I wish I could maintain this attitude.  I really do want to improve, and if I am the one who figures out what I am doing wrong, I am pretty good at changing to correct the problem.  Yet if someone came up to me and said, “Let me tell you what is wrong with you,” I wouldn’t want to hear it.

Since other people are a lot like me: How can I give advice in a way that they will want to follow it?  Telling someone what he should do sounds an awful lot like “Let me tell you what is wrong with you.”  I would be much more likely to act on a piece of advice that started out more like, “Here’s an alternative that has worked for me …”

Similarly, when I hear a sentence that starts off with “You should …” my gut reaction is to defend myself rather than to pay attention to the idea that follows.  When people told me I should shave off my beard, I replied that they shouldn’t judge people by their looks.  I had a completely different reaction when somebody told me how the beard affected her, rather than telling me what to do.  One night when I was putting my daughter to bed, she said, “Please don’t kiss me Daddy.  Your beard scratches.”  A straight forward “I” statement is often effective in changing someone else’s behavior.