There are many ways to talk about another person or to write articles and perhaps a commercial piece of copy in which we use the personal pronoun You. Used correctly, that single word can open up a lot of doors for us. But used improperly, it can become just another item of self-promotion and backfire. And the irony is, people usually can tell the difference right away except for the author of the article or the originator of the conversation. The WRONG way to keep talking about you is to utilize it as just a leverage point around which we spin the conversation in a direction that has nothing to do with the other person. For example, when we ask Have I told you how much fun I had this summer in Paris? we are obviously not talking about the other person although we are using the pronoun you. There is no real you in such self-serving statements. Result the other person tries to look for an excuse to get away from being used as a bouncing board. It's always going to be a lose-lose situation. We will get the same result when we use you to lecture or advise people as in you should do this this and that... Or when it is used just to count the features of an item, product, or service that WE think are important for US: You can rest assured that OUR models come with a brand new thermostat and a service contract and a phone call from US every week and you can further rest assured that OUR price is the lowest you'll ever find... The RIGHT way to talk about you is to really inquire about specific things about the other person. When we say something like so tell me what happened to you on that day? or what dish should we prepare for you? Do you have any food allergies? then we are really asking something about that person and the result is immediate. We can then see the you opening up and engaging us in the kind of real communication that fake you's can never establish. Always ask something SPECIFIC and stay away from empty generalities. Give CONTENT to get CONTENT. "How 's that cold you had last Wednesday?" is a much better way of communicating with "you" than "So how's it going?" or even worse -- "whazzup?" Genuine communication creates wonders when we are really ready to listen and learn something NEW from "you" (and I'll be the first one to admit that that's the hard part). If we just forget about this or that communication technique and instead choose to ask a SPECIFIC question ABOUT the other person and then LISTEN to LEARN something NEW about "you," we'll never go wrong. It's always going to be a win-win situation. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
