AUDIO DANCE PARTNER

August 3rd, 2019

First person yells, second person yells. 

First person yells louder, second person yells louder

First person screams, second person screams.

Things just don’t get better.  Hopefully, ideally, this sort of thing just collapses into silence and both walk away.  And when such people see each other again?  What are the chances that they begin again at one of those higher registers of volume?  

The chance is certainly there.

What about if we go in the other direction?  It’s counter-intuitive to speak with lower volume, but what happens when someone doesn’t hear what they wanted to hear?

They lean in.

What does that leaning in communicate to the person speaking?

Someone’s listening.

Now, are we more or less likely to get louder when we feel that someone is listening? 

It’s a no brainer:

people don’t get loud when they feel like someone is listening.

That’s basic human connection, and it functions like traction.

When a car wheel loses traction and starts spinning in the snow, gassing up the engine and spinning that wheel faster isn’t going to do anything productive.

Got to start over.  Slow down. 

Decrease that volume.

Grab traction, get in step and move on.

We match one another no matter how detrimental it is. 

The trick is realizing that any change you make will also be matched.