for. This may include any positive aspects of your health, your relationships, your possessions, your achievements, your service for others, your legacy, your surroundings, your experiences. Write until you can’t think of anything else. Keep the list by you and reflect on it for a few minutes every day. Add to it every time you think of something new to be grateful for. Gratitude is the most powerful antidote to self-pity and a complaining habit.
EXCUSES
An inverse expression of the Looking Good leech is desperately trying to avoid looking bad. We all make mistakes, and sometimes those mistakes upset others by creating cost or other negative consequences for them. In the face of anger or pain, it’s tempting to remove ourselves from the line of fire by blaming something or someone else for what happened. “It wasn’t my fault – what could I do?” Sometimes that really is true, but very often if we look closely, we will find that we did have a major part to play in what happened.
I’m sure you’ve made excuses at some point in your life, and you’ve probably had it done to you many times. It is common human behaviour, but as with the other deadly sins of communication, the problem arises if it becomes a habit. Some people are blame-throwers, casting themselves as eternal victims with the fault being everywhere but here. This kind of behaviour creates 2 costs.
First, it’s dishonest, or at best dissembling, so it undermines trust. People don’t give credence to someone who blithely bends or breaks the truth simply to look good or justify themselves.
Second, it obstructs growth. If we refuse to take responsibility for an error or failing, it is very likely to recur: you can’t fix something that you swear is not broken. This kind of denial can be very destructive, obscuring self-awareness to the point where we think we are other than what we really are. The first step in transforming anything is to become aware of it. Repeated excuses deny us the chance to improve, because we believe there’s nothing wrong with us.
EXAGGERATION AND LYING
We talked about embellishment earlier in the context of the Looking Good leech. However, embellishment is not restricted to hyperbole; it can express itself in embroidery of the truth. I wonder if you’ve ever claimed to have read a book you haven’t read, or to have watched a movie you’ve never seen, or to have known someone you really don’t know? I suspect we’ve all done this kind of thing at some point. Mild embroidery like this is relatively harmless, and sometimes it can be a form of rapport-building to warp our reality just a little to fit more comfortably with someone else’s – but beware, lying is just around the corner.
As with all the 7 sins, this behaviour can become habitual and progressive: lies tend to beget more lies, which can lead to embarrassment, pain and even tragedy. This is a common theme in fiction, from Shakespeare’s plays, many of which revolve around lies resulting in either laughter or tears, to the disturbing book and film The Talented Mr. Ripley which brilliantly depicts how lies can escalate and trap the perpetrator in pain. There are reasons for this literary fascination with lying: it is very common, and it can be dramatically destructive.
The effect of lying on communication effectiveness can be seismic. If anyone is recognised as a habitual liar, their words are at best suspect, and at worst completely disregarded.
Exercise: Rigorous honesty
Pay attention for a few days to your honesty level. We all like to think we’re totally honest, but few people are: white lies pop out to make people feel better or avoid criticism or punishment; maybe exaggerations become habitual to curry favour and be more respected. If you spot any pattern, take stock and consider instituting a rule of absolute honesty in the area of concern. In my experience, settling for near-honesty is not as effective as an absolute commitment where the line is clear and you do not cross it. Be careful not to hurt people around you with rigorous honesty: it is always possible to say nothing, or if compliments are demanded and you cannot honestly give one, you can use double-edged praise, like one actor passionately (and honestly) telling another that his performance was ‘unforgettable’!
DOGMATISM
I will listen to you, especially when we disagree.
- Barack Obama
The Being Right leech is foursquare behind this sin. Most of the time, the shells fired in the conversational battle to be right are opinions. I grew up in a household where opinions and facts were rarely differentiated, which gave rise to a lot of table thumping and raised voices. These days, I believe this distinction is critical for harmony so I offer a gentle suggestion in my talks and I’ll make it to you now. Try using the phrase: “Would you like my opinion about that?” You do have to be ready for the answer no! Sadly, all over the world in billions of conversations every day, opinions are given without seeking any permission, often forcefully or even violently.
Internalising this distinction between opinions and facts is a crucial foundation of humility, and a necessary condition for peaceful coexistence. It’s Wednesday. The sun will rise tomorrow morning. My name is Julian. This book is called How To Be Heard. These are facts and there is no point disputing them. However, much of daily conversation involves opinions – about sport, politics, society, other people’s behaviour, the best course of action in a business or in a team, likely outcomes in the future, or effects of past actions (even historians love to disagree!). The problem lies in attachment. When we identify our own worth with our opinions, we become upset or angry when they are challenged; this is the fear-based energy that drives many arguments and confrontations.
Of course, we need to stay true to our values and our beliefs without being blown about by everyone else’s, but we also need to have the capacity to learn and grow. We are not our opinions: we create or collect them.
If you can practice being conscious of the difference between you and your opinions, you may find life becoming much more serene – and more interesting too, as you may be more open to new thoughts and perspectives.
TECHNOLOGY
Most people view technology as inherently benign, which is a rather dangerous generalisation. Certainly, nobody in the world can stop the march of technology, and its benefits are clear: we augment our own capabilities (or even our reality) with a tidal wave of devices and apps; we enjoy cheap food, clothes and energy; we move around the world on faster cheaper, more powerful transport systems. It’s seductive and even addictive, which makes it easy to be oblivious to what economists call the externalities – the costs we don’t explicitly pay. Pollution, climate change and degenerative diseases like cancer and dementia may be the most widely reported consequences of our technological lifestyle, but I believe communication is another significant casualty. Let’s look at how.
RECORDING
Somewhere around 4 thousand years ago, complex writing was invented. This was transformative: for the first time, it was possible to record human discourse and thought – or maybe just a shopping list! Initially hand-crafted and slow to reproduce, this invention nevertheless shaped the world as books like the Bible, the Koran, the I Ching and Plato’s The Republic (all hand-copied at first) influenced millions. The ability to publish the written word accelerated by orders of magnitude with Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press in 1440. A little over 4 hundred years later, Thomas Edison patented the phonograph and we became able to record sound as well as words. Within 40 years, the movie camera existed and the toolkit was complete. Now, millions of people consult YouTube by default to find instructions for anything from baking a cake to building a house. As TED’s Curator Chris Anderson said in his TED talk on this subject, online video is the new de facto educational system for many millions, especially in places that don’t have traditional educational infrastructure.
Once, all human knowledge was handed down aurally. You sat at the feet
