Holidays are times of great loving and loneliness and we often don’t know who is experiencing which. For many it is a bit of both.

For us all this can be a prime time for kindness, sometimes by sharing what we have.

And kindness is often unspoken. “An eye can threaten like a loaded and leveled gun, or it can insult like hissing or kicking; or, in its altered mood, by beams of kindness, it can make the heart dance for joy,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson. At another time, Emerson wrote, “You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.”

“You may be sorry that you spoke, sorry you stayed or went, sorry you won or lost, sorry so much was spent. But as you go through life, you’ll find—you’re never sorry that you were kind,” said Herbert Prochnow. There’s a French proverb on the wall of my study, “Write injuries in sand, kindnesses in marble.”

Authentic praise is an extension of kindness. Whatever we praise we encourage to flourish. Whatever we criticize or “simply” snub goes deeper and lasts longer.

Each moment we choose our emotional response. We choose where to put our attention, emotion, and intention. Emotions are energy. So, look to someone’s positive intent, especially when it appears she may have none.

Even though after his death his wife probably disagreed with how he displayed some of his “kindness” on the road, Charles Kuralt wrote, “The everyday kindness of the back roads more than makes up for the acts of greed in the headlines.”

“Keep what is worth keeping. And with the breath of kindness blow the rest away,” suggests English novelist, Dinah Mulock Craik. Here’s to making more opportunities to play, laugh, celebrate, and act together in cultivating kindness as life’s genuine “keeper.”

Life contains few absolutes, and one of those few is that kindness usually cultivates connection, something we yearn for in a time-pressed, ear-to-the- cell-phone, relationship-diminished culture. After all, the heart can be our strongest muscle if we exercise it regularly. Yet being kind is not a guarantee of safety from hurt — nothing offers that fail-safe comfort.

“Kindness and intelligence don’t always deliver us from the pitfalls and traps: there are always failures of love, of will, of imagination. There is no way to take the danger out of human relationships,” wrote Barbara Grizzuti Harrison in an article for McCall’s magazine way back in 1975.

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares,” wrote Henri Nouwen in Out of Solitude.

Years ago from my college classmate, Alasi Perdanan, I heard a Persian proverb, “With a sweet tongue of kindness, you can drag an elephant by a hair.”

“Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate,” wrote Albert Schweitzer. “He who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love,” wrote the Greek religious leader, Saint Basil.

“Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom,” wrote Theodore Isaac Rubin in “One to One.”

“Life is made up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things, in which smiles and kindness and small obligations win and preserve the heart” said English chemist Humphrey Davy.

“We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop that makes it run over.

So in a series of kindness there is, at last, one which makes the heart run over,” once wrote the Scottish lawyer and biographer, James Boswell.

“We are told that people stay in love because of chemistry, or because they remain intrigued with each other, because of many kindnesses, because of luck . . . But part of it has got to be forgiveness and gratefulness,” wrote columnist Ellen Goodman.

From an artist’s perspective, ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov once said, “The essence of all art is to have pleasure in giving pleasure.”

Willa Cather believed that “When kindness has left people, even for a few moments, we become afraid of them, as if their reason has left them.”

“Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution, “Kahlil Gibran reminds us.

Ultimately, “kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not,” noted Dr. Samuel Johnson. Albeit unevenly, this holiday, I am attempting to practice giving what may be the most nourishing and priceless present and by now you can probably guess what that is.

Your thoughts on this?

Wincing I glanced down. It hadn’t taken much to make that small blister appear in the hollow of my palm, that most tender of places on one’s hand. It’s my writing hand where a thin flap of skin now folded back.

I’d just planted 30 daffodil bulbs in my garden but had neglected to wear gloves.

Suddenly I remembered a dinner party where the hostess brightly asked the man across the table from me, “How long have you been hunting for a job?” I saw him wince momentarily, then quickly attempt to cover it with a quick smile.  He made a fumbling reply then his wife, on his left, quickly changed the topic.

He wasn’t wearing his emotional “gloves” to protect himself from an unwanted yet perhaps not unexpected question.

• There will always be those who, unthinkingly or deliberately ask questions or make comments that cause us discomfort, irritation or worse.

1.  When someone hits one of your hot buttons or a current topic that you’d rather avoid it’s like creating a tiny blister in a tender place.

2.  Yet, unlike a blister, the memory can take a long time to heal, especially if one keeps seeing subsequent experiences as similar, thus rubbing the blister.

3. That’s because our primitive brain is hard wired with a survival instinct (thank goodness!) werespond sooner, more intensely and longer to the negative things that happen to us than to the positive.

• That Reaction Effect prevents us from:

-   Demonstrating our best temperament and talent

-   Strengthening our capacity to stay open and

-   Deepening our ability to connect well with others in the moment

The more we dwell on how we feel about the bad things that happen to us, the deeper the rut in road of our brain so that anything that subsequently happens that looks at all like that earlier, bad experience, is likely to evoke a reactive response in us…. again.

While we can’t avoid thinking about difficult experiences we can choose to change the channel when we see something similar beginning to happen in a situation.

Advance preparation is vital. It is akin to defensive driving where we learn to look around and behind, and several cars ahead to see and respond to a potentially dangerous situation sooner.

For example, if the man had thought of the brief, deflecting response he would choose to make when others asked about his job search, he would be better able to respond in the heat of the moment. With true friends, he can feel safe to share what is really going on.

Don’t be surprised next time.   One can never be prepared for every awkward or irritating situation yet one can contemplate what topics will cause most discomfort.

As Theodora Wells wrote in Keep Cool While Under Fire, “Don’t let somebody else determine your behavior.”

There’s an added bonus.

Too often we presume that when somebody says or does something it means the same thing to them as it does to you. When I first went to northern Europe I realized that they did not smile as often nor as broadly as many Americans do. This sometimes caused consternation on both sides. As Americans would smile more broadly which made some of the people they encountered look away.

Research shows that people who are aware of their hot buttons and have practiced ways to not react against another person are more able to sense that person’s intentions and to behave in ways that connect rather than conflict with them.

That’s an easier way to live – and to savor life with others.

Partners – romantic and otherwise – tend to fight when one feels neglected or threatened. When Peter Bregman’s wife yelled from two rooms away, “at least pack the shampoo” she was feeling neglected.

Recognizing which underlying feeling is being evoked helps you know how to resolve the conflict. So discovered psychology professor Keith Sanford.

Which one is your hot button? Find out here.

When one feels threatened he sees his partner as critical, blaming, hostile or controlling. When one feels neglected it is because she perceives her partner as failing to contribute sufficiently to the relationship.

Sanford’s research shows it helps to talk about neglect yet discussing a perceived threat may not be helpful.

Sanford’s advice for being happy in love also make sense for any successful partnership or other collaboration: “For the most part, successful couples avoid letting fights get too heated. Specifically, they go easy on the four classic negative fighting tactics:

1. Criticism
2. Stonewalling
3. Contempt
4. Defensiveness

The famed marriage researcher John Gottman calls them the ‘Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,’ because they can spell doom for a marriage when used too frequently.”

I can’t help but add that Gottman, “found one factor that was the best predictor of all. This was a positive predictor, one that predicted long-term success rather than failure in marriage.

Gottman found that marriages are likely to thrive when the man was willing to be influenced by his wife.” (Gentlemen – want to win points with the women in your life? Comment positively about this finding.)

Sanford’s further advice for couples also seems helpful for non—romantic relationships: “Happy couples resort to negative tactics too, Sanford says, but only sparingly.

When they do bring up hurt, anger, and other negative emotions, they often balance them out with a constructive approach. In the best-case scenarios, couples use conflicts as a time to express concerns and share emotions. Instead of telling his partner ‘you make me sick,’ a man could try saying something like ‘It hurt me when you called me lazy.’

Shifting the conversation away from the partner’s faults and towards one’s own feelings is a tried-and-true way to defuse even the most intense conflicts.”

“’There was this joke that when the women who worked in the lab were stressed, they came in, cleaned the lab, had coffee, and bonded,” Dr. Laura Cousin Klein told Gale Berkowitz.  ”When the men were stressed, they holed up somewhere on their own. I commented one day to fellow researcher Shelley Taylor that nearly 90% of the stress research is on males. I showed her the data from my lab, and the two of us knew instantly that we were onto something.”

It turns out that the oft-quoted “Flight or Flight” response to a stressful situation applies more to men than women. Also, women under stress are more able to read other’s facial expressions and men are less accurate in reading emotions in another’s face.

In threatening or otherwise stressful situations with others men and women also react differently, according to studies yet two of the findings cited seem to be somewhat contradictory:

1. Men initiate connection. Women accept offers to connect.

Men are more willing to expose themselves to the risk of making an overture; yet women are more likely to reciprocate an overture once it’s made.

2. Men Withdraw. Women reach out.

“Men get  antisocial under pressure, but women tend to react in the opposite way: they ‘tend and befriend.’” (The article has a link from “anti-social”, when describing men, to an article on the behavior of psychopaths. This seems sexist or at least not relevant).

The article seems to focus on the first responses to threats or other stress when around others rather than on what unfolds at first and over time – toward connecting and collaborating or not.

Without any research to back me up, I agree with Sahar: “Women instinctively tend to be more social perhaps due to the need for support; men like to be more independent.  Under pressure, we first follow those instincts.”  

Men are more likely – in general – to propose action and press for quick response and women – in general – are more likely to support the group in finding a path towards agreement on what to do together.

Men will focus on getting it done – and place a priority on being respected and productive. Women will spend more effort on helping people feeling comfortable with each other; they perform better when they feel liked and appreciated –and they worry more. Both sexes act worse when others do not appear to be acting fairly through this tense time.

What’s your experience in attempting to connect and collaborate in stressful situations where both women and men are involved?

By the way, in other studies, psychologist Mara Mather found that “acute stress increases sex differences in risk seeking.” Women become more moderate in their habits and avoid risks. Men are more likely to gamble, drink, have unsafe sex or take other risks.

There are exceptions of course.

To reduce your stress and savor your work more cultivate a satisfying work relationship with a partner – female or male.

Emulate a valuable partner by adopting the traits that the Gallup organization found to be most helpful, described in The Power of 2: “If you want to have great partnerships, be a great partner.

Get beyond yourself. Give up the notion that you are well-rounded, and stop expecting your colleagues to be universally proficient. Incorporate someone else’s motivations into your view of the accomplishment. Loosen up. Put aside your competitive nature, your prepackaged view of how the thing should be done, and your desire not to be inconvenienced with the imperfections of a fellow human being.

Focus more on what you do for the partnership than what you get from it. Demonstrate trust in more people, and see if they don’t surprise you with their trustworthiness. Be slower to anger and quicker to forgive. And along the way, communicate continuously.”

“You know your work partnership is truly unselfish if you feel genuine satisfaction at each other’s success, if you and your partner will risk a lot for each other, and if your collaborator is like a brother or sister’ to you.” ~ Rodd Wagner and Gale Muller

When things go wrong, we tend to blind ourselves to other’s feelings. We are more likely to fall into a destructive behavioral trap. Sadly, when we do, we cannot be empathic. We weaken that human bond that’s vital to re-grouping and resilience. These blinding mindsets make us feel dumb, powerless … and alone. (Of course you don’t make any of these mistakes yet someone you know might, so it may be worth reading on.)

1. Jumping to Conclusions

You interpret things negatively when there aren’t facts to support your conclusion.  Two common ways are “mind-reading” (you arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to you) and “fortune-telling” (you assume and predict that things will turn out badly.)

“If you understood everything I said, you’d be me.” ~ Miles Davis

2. Emotional Reasoning

You assume that your negative feelings reflect the ways things really are: “I feel guilty.  I must be a rotten person.”

“Assumptions are the termites of relationships.” ~ Henry Winkler

3. All or Nothing Thinking

You see things as white or black categories. If a situation is anything less than perfect, you see it as a total failure.  You probably have trouble, when faced with a plethora of choices, “satisficing,” that is making a choice with which you feel comfortable.

“We don’t see things as they are. We see things as we are.” ~ Anais Nin

4. “Should” Statements

You tell yourself that things should be a certain way that you expected or hoped they would be. We often try to motivated ourselves with “should”, “ought” and “should not” feelings and statements as if we must be punished before we can expect ourselves to do something  – or not do something.

“Conflict is inevitable, but combat is optional.” ~ Max Lucade

5. Mental Filter

You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it, ignoring all others. For example, one sentence of perceived criticism erases all praise you have received from someone. Just like healthy marriages, enduring relationships need at least a 5:1 ratio of positive to negative interactions to thrive. Those with negative Mental Filters need a much higher ratio and, sadly, are less likely to attract it.

“If it’s mentionable, it’s manageable.” ~ Mr. Rogers

6. Over-Generalization

You see a single, negative event as the extension of a never-ending pattern of negativity.  Probably you use “never” or “always” when thinking speaking or writing about it.  This is one of the three patterns of pessimistic people cited by Marty Seligman in Learned Optimism for which he offers alternative behaviors.

“Every person you fight with has many other people in his life with whom he gets along quite well. You cannot look at a person who seems difficult to you without also looking at yourself.” ~ Jeffrey Kottler

7. Over-Personalization 

When something bad happens to you it is worse for you than for everyone else.  You see the situation as being all about you without seeing how it has affected others or how similar things have happened to others. This is another example of how pessimistic people instinctively react to situations.

“We can often do more for other men by trying to correct our own faults than by trying to correct our own faults than by trying to correct theirs.” ~ Francois Fenelon.

8. Permanently Awful

This bad thing that just happened to you feels like it will haunt you the rest of your life. One must be on guard. The cloud will not lift. You are helpless to improve your situation.

“Behind the cloud the sun is still shining.” ~ Abraham Lincoln

9. Labeling

This is an extreme form of all-or-noting thinking. Instead of saying “I made a mistake,” you attach an all-encompassing label to yourself: “I am a loser.”

 “Don’t be afraid of opposition. Remember, a kite rises against, not with, the wind.” ~ Hamilton Mabie

 10. Magnification

You exaggerate the importance of your problems and shortcomings, or you minimize your positive qualities.  This is also called the “binocular trick.”

“Never attribute to malice or other deliberate decision what can be explained by human frailty, imperfection, or ignorance.” ~ Rabbi Harold Kushner

11. My Bad

You hold yourself personally responsible for events that are not under your control.

“If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each person’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.” ~ Longfellow

12. Discounting the Positive

You reject positive experiences by feeling they “don’t count.”  If you do a good job, you tell yourself that anyone could have done as well and reject other’s praise.

“A pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty.” ~ Winston Churchill

13. Attribution Bias

When Jonathan feels frustrated he usually furrows his brow. That’s why he thinks, when Juan frowns, that he is bothered. Yet, for Juan this facial expression means he is deep in thought. Don’t assume that when someone else does or says something it means exactly what you would mean if you acted that way.

“When patterns are broken, new worlds emerge.” ~ Tuli Kupferberg

 Try the Flexible “Us” Mindset to Sidestep These Traps

The good news?  We can change and draw strength from others in ways that encourages them to seek us out rather than avoiding us. By recognizing these very human reactions we can choose to pause, step back and see the larger perspective: how to care for the “us” in the situation rather than being preoccupied, only thinking of “me.”

That “us” stance may enable you to:

• Avoid deepening a rut of self-destructive behavior when similar situations recur.

• Bring out the better side in the others.

• Attract mutually-supportive relationships.

 Another benefit of cultivating this resilient mind-set is that you can broaden rather than narrow “your thought-action activity towards a specific action of promoting survival.”

Some related books you, too, may find helpful are Mindset, When Things Fall Apart,Learned Optimism, Paradox of Choice and Smart Choices.

“If we don’t change the direction we are going, we are likely to end up where we we are heading.” ~ Chinese Proverb

When you first glimpse someone (or something) new your brain reacts instantly, but you knew that. What’s destructive is that when you instinctively feel danger – or simply irritation –  you respond quicker, longer and more intensely than if you feel safe or another positive emotion.

Your negative reaction to “the new” affects you much more than a positive response. Knowing that you can understand the power of choosing how to respond to what you don’t like – and the need to practice making that choice. You may set in motion a spiral up of negative reactions between you and the other person until you both get stuck against each other. 

That’s one reason why the carrot and stick approach to rewarding and penalizing employees, family members or friends actually harms relationships and collective performance. So suggests Dave Rock in Your Brain at Work and Dan Pink at the TED conference and in his forthcoming book, Drive: The Surprizing Truth About What Motivates Us.  

Keep cool while under fire

The most effective way to avoid being the victim of one’s reactions to stress-appearing

event, suggests Jeffrey Schwartz, co-author of The Mind and the Brain, is to establish regular routines in which you watch the patterns of your thoughts and feelings to become more self-aware in the moment.  Schwartz believes that the collective practice of such mindfulness is the only way an organization can change.

And collaborationis difficult, ironically, because without self-awareness we can’t see beyond ourselves.

That’s why mindfulness can also be a powerful bonding practice, as well, for a family or circle of friends to collectively adopt. 

Don’t let somebody else determine your behavior

The more mindful you are the more aware you become of your unconscious processes. That way you have more cognitive control, found Kirk Brown, meaning you have a greater ability to shape what you do and what say, than people lower on the mindfulness scale.

Hint: We tend to like people who act like they like us.   

Here’s six steps to living in the moment from Jay Dixit. 

One of the most pleasurable ways to practice staying in the moment is doing something playful or creative like dancing – with others. 

He takes a stupid stand. (Translation: he hit my hot button.) My first response is to dislike him. (Apparently that’s a universal reaction.) My distaste shows on my face and in my tone, despite my attempt to cover my feelings in a cloak of civility. Even friends or sympathetic bystanders take a psychic step back.

Naturally he reacts in one of two ways: Stepping Back (saying little, going blank-faced, silent or even walking away) or Escalating Up (counter-attacking, speaking louder, standing closer). It’s instinctual – beyond our conscious choice. These are rapid, thin slices of gut reactions and responses. The charged air change happens in milliseconds. We’ve already made each other wrong.

Worse, yet is knowing we escalate up into conflict quicker than over into connection. That’s because our primitive brain is wired for survival. 

Put more bluntly, self-protection trumps happiness or helpfulness in the sequence of gut instinctual reactions. Yet we can reduce the fear response and increase our ability to make connection, even in times of potential conflict. With practice, these steps have helped me, with these twin caveats:

1. One can be convincing without being right.
2. “There is no greater mistake than the hasty conclusion that opinions are worthless because they are badly argued.” ~ Thomas Huxley

Unless I fairly state his position first, he and bystanders will instinctively doubt mine.

The most likely way to change his mind and sway others in the situation is to:

1.  Slow down your responses, especially when you feel like acting more rapidly.

2.  Speak to the other person’s positive intent, especially when you feel like maligning their motives.

3.  Re-state their view fairly, completely, without negative emotion-laden descriptors.  As Nick Morgan advises, “You have to argue the other side’s case on its own merits. To forestall criticism and avoid inflaming a debate further, understand and be ready to give the other side’s position. Fairly. First. And forthrightly.”

4.  Ask for confirmation that you got it right, listen fully to her response and then confirm you hear any modifications she suggested.

5. Then and only then can you state your position and expect to be heard.

Brevity is better. It is less likely you’ll be interrupted.

6. Ask others to comment. That’s when you see your stand through their eyes.  In so doing you will know how to address what most matters to them. You may change how you feel about the issue.

“Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi

There’s an added benefit.

In this approach you are supporting a thread to the conversation – so people are more inclined to keep talking about their differences.  I called this Triangling in a book I wrote long ago. When two people can focus on the issue in front of them (the third point in the triangle) rather than on each other’s reactions, then it becomes safer to talk about the issue. You may feel less instinctual need to attack the other person or defend yourself.

Bottom line benefits: Afterwards, you may like yourself and the other person better. 

Plus with this approach:

1.    It is easier to stay calm and in the conversation.

2.    Everyone has a greater chance of being heard rather than feeling attacked.

3.    You are more likely to sway others and to be open to change.

4.    Rather than being destroyed, relationships may even be strengthened.

For more ideas on how to speak authentically, even while disagreeing read Crucial Conversations. Also, see Don Lindsay’s fascinating list of fallacious arguments.

When women and men were beat up in a Mangalore pub for “violating traditional Indian values” some decried it as “Talibanisation of India.”  Thousands have seen the video.  Yet even the National Commission for Women there, also condemned “the loosening of moral standards amongst young women.”

To galvanize action against the right wing Hindu group that backs such incidents, journalist Nisha Susan involved bloggers to ask women to send their pink chaddi (Hindi for underwear)

to Shri Ram Sena the head of the political party that backed the continued suppression of women.  Soon, via Facebook, Twitter, Technorati and other social media tools the protest has grown, as Gaurav Mishra describes in this excellent roundup of coverage.  He writes, “As of now, it has more than 48,000 members and a vibrant community with more than 350 discussion topics and more than 6,750 wall posts.”  I hope Clay Shirky cites this story as he just got quoted in a McKinsey report on how companies can “make web 2.0 work” – meaning why they can’t ignore social media.

Reading Mishra’s coverage and clicking on the links he generously cites I can’t help but be inspired by the bravery, clarity and leveraging of clout reflected in this quickly-launched movement.  The instigators demonstrate that a properly focused action (send him your pink chaddi) can capture the attention of a nation, vividly prove the power and numbers of those who agree – and perhaps even “inspire” a shift in the political position of some elected officials.  

Rather than a fake-friendly question to highlight his ignorance, a sarcastic retort, shouting or silently seething – try alleviating the friction that’s at the core of the conflict. I’m not saying it’s easy. Yet unsettled resentments usually cause two-way sabotage, in the moment and in the future, so it is worth trying something different to save the relationship.

It’s often about assumptions and 

perspective.

Recall, when crossing the street, how many motorists drive too fast and don’t stop for pedestrians?  Yet, when driving, you notice how many people jaywalk, dawdle across the street or cross when the light is red.

Here’s some ways we stumble into arguments – and how to stay convivial:

We’re More Emotional This Time of Year (Even Men – They Just Demonstrate it Differently)

• For starters, holidays are times of high feelings now matter who we are so hidden resentments can rise to the surface faster than normal.

 We Usually Don’t Say What We Really Feel …

 • On top of that problems seldom exist at the level at which they are expressed.

 … But We Can Still Argue Because of How We Feel

• In fact, if you are arguing for more than ten minutes you are probably not discussing the real, underlying conflict.

In Difficult Conversations participants often make at least one of three sabotaging assumptions, according to by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen:

1. The Truth assumption: I am right you are wrong.

2. The Intention Invention: When the other person’s intentions are unclear, we often assume they have bad intentions.

3. The Blame Frame: Blame the other person.  Then each person gets defensive or worse, stops listening and hardens their position, now more motivated to prove they are right.

To reduce the chance of conflict, shift:

FROM: Certainty (I understand)     TO: Curiosity (Help me understand)

FROM: I am right                           TO: I am curious

FROM: I know what was intended   TO:I know the impact

FROM: I know who is to blame        TO: I know who contributed what

FROM: Debate TO: Exploration

FROM: Simplicity TO: Complexity

FROM: “Either/or” TO: “And”

Understanding the structure of the conversation as all parties appear to be viewing it. Begin by practicing Stephen Covey’s fifth habit, “Seek first to understand then to be understood.”

Tip: Step into the other person’s shoes. 

Rather than becoming defensive – a natural reaction – attempt to see the world their way. 

When she frowns she may simply be thinking  - unlike another familiar figure in your life who frowns when upset.

Tip:  Act as if the other person has your best interests at heart.

You are more likely to prove yourself right.  The opposite is also true. Know that, in fractious situations we instinctively expect others to treat us as if we have good intentions. (Innocent until proven guilty.) Yet, wired as we are to survive, we often are slower to trust others’ intentions until we get proof.  (Guilty until proven innocent.)

Judy Ringer’s checklist may help you prepare for that difficult conversation.

Double Bottom Line for Rising Above the Fray

1. Look to their positive intent, especially when they appear to have none.

2. Don’t let somebody else determine your behavior.