The seven habits of highly effective people

Application Suggestions 
 
   1.  Select a relationship in which you sense the Emotional Bank Account is in the red.  Try to 
understand and write down the situation from the other person's point of view.  In your next 
interaction, listen for understanding, comparing what you are hearing with what you wrote down.  
How valid were your assumptions?    Did you really understand that individual's perspective. 
      2.    Share the concept of empathy with someone close to you.    Tell him or her you want to work on 
really listening to others and ask for feedback in a week.    How did you do?    How did it make that 
person feel. 
      3.    The next time you have an opportunity to watch people communicate, cover your ears for a few 
minutes and just watch.    What emotions are being communicated that may not come across in words 
alone. 
   4.  Next time you catch yourself inappropriately using one of the autobiographical responses -- 
probing, evaluating, advising, or interpreting -- try to turn the situation into a deposit by 
acknowledgment and apology.    ("I'm sorry, I just realized I'm not really trying to understand.    Could 
we start again?") 
   5.  Base your next presentation on empathy.   Describe the other point of view as well as or better 
than its proponents; then seek to have your point understood from their frame of reference.