We’re talking about what to do AFTER that difficult conversation.  Our first two episodes on the CRITICAL subject of having HARD (but RICH) conversations have been huge!  In fact, it’s led to some of our biggest download numbers of the year!  (Thanks for spreading the word!)  That means we’re hitting on a topic that people need right now.  That’s why we’re talking about what to do AFTER the conversation. I offer THREE tenets to live by in about 15 minutes.  Short and sweet. NOTE: The 2nd will help you to know what to do if you think you’ve offended someone.  (Because that’s a hard reality of our current era… right?)  BTW… the strategy might surprise you… but I think it will also help you to feel a sense of freedom too! So let’s get to it! Listen To The Podcast:   RESOURCES: www.mitchmatthews.com/273 - Preparing for a HARD conversation www.mitchmatthews.com/274 - MINDSET for hard conversations www.mitchmatthews.com/211 - Finding the Middle Ground with Congressman Ro Khanna   Marianne Williamson quote on honor and respecting each other: “A healthy, vital society is not one in which we all agree.   It is one in which those who disagree can  do so with honor and respect for other people’s opinions…  and an appreciation of our shared humanity.”   A Masterclass on Hard Conversations: Part 3 SHOW NOTES:  We’re going after 3 TENETS in about 15 minutes.  So let’s get to it! FIRST TENENT: Love first.  Love last.  Love fully. If you’ve been listening to DTD for a while… you know I’m a Jesus guy and I love the Bible.   So I do my best to follow what I’ve learned from the Bible.  I sure don’t do that perfectly… but I’ve found that if I try to understand what’s in there… and know that God loves me… a lot… as I do… things seem to work out pretty darn well.  And I have a much better life.   Now I’m going to stop right there and acknowledge the fact that I may have thrown out something we may or may not agree upon… but I wanted to give you some of my own personal foundation for the first strategy.  (How about that for navigating difficult conversations!  HA!) Here’s the deal… people were always asking Jesus about the rules… and laws. Sometimes He would offer stories and metaphors… other times He would offer different ways to look at things… sometimes He would raise the stakes and poke a little bit.  But in one particular interaction, someone was trying to set Jesus up… my hope was they were truly trying to learn… but some people think this guy was trying to get Jesus to say something that would get Him in trouble.  The question was: of ALL the commandments… of ALL the rules that we live by… which is the most important?   Can you imagine? It was a rules-based culture.  The rules were everything.  The people who memorized the rules were elevated… they were respected… they were feared.  The more rules you knew… the more power you had.  But Jesus did this wild thing in his response. He said… Okay… of ALL the rules… the TWO most important rules are: Love God with all your heart.  Love your neighbor as yourself. Love. Love. Love. Love God.  Love others.  Love yourself. Now THAT is something I can remember. Now you might be asking, “What does it have to do with difficult conversations?” Well… sometimes they’re going to go the way you want them to.  Sometimes they’re not. But I’ve found that if I focus on loving the person… which can mean truly listening… which can mean honoring… which can mean respecting them… even if we don’t agree.  If I do THAT… it almost always leads to a much higher chance for a rich relationship… before, during, AND after. Now, here’s the thing.  Loving someone doesn’t mean acquiesce.  It doesn’t mean being a doormat.  It means being humble AND confident. Humble confidence. In fact, I like what Frank Turner from Qurora.com said about humility.   “To be humble is to not make yourself more important than others.