Do I look holier-than-thou in these pants?

#1 Posted by Havi Brooks (and duck) on September 17th, 2008 8:45 pm | link

Wow. Well, I love that you loved my piece (very cool) but (and?) I also totally get that you guys are about authentic communication.

Seriously. It completely shines through everything you do.

I was just reading through a month or so of your posts and there’s nothing coming across as even the tiniest bit condescending to me. Am going to guess that this is because you’ve got the integrity thing going on. Which has its own resonance.

Anyway, my sense is that the people who come across that way usually are putting out something that doesn’t fit … and sets off some cognitive dissonance buttons. But that’s awesome that you’re open to figuring out how your message could get transmuted … completely admirable.

#2 Posted by Pace on September 17th, 2008 8:57 pm | link

Havi,

That’s awesome that our authenticity is shining through to you. That makes me really happy and I feel quite a bit reassured!

The particular phrases I use that I felt might sound condescending are things like “It doesn’t need to be any more complicated than that” and “We lost $8000, and it was no problem!“ I was concerned that those sorts of things might come across as “It’s simple, doofus,” and “Hey, this amount of money that might seem huge to your lame ass, actually it’s tiny!” But it is very good to hear that you didn’t read them that way.

I think that what I will do is to remain open to receiving feedback that my communication is getting garbled, but to not sweat it and (by default) trust that I’m coming through clearly. Sweating it helps no one! (:

#3 Posted by Pazi on September 18th, 2008 7:17 pm | link

You do come across this way sometimes, especially with regards to the wild successes you’ve enjoyed of late. It feels like your advice for wild, boundless success works very well.

Caveat: For those who’re privileged, lucky, possessed of enough resources, stability and free time to make it all work. In short, you seem to treat people’s problems as being entirely stuck in how they’re conceptualizing things.

This is not unique to you by any means, but it does mean you occasionally come across as blind to the factors that contribute to your success. When that comes in the form of advice or statements about how the world works, it’s very irritating to hear (speaking as someone who doesn’t have the luxury of quitting a job to “do what they love”, the health or finances to assume things will work out somehow, and so on).

#4 Posted by Oliver Danni on September 18th, 2008 8:57 pm | link

It’s funny, because most of the time I feel the same way as Havi. I get pissed off when people tell me something I’m not finding very easy is easy. I start going, what’s different between you and I that’s making this thing that is easy for you so difficult for me? I start naming those things in order to prove to the person who has just told me I “should” be able to easily do the thing that they can do easily that I have a legitimate reason for why I haven’t done the thing that’s so easy for them. Or, I start trying to prove that it wasn’t really as easy for the person to do the thing as they say it was. Both of those actions create distance between me and the person, and ultimately between me and the activity of dubious accomplishablity.

But I don’t hear the message of “this was easy for us, what’s wrong with you that it’s hard for you?” at all from you. I hear “this wasn’t actually easy at all for us, but it was POSSIBLE, and god DAMN was it awesome when we realized that!” a lot, and THAT’s a message I resonate well with. Also, I feel like you’re people that experientially have a lot in common with me, so there’s no reason for me to need to go “well these are all the reasons why we’re different that explain why things that are easy for them are difficult for me”. And I never feel like you’re saying “something’s wrong with you if this isn’t easy for you”, not at all. So…all that adds up to, when I hear that kind of message from you, I think “hey, if this was possible for P & K, maybe it is possible for me too!”

Somewhere between your abundant awesomeness, and your confidence in your own abundant awesomeness, you’ve managed to transcend my instinctive resistance to perceiving other people as being unqualified to give me advice, I guess. Good job. :D

#5 Posted by Megan M. on September 26th, 2008 11:55 am | link

I think it’s important to draw a line between a) what you can do to be compassionate and understanding towards your readers — to make sure you are getting your point across and being as clear as possible that you know everyone’s situation is different, and that you want to help in any way you can… and b) when it’s not so much your method but your message that someone has a problem with.

If someone has a problem with your message (especially in the cases where someone’s mindset is keeping them from being comfortable with something you’re saying), they’re the only ones who can change that for themselves. YOU can continue to put out material that is helpful and compassionate to the best of your ability, for many many readers, but sometimes there will just be people who hurt when they hear it. Sometimes it just works that way.

And in the meantime, you can still help a lot of people who DO want to hear what you have to say, who are affected positively by it. And although you definitely want to be considerate to the ones who aren’t on that wavelength, you don’t want to forget about the people that are really being benefited by your ideas. And there are a lot of us.

#6 Posted by 2008 | Pace and Kyeli on October 31st, 2008 11:07 pm | link

[...] fear-based motivation. Meanwhile, ten of our friends were busy editing the third draft of the book. The embiggenation-induced growing pains began. We reconciled our goal of helping people with our goal of making money. We became experts at lots [...]

#7 Posted by bramblekite on April 21st, 2009 9:14 am | link

A lot of misinterpretation can come with the written word, since there’s not any body language, eye contact, tone of voice, etc. to moderate the words the reader is processing. So a lot of things end up being misinterpreted, I think, just from the reader’s own bias toward the writer (if the reader knows the writer personally), or the reader’s own tendencies to think well, or badly, of themselves, in general. You may not be judging me or belittling me, but if I’m used to being judged and belittled, if my tendency is to believe that others are judging and belittling me at all times…I’m going to find something in your words to affirm that assumption. In other words, “it’s not you, it’s me.” :)