Handling Big Egos - Even Yours

The power of EQ, social intelligence, reading people, and how to navigate any situation, written by Patrick King, narrated by Russell Newton. Most of us like to think that we're good people, that we're kind, intelligent, attentive. However, despite the best of intentions, few of us are genuinely good communicators, and it's a rare person who never finds themselves misunderstood, alienated, or even in full-blown conflict.

This book is about developing the skills and insights needed to be one of those rare few who are experts at dialogue, emotions, and empathy. That said, the emotional intelligence we'll be discussing in this book is not some quiet, private thing that you develop purely for your own use. In that sense, it's not really personal development. Rather, we'll see that emotional intelligence is about how you develop yourself in relation to others.

In just the same way as general intelligence makes itself manifest in the world through accomplishment, creativity, learning, or understanding, emotional intelligence is also something we do rather than something we are. And the primary way that we express and develop our emotional intelligence is with other people.

In the chapters that follow, we'll look at how emotional intelligence helps us listen to others, consider their perspectives, read their verbal and nonverbal expressions, ask questions, identify a wide range of subtle emotions, put boundaries in place without breaking rapport, and speak with clarity, conviction, and compassion.

When developing emotional regulation, self-awareness, and masterful communication skills, every person we encounter becomes our teacher, and every interaction becomes a chance to learn and grow as an emotionally intelligent social being. Let's dive in and begin at the most natural starting point, learning how to listen.

Empathic listening and responding. We live in a noisy, distracted world where everyone is trying to make themselves heard. Empathic listening is, sadly, underdeveloped. This is the kind of listening that puts total genuine attention on the other person and the message they are trying to convey. If we're honest, many of us try to merely give the impression of paying attention to someone, or play the role of a good listener without really being one.

Can you think of the last time you sat in someone's presence and gave them your full attention? It takes effort not to constantly think of what you'll say next, not to interrupt, not to rush in with your own opinions, experiences, arguments, perceptions. Not only does it take effort, but it comes with a certain degree of risk. It may seem counterintuitive, but authentic listening opens up a space of vulnerability for the listener, too.

Setting aside your own point of view and your own idea of where the conversation should go is an act of faith and a show of good will to the other person. The modern world does not encourage the kind of receptivity that makes us great conversationists. If we're honest, most of us would prefer not to do the work and rather focus on controlling the conversation, expressing ourselves, or making some point or other.

To be emotionally intelligent listeners, we need to go against the grain and make the effort required to set aside our own egos and become genuinely curious about someone else's world. Here are a few key principles to keep in mind. Number one, listen to understand, not to respond. The next time you're in a conversation with someone, notice your own thoughts and where they go when the other person is talking. Are you busily imagining all the things you're going to say when they stop speaking?

Are you quietly formulating a counter-argument or thinking of ways to steer the topic back to yourself for what you know? When we're occupying this reactive state, we're really not doing justice to what we're being told. We are looking at the other person and their message as something to push off against or manipulate to our own ends. We're tempted to be always in responding mode, barging in with our own thoughts and feelings and our interpretations of what the other person is trying to share.

Listening to understand is a completely different position to take. You're not reactive, but receptive. You're listening with the unspoken intention to truly absorb and comprehend what you're told. It's a state of being open and curious and gently wanting to grasp the message, yet how many of us are quick to gloss over this message because we're in a hurry to quickly decide on our opinion of the message? As Stephen Covey says, seek first to understand, then to be understood.

It's subtle, but it makes all the difference in the world. Principle two, listen to everything. The message is made up of many components, the spoken words being just a small part. Listen is made of verbal and nonverbal information, so expand your perception to take in both. This takes a degree of attention, awareness, and focus perception. Facial expression, quality of voice, posture, gestures, what people are wearing, and the style of language they're using.

Listen even to what isn't being said. You'll be looking more closely at this meta-language in a later chapter. Principle three, don't conflate your experience with theirs. Good conversations are dynamic, and they flow and change, often with both partners' positions slightly altered by the end of the conversation. However, that's not the same as being careless and unaware of times when you might be tempted to see your own thoughts and feelings in the place of the other persons.

Let's say a friend is telling you about their recent health scare. They're trying to share the general message. I was terrified, and now I have a renewed appreciation for my health. But as you hear them speak, let's imagine you can't help filtering all that information through your own pet theories and opinions about doctors or the state of health care in your country.

You, perhaps unconsciously, interpret what they say in terms of what you already think, picking out all the ideas that confirm with your pre-existing perspective. Perhaps you respond by going on a mini-rant about how difficult it is to receive good treatment these days, or jumping in with an anecdote about your own recent experiences with doctors, meanwhile your friend, who was intending to take the conversation in quite a different direction. Isn't good health precious?

I've been given a new lease on life. Feels like you haven't really listened, and in response, doesn't feel like listening to you as you ramble on. Principle four. Empathic listening takes effort, but not as much effort as correcting misunderstandings. With this book, you may be struck by just how much work it takes to establish clear, compassionate lines of communication with another person. You might wonder whether all this is really worth it. The answer is yes.

That's because the alternative is actually a lot more work in the long run. If you're a poor communicator, you pay for it by feeling disconnected and alienated from others, or worse, you find yourself frequently misunderstood or in conflict with them. Constantly missing people, or never quite feeling that you're on the same wavelength, is like poison for any relationship, and it takes incredible amounts of effort to make things right again.

Principles of emotionally intelligent, mindful, and empathic communication exist for a reason, because they really are the easiest and most effective way of doing things. The better you become at these skills, however, the more you'll see the incredible freedom they give you, and the deeper, richer kinds of relationships they allow you to have with others. Luckily for all of us, these skills can be acquired and developed.

The four types of empathic responses. Be honest. When someone says, I know how you feel, does it make you feel any better? Probably not. But then what should you say? While you work on your emotional intelligence skills, here are a few easy responses that keep you in the receptive, understanding mode, and let the other person know you're listening.

These responses are also a great way to buy time and keep the conversation going when you're unsure of how to respond, but want to show compassion anyway. Type 1. Acknowledging their courage. If someone is sharing something vulnerable with you, or conveying an emotional message, it can be difficult to know what to say, but relax, you don't have to solve their problems or suddenly dispense sagely advice.

One of the most powerful things you can do is simply acknowledge how challenging it is to merely speak up about such things. Thank you for sharing that with me, it means a lot. I know it's not easy to talk about these things, so I applaud you for that. You've done a good thing by speaking out. Recognize the effort, bravery, and vulnerability it takes to share something personal. Just remember to keep things positive by focusing on strengths, resources, and achievements.

A common empathetic response is to point out their strength of character. Wow, that couldn't have been easy, but you handled the situation with a lot of patience and tact. Type 2. Pulitzer Prize winning oral historian Studs Turkle tells us, Don't be an examiner, be the interested inquirer. If you're ever stumped for what to say, ask a question. This alone will show that you're paying attention and value what the other person has to say.

Even better if you can ask a thoughtful question that shows you've been listening carefully. The right questions can help you understand the message, to confirm you've understood, and to quietly reassure the speaker that you respect and care about what they're saying and want to understand it correctly. So it seems like it was a really confusing few years, have I got that right? You were a student nurse at the time, weren't you?

Just so I can understand, are you saying you felt embarrassed when he said that? Or was it more that you were annoyed? Type 3. Conveying that you care. Much of the time, people share grievances or express their emotions, not because they want someone to solve their problems for them or come up with a clever sounding interpretation.

Instead, we're often, sometimes unconsciously, looking for someone to validate and confirm what we're feeling, to listen, and to treat our experience as worthy of attention and concern. Truly showing that you care in this way can be far more powerful than giving good advice or having some sage league counsel to offer. Think about a time in your life when you needed to speak to someone and remind yourself of the kind of response that would have most assured you.

Most likely, you would have wanted the message, I see you and I hear you, I get it. It makes sense that you feel this way. People care about you and you matter. In fact, a demonstration of care, without adding in some advice or a solution, can feel the most empathetic of all. I'm here for you, would you like to talk? Is there anything you'd like me to help you with? I care about you. Type four, checking in.

Show other people that you are attentive to their experiences and are paying attention to them. Deliberately check in to show that you care about how they're doing and keep those lines of communication open. Even if someone doesn't respond fully to your checking in, they will still register that you cared enough to do so and that's worth a lot. How are you feeling today? Hey, how did things pan out with your neighbor? You seemed a little unhappy in the meeting today, are you okay?

Keep such questions open-ended and genuinely listen to whatever you're told. If you can demonstrate to people that you've heard what they've said in previous conversations and remembered the core emotional details, you'll send them the strong message that you are an active, engaged listener. Active constructive responding. Being fully present and responding with any of the above empathetic responses will take you far, but let's carry things a little further.

Here we'll look at what's called active constructive communication. The idea was coined by Gable et al. in 2004 in an interesting research paper titled, What Do You Do When Things Go Right? The Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Benefits of Sharing Positive Events. The researchers were interested in the way that people respond to others in communication, specifically how they respond to being told about experiences, thoughts, and personal feelings.

It's one of those small things that makes an enormous difference. Imagine someone tells their friend excitedly that they've just won an award. The friend says, Oh, cool. By the way, did I tell you what I saw at the grocery store this morning? Looking at this exchange, you can easily see how the person might feel completely cut off, snubbed, or dismissed. The friend has shared some emotional content. I'm proud of myself, I'm excited.

And the friend has responded to this sharing of the self with a complete lack of tact or synchrony. In giving this response, the friend has put himself at odds with the speaker. They're no longer conversing together in sync, but communicating against one another. I'm not especially proud of you. I'm bored. I don't care. What's next? This little exchange might not register to anyone as violent or abusive, but it is destructive.

If such a lack of synchrony continues in this friendship, you can expect a breakdown of goodwill over time, misunderstandings, anxiety, conflicts, hurt feelings, and vague negativity that's difficult to put a finger on. Constructive conversation, on the other hand, is different. It is courteous, warm, based around positive feelings of accord, rapport, and harmony.

It's like a state of flow where both parties feel heard and understood, and like conversations move in unison rather than out of sync. Constructive conversations tend to deepen relationships over time as they increase trust and coherence. In the previous section, we saw how important it is to have empathy for people who are in distress. But it's just as important to pay attention to how we respond to people when they're happy or are expressing themselves neutrally.

In fact, there is some evidence that our responses to someone's positive expressions is a bigger determinant of their relationship quality than how we treat them when they're unhappy. We can imagine that our responses to a message can vary according to whether they are active or passive, and whether they are constructive or destructive, as described above. This gives us four potential types of response.

Active and constructive, passive and constructive, active and destructive, passive and destructive. Let's return to our earlier example to show how these different responses may play out in real life. Person A says to Person B, in a loud and excitable voice with a huge grin on their face, you'll never guess what. You know that student film I made a few years ago was the one I submitted to that competition? Well, I won an award for it. I can't believe it.

Looking at the tone of voice, body language and verbal expression, it's not hard to see that Person A is excited, proud and pleasantly surprised. It's also not too difficult to imagine what kind of response they'd most like. The very fact that Person A is telling Person B in the first place is sending the obvious message, this news is important to me, I wanted to share it with you. Are you proud of me too?

Now imagine that Person B was busy on their phone doing something else when this message was delivered. There are a few ways to respond. Active constructive response. Person B puts their phone away, stands up and gives Person A an enormous hug, smiling as they do and saying, oh my god, really, that's amazing, look at you, you're like this fancy filmmaker now. This response matches the energy and enthusiasm of the message being shared and is warm, connected and friendly.

Passive constructive response. Person B looks up from their phone, but doesn't put it away. Then they say, oh, really, nice, did you win any money or anything? And looks briefly back at the phone screen. This response is not bad, per se, but it is low energy and may be delayed, weak or distracted, making the speaker feel unimportant or unacknowledged, it's like throwing a damp towel over things. Active destructive response.

Person B gets up, put their phones away and frowns, saying, what, you don't mean to say you actually entered that lame competition, ouch, be careful, you don't want to be associated with such an amateur organization. This response is actively and deliberately going against the spirit of the message being shared and is dismissive and demeaning. Passive destructive response. What's that? Oh, cool. By the way, did I tell you what I saw at the grocery store this morning?

This response is characterized by the listener avoiding or ignoring the speaker and their message and a hostile refusal to engage in favor of turning the conversation back to themselves. It won't surprise you to hear that it is only active constructive response types that are associated with relationship satisfaction and feelings of intimacy, trust and commitment. If any of the other types of responses are routinely used, things will steadily go in the other direction.

The speaker will gradually learn that their message will not be received with any support or enthusiasm and so they'll just stop sharing anything. Over time, this creates feelings of disconnection, alienation and a loss of intimacy. Trust and closeness will gradually erode. What's interesting about this model is that it captures a form of poor communication that might otherwise be too subtle to notice.

You may have someone in your life who always seems to leave you feeling unimportant or even degraded after every interaction. Why? It may be because they routinely respond in destructive or passive ways every time you open up and share something with them. An unresponsive or even destructive conversation partner can wear away at someone's self-esteem over time.

On the other hand, if anyone has ever told you that you don't listen or seems super reluctant to share anything with you, ask yourself honestly if you respond to them in an active and constructive way. They may be reflecting a loss of synchrony in your communication.

Here are some ways that you can start to be a more active and constructive responder. And empathically. This means centering their emotional experience. Give their unique perception your full attention and acknowledge it for what it is, regardless of what it means for you or whether you agree or not. Remember that just as communication can be verbal and nonverbal, so can the expression of empathy. Use your body language, voice, and facial expression to convey empathy too.

Match their tone of voice, reflect their expression, and mirror their emotional experience. If you're not sure what this would look like, ask yourself why they have shared what they have shared with you. Chances are they want you to acknowledge and affirm their experience. Show genuine interest. You can do this by asking questions, by making positive and supportive comments, or even by giving a few compliments if that seems appropriate.

The important thing, however, is that you really are genuine. People can tell. Fake enthusiasm is arguably worse than genuine neutrality. To that end, avoid giving extreme and over-the-top responses that will only invite suspicion. So instead of, that's so utterly incredible, I've never heard of anything so impressive in my life, just say, that's really something, well done, you must be so pleased. If you can't be positive, at least be constructive.

You're probably wondering, if you're meant to be genuine and positive, what do you do if you sincerely don't care that much? Well, this is where tact comes in. Take a look again at the response above. That is really something, well done, you must be so pleased. This is a kind, thoughtful, and polite, positive response, but it also is perfectly appropriate if you just so happen to not care about films or have mixed feelings about the award your friend has won.

In other words, you can always be polite and kind, even if not explicitly positive, and even if you really can't be positive, at least be constructive. Remember it's about them, not you. Oh, an award! That's unexpected. Tell me everything. Will there be some kind of ceremony?

Notice that in this response, you're being constructive because you are deliberately seeking to maintain and support the connection and sense of harmony in the relationship without strictly needing to agree or be on the same page emotionally. A few final tips. Be careful about sudden topic changes, mid-conversation, even if you don't mean it. Somebody switching can leave the other person feeling abandoned, dismissed, or ignored.

Try not to be suddenly distracted by something else going around you, or abruptly mention something you just thought of before the conversation feels like it has naturally come to a close. Occasionally, you will encounter passive-aggressive responses from other people, or things that seem okay on the surface but leave you feeling dismissed. If this happens, don't let it fester. Call it out immediately.

Hey, I really do want to hear about what you saw at the supermarket, but I'm still talking about my award. I'm really excited about it. Sometimes being direct is enough to clear away possible assumptions and misunderstandings. Watch out for subtly invading someone's experiences or perception of an event. Let's say the person receiving the award is not excited at all.

It would be just as destructive to respond with extreme enthusiasm that contradicts theirs or suggests in some way that their reaction is wrong.

Have you ever spoken to someone who constantly turns the conversation back to themselves? You might mention a vacation they've been on, and they respond by telling you a vacation they've been on. You say you've had a bad day, and they tell you they've had a worse one. You begin by sharing your opinion about something, and they quickly interrupt you, finishing your sentence with their own opinion. Annoying, right?

If you've ever encountered this before, you'll know what conversational narcissism is and just how badly it can damage a sense of connection, understanding, and empathy. This kind of behavior may also be quite subtle. You may not notice it at first, but you find yourself constantly leaving conversations, feeling more like an audience member than an equal conversation partner. Conversational narcissism can look on the surface like an ordinary dialogue, but it isn't.

Instead of a healthy, dynamic two and fro, such a conversation is really just a monologue with extra pieces. Sadly, all of us have the potential to be conversational narcissists. This bad habit is easier to spot in others when you're on the wrong end of the stick. But it's pretty common to fall into this trap yourself without realizing it.

Charles Durber is a sociologist who has researched the dynamics of attention, power dynamics, and focus in conversations, and coined the term conversational narcissism. He says that no matter how subtle and complex our responses can be, they tend to fall into two broad categories. One, shift responses, two, support responses. Shift responses shift the focus of the conversation back onto you, while support responses maintain the focus on the other person, the speaker.

It's basically a question of allowing the focus and content of the dialogue to remain with the other person, or deliberately saying something to steer the focus and content onto yourself. Take this example. Conversation 1. So, little Johnny started second grade today. Oh, gosh, second grade. I can still remember those days like they were yesterday, although Annie was a complete angel at school, so I can't complain. Conversation 2. So, little Johnny started second grade today.

Oh, gosh, second grade. How's he feeling about it? Can you tell which comments above is a shift response and which is a support response? In conversation 1, the focus is on speaker A and the topic of Johnny going to second grade. Speaker B, however, shifts this focus onto themselves and introduces an anecdote about when their own child went to second grade. In conversation 2, this doesn't happen.

Speaker B asks a question that keeps focus on the topic introduced by speaker A. Of course, this is a rather subtle example. You could say, well, speaker B's not shifting the conversation anywhere. They're still talking about kids going to second grade. Besides, speaker B isn't talking about themselves, but their child, Annie. However, this is why conversational narcissism can be so difficult to spot.

If you read the two conversations again, you'll see that even though it's small, there's a definite shift in the first conversation that isn't present in the second. What's more, a conversational narcissist doesn't literally have to talk about themselves to dominate. Any time they're bringing the dialogue back around to themselves, their opinions, perspectives, experiences, etc., they are deliberately shifting focus.

Now, if you recognize some of yourself in this, don't worry, it doesn't mean you're a narcissist. It's perfectly human to want to connect what others are saying with things we are already familiar with, and usually that means ourselves. The problem is when this tendency takes over and gets in the way of us connecting with the person in front of us. Sometimes in fact, our desire to come across as kind, smart, and helpful is the very thing that stops us from being so.

And we may not recognize that our attempts to listen, help, or give advice are actually unconscious bids to keep the conversational spotlight on ourselves. Consider this example. Person A is going through a terrible divorce. Person B, their friend, sees their distress and offers to talk. Person B feels like they can help. They start sharing all sorts of stories about how hard it was when they got divorced a few years prior, and what they did that helped, and how bad it felt before it got better.

Person B mentions how after being married twenty years the trauma of a split can be overwhelming. Person A, big surprise, is not encouraged in the least by this, and eventually snaps. Okay, fine, you win. You had the worst divorce. Good for you. Can we change the topic? Now Person B may feel surprised at this. Weren't they trying to help? Isn't it good for someone to hear that they aren't alone and that others know how they feel?

If Person B is honest with themselves, however, they may have to admit that a small part of them was suddenly dominating the conversation in their attempt to help. They wanted to be the one to speak the most, to tell the story, even to be the wise person whose advice took center stage. Despite all this, Person B might have missed a crucial fact. Person A could not possibly feel heard because they didn't have a chance to speak.

In trying to help, Person B forgot about Person A's story and forced them to listen to theirs instead. Not very empathetic, right? The above phenomenon can be especially prominent with people who genuinely believe they are more emotionally intelligent, empathetic, and clued up on the psychological theories of the day. But the content doesn't matter.

If such a person is repeatedly shifting the conversation back to themselves, they will be felt to be poor listeners and communication will break down. You may find yourself inadvertently setting up a subtle battle for attention. You shift to yourself, then the other person, feeling slighted, shifts to themselves, fast forward, and the conversation is broken down, and there are only two people monologuing in one another's presence.

Try to imagine that a good conversation is like tossing a ball back and forth, or playing tennis. The game only works if there is a true back and forth. Everything stops if one person just keeps holding onto the ball. Several narcissists are very resistant to tossing the ball over, and the worst damage may be done by the more subtle attempts.

For example, we might respond initially with an active, constructive response, but then immediately follow with something that brings us back into the limelight. Since I had COVID, I've been absolutely exhausted all the time. Oh, no, have you? That's tough. Believe me, I know. I had COVID twice last year, and it was hell. Now, the above exchange is not the end of the world. Provided Speaker B, Grace Fiddler allows Speaker A to have their turn with the ball again, so to speak.

However, look at what happens if they attempt to snatch it right back again. Since I had COVID, I've been absolutely exhausted all the time. Oh, no, have you? That's tough. Believe me, I know. I had COVID twice last year, and it was hell. Yeah? I've only had it once, as far as I can tell, but it was pretty bad. I've heard some people take months to get better. I didn't. I got better pretty quickly, thankfully. I have a strong immune system.

At this point in the conversation, what option does Speaker A have? They can either engage in a game of one upmanship to determine who had COVID the worst or the most times, or who got over at the fastest and has the best immune system, or they can check out of the conversation entirely. If they continue the conversation, it becomes a tug of war rather than a friendly game of tennis.

One study found that most social conversation time is devoted to statements about the speaker's own emotional experiences and or relationships, or those of third parties not present. It's understandable that people try to make sense of others' experiences by referencing them back to their own experiences, but as you can see, it can quickly lead to people getting trapped in their own self-referential bubbles, and communication suffers.

Interestingly, a study from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences suggests that our egos can distort our sense of empathy. In one experiment, participants were asked to watch a video of maggots, and were able to understand that other people might also find the video disgusting. However, if the participants were asked to watch a video of cute puppies while being told that others were watching maggots, they tended to underestimate how negative the experience was for them.

What does this tell us? The lead researcher, Dr. Tanya Singer, noted, the participants who were feeling good themselves assessed their partner's negative experience as less severe than they actually were. In contrast, those who had just had an unpleasant experience assessed their partner's good experience less positively. What we can conclude is that people tend to interpret other people's experiences through the lens of their own.

We use our emotions to help us understand other people's, i.e., the more happy and content you are, the harder it is to empathize with someone else who may be suffering. When hearing about their suffering, you might be tempted to respond to it all as though it were just a hypothetical scenario and not so bad. Your encouragement may come across as tone-deaf, and you may launch into advice or stories from your own history that do nothing but center you and your own experiences.

So how do you stamp out the bad habit of conversational narcissism in yourself? How do you develop real empathy? Here are some ways to do just that. Offer more support responses than shift responses. A shift response is not always a bad thing. Sometimes you want to change the topic or interject with something from your own life and experience. The question is really the balance you strike between this type of response and a more supportive one.

Talk to yourself, but then be happy to shift back again. Make sure that you're always offering more support responses than shift responses. As discussed in a previous chapter, acknowledge their courage, ask a question that clarifies the details, say something that shows you care and are listening, or simply offer a response that shows you grasped the gravity of the situation. Wow, that sounds tough or strange or stressful or interesting. If you're stumped, ask a question. Another good trick?

Simply show you're paying attention by saying, uh-huh, or nodding. It'll be appreciated far more than a shift response. Here's how that may look in practice. Since I had COVID, I've been absolutely exhausted all the time. Oh, no, really? Oh, when did you get COVID? No, more than a year ago, if you can believe it. But I'm still coughing. How crazy is that? Coughing for a year? Wow, I can't imagine that. Well, it's gradually improved, but it's taken a long time. It was pretty bad.

I've heard some people take months to get better. I've heard that too. Long COVID, right? Exactly. I mean, in a way, it's been good to be reminded to slow down and take better care of myself. Did you ever test positive? Me? Actually, yes, twice. But it doesn't sound like it was as bad as yours. Notice anything interesting in the above exchange? After speaker B supplies three support responses in a row, speaker A actually shifts the conversation for them.

So speaker B doesn't have to push anything. At the root of much conversational narcissism is the secret anxiety that we won't be heard unless we forcefully butt in. But unless we deliberately take a step back, we don't give other people the chance to show us conversational courtesy and be genuinely interested in what we have to say. Unless we give up the habit of conversational narcissism, we will prevent genuinely trusting and warm relationships from developing. Summary.

Emotional intelligence is also something we do rather than something we are. Thankfully, it can be learned. Empathic listening is total genuine attention to the other person and the message they are trying to convey. Set aside your own ego and perspective and become genuinely curious about someone else's world, listening to understand rather than to respond. Be curious and receptive rather than reactive, listening to verbal and nonverbal signals.

To respond empathically, acknowledge their courage, ask questions to clarify their message, convey that you care and check in with how they're feeling. Offer responses that are both active and constructive rather than passive and destructive to create trust and connection. Remember that your response to someone's positive expressions is a bigger determinant of their relationship quality than how you treat them when they're unhappy.

Show genuine interest in what you're told and match and reflect people's emotional experiences rather than invalidating it. Practice offering support responses which maintain the focus on the speaker instead of shift responses which shift the focus of the conversation back onto you if you want to avoid conversational narcissism. Try not to continually center your own emotional experiences or interpret other people's experiences through the lens of your own.

Instead, see conversation as a genuine back and forth and deliberately set aside yourself to learn more about others. This has been the power of EQ, social intelligence, reading people and how to navigate any situation written by Patrick King, narrated by Russell Newton. Copyright 2023 by Patrick King. Production copyright by Patrick King.