Kare Anderson > Quotes

“People are far more revealing by the questions they ask than the answer they give. To get closer to understanding what is really on someone’s mind, answer their questions briefly so they ask follow-up questions. By their third question you’ll get a glimpse of their biggest fear or desire on the topic.”
― Kare Anderson, Mutuality Matters How You Can Create More Opportunity, Adventure & Friendship With Others

“We are far more revealing by the questions we ask than the answers we give. Answer briefly to sense where their questions are heading.”
― Kare Anderson, Mutuality Matters How You Can Create More Opportunity, Adventure & Friendship With Others

“Anchor Your Stories in Redemptive Themes So We Are Moved to Live Up to Them: Rather than making yourself the victim or the hero in the stories you tell, describe a daunting time of loss, crisis, or criticism or where you made a mistake or acted badly, yet you were eventually able to learn from it. Such stories show vulnerability and a desire to grow and live fully rather than in fear. Then that facet of you can be the place where others can positively and productively connect with you, hard-earned strengths firmly attached together. You can support each other in reinforcing redemptive characterizations and action.”
― Kare Anderson, Mutuality Matters How You Can Create More Opportunity, Adventure & Friendship With Others

“Bring out others’ better side and they are more likely to see and support yours.”
― Kare Anderson, Mutuality Matters How You Can Create More Opportunity, Adventure & Friendship With Others

“Whatever most captures your mind controls your life.”
― Kare Anderson, Mutuality Matters How You Can Create More Opportunity, Adventure & Friendship With Others

“Brevity Is Best: Nicknamed "Silent Cal," President Calvin Coolidge was once challenged by a reporter, saying, "I bet someone that I could get more than two words out of you." Coolidge responded, "You lose." The notion of crafting six word memoirs really took off after Smith Magazine shared this poignant one written by Ernest Hemingway: "For Sale: baby shoes, never worn."
Pithiness Pays Off For Other Reasons: When required to be brief, for example, we gain clarity about what we really mean -- or have to offer. As Mark Twain once wrote, in a slower-paced time, "I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”
― Kare Anderson, Mutuality Matters How You Can Create More Opportunity, Adventure & Friendship With Others

“Strangers can be consequential when you want to practice an atrophied or unexplored facet of you, as they don’t know how you usually act.”
― Kare Anderson, Mutuality Matters More Living a Happy, Meaningful and Satisfying Life With Others

“• The stronger the signal you send yourself of your highest purpose, the more likely you are to notice ways to serve it
• Your specificity boosts your clarity, credibility and memorability.
• The specific detail proves the general conclusion, not the reverse yet we are most likely to write and speak first in generalizations.
• Your focus on interconnectedness increases your frequency of serendipitous encounters, unexpected insights and deeper friendships.”
― Kare Anderson, Mutuality Matters More Living a Happy, Meaningful and Satisfying Life With Others

“Problems rarely exist at the level at which they are expressed. If you are arguing for more than ten minutes then you are probably not discussing the real conflict.”
― Kare Anderson, Mutuality Matters How You Can Create More Opportunity, Adventure & Friendship With Others

“It's not the number of contacts you cultivate but the diversity and depth of connections that leverage your opportunity to use best talents more often to accomplish more.”
― Kare Anderson, Mutuality Matters How You Can Create More Opportunity, Adventure & Friendship With Others

“Try This Counterintuitive Way To Be Well-Liked:
One of the biggest misconceptions about connecting is seeking, first, to be liked. In fact, the counterintuitive way to get someone to like you is in knowing this core truth: If they like the way they feel when around you, they will like you. In fact, they will project onto you the character traits they most like in others, even if you have not yet exhibited them.
Conversely, if they do not like the way they act when around you, they will instinctively blame you for it, regardless of the true reason. They will project onto you some of the qualities they most dislike in others. What's worse, they will go out of their way to prove they are right, even in ways that damage their reputation as well as yours.”
― Kare Anderson, Mutuality Matters More Living a Happy, Meaningful and Satisfying Life With Others

“Go Slow to Go Fast in Growing a Stronger Bond With Others: When you see someone's interest rise in the conversation, you have a glimpse of the hook that can best connect you together. Ask follow-up questions, directly related to what that person just said. If you do just this much, recent research shows you are among the five percent of Americans in conversation. In so doing, you accomplish two things. You've increased their openness and warmth toward you, because you've demonstrated you care. And you've had a closer look at the hook that most matters to them in the conversation. Now you can speak to their hottest interest, in a way that can serve you both.”
― Kare Anderson, Mutuality Matters How You Can Create More Opportunity, Adventure & Friendship With Others

“Pull in Friendships and Fresh Adventures: Five men are walking across the Golden Gate Bridge on an outing organized by their wives who are college friends. The women move ahead in animated conversation. One man describes the engineering involved in the bridge's long suspension. Another points to the changing tide lines below. A third asked if they've heard of the new phone apps for walking tours. The fourth observes how refreshing it is to talk with people who aren't lawyers like him.

Yes, we tend to notice the details that most relate to our work or our life experience.

It is also no surprise that we instinctively look for those who share our interests. This is especially true in times of increasing pressure and uncertainty. We have an understandable tendency in such times to seek out the familiar and comfortable as a buffer against the disruptive changes surrounding us. In so doing we can inadvertently put ourselves in a cage of similarity that narrows our peripheral vision of the world and our options. The result? We can be blindsided by events and trends coming at us from directions we did not see. The more we see reinforcing evidence that we are right in our beliefs the more rigid we become in defending them. Hint: If you are part of a large association, synagogue, civic group or special interest club, encourage the organization to support the creation of self-organized, special interest groups of no more than seven people, providing a few suggestions of they could operate. Such loosely affiliated small groups within a larger organization deepen a sense of belonging, help more people learn from diverse others and stay open to growing through that shared learning and collaboration. That's one way that members of Rick Warren's large Saddleback Church have maintained a close-knit feeling yet continue to grow in fresh ways. imilarly the innovative outdoor gear company Gore-Tex has nimbly grown by using their version of self-organized groups of 150 or less within the larger corporation. In fact, they give grants to those who further their learning about that philosophy when adapted to outdoor adventure, traveling in compact groups of "close friends who had mutual respect and trust for one another.”
― Kare Anderson, Mutuality Matters How You Can Create More Opportunity, Adventure & Friendship With Others

“To boost bonding among others so they are more apt to work (or play) well together, ask them, when together, to do two powerfully simple things that can be done rather quickly:
1. Write down the ways they are like each other. Hint: Create a level playing field. Writing rather than immediately sharing helps slow thinkers keep up with fast thinkers. Fast thinkers aren't smarter, just different in their thinking processes, and each kind has advantages and pitfalls, so they can accomplish more together than when a majority in a group think and speak at the same speed. Hint: Salespeople are often fast thinkers.
2. Share with each other what they wrote, going around the circle, one by one.
Bonus benefit: Other studies show that when you reflect on how you are similar to those with whom you are talking, you pay more attention to them. You care about them more. That spurs the other person to listen more closely to you.”
― Kare Anderson, Mutuality Matters More Living a Happy, Meaningful and Satisfying Life With Others

“To turn the page to the next chapter of a more satisfying life-as-adventure, these steps that have proved fruitful for me -- when I've actually followed them.
1. Find Your True North to Become More Joyful
First be clear about choosing a goal that rings true. Forget "should" or adopting someone else's goal for you.

2. Picture Being Your Hero
Afraid you will fail? Supplant your fear with a greater motivation. When you are tempted to fall back, picture how you'll feel when you succeed. ." Rather than talking about what you are giving up or how you might fail, reflect upon and discuss the benefits you clearly see.

3. Surround Yourself With Mutual Support Systems
To keep your resolve, surround yourself with those who want you to succeed - and who are also on a path of practice. Agree on shared and individual behaviors that reinforce your mutual support. The authors of Influencer found that is the only way to permanently change.

4. Involve Your Senses To Stay On Your Path
Tie your goal for your new chapter to your frequent experiences. Write it down. Say it out loud. Associate it with things you see, hear, smell, taste and touch every day. Plant sticky messages on your bathroom mirror, your car dashboard and smart device screen. Smell your shampoo and connect it with living that chapter. Brush your teeth and feel the motion towards it.

5. Notice Where You Get Detoured
Notice your pattern of avoidance. What activities get you sidetracked? What time of day or day of the week is it most likely to happen? What else is happening that can numb you into avoidance? What colleagues and friends help or hinder you on your path? Conversely, when are your stronger moments?

6. Plan A Grand Reward
The bigger the change, the larger the reward you deserve. Enable others who supported you, to savor it with you. Since behavior is contagious to the third degree, you don't know which friends, and friends of your friends' friends might be moved, by your example, to also turn the page to the next chapter of the adventure story they were meant to live.”
― Kare Anderson, Moving From Me to We

“Get specific sooner and reap many rewards. The specific detail or example proves the general conclusion, not the reverse. The more specific you are abut anything the more clear you become, for yourself and in telling others. Thus you reduce the chance of others misunderstanding you. And you become more compelling, credible and memorable.”
― Kare Anderson, Mutuality Matters How You Can Create More Opportunity, Adventure & Friendship With Others

“Three-Step Method for Making Stronger Connections: Take the Triangle Talk approach to connecting and reaching agreement with others: You, Me, Us. First refer to their interest, then yours - and then note how your interests coincide. This approach enables diverse people to gain traction sooner toward a common goal.”
― Kare Anderson, Getting What You Want: 2How to Reach Agreement and Resolve Conflict Every Time

“Quiet the chattering mind promotes directed action. We can't know which interactions will deepen into richer relationships, yet we can keep the faith that our mutuality mindset affirms them. Mutuality most demonstrates our humanity and, in the end, that may be what most matters in our lives.”
― Kare Anderson, Mutuality Matters How You Can Create More Opportunity, Adventure & Friendship With Others

“Remember the many compartments of the heart, the seed of what is possible. So much of who we are is defined by the places we hold for each other. For it is not our ingenuity that sets us apart, but our capacity for love, the possibility our way will be lit by grace. Our hearts prisms, chiseling out the colors of pure light.”
― Kare Anderson, Getting What You Want: 2How to Reach Agreement and Resolve Conflict Every Time

“Create a clear explanation: Ask an expert & novice to craft it: Expert knows too much (curse of knowledge) and novice sees it with fresh eyes. Offer verbal snapshots that penetrate the mind and the gut in an instant then linger, leaving a bright after image. Whoever most vividly characterizes a situation usually determines how others see it, talk about it, and make decisions about it.”
― Kare Anderson, Mutuality Matters How You Can Create More Opportunity, Adventure & Friendship With Others

“Say It So You Lift Your Spirits: Even non-Scandinavians and optimists can feel their moods dampen during the dark of night. Luckily there are some easy ways to lift your spirits. Here are three:
1. When describing something in the past, what role do you play in the story? Are more of your most retold stories anchored by a positively or a negatively felt incidents? Those who are most resilient, energetic, caring and involved with others tend to link their stories to redemptive themes.

Those who are plagued by down moods often mark their stories with what went wrong and don't include a redeeming detail. These narrative themes affect our choices -- what we think we have to choose from -- and how others see us.

2. We each have many personalities inside us. Some situations enable us to use our best talents and display our best side. Instead of attempting to be a "virtuoso juggler" as many women do, discover the specific situations where you thrive. When you can identify those moments you are better able, like a defensive driver, to see potential danger farther ahead where situations or individuals spark your discomfort or worse.
Conversely, knowing where you shine (temperament and talent) means you can make smarter choices about how you work and live -- and with whom. While Marcus Buckingham's book is intended for women, I know three male friends who have found it helpful in how they seek the situations that best serve them -- professionally, personally and socially.
3. We each have a set point along the continuum of pessimistic to optimistic. After winning the lottery or experiencing the death of a loved one, we eventually return to that set point.”
― Kare Anderson, Moving From Me to We

“We tend to like each other better when walking, sitting or standing side by side or at right angles from each other.”
― Kare Anderson, Mutuality Matters How You Can Create More Opportunity, Adventure & Friendship With Others

“Speak to their positive intent, especially when they appear to have none, and you are more likely to bring out their better side.”
― Kare Anderson, Mutuality Matters More Living a Happy, Meaningful and Satisfying Life With Others

“Stay sought-after by enabling others to proudly use their best talents together on things that matter to them. One way is to get employees to pair up on projects, thus cutting down silos and scaling up stronger performance -- plus these benefits:
• Facilitates cross-training in a fast, natural and fun way.

• Enables individuals in different parts of your organization to get to know more people in meaningful ways, and discover each other's best talents and favorite interests.

• Prevents your organization from being hamstrung when a key expert leaves.”
― Kare Anderson, Mutuality Matters How You Can Create More Opportunity, Adventure & Friendship With Others

“In a civilization when love is
gone we turn to justice and when
justice is gone we turn to power
and when power is gone we
turn to violence.”
― Kare Anderson, Moving From Me to We

“More than money, talent, or your number of contacts, your capacity to create mutuality with others can transform you into a sought-after Opportunity Maker with whom people most want to align. Be the glue that sticks the right teams together to solve problems or seize opportunities sooner and better together.”
― Kare Anderson, Mutuality Matters How You Can Create More Opportunity, Adventure & Friendship With Others

“Fast thinkers aren’t smarter than slow. Collaborating in real time and over time leverages our collective value and limits pitfalls of both kinds of thinkers. Discuss options both face-to-face and virtually to enable fast and slow thinkers to optimize value for the team”
― Kare Anderson, Mutuality Matters How You Can Create More Opportunity, Adventure & Friendship With Others

“The stronger the signal you send yourself of your highest puThe stronger the signal you send yourself of your highest purpose, the more likely you are to notice ways to serve itrpose, the more likely you are to notice ways to serve it”
― Kare Anderson, Mutuality Matters How You Can Create More Opportunity, Adventure & Friendship With Others

“Becoming more deeply connected with those you admire and love bolsters, in you, the traits you most admire in them.”
― Kare Anderson, Mutuality Matters How You Can Create More Opportunity, Adventure & Friendship With Others

“Bring out others better side and they are more likely to see and support yours. You can't develop positive people with negative feedback. What you praise in others, you'll encourage to flourish. People like people who like them.”
― Kare Anderson, Mutuality Matters How You Can Create More Opportunity, Adventure & Friendship With Others