《Getting To Yes With Yourself &a

Getting To Yes With Yourself & Other Worthy Opponents.png

This book began with a question that is a universal human dilemma: How can we get what we truly want while satisfying the needs and concerns of others in our lives - family members, work colleagues, clients, and others?

The core promise of this book is that the better we are able to get to yes with ourselves, the better we will be able to get to yes with others. Perhaps no factor has a greater impact on our relationships and negotiations than our underlying attitude towards ourselves, towards life, and towards others. The most powerful change we can make in our life is to change that inner attitude from no to yes.

Very little in life may be under our full control, but the choice between yes and no is ours to make at any moment. The one who has the ability to make this kind of choice is the one who is responsible for himself. Responsible means response-able. It is an ability to make conscious choice which needs & is possible to gain by exercise.

The author gives us six steps to exercise this ability - like muscles. Each step addresses a particular obstacle that gets in the way of us getting what we most want in life.

• Put Yourself in Yours Shoes
  -- simply observe your thoughts and feelings without judging & find out the underlying needs your feelings point to.

• Develop Your Inner BATNA
  -- commit to take care of your deepest needs instead of blaming anyone or anything.

• Reframe Your Picture
  -- switch the angle from negative to positive towards life, accept the reality and then find the breakthrough.

• Stay in the Zone
  -- do not carry any resentments about the past or anxieties about the future, accept life as it is today & focus on the present.

• Respect Them Even If
  -- the word respect comes from Latin roots that mean "re" as in repeat and "spect" as in spectacles. In this sense, respect means to "look again". It is to see the other person with new eyes as a human being worthy of positive regard.

• Give and Receive
  -- overcome the fear of scarcity & change the game from taking to giving, from win-lose to win-win-win.

Even if they may sound simple, none of these steps is easy, especially in the daily conflicts we all face. But with practice and courage, we can often learn these abilities and bring more peace within yourself, in the family, in the workplace and in the larger world.