Unlimited: How to Build an Exceptional Life (30 page)

Me:
I hear you. You are feeling pressured by me, and by the show, to lose weight at a pace you think you aren’t capable of and it’s making you feel like a failure.

Once Rachael knows I have heard her, that she can trust me to listen to what she’s saying, I go on to get to the bottom of this problem.

Me:
Do you really want to give up, or are you just feeling afraid? You came to me saying you wanted to change your life. So did you change your mind? Tell me what
you want
for your future.

Rachael:
It’s hard to put into words the way I feel, but it isn’t at all that I don’t want this! We all needed and still need your help and encouragement. You know we are a stubborn family,
and we want the best results possible. We want to feel good about ourselves; we want to be happier and healthier. I just feel like it takes time, and I feel so much pressure to lose weight for the cameras that I get so discouraged and angry with myself. Please don’t get discouraged with us. It’s just hard doing all this from a distance and making sure we are all on the same page. I hope this helps you understand where I’m coming from.

Now see how I validate what she has said and give her the power to tell me what I can do to better help her.

Me:
I can totally understand how you’d feel overwhelmed by this process. While you’re right, I do want you to lose weight for the show, I’m first and foremost here to help you. After all, that’s what this show is all about. I’m not discouraged about you at all! I just want to be sure that I’m helping you in the best way possible. It’s my understanding that your agenda, my agenda, the agenda of the show, are one and the same. From what you’re saying, it sounds like this hasn’t changed, so please let me know what I can do to make it easier for you to achieve your goals.

Rachael:
I really appreciate your help. I think maybe if you could not ask me how much I weigh unless I bring it up, that would really ease some of the pressure. And if I’m having a bad week, try to understand and not judge me. I’m really grateful for this opportunity, and I’ll stay in touch more from now on.

Me:
I can do
all
those things! And just know that I don’t judge you, not ever. I care about you, and I am here to help you get healthy in whatever capacity best suits you.

Now, let’s analyze this exchange for a minute. My first response was to let Rachael know that I heard what she was talking about and understood how she felt. This is not to be confused with my
agreeing
with what she said. People can say things you
don’t agree with, and you can still understand how they feel. Personally, I didn’t think the expectations put on Rachael were unreasonable—I knew she had it in her, and I felt the time and tools that had been given to her were enough. But what I felt was totally irrelevant here. She was feeling overwhelmed and set up to fail, and I had to acknowledge and address those feelings before she’d be able to move on and get healthy. So I summarized the situation and let her know that I understood her feelings of frustration.

But then I went on to do something else, something that’s very important for all of us to do in our everyday interactions: I affirmed my motive. I let her know
why
I was having this conversation with her. By being transparent with your motives like this, you can build trust that allows you to forge a more open, productive relationship. In this case, I wanted to build trust so that Rachael could listen to what I had to say, so that I could help her get her life and her health back. Of course this only works if you have positive motives. If your motives are crappy or shady, then you’re wasting your time reading this chapter, but I’m going to go with the benefit of the doubt and bet that they’re not. You should never be afraid to tell the truth—it’s always enough.

I wanted Rachael to lose weight, for her and for the success of the show. I laid my motives out on the table to reinforce her trust, and I then asked her a few key questions about what she needed and how I could help.

LEAD THE WAY

Asking leading questions is the final part of empathic listening. As a listener, your role is to understand. That means you swap your judgment for empathy and your lectures for questions. By asking questions, you show that you are genuinely concerned and want to learn more about what the other person is thinking and feeling. This buys you a huge amount of trust. Look back on the conversations you’ve had in your own life. Have you ever been on a date with someone who talked the entire time and didn’t ask you a single
question? Unfortunately, I have. I remember thinking through the whole thing,
Wow, this person is an asshole
. My point here is that if you want to win someone over, then ask them questions about who they are, how they feel, and what they need. These are the things that make all of us feel respected and cared about.

In addition to showing you care, asking questions will help you clarify what the other person needs so you can decide on a course of action that brings about positive resolution. By asking Rachael how I could help her, I ensured our mutual success. She gave me specific directions on what to do and what not to do to facilitate an outcome that was beneficial for both of us.

Mastering leading questions has one other very important benefit. It allows you, in some cases, to bring the other person around to your point of view. It’s another slightly manipulative technique, but if done with the best intentions, who cares? And even if you did lead them to it, ultimately they still need to make the choice for themselves, so don’t sweat it.

Here’s how it works. You can’t force change on someone—they have to
choose
it. Although it may seem like I’m doing some forcing on TV, I’m not. It just doesn’t work. Think about it: when someone tries to force you to do something, what’s your first instinct? Resist, right? The trick is to
help
people arrive at a productive conclusion they can own.

If I had told Rachael what to do, she would have felt bullied, and then she would have resisted. However, by asking her the right questions—“Do you really want to give up, or are you just feeling afraid? You came to me saying you wanted to change your life. So did you change your mind? What do
you want
for your future?”—I helped her realize a better path and was able to bring our agendas into alignment.

This way, there’s no power struggle, no fight for control—you’re putting the ball in the other person’s court and letting them decide. Instead of trying to control Rachael or convince her of my point of view, I led her through a series of pointed questions that laid out the pros and cons of her choices, allowing her
eventually to decide for herself that she did want to get healthy and lose weight.

Listening isn’t complicated. People want to be heard and feel known—that’s at the core of our humanity. To us, listening is love. When we’re listened to and understood—not necessarily agreed with, but heard and identified with—we gain the openness and trust required for mutually beneficial collaboration. Of course, this is a two-way street. So next we’re going to talk about, well, talking.

SPEAK UP FOR YOURSELF

Your ability to voice your thoughts, feelings, and ideas effectively is just as important as your ability to listen. No man is an island (and no woman either!), and to have a great life, you must be able to collaborate with others.

We have a tendency to idealize individualism in our culture. But remember that island? We don’t get anywhere on our own, not truly. Would we have survived as a species over thousands of years without working together? Doubtful. You
have
to work with others if you want to be productive, and the way you speak to others determines whether they’re with you or against you.

Whether it’s the spouse you fight with constantly, the family members who push food on you, the boss who doesn’t like your ideas—whoever it is, other people play a huge role in your success. If you think you can achieve your goal on your own, you’re just being foolish. Check your ego at the door—there’s no room for it. If you’re really in this to make things happen, it’s time to swallow your pride.

Getting people on your side peels away so many obstacles to success, and this next section is all about how to do that. Think of this as “how to win friends and influence people”—Jillian style.

The first thing you’re going to need is some
cojones
. You’re going to have to be brave enough to tell others what you think, how you feel, and what you need. A lot of us take it for granted that our wants and needs are obvious. Well, they’re not. People are not mind readers, and most of the time they won’t know how to help you unless you tell them. Remember, they’re bringing their own experiences and frames of reference to the table just like you are. It could very well be that what they think of as helpful, you find hurtful.

By telling people what you’re thinking and feeling, you give them what they need to understand you and work with you. Asking for help and expressing your needs might make you feel vulnerable, awkward, weak, or selfish at first. This is where courage comes into it. But the more you articulate your needs, the more powerful you will become. And let’s be honest, if you can’t talk about a problem, it can’t get resolved.

I’m sure you’re thinking,
Oh, I can’t do that. It will hurt people’s feelings
. Actually, if you express yourself in the right way, you won’t hurt anyone’s feelings, and I’m hoping you’ve built up enough self-esteem by this point to let others worry about their own emotional health anyway. Your obligation is to focus on your own.

KEEP AN OPEN MIND

The key to effective communication is keeping an open mind. By keeping an open mind and an open heart, you can focus on the solution, not on the method by which it’s reached. At all costs, avoid becoming defensive, assigning blame, or attacking the other person. That is a surefire way to end a conversation before it’s begun. You must speak from an empathic place. Remember that the other person has their own feelings and thoughts about things. Be sensitive to that when you are engaging them.

One of the basic techniques for communicating with sensitivity is to use I-statements as opposed to you-statements. This is Communication 101. Framing your conversations with
I-statements lets you discuss your issues without accusing the other person of causing the problem. A you-statement does, well, the opposite.

Here’s an easy example:

I was dating a guy a while back who was really close to his buddies. We had gotten to a point where he was hanging out with them more often than not, and although I was a big supporter of his need for male bonding, he never invited me, and I was starting to feel left out and distanced from him. There’s no doubt we needed to have a conversation. I could have gone on the offensive and attacked him, like this: “Whenever I do something or go somewhere, I always include you, but when you go out with your friends, you have never once had the common decency to invite me. I’ve been really cool about it till now, but I’m sick of your acting like a selfish jerk. How would you feel if I were this inconsiderate of your feelings?!” Now, that’s how I was feeling on the inside, but communicating my issue that way was going to get me nowhere or probably even make matters worse. He would likely have gotten defensive and argued back, saying something to the effect, “You’re such a bitch sometimes. You question why I don’t invite you out with us? No wonder I need time alone with my boys.” The situation would escalate negatively from there.

If you replace the you-statements with I-statements, however, your chances of reaching a positive outcome increase exponentially. So after I calmed down, this was the path I chose, and this is how the conversation actually went: “Honey, I totally get that you want and need your alone time with your friends. I like time alone with my friends sometimes, too, but lately it feels like it’s all the time. And I don’t want to intrude or anything, but it would be nice to hang out with you guys once in a while. It makes me feel insecure when you don’t invite me, like you don’t want me there or you’re not proud to show me off, and I feel like I’m becoming less and less a part of your life.” And his response was as follows: “Wow, babe, I’m sorry. I had no idea you felt that way. I make plans all the time these days because you’ve been working so much and
I hate sitting at home by myself waiting for you. Then when you’re actually available, I just figure you want to rest because you work all the time and the last thing you’d want to do is go to a hockey game or play poker. I have plans with the guys this Thursday to play pool. Do you want to come?” Crisis averted.

In this scenario, my statement was one of fact. It didn’t accuse him of anything, and it thereby left room for him to respond in a more sympathetic way, with no judgment coloring the dialogue. As a result, he acknowledged my feelings, clarified his intention, and suggested a solution. In addition, this conversation showed me how he was feeling about my work schedule, giving me an opportunity to remedy that issue in our relationship as well. Sadly, some things are irreconcilable, and the work thing did eventually break us up, but our solid communication kept our respect and care for each other intact, and we’re still close friends to this day.

Now, if the person you are communicating with doesn’t respond to an open, nonthreatening dialogue, or if it becomes clear that they have no regard for your feelings even after you have expressed them in a calm, loving way, then this becomes a different issue altogether, and you may want to reevaluate the dynamics of the relationship.

KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE, AND BE WILLING TO COMPROMISE

The personal and professional aspects of your life are going to require slightly different approaches. The communications are going to involve different specifics, but the general principles remain the same. You probably won’t utilize I-statements often in your business interactions, or have long talks about feelings, but they still do come into play. In business as in anything, you need to think about where the other person is coming from, so you can try to meet them where they are before expressing your thoughts and ideas. This is the starting point for progress, because this basic principle applies to any conversation. I’m going to give you
another example from my professional life, since it’s slightly easier for me to analyze and quantify.