That Was Awkward...part 1

Sometimes you will find yourself in situations where you are speechless. You express your ideas, thoughts, or convictions but the person you are talking to challenges you in a way that just runs all over top of those ideas, thoughts, or convictions. You were so confident about those things just 5 minutes earlier, but now you're not sure. They may have even talked about your ideas from an angle you never thought of before. Your mind is spinning and you just freeze because you have no idea what to say. You're still processing what the other person just said and are trying to figure out whether you even believe what you were arguing for 5 minutes ago.

THAT is a bad feeling. Trust me, that is a very bad feeling and I have experienced that feeling a few times in my life. I imagine the lady in this video had the same feeling.



Now I know this is a story from a fictional show, but if watch CNN or MSNBC when the topic is homosexuality I can almost guarentee you that you will witness this story playing out in real life because I've seen it many times. It's good to watch it though because you can learn from seeing the train wreck that occurs.

I posted this video on Facebook the other day and after being inundated with pleas to answer the challenges offered by President Bartlet I decided to blog about it. (By inundated I mean Heather Pack asked me to. :)

First you have to know how much you know about the topic. If you are ignorant the worst thing you can do is to try and fake a response by making it up or parroting ideas that have sounded good to you, but that you have never thought critically about.  Doing that is like being this guy when playing basketball.

Everyone knows he's no good as soon as he walks in the door and if they think he may be sandbagging it they know that he's not good by the time he takes two dribbles. If it's not basketball then just think about whatever it is that you are good at. When someone is pretending to be good at it or trying to pretend to know about it then you will know almost immediately that this person doesn't have a clue.

Also, you need to understand that it's not necessarily a bad thing to be ignorant. We are all ignorant, just in different subjects. It may just be that the issue has never been on your radar in a way that has challenged you as it is now and that's ok. What isn't ok is to be that guy!  Don't pretend like you know it all because so and so told you such and such back in the day. When you do that you go from being ignorant to dishonest and dumb, which is much worse. Trust me on this because I've taken this route before as well.

Not only this but you cast a shadow on your believability when you talk about other subjects that you may be more knowledgable about and may even care more about. If that isn't enough to get you to not take this approach then let me throw one more reason on the pile. If you take this approach you will cast the shadow of you bad arguments and reasoning abilities on people who are not ignorant of the subject and may have the best ideas and answers for the challenges. If you don't think that happens then watch THIS VIDEO and understand that if you do this on video then the people who will be called in to clean up your mess will probably not be advocates for your position.

If you are not ignorant on the given topic then feel free to exchange ideas, but for the sake of this post I am going to imagine that you find yourself in the same shoes as the lady in the video. You have convictions and you've even publically expressed them, but you aren't skilled at defending them or at being persuasive in presenting them in a challenging environment.

So, with that being said, and since this post is getting a little long winded, I am going to leave you to watch the videos and think about your own level of confidence, or lack thereof, if you were to find yourself in a similar situation.

In part two of this I will try to give you a couple of tools that I have acquired, from experience and men much smarter than myself, that will allow you to move through such conversations confidently, respectfully, and winsomely regardless of your level of expertise with the topic at hand.  There are only two requirements for being able to use these techniques: 1) You know how to ask questions. 2) You are willing to listen and care about what the other person has to say.

If you have those two skills then you are set. Looking forward to getting into the details with you next time.