This is one of the learnings I got from Kain Ramsay of Achology. You can find the course where he talks about this much more eloquently than me at Achology.com. The name of the course is "Goal Setting and Strategic Action Planning Masterclass." I think you can see that this Masterclass of Kain's is a lot deeper than a typical S.M.A.R.T goal setting course. It's well worth it. So far it is just in English. Soon there will be a Spanish version of the same course.

Have you ever tried to convince a child to do something they just don’t want to do; or perhaps a fully-grown adult? Forcing your opinion on others, no matter your position or relationship with the other person can be very ineffective. Others will be more likely to be interested in your opinion once they have felt heard by you. Debate rarely gets converts. Listening and further curiosity (even if you vehemently disagree with the other person’s point of view) opens the door to wiser thinking. Instead of debating, we can show curiosity. Here are some ideas to take the conversation deeper and create more listening, inclusion and connection. Before we get to some potentially conversation expanding questions, first let’s contemplate some questions we might want to avoid: 1. Yes/No questions tend to finish conversations or limit them from expansion and understanding.  2. Questions with an insinuating inflection can put the other person on the defensive. 1. WHY is a loaded word in English, and tends to put the other person on the defensive.  Using “for what reason” or what was …..? Can be much softer and inviting.   Some more open questions are: Tell me more about that idea. Can you explain that in more detail? What might happen if we follow that idea? How will this affect you? How will this affect those closest to you? What if….. What do you think about the other potential outcomes? What do you think could be the best idea? I’d be interested to hear what you think? For what reason do some people follow that line of thinking and why do some go in a different direction? Deepening the conversation: Hmm, that’s an interesting (creative, helpful) thought/idea/point of view. How could that play out? On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being certain, how do you think this potential solution could work out? What would be the potential benefits and challenges? How excited would you be about this solution once you start hitting those challenges? Knowing the challenges, what other solutions come to mind?

What are "Agendas"? And what is matching? In all our relationships we bring "agendas." Being 100% honest it is what we want from a relationship. Many times we are extremely generous with our time and money towards other people. However, it is rarely 100% without a personal motivation/agenda. It could be to feel better about ourselves, to "buy" friends, to be liked, we are scared of the result of losing a friendship, or we just find them a lot of fun or very interesting. It is rare that we invest in relationships when we don't want something from them. So, our agenda is useful to us when we analyse why we want to spend time with a specific person. Once we know what our true agenda is, we can become more self-aware and see areas where we can grow. Rather than continually seeking approval or self-worth elsewhere we can acknowledge we have some room to grow and then invest time in finding out how to grow in self concept, or understanding of why the other person is great to be around, and then work on skills to become someone who others want to be around. Often there are Givers, Takers or Matchers. Givers keep giving even when they are not appreciated or the person they are giving to does not do anything productive with what the giver has given. Takers are just that, they will take and take without providing any value, or return on investment from takers. The positive for takers is they can always find someone else who is a giver. The negative is that eventually they need to find a new group of friends and often they will surround themselves with other takers, which isn't fun or productive. Finally, there are matchers. Matchers do not invest one penny to get one penny back from the other person. They invest time, effort and perhaps money in a person/organization to see if the relationship is baring fruit either for the two of them or with that person/organization showing fruit by investing in others or other situtations for "reasons that are greater than themselves."