Listen Like Allies

I once heard someone say “listen as allies, not as adversaries.”

What a powerful statement. Listening is one of, if not THE most important skills in communicating for success. When I was a mediator I watched the challenges with listening every day. The more intense the conflict, and the longer the animosity had gone on, the more difficult it was to listen. Instead of listening, they were planning their argument in their head, or digging through their mental filing cabinet for the history and verbal ammunition to support their own viewpoint.

For others, the emotions ran high and blocked the ability to listen effectively without judgment or blame.

I have read some studies that indicate we only remember 24-50% of what we hear, so communicating your message clearly, effectively and timely is important if you want people to remember what you are communicating.

There really is a gift in listening. Listening builds shared understanding and often you hear the nuggets (or potential solutions) if you are open to them.

Here are a few tips to boost your ability to listen as allies, not as adversaries:

1. Have a mindset of curiosity. When you are curious, it makes it difficult to be judgmental.

2. Pay attention to your thoughts. Where is your mind when someone is speaking to you? Is it on your to do list? Digging through the mental file cabinet? Planning your retort? Or, with the other person in the conversation?

3. Be present. This is easier said than done. Being present is more than just showing up. It is about being engaged in the conversation.

4. Be open to the concept that all opinions and perspectives are welcome, and are important.

5. Defer judgment-allow the speaker to finish.

6. Manage your emotions. If you find yourself becoming emotional or reactive, say something like “I may have understood you correctly, and I find myself reacting and taking what you said personally. What I thought you just said is _____, is that what you meant?”

7. Remember to breathe. Under stress your breathing changes, and this can increase anxiousness. Breathe, and minimize distractions that will get in the way of communication.

When you listen like you are allies, or on the same side, there is less tendency to become adversaries.

To learn more about listening and communication, check out Charmaine’s new book Bounce Forward. You can order your signed copy for $20, including GST and shipping by emailing chris.alcock@hammondgroup.biz or calling 780-798-2426.

To BE (Balanced) or Not to BE (Balanced)

Lifestyle management, or being resilient, requires a balancing act and the juggling of a lot of priorities. For many years, I quite liked the concept of work/life balance. Watching other professionals who seemed to have it together and were living what appeared to be fairly stress-free lives, I noticed that balance wasn’t necessarily what they had achieved. I still got emails from them at ridiculous times of the morning or night, saw them at meetings in the evening when other people were home with their families, and I knew how much they had on their plate.

Sue is a great example. She is a hard worker, and has a lot on her plate in terms of work responsibilities and family commitments, including two small children. She is actively involved in her community and plays soccer. Sue really has IT going on. She never seems frazzled, always has a healthy energy, and doesn’t rush. One day I asked her, “How do you balance it all?”

“I don’t!” said Sue as she looked at me and smiled, obviously awaiting my next comment or question.

“You don’t?” I asked, trying to mask my surprise. “How do you manage? You never seem flustered or stressed, yet you have more on the go than many people I know.”

“I discovered a long time ago that I can’t balance my life. It is difficult for me to share my time equally between work, family and the many other areas of my life. That would cause me a great deal of stress,” explained Sue.

Now I was curious. If she didn’t practice work/life balance, how could she be this successful and easy going?

“So what is the secret?”


“Work life balance isn’t the answer for me. I strive for work/life harmony.”

I leaned in, not wanting to miss one single detail of Sue’s response. “What do you see as the difference between work/life balance and work/life harmony, Sue?”

Smiling, Sue replied, “Work/life harmony is more about me putting my time and energy into the different priorities in my life in a way that I don’t feel like I am compromising one area for another.”

It is a fine difference in the concepts, and for different reasons, the concept of work/life harmony seemed a better fit for me.


This is an excerpt from my book Bounce Forward.

What analogy works for you? Balance? Harmony? Why?
Here are a few quick tips on work life harmony, with more to come in the next blog.

- Set three urgent/big/necessity priorities each day, and tackle these before anything else.

- Listen to your language and thoughts. Do you catch yourself saying/thinking “I am SO Tired” or “Today was a day of expending energy on what mattered”. Do you say/think “I’m the only one pulling my weight here” or do you say/think “I gave more than my 100% today”. When you focus on being tired, doing it all, or blame, your energy will quickly disappear. When you focus on energy, abundance and what you accomplished your energy increases.

- Learn to say “no”. Sometimes you have to set boundaries, and that can require you to say “no”. Often people say “yes” because they are uncomfortable saying no, and then they feel resentful. Nothing zaps your energy and resilience more than this.

- Remember the SEWS (sunshine, exercise, water, sleep), the basics of creating harmony.

To read more about this topic, follow the blog, or you can order a copy of Bounce Forward (the book or the soon to be released audio book) by emailing chris.alcock@hammondgroup.biz for your signed copy.

What pushes your “I Am STRESSED button?

If I were to ask, “What are some of the stressors in your life,” what would you tell me?

When I ask that question, I hear many things including stressors that have to do with relationships. Some examples might be when there are family or health problems at home. Or, when relationships are under pressure and they’re not meeting one another’s needs, along with disagreements or conflicts, unhealthy relationships, or children that are experiencing trouble in school.


Finances can also be a tremendous stressor, both at home and at work. At home, dealing with debt, money management, and our attitudes and perceptions about finances can be extremely stressful.

At work, we are coping with how to get the job done, not just with the limited time that we have, but also the limited resources and limited finances.

Time is often a stressor that I hear about, especially at work. The challenge is that we have the same amount of time available to us every single day – 24 hours. What becomes so important is how we manage our moments, how we make seconds count, and how we deal with the time we have in a working day.

This excerpt was taken from the Bounce Forward book I published in April 2011.
What stressors push your I Am Stressed Button? Part of coping with stress and bouncing forward is to first know what causes you stress.

It is easier to deal with the devils you know than those you don’t is the age old saying. The same is true for stress. When you are aware of what causes you stress, you will find that you can sometimes avoid what causes you stress, or find it easier to respond appropriately to the stress.


In the next blog I’ll share some tips on managing stress.
To read more about this topic, follow the blog, or you can order a signed copy of Bounce Forward (the book or the soon to be released audio book) by emailing chris.alcock@hammondgroup.biz for your signed copy.

What does it mean to Bounce Forward ™

To understand the concept of bouncing forward, it is important to recognize that life offers many opportunities or moments to learn and grow. My new book, Bounce Forward, begins this way:

Life really is full of moments…moments that define you, moments that challenge you, moments that stretch you, and moments that make you grow. What we do in these moments really counts. What we don’t do in these moments also counts. Any action, including no action, sets the stage for what comes next.

In essence, to bounce forward™ is to stand up, brush your knees off, and move forward when life’s moments cause you to stumble or fall. It is more than simply recovering or returning to the original state, which is how resilience is usually defined.

You can probably list numerous situations that you would never want to return to or simply recover from. Recovering doesn't mean we are any better off. Bouncing forward does!

In my first career I was a correctional officer ---I know, those of you who know me are probably scratching your head trying to picture me, 4 foot 11 (and ¾) tall as a Correctional Officer but it’s true. It didn’t take me long to see one similarity with many of the inmates. Many of them were stuck- stuck in relationships that were going nowhere, stuck in a criminal way of life, stuck in a conflict from ten years ago, stuck in a past trauma, you get the picture. They were surviving but moving forward after life’s challenges. They were not bouncing forward.

I saw this same dynamic play out in my role as a mediator. To become unstuck, we must bounce forward.

Here are five ways to know if you are bouncing forward:

- You are optimistic, you can see opportunity, a new future in a challenging situation
- You do not talk about the past as if it is your present
- You are able to forgive
- You are able to “let it go”
- You do not hold grudges


To read more about this topic, follow the blog, or you can order a copy of Bounce Forward (the book or the soon to be available audio book) by emailing chris.alcock@hammondgroup.biz for your signed copy.