MASTER MY STORIES 101laughs at you. If sometimes you do and sometimes you don't,
then your response isn't hardwired. That means something goes
on between others laughing and you feeling. In truth, you tell a
story. You may not remember it, but you tell a story.
Any set of fa cts can be used to tell an infinite number of sto
ries. Stories are just that, stories. These fabrications could be
told in any of thousands of different ways. For instance, Maria
could just as easily have decided that Louis didn't realize she
cared so much about the project. She could have concluded that
Louis was feeling unimportant and this was a way of showing he
was valuable. Or maybe he had been burned in the past because
he hadn't personally seen through every detail of a project. Any
of these stories would have fit the facts and would have created
very different emotions.
If we take control of our stories, they won't control us. People
who excel at dialogue are able to influence their emotions during
crucial conversations. They recognize that while it's true that at
first we are in control of the stories we tell-after all, we do make
them up of our own accord-once they're told, the stories con
trol us. They control how we feel and how we act. And as a result,
they control the results we get from our crucial conversations.
But it doesn't have to be this way. We can tell different stories
and break the loop. In fact, until we tell different stories, we
cannot break the loop.
If you want improved results from your crucial conversations,
change the stories you tell yourself-even while you're in the
middle of the fray.
SKillS FOR MASTERING OUR STORIES
What's the most effective way to come up with different stories?
The best at dialogue find a way to first slow down and then take
charge of their Path to Action. Here's how.