“Everything begins with a conversation”; says Late Mrs. Judith Glaser, the founder of Conversational Intelligence and my principal teacher from Benchmark Communications INC., New York.

To put in her words; “When TRUST is absent, we see REALITY with threatened eyes and we tend to:

• Reveal less than what we know or what is helpful to move forward.
• Expect more than what is possible.
• Look at situations with caution.
• Interpret communications with fear.
• Tell secrets we promised not to tell.
• Say YES to people to avoid confronting truth.

Why are these sutras so powerful?

Trust or Distrust is controlled by the neural networks in our brain.

And each sutra is devised to directly signal our brains to move into higher levels of trust network.

In 2016, it was a great pride moment for me to be directly trained and certified by Late Judith Glaser, as a first Conversational Intelligence (C-IQ) Consultant in India.

Since then, I have been training several clients to master the conversational dynamics and polish their people-management skills from a brain’s perspective supplemented with the latest research in the field.

Ready? Let us move on.

1st Sutra: Transparency

Talk about threats, fears, judgements, past wounds that are standing in the way of building trust between both of you. Be open and communicate with others to share and calm down threats. ‘I trust you will not harm me or use my things against me’ are types of open, candid and caring conversations which send messages of trust. [If you are in strained relationships with someone, then practice this first with your children, they are safest.]

2nd Sutra: Relationship Authenticity

Here the focus is on engaging in a heart to heart conversation with an intention to extend trust and send messages of appreciation. Build rapport and respect before focusing on the main task. When we focus on heartfelt appreciation we create higher levels of heart coherence and that activates inherent wisdom of all 5 parts of our brain and fires trust networks.

3rd Sutra: Understanding

Here you share and discover needs and emotions; you must learn to re-frame and relabel uncomfortable conversations and see it as an opportunity to explore the world through others eyes. Listening with this kind of focus and intention instantly gives a signal of inclusion rather than exclusion to the opposite person and that’s the game changer. When you shift to the learning stance, you are together setting up common vision and shared values and you open up the conversational space for co-creation. The end result is MORE TRUST.

4th Sutra: Shared Success

Have conversations that focus on mutual success. Begin with curiosity and a ‘learning’ stance rather than ‘I know it all’ stance. Learn to double click on each others meaning of success. Build benchmarks and focus to have power with others rather than power over others. Doing this much will definitely weave in deeper threads of trust in your relationships.

5th Sutra: Testing Assumptions and Telling the Truth

We must and we need to test our perceptions and assumptions about reality. Moreover, we are so much addicted to be right about our own versions of assumptions. We seldom do a reality check with the other person, about our assumptions. Unintentionally, we make 2 overlapping mistakes. First to assume and second to be addicted to self righteousness about that assumption. Try closing the gaps between what you expect or what you presume with what is. When we step into others shoes and see the world from the other person’s perspectives we discover the truth together and thus one view of the world emerge and this fosters highest levels of trust.

Did you learn anything new today?

I am sure, You did.

Remember, the above mentioned steps are all researched and time tested over 25 years and globally organisations are implementing them top-down to witness the transformation.

Transforming one’s conversational patterns is complex since many parameters including emotions power up our conversations real-time.

But it is much more sensible to change our conversations and our emotions rather than attempting to change our life partners and business partners.
Is it not?