LEARN TO LOOK 47You can't believe how obvious this advice is-and yet you've
never thought of such a thing. Weirder still, your friend has. In
fact, he has a whole vocabulary for what's going on during a cru
cial conversation. It's as if you've been speaking another language.
WATCH FOR CONDITIONS
In truth, most of us do have trouble dual-processing (watching
for content and conditions)-especially when it comes to a cru
cial conversation. When both stakes and emotions are high, we
get so caught up in what we're saying that it can be nearly impos
sible to pull ourselves out of the argument in order to see what's
happening to ourselves and to others. Even when we are startled
by what's going on, enough so that we think: "Yipes! This has
turned ugly. Now what?" we may not know what to look for in
order to turn things around. We may not see enough of what's
happening.
How could that be? How could we be smack-dab in the mid
dle of a heated debate and not really see what's going on? A
metaphor might help. It's akin to going fly fishing for the fi rst
time with an experienced angler. Your buddy keeps telling you to
cast your fly six feet upstream from that brown trout "just out
there." Only you can't see a brown trout "just out there." He can.
That's because he knows what to look for. You think you do. You
think you need to look for a brown trout. In reality, you need to
look for a brown trout that's under water while the sun is reflect
ing in your eyes. You have to look for elements other than the
thing that your dad has stuffed and mounted over the fi replace.
I t takes both knowledge and practice to know what to look for
and then actually see it.
So what do you look for when caught in the middle of a cru
cial conversation? What do you need to see in order to catch
problems before they become too severe? Actually, it helps to
watch fot' three diff erent conditions: the moment a conversation