DailyOM: Men and women communicate very differently. Is it possible for women to understand how men process their thoughts and put it to practical use?
Wendy Newman: Yes, we can understand how men process their thoughts, so we can make sense of what's really going on. But this knowledge is only possible when we women are able to step away from trying to figure out a man based on how we would handle the situation. How we think is not how a man thinks. And what we would do isn't necessarily what he would do. When you incorporate what you have learned with his immediate feedback, understanding his thought process happens really fast. You could experiment with the techniques right on the spot, or just watch and listen and see a man newly right before your very eyes. Once you understand where a man is coming from, it is difficult to unlearn, and it is not something you will have to try hard to remember. You will know what to expect from him and how to get something else if that's needed. In the workplace you will be able to see what you can count on from the men on your team; in your romantic life and at home in family situations, knowing where he is coming from or what his thought process is will save your feelings and prevent misunderstandings.
DailyOM: In your course you address the notion that sometimes women don't feel that men actually mean well. This is vital information to understanding men, because they do mean well. Please talk to us about this.
WN: We were trained as children to be wary of a man's intentions. You are unsafe until he has been properly vetted and deemed to be safe. Heartbreaking. Integrity, kindness, and good intentions don't have anything to do with gender. But when we have been hurt, heartbroken, or disenfranchised, we tend to lump the whole lot of men together. We bring our unhealed past to our current and potential relationships with the opposite sex. And to back our play, there's plenty of support from our culture, starting with the phrase 'battle of the sexes' and following not too far behind is the litany of jokey man-bashing sitcoms and memes floating around the internet to reinforce that they are the inferior (and often untrustworthy) gender. When I bring the spirit of 'maybe everyone, men or women, means well here' to any situation -- meaning work, personal, or collaborative situations -- things just tend to go well. And even if there is a problem or a hurdle, it is a much faster fix when I am willing to come at the situation with curiosity instead of anger. I won't have resistance to the person because they mean well, even if there is something missing here -- something I need or something the team or project needs. Even in frustrating situations where someone has fallen short, if you believe they mean well then you can just go back and ask them for the thing. It is not a big deal when people mean well, as they will not mind providing it if they can or giving you a valid reason if they cannot. And in my experience, people usually do mean well.
DailyOM: You teach a lot about women and their inner critic. Sadly, many women lead with their inner critic for various reasons. How does working with our inner critic help us when learning to know men better?
WN: Did you know that women's inner critics are much meaner than men's inner critics? Our inner workings of the critic are so wildly different that they should not share the same name. For example, ask any man this question: 'What's imperfect about you?' He will likely look at you puzzled. He knows he is not perfect, but why would you bother even thinking about it? Now ask any woman, 'What is imperfect about you?' That list is huge! Our inner critic judges us severely, but she also judges men. And she will usually determine that he did what he did (or more likely did not do what he should have) because it was personal -- he just does not care enough about us. This automatic snap decision of your inner critic happens when a man is not doing things the way a woman would do them. It creates a real mess in relationships, especially because what our inner critic has made up about why something happened or did not happen is bound to be inaccurate. Our voice in our head, our inner critic, means well, but she is often misguided and uninformed of the realities of what is truly happening with men. She acts like she knows everything.
DailyOM: In Lesson 4 you talk about how women sometimes think the man they are speaking with 'glazes over' during their conversation. What does this mean and what is the answer?
WN: As much as we do not want that, he does not want to do it either. And there is definitely a solution to not having that happen. Any popular science book writing on the topic will tell you that women use an average of 20,000 words a day, compared to the mere 7,000 that men use. Most women are simply designed to say more. And when you learn how to set a man up for listening, you can tell that long story with all the words and have him right there with you. But there is a natural default way he listens that you are going to have to override first if you do not want the glaze-over. You need to set him up to understand how to listen to you, and men are pretty willing to provide that. You just have to ask.
DailyOM: Yes, you will change your relationships with all the men in your life, and for the most part you do not have to do things differently -- things will just be different between you. Most of us are working on our romantic relationships; however, your relationships will shift and transform with all men -- men at work, men at home, the male barista at the coffee shop, all men -- simply by absorbing the information in this course.
One of the best parts of this course is it will take very little effort on your part. Watch or listen to the videos, read the material, hear my examples, and see how it applies to your own life. Reflect on your past, and just take in the lessons. By listening and reading, you will understand things in new ways you may not have been able to see or understand before. You will not need to learn a complicated, strategic method or practice endlessly to see a change; the change will happen automatically. It comes with recognition.
DailyOM: Most women at one time or another have thought that they will just 'change their man.' But when it comes down to it, we cannot change another person, only ourselves. Talk to us about this.
WN: Yes, we cannot change people. We can kindly request things. We can offer up our preferences. We can talk about things that are important to us, and if the person we are nudging feels moved or inspired, they will change themselves. Ultimately, they changed themselves, we didn't do it. It is common for a woman to find a man and think or even say, 'He's great! Now I've got to get to work on changing these two things.' And if you take a pause and think about it, hey, that is not okay! In fact, trying to change a person is rude.
DailyOM: Please share with us some feedback you have received from people taking this course.
WN: When we learn to understand men, it is as if we have lifted the veil. The most common immediate feedback I get is some version of, 'If I only had this information sooner, I could have saved my marriage.' There's a lot of heart repair in these lessons. Women report a deeper connection and intimacy in relationships with men. One woman shared that she put the listening technique into practice in a conversation with her boyfriend and everything changed. It went from a regular, superficial conversation to a deep one almost immediately even though she thought she was only practicing. She said she experienced him opening up to her about his life in a way she'd not been able to get him to do previously.
Another woman employed the same listening technique with her husband when they were newly separated, and she said it was the conversation that got them back together. He shared his feelings and his appreciation for who she was and what she brought to his life. I am personally grateful for every piece of information in this course as it makes my life with men so much more delicious, easy, and happy. When one person learns the other person's language, communication gets so much clearer and easier.
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