We unconsciously advocate for and defend our positions because we’ve long been trained to “have the answer.” Advocacy is far more common than its underappreciated sibling, inquiry.

To change that dynamic, we can begin to listen to how we and others advocate in conv...

Asking these questions over time and observing our roles, stories, opinions, and interaction styles will dramatically increase our awareness and conversational skills and guide us to having more conscious satisfying conversations—and a little more peace.

When we investigate our opinions, we slowly detach from them and reveal our more profound—and often unconscious —thoughts so we can make conscious choices about their value.

We can use four fundamental components of opinions—desires, concerns, authority, and standards

We thrive on the stories we adopted from our families and cultures. They facilitate connections, and when we hear stories that resonate with our patterns of thinking, our brains fire up. We experience neural coupling, an uptick of dopamine, and a positive shared experience.

We mostly shape-shift on autopilot, giving no thought to our personal conversational patterns. But when we pay attention to these patterns, we become more objective observers, reducing negative judgments about ourselves and others and creating space in our minds for navigating uncomfortab...

Voice Dialogue is the psychological concept of the internal self, developed through socialization. According to Drs. Hal Stone and Sidra Stone, the psychologists who developed the method, we adopt different personalities to cope with the vulnerabilities and complexities o...

Facts are critical for establishing common ground from which we can connect and sync up our conversations.

Opinions, on the other hand, arise out of the collection of beliefs that we adopt throughout life. Unlike facts, our opinions are complex, personal, and uncert...

Every day we engage in conversations rooted in ritual and social norms. With no conscious effort, we shift from one role to another. One minute, we’re the spouse happily cooking breakfast with our spouse. Shortly after, we’re meeting a client for lunch as a trusted advisor. And a...

During a troubling conversation, ask yourself :

• What desires and wants are part of this conversation?
• What concerns about the future are affecting my thoughts related to this issue?
• What power issues a...

Instead of giving up our opinions, we can practice open advocacy. Open advocacy is holding our opinions more lightly and sharing the thinking under the surface of our stories, creating space for deeper understanding.

Open inquiry is the art of asking sincere, respec...

Each role we play with others involves intrinsic power issues, and real and perceived power dynamics play out, unspoken and unacknowledged. Those dynamics can enhance or hinder conversations.

In any conversation, ask yourself what role you are playing, and...

Our stories consist of facts and opinions. That might seem apparent, but fact and fiction become a perplexing, tangled web because our stories are so crucial to our identities, our egos, and the roles that we play. It’s not surprising that they often lead us astray.

By reco...