I'd say if you start with these three then all of the rest of the goals get much easier. ❏ Understanding my reactions to statements made by others. ❏ Listening to others. ❏ Understanding others. All adding up to understanding others motivations. If you are Machiavelli or Mother Teresa you won't get far if you can't understand what or why others are pointing the direction they are headed. If you don't know what direction a ship is headed it's impossible to apply appropriate force to move it in a more desirable direction. After that one needs to know ones own mind. If you don't know what you want or why you want it, it's very hard to make others understand or support your vision. An understanding of basic rhetoric goes a long ways toward aching many of these goals. Constructing arguments with the three basic rhetorical legs of Ethos, Pathos and Logos is a tried and true method for changing minds or at least opening them a bit. Putting arguments against your position on the table to be openly dealt with challenges both your own defensive biases and opens cracks in the opposition's position by allowing that their concerns are being considered. A few rhetoric classes go a long ways toward developing critical thinking skills and learning how to persuade others. There are a bunch of communications skills that can be learned and drilled, I don't know where you go to learn them, I picked most of them up from a bunch of zany cultist. It's just a collection of habits like when someone comes to you with a problem, listen to their problem, restate in your own words their problem back to them, get an acknowledgment that you correctly understand their problem, and then try to work out a solution. When you go to someone with a problem try to reverse that whole process. Be able to look people in the eye, practice looking people in the eye with a partner. Practice saying sorry with a partner, practice it with a touch on the arm. I got a laundry list of things like that most that I probably don't consciously remember but still use because I drilled and practiced them.
Thanks for your comments cgod. You say to start with listening and understanding others. Who were the zany cultists and how did they teach you to communicate?After that one needs to know one's own mind. If you don't know what you want or why you want it, it's very hard to make others understand or support your vision.
I'm inclined to agree with you. The problem with understanding others is that we often think we already do, so we jump in and try and fix things before really understanding the problem. As for knowing what we want and having a vision of our own lives -- that requires reflection and thoughtfulness, maybe some solitude, maybe some open-hearted discussion.
There are a bunch of communications skills that can be learned and drilled. I don't know where you go to learn them. I picked most of them up from a bunch of zany cultists.
In the absence of zany cultists, books are helpful. One of the best ones I read is called *Difficult Conversations*, but there's lots out there. Courses are good too if you can find one.
Eh, I won't name names on the cult thing, I don't like to pop up on their radar. They have for the most part they have left me alone for the past fifteen years, but on occasion they contact me and try to suck me back in. They don't play nice so I won't pull Beetlejuice and invoke their name. I was an excellent cultist and faced a determined push to move me up the ladder but never once bought into their overarching metaphysics. Most of the communication training was done by drilling, to make techniques 2nd nature. You would tell a partner a problem and then the partner would misstate what your problem was. You would then have to restate your problem and they would restate your problem wrong again. You would go personal "I don't think you are really listening to what I'm trying to say." They would misstate the problem again you would find another way to get them to restate your problem until the proctor type person would give the nod and then you would reverse the process. Other exercises were things like staring into another persons eyes for a half hour. They would blather some nonsense about feeling your real self as you walked away from that one high as a kite. Some of it was pure bullshit other stuff was pretty useful.