درسنامه تعاملی اول

Apology and Reconciliation – Interactive Lesson A

Hi, this is AJ, welcome the VIP interactive lesson, mini story lesson part A. Part A I will teach you the vocabulary and in part B I will ask questions and you will answer the questions.

First, let me read the essay and then I will teach you the vocabulary. Let’s begin.

Think of the situation as a reservoir of resentment, anger, hurt, that needs to be drained. Right now there’s someone in your life you need to reach, but you can’t and it’s driving you crazy.

You’ve tried everything, logic, persuasion, forcefulness, pleading, anger. But you’ve hit a wall every time. You’re mad, scared or frustrated and you’re thinking, what now?

Here’s what I want you to do. Think of this as a hostage situation. Why? Because you’re trapped by another person’s resistance, fear, hostility, apathy, stubbornness, selfcenteredness or neediness, and by your own inability to take effective action.

To understand this picture yourself driving up a steep hill. Your tires slip and slide and can’t grab hold, but downshift and you get control. It’s like pulling the road to meet you. Most people upshift when they want to get through to other people. They persuade. They encourage, they argue, they push and in the process they create resistance. When you use the techniques I offer, you’ll do exactly the opposite. You’ll listen, ask, mirror and reflect back to people what you’ve heard. When you do, they will feel seen, understood, heard and felt.

And that unexpected downshift will draw them to you. The focus, the central tenet and promise of this method is the secret to getting through to absolutely anyone, is that you get through to people by having them buy in. You get through to people by having them buy in. Buy in occurs when people move from resisting to listening to considering what you’re saying.

Ironically, the key to gaining buy in and then moving people through the rest of the cycle is not what you tell them, but rather, what you get them to tell you and what happens in their minds in the process. Get through to yourself first. Getting your emotions under control isn’t just a key to being a great leader, it’s also the most important key to reaching other people, especially in times of stress or uncertainty. It’s why a cool and controlled hostage negotiator can get through to someone who seems unreachable and conversely, why a person who’s crying, whining or yelling will turn off even a calm and empathetic listener.

Mastering the art of controlling yourself will change your life, because it’ll keep you from being your own worst enemy when it comes to reaching other people in stressful situations. So the first and most important rule for taking control in a stressful situation is this, get yourself under control first. Listen and understand first. Be understood later. When you encounter problem people, realize that there’s a reason they’re behaving the way they do. It may be a long-term problem, anxiety, anger at not being respected, fear that you’ll disappoint them.

Open your own mind and look for the reasons behind the behavior and you’ll take the first step towards breaking down barriers and communicating with an impossible person. Make the other person feel felt.

Why does feeling felt change people? Making someone feel felt, simply means putting yourself in the other person’s shoes. One explanation for the effectiveness of making a person feel felt lies in the mirror neurons. When you mirror what another person feels, the person is wired to mirror you in return.

Say, I understand what you’re feeling and the other person will feel grateful, and spontaneously express that gratitude with a desire to understand you in return. It’s an irresistible, biological urge and one that pulls the person towards you. Despite the power of this move people often resist using it, because they hesitate to poke around in other people’s private feelings, but if your relationship with another person looks like it’s going nowhere, making that person feel felt is your best bet for achieving a breakthrough.

Okay, that’s our essay for the interactive lesson, let’s learn the vocabulary now in the rest of part A. Back to the beginning we had the word…

Reservoir – is a large lake. That’s the direct meaning, a large lake for water, for water supply.

Another meaning is it’s the source of something.

So the source of water, for example, is a reservoir, but in this example we’re talking about the source of feelings. Okay, so the reservoir, it’s like a large pool of feelings in the person’s body or mind. It’s a metaphor here, reservoir.

Drained – to drain means to empty, to empty.

So, imagine that, if the person’s angry, imagine that the anger it’s like water, like a big pool of water inside them and you need to empty it out slowly. You need to drain the anger out of them.

This is the metaphor, the idea.

Next, a nice idiom…

Driving you crazy – something is driving you crazy. If something is driving you crazy it’s upsetting you a lot. Say ugh, this is driving me crazy. It means this is upsetting me a lot.

Pleading – to plead means to beg. Oh please, please, please… it just means begging or asking. But it really has the idea of begging, plead, pleading.

Another nice idiom …

To hit a wall – hit a wall. When you hit a wall it means that you stop making progress. It’s a situation where you cannot make progress anymore. You cannot improve. You cannot get better, you are stopped. You hit a wall.

Resistance – resistance means the refusal to do something or refusal to accept something.

Apathy – apathy is a lack of caring. It’s not caring. Apathy. If you have apathy it means ah you don’t care, you don’t care at all.

Self-centeredness – self-centeredness, this is another word for selfishness. Just focusing on yourself only, only caring about yourself, self-centeredness. It’s kind of a negative word.

Neediness – neediness means excessively, too much, needing attention or help. All right, if you say someone is needy that’s the adjective. Oh, he’s a very needy person. It means he’s kind of weak, he always needs help, he always needs attention, oh please help me. He’s needy.

Neediness is the noun.

To grab hold – means just to grab something strongly, to grab hold. An example, if the tires grab hold of the road, right you can imagine, it’s like the tires are grabbing the road strongly.

To downshift – well, the direct meaning of downshift means to change your car to a lower gear, like maybe you’re in third gear and you shift, you change to second gear. It’s usually a slower gear when you downshift. But it also has a kind of slang meaning and it means to slow down and relax. It’s like I’ve been so busy I just need to downshift a bit. It means I need to slow down and relax a bit.

And the opposite would be…

Upshift – and the slang it means to speed up, to make more of an effort, to try harder, to upshift, to use more energy.

A nice long phrase which is very, very common…

To get through to someone – this means to effectively communicate with someone. It means to effectively communicate with someone. So, if you say I can’t get through to him. I cannot get through to him. It means I can’t communicate with him effectively. I try to talk to him but he won’t listen or he doesn’t understand. I can’t get through to him. I can’t make him understand. So that’s to get through to someone.

Next is to…

Mirror – as a verb. You know the noun probably, a mirror, you look in a mirror you see your reflection. This gives you the idea of the meaning of the verb. To mirror someone, if you mirror someone it means you do exactly what they do. You say what they say. So, for example, if in talking, in speech, if you mirror someone’s speech it means you say back to them what they are saying. If they are angry and saying angry things then you say oh wow you’re really angry, you seem really upset, you just tell them what they are feeling. It’s like you are a mirror and you are reflecting back, showing them the same thing.

And that’s our next phrase…

To reflect back to – again, in speech, in talking, when you reflect back to someone you just, you say again what they said. You repeat what they said, maybe you change it a little, but you repeat basically what they said. So, if they say I’m so angry with you, you made me angry. If you reflect back to them you would respond and say, oh I see, so you’re really angry with me, I made you really angry. You’re reflecting back what they said. It’s an effective technique actually you should try it.

Next phrase…

To draw to you – draw something to you or to draw someone to you. To draw someone to you means to attract someone, to attract someone. So let’s say there’s a beautiful woman and a guy’s at a party, he sees a beautiful woman and he says, oh, she drew me to her, she drew me to her. It means she attracted me. She pulled me to her. Her beauty pulled me to her, attracted me.

The most common meaning of to draw is to like make a picture, you know that meaning. But another meaning of draw is to attract or pull.

Tenet – a tenet is simply a principle. A central tenet is a central principle or belief.

To buy in – this is used as both a verb and a noun. This is kind of some business slang, kind of a business idiom. The verb phrase, to buy in, means to support and accept, to accept something and support it. So you might say, oh, I don’t buy in to this policy, this idea. I don’t buy into it. It means I don’t accept it, I don’t support it. It can also be used as a noun, buy in. We need buy in from the employees. It means we need acceptance and support from the employees for some action, for some policy, for some idea. Buy in…

Ironically – now a lot of native speakers actually use this word incorrectly. It’s a very common error, a very common mistake. Even native speakers use this word incorrectly a lot, but you’re not gonna do it you’re gonna be better than them, ironically. The actual real meaning of ironically is unexpectedly, unexpectedly or the opposite of what is expected. So you might say um, you know, ironically, even though that guy is overweight, he’s in great shape. He’s very fit.

He’s very strong. Why would you say ironically? Well, because if you look at him he’s fat. He looks like he would be really weak and in bad shape, but he’s actually very strong, so you say ironically, it’s the opposite of what you expect.

Next…

Hostage negotiator – a hostage negotiator it’s a job, it’s a position. Usually it’s a police person and it’s the police person who talks to a kidnapper. Right, so if a criminal grabs some people, some innocent people and says I’m going to kill them if you don’t give me a million dollars.

Those people are hostages, he’s holding them and threatening them. The hostage negotiator, you’ve seen this in movies many times right, he calls up the criminal and he talks to the criminal, tries to convince the criminal to change his mind, to surrender. That’s a hostage negotiator.

Next word…

Conversely – Conversely, conversely it’s a word that introduces a statement that reverses an earlier one. An easier way to think of it, it’s like saying on the other hand, on the other hand.

Very similar in meaning, so you might say, I’m kind of lazy but on the other hand, I do work out every day. I’m kind of lazy, but conversely I do workout every day. The first statement, I’m kind of lazy but then the second one changes the first statement, kind of says the opposite of the first statement. It reverses it… conversely.

Whining – whining means complaining in a very weak way, right, so it sounds like this… ooh I’m hungry, I want some food now whaa. Children do this all the time. Children wine a lot.

They’re complaining in a very kind of weak and annoying way, whining. And it can be a verb to whine. It can also be a noun.

Empathetic – it’s an adjective. It means, understanding of others feelings. It means you care about other people’s feelings. It means you understand other people’s feelings. It’s similar, not exactly the same, but similar to sympathetic, very similar in meaning. A lot of people use them in the same situations.

Next phrase, another nice little idiom…

Your own worst enemy – a very common one again, your own worst enemy. If you are your own worst enemy it means you caused most of your own problems. For example I have an uncle and he is his own worst enemy. He’s his own worst enemy. It means, he has a lot of problems, but he causes the problems himself. Other people don’t cause his problems. He doesn’t have other people who are enemies, he is his own enemy. He makes so many mistakes. He does so many foolish things, he’s his own worst enemy.

To encounter – means to meet, very simple.

Next word…

Anxiety – is a noun, anxiety. It just means worry and fear. Anxiety is kind of a mix of both worry and fear, so if you mix worry and fear together that’s anxiety.

Next phrase…

Breaking down barriers – when you break down barriers you remove resistance. Right, so we’re talking about people now, relationship. So, if someone is resistant to you right, they don’t want to talk to you, they don’t want to accept you, well, if you break down barriers it’s kind of… a barrier’s like a wall… it means that you get them to be more soft. You get them to stop resisting.

Breaking down barriers.

Next phrase… it’s not a normal phrase, don’t use this phrase in normal speaking.

To feel felt – right. In the essay it says, you need to make the person feel felt. It just means make the person feel completely understood. Make them feel understood. Make them feel loved and cared about. Make them feel felt. It means you are feeling their feelings.

Another super common idiom…

Put yourself in their shoes, put yourself in other people’s shoes, put yourself in his shoes, put yourself in her shoes – it means, think from their point of view. Imagine you are them, right. Think from their point of view. Think from their perspective. Try to completely understand their thoughts and feelings. Put yourself in their shoes.

Mirror neurons – this is a biology term actually. Mirror neurons are certain kinds of cells in your body, they’re nerve cells. Nerve cells that come from your brain. I think they might be in your brain actually, I’m not a biologist so I can’t tell you for sure, but mirror neurons they are specific kinds of cells that help us understand other people’s feelings. Help us understand their feelings and even feel the same thing. For example, you go to a movie and it’s a good actor in the movie and they cry, aah. Now the actor, they’re just pretending, it’s a movie. Of course your brain, you’re intelligent you know it’s not real, but yet you feel sad and you maybe even cry. If you’re sensitive you might even cry during the movie. Well, there’s a biological reason for that, your mirror neurons, these kinds of nerve cells cause you to feel the same thing as another human being. It’s actually a great thing, because it lets us be empathetic. It lets us feel what other people are feeling and understand them better.

Another common phrase…

To be wired to – wired to do something… Man, that guy he is wired to or wired for exercise. It means programed, he is programmed for exercise. It’s kind of like a computer idea, like if you, it’s an old computer idea. Imagine old computers that had wires right, and so if you changed the wires you might change the function of the computer, you might change the program. So it’s the idea of, if you were wired for something, probably wired for is the more common way to say it, but if you’re wired for something or wired to do something it means you’re kind of naturally programmed to do it.

Irresistible – irresistible means cannot be resisted, cannot be resisted.

Urge – an urge is a desire. An urge, if we’re using it as a noun, an urge is a desire. It’s also a verb.

There was the phrase…

This move – if you use this move it will be effective. This move is very powerful. It means this technique, this technique. Sometimes the word move can mean technique.

Next phrase…

To poke around in – means to look around, to explore. If you poke around in someone’s feelings, it means you explore their feelings.

Another very common idiom…

Your best bet – your best bet… your best bet means your best opportunity, your best chance or your best opportunity, your best bet.

Final phrase…

Achieve a breakthrough – to achieve a breakthrough means to get a big sudden positive change, a big sudden change that’s positive, a breakthrough, achieve a breakthrough.

All right, that’s the end of part A. In part B we’re going to use the mini story technique. I’ll be asking you some questions and you’ll practice and learn this vocabulary even better.

See you there. Bye.