimacy is not being met.

Or if your wife says, "You lied to me because you said you'd be home by 10pm but you came in at 11pm." Her need for communication and trust isn't being met.

So the next time you hear someone criticizing or judging you, look for the need that isn't being fulfilled.

📖

2) Take Responsibility For Your Feelings

You've probably heard about the importance of taking responsibility for your actions, but you also want to take responsibility for your feelings.

When we do this, we're able to express our needs better to the other person and communicate them in a more positive manner–which in turn increases the chances of them changing their behavior.

Here are a few examples. 

Instead of saying:

• You're a fake friend.

• Mike is a terrible boss.

• Jessica screwed up the brochure.

You want to connect your feelings with the missing need (see lesson #1 above) and substitute it with the phrase "I feel...because I..."

So a better way to express the statements above would be:

• I feel disappointed that you canceled plans because I wanted to talk about some things that were bothering me.

• I feel angry that Mike broke his promise about letting me take Friday off because I was counting on visiting my brother that day.

• I feel really irritated that Jessica made a spelling mistake in our brochures because I want our company to project a professional image.

The more we are able to connect our feelings to our needs, the easier it is to communicate with others, and doing so increases the chances of a compassionate response.

📖

3) How To Get People To Change Their Behavior

Now that we know how to connect our feelings to our needs and express them to others, the last step is to make a request for that person to change their behavior.

To do this effectively, it's important to make your request clear and positive while using concrete language that reveals exactly what you want. 

So instead of saying:

• Son go get a haircut.

• John I want you to stop drinking.

• Stop coming into my room Mom, you're so annoying.

Try saying:

• Son I'm worried that your hair is getting so long that it might keep you from see things especially when you're on your bike. How about a haircut?

• John I'm concerned that your drinking will affect your health negatively and have an impact on our future baby. Could you put it on hold for the next couple of months?

• Mom I'd like you to knock before you enter my room otherwise it feels like an invasion of my privacy. Could you do that going forward?

By using positive language like the statements above, we're able to share our feelings, needs, and requests more clearly, and as a result, are more likely to get what we want.

✅ Actionable Advice:

1) Look for the need in the negative:

• The next time your friend or partner criticizes or makes a judgmental statement about you, ask yourself, "What need isn't being met?"

2) Watch this video to learn more about nonviolent communication.

3) A few quotes from the book worth reflecting on:

• “At the core of all anger is a need that is not being fulfilled.”

• “We are dangerous when we are not conscious of our responsibility for how we behave, think, and feel.”

• “Peace cannot be built on the foundations of fear.”

• “Analyses of others are actually expressions of our own needs and values.”

• “Blaming and punishing others are superficial expressions of anger.”

• "When I recognize I've got anger, then I realize it's because I have a need that's not being met."

• “Steps to expressing anger: 1. Stop. Breathe. 2. Identify our judgmental thoughts. 3. Connect with our needs. 4. Express our feelings and unmet needs.”

• “When people are upset, they often need empathy before they can hear what is being said to them.”

📖  Reading Lesson:

10 Short tips to read more books.

⭐️  Weekly Quote:

“If you love to read, or learn to love reading, you will have an amazing life. Period.”

-Anne Lamott

Thank you for your support everyone, I'll see you next Sunday!

Read on,

Alex W.