Making Friends and Having Difficult Conversations
Sweet Bites for September 6, 2024
Hi all,
Welcome to another edition of Sweet Bites, Mind Candy’s bite-sized newsletter with thought-provoking finds to send you into the weekend with.
This week we explored kicked off our September theme of relationships.
Any of the below bites resonate? Hit the reply button and let me know.
🦉 Wisdom
“Humans, like polarizing issues, rarely come in binaries.”
Adam Grant
Source: Think Again
📚 This Week’s Newsletter
📰 Article
How to Make Friends as an Adult by Marisa G. Francois
Growing up, making friends was thrust upon us by simply being around those are age in school and activities. But as we get older, our lives branch off from the friends we’ve made and, as our lives become busier, we lose the time and ability to dedicate to friendships. They often end up falling out of key priorities and are replaced by jobs, bills, health, and family.
Ad Francois writes, “Our adult lives can become a monsoon of obligations, from children, to partners, to ailing parents, to work hours that trespass on our free time.”
But it is still possible make friends as an adult and Francois lays out her recommendations:
Make a deliberate effort to meet new people
Assume that people like you
Initiate
Keep showing up
Get vulnerable
Click here to read her full recommendations on how to make friends as an adult.
✏️ This Week’s Wednesday Wisdom
📖 Book Recommendations
This week, a few recommendations that may assist in helping to learn to work with others, in good times and bad.
The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday
Leaning on Stoic philosophy, Ryan preaches about the need to see obstacles not as stopping points but rather as opportunities for us to practice the positive virtues of resilience, patience, knowledge, understanding, and so many more.
The Kindness of Strangers by Michael E. McCullough
Playing against the notion that humans are selfish, McCullough shows that the progress of the world is reliant upon the kindness of individuals leaning into the notion that we are here to work and help one another.
Ordinary Virtues by Michael Ignatieff
Ignatieff embarked on a three year quest to answer whether or not globalization, and the resistance to it, is moving people closer together or further apart. The answer is his book, Ordinary Virtues, in which he details his interactions across eight nations.
❤️ Emotion
We are wired for social connection which means we need to be able to actually connect with others. This isn’t always easy, but is a necessary skill we must learn to master. By leveraging historical events that have evoked similar emotions and reactions in us, we can better connect to those going through a situation that holds the same or similar feelings and be there for the individual.
🛠️ Tactic
In the video below, Simon Sinek breaks down his tactic for having difficult conversations:
Tell the individual you need to have a difficult conversation with them
Ask them when they would prefer to have it.
The within the conversation, focus on these three areas:
These are the feelings/emotions I am feeling or felt
This behavior of yours is what lead me to these feelings
The potential impact will be X if we cannot change this
Until next time,
D.A. DiGerolamo
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.