How What We Say Impacts Others (Without Us Necessarily Knowing)

Building awareness of what triggers us and makes us feel bad (maybe something someone has said), and what we may not even be aware of (blind spots) that triggers others, helps us to build empathy and compassion for others.

Back in April this year I was working with a group of women and talking to them about communicating effectively. During my talk I was describing introversion and extraversion and how a preference of one or the other impacts how people behave.

Unknown to me, one of the participants felt I was singling her out as an extravert in a room of introverts and she felt put down with the behaviour I was describing for extraverts. That wasn’t my intention at all.

Very fortunately for me, she emailed afterwards and told me how disappointed she felt and I was mortified she felt that way. It was fortunate I received that feedback (and we patched things up) as it made me aware of a potential blind spot I have when working with others. My focus now when giving talks, or training sessions is to amp up my awareness of others.

When have you been made aware that something you said may have totally impacted someone else? And what did you do about that?