I was recently reading over an interview I did with Dennis Ross, one of the most skilled diplomats in the world. He was the chief Middle East envoy during the H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations and was appointed by Obama this month to serve as the chief envoy for Iran. He is the author of the diplomacy book Statecraft.

Dennis is one of the most understated, down-to-earth people I’ve ever met. He epitomizes the guy who just doesn’t take himself that seriously. He likes to invoke DeGaulle’s quote, “The cemeteries of the world are filled with indispensable people.”

But perhaps Dennis’s most outstanding quality of life skill is active listening. Here’s what Dennis shared with me about the importance of listening when it comes to quality of life. 

“I tell people that work with me that one of the most important skills in negotiations is active listening. I believe in not always asking questions with the purpose of getting the other side to reveal things. There is immense, untapped benefit to getting a deep understanding of what drives them and you certainly build good will with such an approach. “Why is that issue important to you. I want to understand it the way you understand it. I don’t want to have a false impression. Explain to me why that matters so much to you. Where does it come from? Why does it create an imperative?” You can’t find the underlying sources of behavior and issues unless you ask questions in this way. In my personal life, this skill has made me more interested in others and in turn made others more comfortable with me. When people see that I am curious by being an active listener, they get a message of respect from me. And of course you have the benefit of actually learning something.”

Well said, no?  We all know that feeling of respect we feel when we encounter people like this.  Those that don’t feel a need for the conversation to revolve around them.  That are secure enough that they don’t need to preoccupy themselves with coming across as interesting all the time.  Those that when you are talking about your vacation will ask you follow up questions about your trip to understand why you had such a good time, rather than instantly relating it back to themselves and have to talk equally about their vacation.  Most conversations are ping pong games; to the point that it is incredibly refreshing when you meet someone who just doesn’t feel a need to bring it back to them all the time.

My wife is one of the best people at listening and engaging people with probing questions. It is natural to her because she is genuinely interested in people.  She knows that there will be a time where the other person might want to learn about what our family did on our vacation.  But instead of doing the ping pong thing, she’ll be an active listener and want to truly understand the other person’s experience or perspective.  People will say that it is one of the qualities they admire most about her.

The ironic thing is most people that underperform with active listening do so because they are trying to make themselves more interesting.  And the best way they could accomplish their goal of being liked is the opposite approach.

As many of you know, I’m a huge fan of the musician Eric Bibb.  He is one of the great performers living today. He is a Grammy-nominated blues musician who despite his accomplishments may still be one of the best-kept secrets in music.

Eric’s guitar work and lyrics are incredible; however it’s something about his calm demeanor and uplifting spirit that makes him so successful connecting with audiences. Some of his best-known songs include “I Heard the Angels Singing” and “Shingle by Shingle.”

I had an opportunity to interview Eric over lunch in Japantown in San Francisco not too long ago.  [Later than night some friends and I saw Eric and Ruthie Foster play together at Yoshi's and it was unreal.]

I knew before we met that he was a person with a inspiring and positive approach to life; you can tell just by the way he carries himself that behind the scenes he’s got some perspectives and practices that contribute to his quality of life.

My favorite part of our conversation was when Eric talked about gratitude:

“For me quality of life comes down to whether I am feeling peaceful, unanxious and grateful for the gift of life. Gratitude is the key to happiness I think. The ability to think, to be creative, to have senses that function, to be able to walk, to have freedom of movement. Those are tremendous blessings and sources of joy. Having enough to eat, having shelter, having companionship, having loving people around you; that’s paradise. Clean water, nutritious food, health, mobility; that’s paradise. I don’t think it’s so much a question of being happy or unhappy because each is part of the flow of life.”

Here are some of the other interesting perspectives and practices Eric shared that you might find interesting:

Mind:  Daily prayer

Perspective:  Realizing our connectedness with others

Health:  Yoga practice

Relationships:  Those that want to trip you up

Perspective:  Discovering your own path

Mind:  Thoughts matter

If you haven’t seen Eric Bibb perform, trust me it’s a great show…

1.  Think Positive
I believe that people are inherently good, things are always getting better and all challenges can be turned into accomplishments. By embracing struggle as a learning experience, all events can be positive.

2.  Honor Thy Sleep
I take sleeping very seriously. I get about eight hours every night and much more on the weekends. It is so vital for our health and happiness yet so overlooked. It heals the mind, soul and the body. It keeps you young and happy. Respect pillow time and you will feel the difference.

3.  Find Your Soulmate

Being with the right partner is the best feeling in the world. I waited to find my true soul mate and she only came when I was ready and felt truly deserving. She enriches my life, gives me purpose and fills my days with serenity and love.

4.  Verbalize Gratitude

Being grateful is a wonderful quality but verbalizing gratitude has a much more powerful effect. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy and when you express your gratitude towards others they often strive to attain even higher levels of the qualities you admire.

5.  Don’t be Yourself

Sure, I love being myself but why not try someone else on for size? In creating characters through my music I can become anyone I want. It allows me to fully invest myself in a powerful emotion and that is an incredibly rewarding release. This can also be done through acting, dance, or even just joking around with friends.

6.  Catch a Smile
Happy people are contagious. My wife and I make a conscious effort to spend time with other happy couples. Those who have good energy, are excited about being together, and have the same values as us are such a pleasure to be around.

7.  Be a Fanatic

You will be amazed by the contagious effects of being a fanatic. It’s totally irrelevant what your fanatic about but putting intense energy into anything opens the floodgates of joy. Whether it’s my love of Reese’s peanut butter cups, American Idol, or break dancing, picking something silly to absolutely love is tons of fun and I usually push it to the limits.

8.  Wait for it

Society has a stressful timeline but I try not to listen. So much of my happiness comes from the fact that I have done things on my own timeline and when I was truly ready. Taking time off after college, waiting to find the right partner, and starting a family when I was really ready took away tons of unnecessary stress.

9.  Home Sweet Home

Loving your home is a necessity for true happiness. I have always created peaceful yet creative and fun environments wherever I have lived. I take the time to make each room the best it can be for its specific purpose, plus doing it on your own brings a wonderful sense of self satisfaction.

10.  Higher Power

Feeling connected to a higher source brings me a powerful sense of wonderment. Yoga, meditation, religion, and even contemplating the vastness of the universe all provide a humbling and satisfying sense of being part of something bigger than me.

Dr. Harman is a warm, energetic, generous man who also happens to be one of the great businessman of our time. His best known company was Harman International which he ran since for decades, retiring as chairman in 2008. He was writing about the competitive advantage of corporate human development and the importance of company culture back in the 1980’s  — way ahead of the late 1990′s gurus. Dr. Harman is also one of those “under the radar” philanthropists who has done a whole lot to improve society.  

I got some great life perspectives from Dr. Harman during our interview. From how to play the longevity game to his exercise practice to advice on how to deal with difficult people.

But my favorite excerpt was Dr. Harman’s response to my question, “What type of people do you admire?”

He responded by citing a passage from Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman and then making his point from there.  Click below link and look for audio player at top.

Sidney Harman Talks About the Type of People He Admires

When it comes down to it, I think we are all drawn to those people who are doers and don’t feel the need to showcase their successes to others.

But how perfectly did Sidney Harman put it?

By Paul Mallory

People often talk about work/life balance. I realized one day (in middle age) that my work life is a huge percentage of my time on earth, and that I wanted my life to be as meaningful, contributory and joyful as I could make it. The key for me is to have work that feels like I am using my gifts to the full, and making a difference. That’s when I formed my company, Soul Work, to coach people on finding more fulfillment at work.

Children

I have four beautiful, bright, happy and hilarious children, ranging from a school leaver to a middle-school starter. These are my favorite people in the world, and they are the people who bring joy to my weekends and through their aspirations and achievements, some huge, some tiny. They come before everything else for me, but I also realized that to support, mentor and make them happy, I needed to be happy in myself and that I therefore needed to feel good about myself and find fulfilment in my work.

Mission

I am happiest when I feel ‘on-purpose’, i.e. that my daily work is me being who I authentically am, at my core, and using my unique strengths for the benefit of others. When we’re lost in our work, we are ‘in flow’, and that’s a great feeling. I formed my company ‘Soul Work’ to research the question of how we can increase our fulfilment at work, by either changing our mindset around our current role, or by finding a new role that allows the possibility of alignment to our life purpose.

Self Awareness, Perspective and Life-Long Learning

My voracious reading habit has, over the years, opened the door for me to life-changing ideas. Practice these, and quality of life increases exponentially. Major influences have been Stephen Covey’s ‘7 habits of highly effective people’, Eckhart Tolle’s ‘Power of Now’, ‘Conversations with God’ by Neale Donald Walsch, and much of Anthony Robbins’ material.  I can never understand people who are unwilling to admit there is something they don’t know. I feel that the more I learn, the more I uncover to be learned. After all, the universe is infinite… and is still expanding! How can we know it all? Lifelong learning as a philosophy and a habit brings joy and curiosity to my life.

Music

I play the guitar, and it’s a great way to change state and get into a whole other mood. I also love to listen to music, wherever I am. Music comes from and touches the spirit. If there is more to life than material reward, paying the bills and trying to stay ahead, then music, art of any sort, beauty for it’s own sake, those are the things that take us there. Cherish them!

Movies and Theatre

I love to watch movies and theatre that connect with me emotionally in some way. I think movies are the ultimate art form in a sense, because when they are the product of a director at the peak of his powers, surrounded by a talented team, they can move me like no other medium. I think that’s partly because of the power of the combination of visual art, music, the ability to make the impossible happen on screen, the ability to take us back (or forward) to another time, or to take us to a foreign country or planet in an instant. What would caveman have made of the spectacle of a movie flashing before his eyes?

Voluntary Work

I have been a volunteer listener at an emotional distress helpline for four years now. It has had a huge impact on me, by connecting me to strangers in difficulty, making a difference for the sake of that difference, and helping me to be less judgmental and a better listener. Can you imagine what the world would be like if each human being helped one other human being in some important and meaningful way, without any motivation to do so other than giving out of love? Can you imagine how good it feels, to give in that way?

Coaching

I discovered coaching a few years ago, as a development of my voluntary work, wanting to be more proactively helpful (where appropriate) than providing just a listening service. What I found, as I studied coaching over several years and became qualified, is that each of us has all our answers within, but our inner voice is often a confusing jumble of ideas and repetitive thought patterns. Having somebody else who is totally on your side listening to your crazy dreams can make them magically solidify into possibilities, then probabilities, and finally, inevitabilities! It truly works and it has become the primary vehicle to help people find fulfilment at work, through my company Soul Work.

Proactive Health

The absolute integrated nature of mind, body and spirit is becoming more widely acknowledged, and we can all cite examples of our mind causing sickness to our bodies. Why then do we still, in western cultures, treat our bodies as though they are invulnerable, when the distance between life and death can be like a candle flickering in a breeze? I notice that if I am feeling tired or stressed, although it feels counter-intuitive at the time, I get out and run by the river, through the trees, across the fields for half an hour. I always but ALWAYS feel better mentally and physically afterwards. I ran my first marathon in London last year and the sense of achievement was enormous. Many of these things that lead to joy in life are about stepping out of our comfort zone and into the stretch zone. That’s where the juice in life is to be found!

Writing

I have never had the time to write as much as I would like. Yet, every time I sit and write, I get quickly into ‘flow’ and feel so engaged with life. I believe writing is therapeutic, and everyone can write a page of a journal per day. A little like the powerful effect of coaching, just expressing one’s inner most thoughts on paper has an amazing way of connecting us to our deepest spirit.

Working and Living Environment

I sometimes take my environment for granted. Now that I pause to reflect, I am very lucky to be able to work at home most days, working as I do for a web-based professional association. I enjoy working in a fairly quiet, fairly solitary environment; it gives me space and thinking time. I don’t enjoy noisy, bustling spaces so much. I live and work in a second floor modern apartment in an old mill next to the River Avon in Evesham, Worcestershire, UK, a very green and quiet area surrounded by fruit farms. I don’t face the morning commute any more, and my children (who live elsewhere) can walk to my home in ten minutes.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

I had the opportunity to interview Ariane de Bonvoisin this summer.  We met last year and I have quickly become a fan of her endeavors.

Ariane is the author of First 30 Days: Your Guide to Making Any Change Easier and has built a media company around her desire to help people enjoy life more.  Ariane embodies this Quality of Life Project purpose:

-  Contributing to the growing worldwide movement in which individuals are increasingly measuring success based on quality of life over other pursuits and are increasingly drawn to authenticity over pretense.

Ariane’s independent approach to life is truly inspiring. She lives like an explorer constantly finding new and interesting experiences to enrich her life. And her path through life is a great indicator. She grew up living in six countries, was an internationally competitive swimmer and graduated London School of Economics at 19 and Stanford Business School at 24. She went on to leadership positions in the venture capital world, at one time overseeing Time Warner’s venture fund. But she felt out of synch and saw how her personal life was suffering through by not being in tune with her true inner voice. She was always a spiritual person but felt she needed to regroup. Ariane ended up taking a new path. In 2005, she decided to become a media entrepreneur, which led to her First 30 Days book and the launching of www.first30days.com and soon www.arianestudio.com.

You can view the VIDEO of our interview with Ariane HERE.

Within the video there are index tags so you can navigate per your preferences.

There are some outstanding takes on big picture life perspectives that have helped Ariane enjoy her life.  You should not miss out on these.  But the best part of the interview in my opinion are the little things we unearthed that any of us can immediately try out.

-  Trampoline in office (“What brings you joy” section)

-  Five year journal.  (“What brings you joy” section)

-  Wheatgrass (“Diet or health practices” section)

I hope you enjoy the video!  Ariane is doing great work so if you like her book, definitely help get the word out…

The best thing about being a Dad I think is all the extra love.  The affection you receive from your kids is incredible and getting that makes my life a whole lot better.

Anyway, I’ll write more further below and share some pics of my kids, but let me first share what some of our readers contributed.  This is the first time I tapped into our readership to share some content and I love what we got.
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Dave Crawford –  Long Beach, California

Fatherhood for me, is full of joy and pride..but also significant responsibility. Fatherhood can’t help but make you think of life in the long term sense. How what you do and say today will impact your life as well as the life of your family. From relationships to health, life priorities to financial investments, fatherhood gives me the perspective and motivation to make sure the decisions I’m making right now have long term benefits for myself and the people I love.
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Robert Sturman, RobertSturmanStudio.com –  Santa Monica, California

A good father is the sun. Rays of light, selflessly providing, nurturing, caring for his family. That’s what I think of when I think of true fatherhood.

Robert Sturman

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Wesley Hein, LifeTwo.com –  Santa Monica, California

Fatherhood has been everything I ever expected and much more. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. The big surprise for me is that otherwise mundane things like watching TV, eating dinner, driving, etc. are all fun when done with my kids but no so without them.
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Matthew Scott, StrategicIncubator.com –  West Linn, Oregon

Four years ago on Christmas Eve, my father & I left my San Diego home to get my mother a last-minute gift.

Within minutes, my father spoke about things that a son is not always prepared to hear. He told me what he wanted if he were to suddenly pass away.

I asked him if he had any regrets about his personal or professional life? He placed his calloused hands, from years of working on an Arkansas farm, upon
my knee and said to me, “I have none. And when you find the work that matters, Matthew, you will never work another day for the rest of your life.”

One last question, “Dad, if you had to pick a way to go, how would you want to go? My dad answered instantly, “That would be easy. I would be playing
tennis with my hooligan buddies and hit the game winning backhand and then have a painless heart attack.”

Exactly nine days later my father passed away after experiencing a massive heart attack while playing tennis with his buddies.

The next day, I resigned my position as a Vice President of a Biotechnology company in San Diego.

I have not “worked” in over four years since I found the work that matters to me.

Thanks, Dad.

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Ken Jolley — Phoenix, Arizona

Think of all the things you enjoy.  If cost was of no consequence and you could take off at this moment and do anything you wanted, what would you do?  What gives you the greatest joy?  Is it flying off to a private island, taking a relaxing fly fishing trip to Montana, climbing Mt Everest, or one of a thousand other things?  Where does watching your son hit the winning basket in the last game of the season rate?  How about listening to your daughter play the piano all the while wondering where she got her artistic talents?  Now here is the real question…  If these moments were taken from you, what price would you pay to get them back?
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Jeff Rose, The Rose Group –  Santa Monica, CA

Fatherhood is a tradition… filled with moments of knowledge gleaned from my dad, my friends’ fathers and day by day….my own life as a father.
This year, two days before Father’s Day I traveled across the country to see my friend Mark’s son graduate high school; a great father’s day gift for Mark and a moment 30 years ago that he could never share with his own dad…who passed away when we were 16.  At the time his dad wasn’t much older than Mark and I are today.  When I return home tomorrow to spend father‘s day with my own children, I will live that day as if it is my last father’s day, as that is how I live every day as a dad.

Eden and Auggie Rose, Rat Beach, Palos Verdes, CA

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Kit Cooper, Quality of Life Project –  Pacific Palisades, CA

I am extremely fortunate that I get to spend about three hours a day during the workweek with my kids  I’ve got the 6:30am-8:00am shift and  then I’m with them from 5pm-7pm playing with them and helping with dinner, bath and bedtime.

My wife Misha and I have two kids.  Levi is four and Gemma is a year-and-a-half.  Misha is an incredible mom.  She’s like an expert having worked as a children’s therapist right before we had kids.  She makes them feel loved all the time.  At the same time, she is a big fan of structure and behavior modification to hopefully help them thrive later when they are on their own.  My point is that most of what I get out of being a father is due to how my wife has raised our kids.

Here are my thoughts with my fourth Father’s Day this weekend.  I’m sure as my kids get older, I’ll have different insights;

-  Being a Dad means giving and getting the love.  One day I was giving Levi a piggy back ride when he said, “Daddy, you’re the daddy I always wanted.”  I was like, “Ah man, that is so sweet!” To which Levi said, “You forgot to say I’m the son you’ve always wanted!”

-  Being a Dad means seeing the beauty of fresh, uncluttered, imaginative minds. This is an almost cliché observation but it’s awesome to witness.  Given their maturity, they come up with ten times more intellectual observations than adults.  You realize just how much more powerful and our minds would be if we experienced less stress and allowed ourselves more still, creative time.

-  Being a Dad means some hilarious, random lines.  One day Levi was eating a slice of pizza naked and out of nowhere informed me, “My pe#@s is going to eat this slice of pizza!!”

-  Being a Dad means torture assignments that had to have been devised during the Spanish Inquisition.  Picking up 26 crushed cheerios off a floor and removing smashed banana from a rug at 6:08 in the morning is definitely a form of penance.  We haven’t approached the teenage years yet; I’m sure we can expect some serious hazing then too.

-  I know I’m getting ahead of myself but being a Dad means that hopefully in the last third of my life I’ll be surrounded by grandkids…  My business partner for many years Alberto Fernandez gave me this piece of wisdom when we talked about having kids awhile back.  I can’t wait to meet my kids’ kids when that day comes.  The reality is how much will that add to the quality of our lives to have little kids running around us when we’re in that phase of our lives?

And before I go, let me thank my own father Jay Cooper for the incredible Dad he has been to me.  There are some traits that I got due solely by being raised by him: being humble, working hard, loving nature, valuing money but not being impressed by money, being independent, exploring the world.  He’s still teaching me stuff.

Here are a few pics.  Please share your take on fatherhood via comments.

Me and my Dad, 1995

Gary Vaynerchuk

I’m sure you have heard of Gary by now. He is a gutsy, charismatic, hard working, gifted entrepreneur who owns the wine category online through his site WineLibrary.TV.  He is best known as one of the world’s experts in social media and online marketing.  However, as he continues to draw audiences, he is now just as appreciated by his talent as a motivational speaker.

He’s also hilarious and totally authentic.

The highlight of the video is Gary’s emphasis on the importance of being yourself.

“Not being yourself is exhausting.” How great a line is that?

In our 20’s and early 30’s, we start to realize the importance of being yourself for happiness and personal satisfaction reasons.  And then halfway through our careers, we start to realize that being yourself is also the greatest competitive advantage you could have for professional success.

Be yourself. There can’t be a better life tip than that, and Gary Vaynerchuk is making the world a better place by spreading this message.

At 2:48 into this video, Gary shares a best practice on how he deals with bad days.  It’s a great lesson about the importance of mindset; but it’s also completely hilarious.  I love that he gave us such a specific, quirky example.  That’s what it’s all about.

Click on the below to watch the video.   Let us know what you think.

Tony Hsieh

I recently had the opportunity to interview Tony Hsieh.  Tony is a great model for quality of life.  He’s accomplished but grounded.  He’s competitive in terms of reaching his ambitions, but not in a way that makes him want to aspire to others’ standards.

Tony embodies the term “quiet confidence.”  He’s also one of the best examples out there of the progressive CEO, in which results are best achieved through humility over arrogance, persuasion over brow beating and the understanding that leadership is about serving the needs of those that work for you.   While at Zappos, he has created a company culture that is one of the world’s best case studies for customer service.  During Tony’s tenure, sales at Zappos.com have grown from $1.6 million to over $1 billion.

Below is a link to the video.   My favorite part of this video is Tony’s take on friendships.

Click above to play video

I recently had the opportunity to interview Scott Hahn. Great guy, best known for his role as a founder and leader at Rogan, a revolutionary player in the fashion industry. Rogan is the edge with its design and its sustainable sourcing methods and environmental practices.

It was one of my best interviews. He is the definition of quiet confidence and has a piercing, inviting intensity about him. He is a person who is both gentle and fierce.  As I found out in my interview, a lot of this comes from his practices of humility, intellectual curiousity, and physical exercise methods. More on that at qualityoflifeproject.org/author/scott-hahn/

We talked about a lot of things but I was most struck by what Scott said when I asked him about whether he is good at giving people the benefit of the doubt in life:

“I was very resentful of my father growing up for not being in my life at all. Sadly, he passed away a few years ago from cancer but before he died I had a chance to go see him in Scotland where he lives. It was one of the most important experiences in my life to spend time with a father I had barely known and to become reconciled. I had made him out as a monster. But when I took the step to simply be with him I was able to hear his side of the story and come to realize that he has always loved my sister and me unconditionally. That was a really wild experience. He’s got four other kids that are great and we’re connected now. Obviously an experience like this has had a huge impact on me in terms of better assuming the good intent from others.”

Can you imagine what a powerful life experience this must have been? On so many levels. Scott went on to talk about how this learning experience has made him a freer person by not allowing his energy to be consumed by assuming or dwelling on when others have wronged him.

For all of us that has had a life lesson on this front, are there not so many quality of life dividends to adopting this “assume positive intent” mindset? I’ll share with you my own personal experience. It was one of the most transformational episodes of my life.

After I graduated from UCLA in 1994, I was preparing to move to San Francisco for a job, and I talked to a friend of mine from college who is from the Bay Area and was also planning to move up there. Since I didn’t know anyone up there, I was happy when he insisted I call him right when I get up there and that he would introduce me to some cool guys to hang out with up there. During my first four months in San Francisco, I called my friend three times and never heard back. I started to nurture my inner chipped shoulder and was building some real resentment towards my friend. I was all pissed off – “screw him” etc. — and self righteous about the whole thing.

A few months later, I ran across my friend at a party and I was about to give him a “WTF, man…” when he looked in my eyes with sadness and warmth I can still feel and told me how his dad was diagnosed with cancer a few months back and what a wreck his life has been. Ok, pause here for a second… Can you imagine what a self centered loser I felt like? Lets just say that it wasn’t about me. I remember right there telling myself to learn a lesson or be damned. The reality is I did follow up on my commitment and did learn my lesson. [My friend’s father did beat his disease and is now very healthy for his age.]

Lessons from all this? I think first of all, others deserve the benefit of the doubt from you. In fact, is it not sort of a moral issue to damn people for scenarios that you are not certain exist? But the greatest benefit to assuming this mindset is the self serving reason. You feel so much better as a person when you simply move on when you find yourself thinking about why this person didn’t call you back or why you weren’t invited to a party or how that person is undermining you at work. Don’t play the game. You will feel more freed up and ironically your relationships with those you suspect of undermining you will flourish.

Indra Nooyi, Chairman and CEO of Pepsi, says it best in an interview with Fortune magazine earlier this year:

“My father was an absolutely wonderful human being. From him I learned to always assume positive intent. Whatever anybody says or does, assume positive intent. You will be amazed at how your whole approach to a person or problem becomes very different. When you assume negative intent, you’re angry. If you take away that anger and assume positive intent, you will be amazed. Your emotional quotient goes up because you are no longer almost random in your response. You don’t get defensive. You don’t scream. You are trying to understand and listen because at your basic core you are saying, “Maybe they are saying something to me that I’m not hearing.” So “assume positive intent” has been a huge piece of advice for me.

In business, sometimes in the heat of the moment, people say things. You can either misconstrue what they’re saying and assume they are trying to put you down, or you can say, “Wait a minute. Let me really get behind what they are saying to understand whether they’re reacting because they’re hurt, upset, confused, or they don’t understand what it is I’ve asked them to do.” If you react from a negative perspective – because you didn’t like the way they reacted – then it just becomes two negatives fighting each other. But when you assume positive intent, I think often what happens is the other person says, “Hey, wait a minute, maybe I’m wrong in reacting the way I do because this person is really making an effort.”

“Assume positive intent” is definitely a top quality of life best practice among the people I have interviewed for my book. The reasons are obvious. It will make you feel better, your realtionships will thrive and it’s an approach more greatly aligned with reality.