The Influential Nonprofit

How to Handle Unexpected Comments

Episode Notes

Key Takeaways:

• Realize that your reaction to unexpected comments is a biochemical response and it will not be productive to continue responding from a place of either anger or fear. 
• If you receive an unexpected comment via email and you start getting a feeling in your body, that’s your cue to pause and take an hour or as much as you need to do to get some better perspective. Perspective will come in time.
• In conversations, give a non-response response. You don’t have to say something immediately in the moment. A simple “uh-huh” in response to an unexpected comment can buy your brain some time to think more rationally and come up with a less emotionally-infused response. 
• Prepare “ledges” - neutral phrases that you can say in response to unexpected comments. Asking questions like “What makes you ask that?” or “What makes you say that?” are two simple but effective ones of turning the conversation back to the other person.

“What we want is to create a space between the stimulus and response - because in that space we can access a different part of our brain that has rational thinking.”  - Maryanne Dersch

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