A Simple Idea
Many important conversations happen twice.
The first takes place in our minds.
The second takes place in reality.
The difficulty is that the first conversation often shapes the second long before it begins.
The Conversation Before The Conversation
Before a difficult discussion, most people spend time preparing.
We imagine what the other person might say.
We rehearse our responses.
We predict disagreements.
We anticipate criticism.
We build arguments.
Sometimes we replay the conversation dozens of times before it ever happens.
The meeting before the meeting has already begun.
The Stories We Create
The challenge is that imagination rarely works with complete information.
We fill gaps with assumptions.
We interpret silence.
We assign motives.
We create explanations for actions we do not fully understand.
By the time the actual conversation arrives, we may be responding not to reality, but to a story we have constructed ourselves.
Expectations And Reality
Occasionally the real conversation is very different from the one we expected.
The disagreement is smaller.
The problem is easier to solve.
The misunderstanding is less serious than we imagined.
What felt overwhelming for weeks disappears within minutes.
The fear existed largely in the meeting before the meeting.
Not the one that eventually took place.
Leaving Room To Be Surprised
Preparation is useful.
But so is humility.
The willingness to discover that our assumptions were incomplete.
The willingness to hear something unexpected.
The willingness to learn that another person sees the situation differently.
The most productive conversations often begin when we stop trying to control the outcome and start trying to understand the other perspective.
The Meeting Before The Meeting
Life is filled with conversations that occur before reality arrives.
With family.
With friends.
With colleagues.
With ourselves.
Sometimes the most important preparation is not deciding what we will say.
It is leaving enough space to hear what has not yet been said.