"I Understand” as promised. At any time you are faced with a situation in which you find yourself lost for words, stuck or in a position where the other party is very heated and disturbed, this will help alleviate any tension and keep you neutral. “I Understand” is a neutral response and places the position back to the other person leaving you in control of the negotiation. As a director of sales, I was confronted with this situation. The husband who decided to show his wife, the man he was, approached me and proceeded
to let me know how unhappy and disgusted he was. This happened in July when our air conditioning broke down and 70+ tours arrived when there was only room for 30 in the lobby. As he un-loaded his well planned barrage of comments, I stood with my eyes affixed on him and looking up since he was much taller.
I did not flinch, repeatedly said “I Understand”. I said this approximately 10 to 12 times. Finally, he subsided, ran out of comments and went back to his wife. As I turned to walk away,
I felt a tug on my arm by another man. He proceeded to tell me that he had never seen anything like that. He said, “that was amazing, you never flinched or gave in”. As you might imagine,
I walked away with a secret grin knowing the control I kept with this negotiating tool. For any area of negotiating, “I understand” places the burden for explanation back to other side.

Happy New Year! Awsome Beginning

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

In April 2009, I visited a powerful seminar hosted by Gerald Rogers, as written about in volume one. Overcoming Fear, as presented in that particular seminar, we perform an exercise.
To have an arrow lodged at your throat, walking towards it and snapping it before puncturing the skin, sounds scary and
over the edge, right? How about this, an 84 and 82 yr old women
zip lining through 11 lines, high in the tree tops on the island of Saint Lucia. I had the chance to video tape my mother and her sister, and my two sisters zip lining through the forest. What a treat, to watch the faces of the audience, witnessing women in their80’s flying through the air.

At first my aunt was nervous, not because of height but of her heart condition and associating it with excitement. She took on the task along with my mother and they had the time of their life. It reminded me of the movie “Cocoon” when all the old people were young again with no worries, yet the care takers (younger people) were shouting “you can’t do this”, “this is not right”, “you are too old”. How many times this is prevalent in our life when we are told we can’t. Or we are too old to accomplish things and the older we get, the more fearful we are. Even my sister, who is severely afraid of heights, loudly zipped through the treetops having a great time and sense of accomplishment. When a new baby is born, they have one fear, the fear of noise. Everything else is instilled in us through our conditioning in life. Fear is the ultimate show stopper; it will interrupt some great memories and accomplishments, good or bad. When you get knocked down, get up and try again. You ultimately will be boss of your destiny with a few stories
to talk about.