Choosing Connection Over Winning or Being “Right”

I was asked this super duper awesome question recently… 

“How do we express an opinion without fighting against other

contradictory opinions or eliciting a fighting back response?”

Question of the century eh?

And it cuts to the heart of how we must learn to sell if we are to transform our world. 

So the answer is kind of almost in the question… WE  REFUSE TO FIGHT. 

If we fight, we will lose, everyone will lose.  

So the question remains… “How do we not fight?”  

We don’t attack. We give up any feeling of being ‘better than’ the other side, of being right.  We commit to meeting another at a deeper level and express our opinion in a way that is caring.

We take on the goal of connection instead…  Connection is what makes things work. I mean what’s beneath all the things we think we want to “fight for?”  What do we all friggin want here? We want to feel included in life, we want to feel loved… we want to feel CONNECTED  with each other. That is the core underneath every layer that you go down… this need is what is there. 

We must face the fact that no matter what another person’s opinion is about how to solve a problem… underneath this opinion is a desire for the same things as us. Love and connection.  And if we can come into a conversation knowing this and commit to being on that level with the conversation, it just brings it to a whole other plane.

Nobody is going to listen to us if we alienate them. If we come to a conversation wanting to be right, then the other has to be wrong and that someone is going to fight against that!  So there you are in a fight.

Connection is the opposite of a fight.   A fight includes pushing against each other’s forces and creating distance. Connection is about coming together. How can we best solve a problem… Feeling distanced from each other? Or feeling connected with each other?  

We CAN  be confident in sharing our opinion as long as we accept that it is just a starting, jumping off point and are not attached to where it will land.  We simply need to lean into what brings us closer to connection versus what distances us more. It is from this place that we will live into a reality that will serve us all.