Powerful communication requires yielding, not force

When men pretend to be confident it’s easy to spot. One way they do it is they tend to push their communication harder than they need to. If you’re trained to observe this you’ll see it in harder inflections as they speak. It’s almost like they ‘bark’ at least once per vocal utterance. It needn’t be an aggressive bark; it might be a jocular one, but it’ll sound like a bark as it rises in pitch and volume above the other words. You’ll find some good examples in the classic movies of 50 years ago.

If you look into their actions you’ll see that there too they’re all about push, about force, about making a mark, having an influence, knowing more, doing more, solving more. But like their bark, their actions will be brief flares, like sun spots, before they retreat back to their place in the pack. They’ll step into an argument, loudly make a statement, then back off.

The gentleness required of men cannot be staged or taught;
 it can only be accessed through being

There’s a different way of expressing confidence. It’s the way of the gentle martial arts, like aikido. It’s the way of giving, of yielding, of moving in towards your centre. When you speak in this way you soften your tone, drop your inflection. To a man learning this, it feels wrong – too soft, a little naff, because you have to tap into expressions of feeling. Yet the men who truly know how to move people, who touch you, who are authentic, centred, powerful and you can’t quite put your finger on it, they have this softness in their speech.

Of course, it can be staged, but then you’d feel uncomfortable with this kind of man, like there’s something about him you don’t trust. True softness is an ability that can’t be staged or trained. It can only be accessed through being. Being gentle, being yielding, being willing to step back from the fight and the show, from always having to be right. Authentic being cannot be staged, it’s what’s left when the ego has been dissolved.

Do you notice that if you’re not there arguing and pleading for certain things to be done (at home, at work) or for things to be done a certain way that they simply don’t get done, or don’t get done right? Your presence is like a coil in a watch that keeps it wound up for a short time – but when you’re not there, that particular discipline, or practice, falls away.

This phenomenon is the destiny of most men, even highly successful ones. Take a World Cup-winning sports coach. How many of Jake White’s or Clive Woodward’s practices will be successfully and accurately continued by their successors? Very few, and fewer as time passes.

Nothing lasts, so relax a little bit, lean back
and watch how the game gets played

Even though some men’s desires, plans and structures last for centuries and get taken up by the whole world, they’re seldom done the way the founder would have wanted. Is Christianity the way Jesus would have had it? What about Smuts’s League of Nations (now the United Nations)? Does Ghandi’s India still practice non-violence? Is Mandela’s legacy of impeccable integrity still alive in the ANC?

Nothing lasts. Each one of us is keeping some space open in a sea of being, that when we’re gone will simply close up as though we were never there. So relax a little. Suggest a game, or a way of doing things, and then lean back and watch how it plays out. When it unfolds in unpredictable ways, instead of trying to control it, say, ‘How fascinating!’ You’ll save yourself heartache – and a heart attack – and make life liveable for yourself and everyone around you!

You appreciate in others what you feel you deserve in yourself

People who don’t have money often don’t trust those who do. The poor, to put it bluntly, often think that the rich must have done something crooked to get their money – and that they’re up to something right now, so the poor person is suspicious of the rich person’s motive, even when the rich person tries to help. On a global scale, this phenomenon shows up as conspiracy theories. The fact is that the poor person doesn’t believe, at a subconscious level, that they deserve the wealth that the rich person has. If they did, they would have it, and keep it. End of story.

Let’s say their deserving level is at 40 out of 100, so they have 40% of the wealth that they are capable of. Anyone above that, they’re either jealous or suspicious of.

Those who are high in deserving are neither
jealous nor suspicious, but appreciative

Now let’s look at love. When you believe you deserve love at level 40 out of 100, and you experience someone expressing love towards you at a much higher level, you don’t trust them, do you? You think they’re false, that they don’t mean what they say (‘How could they possibly?’) or that they want something. Those who are rich, who are high in deserving, don’t feel that way. They are neither jealous nor suspicious; they feel comfortable with the other person’s wealth, with the other person’s loving.

How much do you believe – at a subconscious, feeling level – that you deserve? The higher your deserving levels are, the less suspicious or resentful you are, and the more you can let in – the more friendship, love, money, support, contacts. To achieve this, you have to lower your defences, open up, allow yourself to deserve. This process of allowing is foreign to men, because we’re all about ‘doing’, but you can’t ‘do’ allowing, you have to relax, drop resistance, open up. It’s the opposite of doing. You have to ‘undo’. Can you do it? Go on, you deserve it!

Do what you want others to do

There’s a story about Mahatma Ghandi, that he was approached by a woman who asked him to treat her sick child; he recognised that the child had diabetes and that it should stop eating sugar, but instead of telling her there and then, he sent her away and told her to return in two weeks. During that time he stopped eating sugar himself, and when the woman and child returned, he told the child to stop eating sugar.

Do it yourself first, and you’ll be amazed
at how quickly others get the message

There’s that hoary old saying, ‘Do as I say, not as I do,’ that people use when they want their children, partners, colleagues, or staff to conform to their wishes, and they do not live up to the requirement themselves. Well, if you’re using that, or applying it, you should not wonder if people don’t comply with your requests. Ghandi was all, ‘Do as I do,’ and he took this pretty seriously, as you can see. Now if power is proportional to how many people you’re able to influence, Ghandi was one of the most powerful people in history – certainly the most powerful who did not use a government or military force to achieve his influence. Perhaps we should take him seriously.

So the next time you want someone to change a behaviour, you’ll find it somewhere in your own life, you can be sure. Do it yourself first and you’ll be amazed at how quickly the others get the message. Plus you’ll know in yourself what it takes, and will be able to guide the other person to achieve it.