The deeper you go
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All people have very real reasons for believing what they believe, for feeling what they feel. Your best strategy is to understand those reasons.
If you want to find common ground, you have to do more than just advocate your own position. You have to listen, understand, empathize, compromise.
Drama and outrage are the junk food of human relationships. Their empty calories quickly satisfy, but provide no lasting nourishment.
Understanding and cooperation are difficult, time consuming, demanding, humbling. Yet they are what produce real progress.
Problems are not solved by shouting, blaming, judgment and recrimination. Choose instead to take a deep breath, let go of anxieties, and get to work creating value.
No matter how much you differ with someone on the surface, the deeper you go, the more you’ll find in common. Do the work, spend the time, care enough to create deep connections, and get great things done.
— Ralph Marston