Conversational Gratitude
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said,
people will forget what you did,
but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
-Maya Angelou
The quote above by Maya Angelou is one of our favorite quotes at TC&A. It is a mindset that Chelsea and I seek to lead our own selves, as we coach and lead our clients.
The ability to raise our own consciousness and mindfulness that everything we communicate has the power to positively or negatively “trigger” physical and emotional changes within our brains and our bodies – truly, one of the most important things we can learn when building relationships through our conversations and communication.
One of my mentors through learning, podcasts and her book, “Conversational Intelligence – How Great Leaders BUILD TRUST and Get Extraordinary Results” by Judith E. Glaser supports the neuroscience within conversations. The foundation of understanding how our five brains are hardwired for supporting our ability to interact with others impacts our outcomes in a positive or negative way.
Here are 5 brief descriptions of our brains:
The Reptilian Brain – this part of our brain communicates about threats – physical or psychological safety.
The Limbic Brain – this part of our brain identifies our friends and foes – it tends to focus on our needs, emotions and relationships with others.
The Neocortex – this part of our brain is more sensory and data driven – it tends to promote understanding of our realities.
The Heart Brain – this part of our brain is the oldest part and tends to read our bodies, which translates into our own energy and how we interact with others.
The Pre-frontal Cortex or Executive Brain – this part of our brain helps us to make judgment decisions or being empathetic, thinking about the future or helping us grasp the inner and outer truths we are experiencing.
Every part of our brain gives us an ability to interact and converse with others or feel threatened and break communication. With every conversation, we can begin with an inner gratitude and move in and through our conversations with gratitude or take things personally with other parts of our brain. When we are mindful of how our brain is taking in information, we determine whether we will open up and connect with others in the following ways or not:
- when we trust the other person
- we will be open to conversation
- when we have a sense of belonging
- we will be open to further conversation
- when we are willing to learn
- we will be open to asking good questions for conversation
- when we can create value with others
- we will be open to connecting with others
We trust your practice of mindfulness with INNER AND CONVERSATIONAL GRATITUDE will lead you towards the best of outcomes, experiences and a greater confidence when connecting with others.
In next week’s newsletter we will walk you through a simple strategy to improve your conversations with gratitude.
We are always here to support you and your organization’s ability to have conversations! Gain support from our catalog of services here.
