You understand how to gather yourself and how to think about what is it that I may need to say in this moment. And it may not take a long time to do it, but your brain gets conditioned to understand how to strategically evaluate the situation. And to provide responses that are going to maintain your dignity, that are going to facilitate resolution.
And I'll tell you that as we do the random topic challenges where you practice thinking on your feet and getting comfortable being uncomfortable, those exercises actually make it easier for you to respond strategically in those tense moments because you've already practiced. The stress is up when you're doing a random topic and you don't know what to expect. And much in the same way that if someone says something to you that catches you off guard, that you don't expect that may potentially offend you.
That's going to preserve the relationships. That's going to increase your credibility and influence because of the way you respond. And it gets easier.
But you have to want to do that. And especially if you come from an environment where everyone was always fighting and fussing, that has become the default for a lot of people, not because they chose it, but because that's what they lived and that's what they always saw. So it was normal for some people.
And you have to become aware of what you're doing and how you're affecting people to understand how to retrain your brain to respond strategically instead of attacking and retaliating against people. So excellent point. Excellent point.
I would say yes. If if you want to tell someone, no, I don't have the ability to help you today. And then you do it grudgingly and you don't give your best effort.
That might be a little hypocritical. But in the sense that you don't agree with something, you don't approve of what someone has done. And you have a strategic way of engaging and expressing your thought that may be different.