Brain Food for Pioneering Spirits: Is nonviolent communication a myth, or can it become reality? In this expert talk, communication strategist Zeus Athanasios Nasopoulos joins Dr. Yasemin Yazan to explore how power and violence show up in the way we communicate…
Note: This session was recorded live in German as part of the Deep Talk Club, so the video above is German-language audio only. What follows is an English translation of the conversation, lightly edited for readability — the back-and-forth between the moderator and participants is preserved, but the original timestamps and speaker names have been left out.
A very warm good morning. Today we welcome Zeus, on nonviolent communication, myth or reality, as a guest for our expert talk. Zeus Athanasios Nasopoulos is a trained communication strategist, body language expert, and mental mentor. He regularly gives seminars and life-changing mentoring and coaching on the topics of self-empowerment, implementation, communication, and charismatic presence. As a multiple bestselling author in the field of lifestyle and adult-education motivation, as well as co-founder of personal development and multi-speaker events, his mission is to help other people become more conscious, authentic, and emotionally free. Against the background of his expertise, we want to learn more about what lies behind nonviolent communication, and whether this idea represents a myth or can actually become reality. And in that spirit, I’m happy, dear Zeus, to welcome you at my side today. Welcome.
Thank you so much for having me here. I’m really thrilled, because this topic is huge too, and I’m curious what’ll come of it today.
I am too, actually, because it really is a huge topic, and condensing that into 60 minutes, so to speak, and still diving into a certain depth, I’m really looking forward to that. And yes, my first question to you is, to what extent does communication have something to do with power and violence, and is it even possible to interact, or communicate, without violence at all, since it has so much to do with how the other person experiences it too?
Those are actually two questions we have here. First, does nonviolent communication exist, violence-free communication? I’d rather address that first, and then the bigger question, in this case to what extent that’s practiced in society too. And the answer to that, I have to say, is quite mixed. What I mean by that is quite simple. There are techniques, NVC and so on, there are techniques to be more empathetic, we’ll maybe get to that later, there are techniques that are even perceived as unlikeable when you apply them, yet they’re more effective in the end. But generally, I don’t intend today to attack NVC itself as a technique, but today I intend to mention to what extent communication absolutely exercises power, even though you don’t want to release any negative impulses, because you don’t carry any within you, because unconsciously we are, so to speak, opinion representatives, constantly. And with that we naturally come to the transition. So there is nonviolent communication, yes, but with various limitations. What do I mean by that? Every time we express something that’s important to us, and we know this ourselves from personal development, there will always be people who feel attacked by it. Always. Not because it’s merely an opinion of ours, but because this statement of ours always meets ears that themselves hold an opinion. That in turn means the space we create with our opinion inevitably attacks the ideas of other people. As Carl Gustav Jung already said, do you use the idea for yourself, or does the idea use you? So the former, you’re an individual and use other tools. The latter, what he did, was, you’re a victim of an idea, so really of an idealistic thought, association, let’s say, and through that you automatically no longer allow anything new in. That means, every time, for example purely politically speaking, I say something that’s against the current politics, if we have communism for example, then what I say might be true, but the politicians don’t want to hear it. And the followers don’t want to hear it either. That means we immediately already have a power relationship here. That means every time I want to say something that corresponds to the truth, mind you, the objective truth, or an intersubjective truth, what I mean by that is quite simple, in that I talk about a topic, and within this topic what I say is a fact. Yes, that’s intersubjective within this framework, within this topic. Then it could well be possible that by expressing my thoughts so far, I shoot against a party, and that party might be able to forbid me from speaking, and they’re at the longer end of the lever, so to speak, and thus communication becomes a tool of power, because it can be taken away from me, by the legislature for example. That’s one example of how nonviolent communication can’t exist. First through opinion representation as an individual, because we have idealistic thought material. Second, on the political level, through the withdrawal of our freedom of opinion, even though it’s still formulated that way, so to speak, and we know this ourselves too, it was exactly like that in the former Russia, and in other countries like China, for example under Mao, and in many African countries too. Wherever there was corruption, there was also violence via communication, in that it got taken away.
Still there?
I’m still here. I was waiting to see if your mic would turn off again. Thanks. That’s always a good sign for me, so to speak, that you’re done. Otherwise I think something more is coming. Exciting, this topic of communication, I notice.
Exactly. Yes, let me follow up briefly. On one hand you said there are various techniques like NVC. Maybe you’d also like to briefly explain the abbreviation again for those who might not know it, that’s one thing. And on the other hand, what other known, or lesser known, ones might there be, so we’ve at least named a few, so to speak. That’s one thing. And second, my follow-up question to what you stated is whether, instead of nonviolent or violence-free communication, it should maybe rather be called “violence-reducing communication”?
Very good, exactly. So what does NVC mean? Nonviolent Communication. That’s a pretty cool concept in this case, which was founded several decades ago, namely by Dr. Marshall Rosenberg, and there are quite a lot of ways to approach it. A small example of that, yes, let’s say we’re talking with someone and someone has an idea, an opinion for example, and this opinion makes us angry. Many people then go into conflict and say, “you’re making me angry,” as an example. Conversely though, if we said, “I feel angry right now because of your opinion, it makes me angry, but it’s my responsibility,” then we frame our feeling, and can communicate much better because of it. That’s one example of that. Let’s go a bit further, what comes from my toolbox here. I can always use the word “but” to reduce my own opinion or my feelings, which can seem attacking. That pays a bit into your second question. Every time I express something, like for example, “I feel uncomfortable right now because of what you said,” I can put a “but” after it to negate that. “But I’m willing to find a solution with you.” With that I focus, well of course at first also on the bad, sure, on what, so to speak, that sounds a bit drastic, the word violence, okay, on what exercises violence or a discomfort, which everyone formulates differently for themselves, violence, we may look at that word again in a moment too, but afterward I automatically formulate my focus, my new one, and that’s the important thing about the whole topic. If I understand that my goal is to find a solution with you, a tenor, then I know that I always have to accept, with every statement I make, stepping on other people’s toes. And I think that’s the basis of human development, especially also of political developments, especially also of bodies of thought that we have everywhere, if we can’t exchange with each other. What then? I think, to pick up your question again, yes, is there then violence-reducing communication? I’d say the word is simply diplomacy. So we don’t have to be brown-nosers, for that word too, we may rather engage with the wishes and needs of our fellow people and then find a shared tenor, because if someone really, really specializes in an idea, in their mind, mind you, and represents that the whole time, there has to be a certain truth in their world that I can also agree with. What I mean by that is, if I put, for example, two politicians against each other. One is super left and the other super right. Then we can assume from both sides that these extremes are super unhealthy, because the best politics we’ve had so far was rather in the middle. Some people also say, for example, from a communication perspective, I’m not talking about general politics, from communication, from the content too a bit, but I don’t want to drift too much into that. I just want to bring an example. So there are people who are very hedonistic and say, well, for example “my body, my choice,” and every time you have an opinion about this topic, you’re attacking me with it. Violence. And there are those who say under no circumstances, abortion isn’t good, they’re more conservative. You can already tell, these are two different opinions, they’re no longer so extremely left and right, but they come from different parties. But if you now want to find, for example, a fundamental tenor, your decision is okay, but so is mine. Is there somewhere in the middle, maybe, a way to find and say, okay, under various circumstances there are definitely exceptions and/or complete legitimacy that I abort my child, or that I under no circumstances abort it, because it’s a life. This topic is far too big. I’m picking up the topic because it’s so extremely left and right. And then we notice what it’s actually about for people. For one it’s about my life, and for the other it’s about their life and the quality of life, of what’s born afterward, which gets diminished, and in turn also the quality of even giving birth to a life at all and so on and so forth. And for both it’s really about the topic of social behavior. And if we find this tenor, we can build on that, but people don’t want to talk about it, because they immediately feel attacked, because there’s so much personal pain involved too. And as long as we talk about this personal pain, we can’t be diplomatic. As long as we stay with ourselves the whole time and don’t pay into the other person, we’ll constantly not consider the possibility of achieving diplomacy, and thus of course also finding a common denominator and tenor somewhere. And that is, mind you, what the words feel like violence for them, means, I could, if I wanted to, engage with what my other person, my counterpart, is also saying, but I don’t, because I believe my way of communicating is always right. And this act of violence, which for the other almost sounds like a violation, if someone has a different opinion, I’ve now escalated it quite high, because most people say to themselves, well in an argument it doesn’t matter much, but with political topics that’s definitely no longer the case, or with bodily topics either. There you immediately see, opinions immediately shoot out there. And I’ll give you a quick framework here that’s quite interesting. The moment I feel attacked by an opinion, I may always ask myself, do I want to find a solution, or do I just want to represent something, because it currently agrees with my lazy thoughts and I don’t want to think about it anymore, then I don’t even need to express my opinion at all. If I don’t really want to create something together, then in that case I often don’t need to express my opinion at all. Because most people just go against it, but don’t have the intent to find a solution together, let alone, so to speak, help other people even formulate their arguments so they understand where their gaps are. Because that’s of course clever communication too. Let’s discuss and see where both our gaps are, so we can improve our arguments, to find out, maybe we’re both wrong somewhere. Or maybe both right even. Both can be true too.
Yes, totally fascinating. At this point I’d especially find the term diplomacy that you brought in interesting. And I ask myself the question, does it ultimately come down, in interaction, in communication, to finding common ground, so for example shared interests and so on, to be able to dock onto each other accordingly here?
That’s one form we can use, even a technique. Finding overlap is an excellent way to do it. Let’s assume, Yasemin, I’d ask you, do you like the Thermomix? Then you’d say, maybe yes, it’s practical, whatever, etc. And then I’d ask, that’s not really my thing, because I like being cooked for, I don’t care. Conversely though, you probably also like being cooked for, then we can go straight to a next topic, or if I ask the question, how about, thumbs up, exactly. How about, do you like personal development? And bam, we have a shared topic that connects us both, and that makes you super trustworthy, and me too. I think, at the foundation of diplomacy, orienting toward overlap is extremely important. So overlap, what is it that you like and that I also like, what connects us, and based on that we can find out whether we can find further connections too, of course, because we constantly evaluate people, but we no longer really process the information. That’s a huge problem, and that’s why finding shared overlaps, we also really find trust, a basis of trust, because like attracts like, socially speaking, we know that, opposites attract, yes, maybe in adventurous situations, but we definitely won’t have those if we get shot back into the fundamentals. When suddenly the whole society reduces itself, we don’t look for opposites, we look for people similar to us, because we can trust those people. And this way of looking for that isn’t so wrong at all. Watch out, the difficulty with overlaps is that they of course only pay into what we already like anyway, but not into what we should maybe learn, so we like each other even more. And to say what’s really important then, sometimes the truth, which also hurts, so we change. As an example, my little brother looked at me a few months ago and said, “the belly that’s grown on you doesn’t look good” — among brothers you can say that just fine. If my sister had said that, that would have been, well, that would have been a total catastrophe. He told me, and I took it exactly the way I wanted to take it, namely that I want to change something about it. Yes, so I alone, I’m not talking about other people, I alone, and the way he said it actually spurred me on. But he has, let’s say, a free pass from my side, because he’s also my brother, among other things. That means we have a basis of trust there, which arises from a gigantically unchangeable overlap, namely through our shared mother, and not everyone on the street has this advantage. But we can definitely practice diplomacy, and especially also finding the truth. At least not subjective truth, but the truth that connects us all.
Does that mean, for example, that feedback can be better accepted or absorbed if this basis of trust already exists? Is that a prerequisite too, to be able to give feedback, or at least not to give it, but for it to actually be able to have an effect, or be absorbed, so to speak?
Let’s call it, number one is trust, yes. Number two is competence. I even think number one is competence. Why? I trust a person who’s competent. But for that I have to know that they’re competent. If I know they’re competent, then of course I also trust the feedback from that person, even more so. Even if it hurts, because the person has achieved something with it. That’s why we definitely shouldn’t exclude competence. With trust it becomes much easier. So if you trust a person who then says, “you know what, if you do it this way, it’ll make more sense,” then it’s easier. But let me give you a counterexample. My grandmother comes to me and says, “oh, sweetie, you should definitely look for a secure job. You’re self-employed, have a company, have employees. Look for a secure job for your pension.” That’s of course her view. My grandmother isn’t dumb, mind you. She’s a clever girl, and especially this shift in the library too. But in that regard I have to say she didn’t build the bridge. The bridge was, I’m the person who creates secure jobs. So she hadn’t understood that in this case. As soon as I explained it to her and formulated this overarching belief, so to speak, quite suddenly some things changed. What I want to point out is, I really trust my grandmother a lot. In some areas she just doesn’t have competence yet. That means competence and trust go hand in hand. Do I rather trust a boss who’s competent enough to tell me, “you know what, the ship might sink in three years, but I know how we can prevent that”? And then he also has, so to speak, a résumé that underlines the whole thing. Then I’m more likely to get on board, then I’d rather participate. If I now have, for example, someone criticizing me, in the sense of feedback, and they say, “if we keep going like this, if you keep going like this, it’s no wonder the company is going under,” then I no longer trust the person. Why? Because they clearly show me there’s an incompetence there, especially regarding problem-solving, and especially that they’re afraid of the consequences. And competent people aren’t afraid of the consequences, because they deal with consequences. Because competence lies in having a solution ready even in the face of horror, or at least keeping calm. I gladly trust those people. That means competence and trust go hand in hand, especially also when it comes to nonviolent communication, because then we allow much more of what people say, so to speak.
Yes, wonderful, and I’d like to follow up again. You said, for example, that overlap orientation is a technique you can use. Before we open up the hand-raises in a moment, could you pick up two or three more examples where you say, these are really great techniques that can be used well in the sense of nonviolent, or violence-free, or violence-reducing communication?
Absolutely. First there’s of course also what we said earlier, which I’ll gladly repeat, because it’s an effective possibility. We may always formulate our emotions, so put them into form, hence formulate, and then use the “but.” But implies that we rise above our emotions and say, I want to achieve something else, and hopefully in both views. Another example, “I feel uncomfortable right now, well because of what you said, but I’m sure you didn’t mean it maliciously.” And this implication in that moment opens up a social space. You can hear it too. That’s one possibility. Many people say, pronounce the “and,” the “and.” That doesn’t work here. We want to actively highlight this negation too. We want to actively voice our feelings once, so to speak, but not let them step into the foreground. That’s a good possibility, and I’ve noticed that in many conversations, especially as a mediator of relationships too, for example between different parties in companies, that it’s very effective. But most people are afraid to apply it, because they believe they’d be inauthentic, but that’s a matter of practice. Practice makes the master, so I want to give a go-ahead here to practice that.
Number two is the art of objection handling. I think everyone coming from sales understands what I mean right now. Objection handling is very effective, especially because most conflicts, if not all conflicts, don’t arise from objective bodies of thought. They arise from attack on the individual, because we believe the individual is our own opinion. What does that mean? What I already mentioned earlier from Carl Gustav Jung, the idea has you, it uses you. So you’ve become a victim of individualism. Of an idea, of a body of thought, of a party, of a movement, of a group, whatever. Of your own thoughts. Well, to make a long story short here. That means every time I address someone and say something that attacks them, they don’t respond in content. Most people always respond emotionally. That means our goal with the second technique, objection handling, is first to get all the feelings out of the person. What do I mean by that? Let me give a quick example. She says to him, “you work so often, it’s unbelievable, your work consumes you so much, I don’t like your work at all.” He responds in that moment, “well I only do that so you can buy what you can buy and want, and especially so we can go on” — we all know this conflict. We also know exactly where it leads. Either into total argument and everything burns down, or into a reconciliation text that only holds for two or three days, which helps no one. But if he responded like this, I’ll repeat the problem, her accusation, “you work so often and I don’t like your work at all,” and he responds, “so it’s important to you that I spend much more time with you, and implement my work in such a way that we still have a wonderful life? Did I understand that correctly?” So this answer engages with her feelings, but it gets supplemented with another objection-handling technique. If she says, “yes, that would be nice,” then the feeling still isn’t quite out, because what she said might be a smokescreen. And this smokescreen, maybe if I want to unmask it now, with a question, “is there something else that’s important to you?” So besides the accusation and the first statement, which got positively paraphrased, what happens then? Something really wonderful. We then of course voice this really important question, is there something else that’s important to you. Really, really important. These two steps are important. And then the smokescreen can get unmasked. And she answers, “yes, I miss you.” That’s actually what she meant. And then he says in this case, “yes, how do you mean that? Because I miss you often too.” And then the conversation can really begin. Everything else before that is just conflict. But the emotionality got taken out at that moment. Why? Because we did a classic objection-handling technique. We paraphrased, but positively. And then we asked whether we really correctly understood what we just said. Because, watch out, here comes a sentence, if you understand that I understood what you meant, only then can we talk to each other. I’ll repeat that once more. If you understand that I understood what you said, only then can we talk to each other. The foundation of our conversation lies in me being able to hold myself back, to hear you. If I don’t do that, I’ve abdicated responsibility and become a co-founder of the conflict. Co-founder of maybe violence in a conversation. I have to say the word violence itself is quite intense for this topic, but here we’re only talking about an individual level. If we raise the whole thing up, for example, I’ve never heard such an objection-handling technique on the Lanz talk show, because on Lanz we have a completely different platform. People want to cry out and be brief. But the moment someone on Lanz, when attacked, when accused, responds, “I can understand where your accusation comes from and why you think that way,
do you have anything else you want to express, so I can then get to my part,” I’ve never heard that anywhere. The reason for that is because we’re afraid of being patient. But the moment we let someone finish speaking and then say, “the way you just put it, I’d like to add my two cents too, is that okay with you,” we’re not only getting legitimacy, but every time we get interrupted or the person says no, we’re the winners. We’re the ones making headlines, even though we haven’t repeated a single word yet, because we keep calm. And the reason we don’t like so many politicians is because they don’t allow this way of acting authentically and giving people space and room to talk, so to find overlap, yes, because they don’t allow that. And that’s super inauthentic, on that topic.
Yes, great. Zeus, I’d love to see you on the Lanz show sometime. Maybe we’ll get you on there, I’d find that great. I’d love to experience that interaction. Great. Just imagining it with the examples you gave.
Yes, let me briefly get back to this term diplomacy. Diplomacy sounds nice. I personally find diplomacy great. I’m totally behind it. However, there are quite a lot of people who then say, yes, diplomacy, all well and good, but it’s not everywhere and always. You also have to show edge and corners. Can you be diplomatic and still show edge and corners at the same time?
Absolutely. I’d even claim it’s quite effective in diplomacy to do that. As I said, if we’re competent, definitely. Let me give you a quick example. I want to show my child that they’re capable of unfolding freely. But I also want to prepare them for the world, that they have to bear responsibility. Let’s assume the child comes home late. Instead of yelling at the child now, I can show edge and say, “I find it good that you take time for yourself and want to have it. Your own decision, I want to encourage that. At the same time I can’t take you seriously, but I want to, because if we say we’ll, if you come home at 7pm and you come home at 10pm, then I won’t treat you like someone responsible, like an adult. I’ll treat you like a child. If that’s what you want, then that’s what we’ll do.” That means here we have negotiating material. And by understanding the wish of the counterpart, we’re still diplomatic. The child’s wish, or the teenager’s, to put it better here in this example, is to become an adult. But if they don’t behave like an adult, you can, so to speak, throw the word responsibility into the room. And because the child also has a desire, but sees that you’re, so to speak, being free about it, and says, I have nothing against you spending your nice time, but you have to talk to me about it in this case, so we can find a solution, so I can take you seriously too as an adult. Only then are you this and that, only then can I take you seriously and so on and so forth. That’s diplomacy, and it’s quite effective. But it’s not necessarily very edgy. It’s rather the opposite. It’s even very beneficial. It’s inviting.
I see it as anti-authoritarian.
Quite the opposite. The authority figure decides right there, I give you the stamp of whether you’re responsible or not. Same in the mass out there too. Just assume a boss comes to you and criticizes you for the content you made. Well, the boss can criticize the performance, but not the content. Probably has no idea at all unless they came from the same field. Then you’ll gladly accept the criticism, and if he says, for example, “you, Yasemin, I know your performance, this performance hasn’t really been thrilling lately, but I know you can do better, what did you lack, let’s figure that out together,” that’s still diplomatic. It’s not soft, but it’s diplomatic. And the person can still feel picked up in that moment. If she’s of course in the middle of a divorce, her child says it doesn’t want to be seen anymore, so it doesn’t want to come to you anymore, and you’re on the edge of a breakdown, and you only hear one thing in this case, you’ll be fired if you don’t perform, that’s of course crappy, sure. That’s why you first pick up the person, so to speak, by saying the following words, “hey, I know you differently, the performance has maybe dropped a bit or weakened, how’s it going? How do we find a solution together?” I think you find a lot of competence in that regard.
Yes, wonderful. Thank you so much, dear Zeus. With an eye on the time, I’d like to ask you again at this point whether there’s something really important, urgent, that you’d like to mention, before we open up the hand-raises in a moment, to see if anyone else would like to join in, to bring in one question or thought or another. Is there something we haven’t discussed yet, where you say, in this context this is still really important to me, that we place that here too?
Oh, gladly, dear ones. To underline once more what significance this has, and we’re not talking about individual significance here, but global significance, I just have to name a few names. Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela, though all of them also have an act of violence in the background in their history, they caused the biggest change through their diplomacy, and became famous through that of course. That, on this topic.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much, and with that I’ll gladly open up the hand-raises. Maybe just as a quick reminder for those joining for the first time today, or who don’t know the rooms so well yet. So we have a recording running in the background, and you’re welcome to join, provided you agree that the whole thing gets recorded and then published afterward. Anyone who doesn’t want that for whatever reason can of course also use the chat, to bring in one question or another here, or maybe share a few thoughts. And we have three small room rules. A profile photo where you’re recognizable, first and last name, and at least one sentence in your bio, for those who’d like to join in. And since the room is limited to 60 minutes, feel free to use the next few minutes now to bring in your thoughts and questions, provided you have something you’d like to share with us, or want to address directly to Zeus, so we can consider the hand-raises in time too. So I’ll leave the hand-raises open until about a quarter to, and then we’ll just see, and you’re all very warmly invited to actually bring in impulses, thoughts, questions, so we can dock onto exactly that, or Zeus has the opportunity to dock onto exactly what concerns you under this topic too. So we currently have the overarching theme of power and violence, and under that today we picked up the aspect of communication, nonviolent communication, myth or reality.
We can gladly dock onto this here too, dear Zeus, if we pick up this term again now, myth or reality. How would you put that on the point now, so to speak, in one or two sentences, this thesis of nonviolent communication?
I’d claim it’s not a myth, in a room that wants to consciously handle opinions. So if we intersubjectively set up a rule that says, I know that what you’re going to say might attack me, but I see the greater goal behind it, then everything’s fine. To what extent it might become a mysticism and a myth, if people can’t control themselves. To put that anecdotally.
What do you mean, if people can’t control themselves?
The content is often irrelevant for many people. It’s rather mainly about the emotions behind it. And if we control our emotions to a certain point, so if a party can control their emotions, they can briefly engage with the needs and wishes of the other and not present themselves as a supplicant, but to show the person that they’re not the enemy. And through that arises a “if you’ve understood that I’ve understood what you said, then we can talk.” That’s what I understand by nonviolent communication. Only once someone declares themselves willing, the other party, whether that’s individual or on a global level, or yes here on an international level, only once the other party shows “I understand what you want to achieve,” is it okay for you if we say once more what my thoughts on it are. That always comes at the end. Before that, it’s always just an act, an act of holding out, so to speak, and especially patience too. If someone can control themselves, quite simply. If someone can’t control themselves and just pushes opinions back and forth, then doubt arises. A small example of that, to leave it anecdotal. I can convince a woman of what I think, but toward the end, once I’ve convinced her, she’ll still think I’ve been defeated. And no person has ever said, oh, that’s great that I’ve been defeated, now I gladly listen to the other person. They think exactly the opposite. They think, he’s right, but I still feel like crap. And at the next opportunity they have the machete in hand. And that’s what I mean by the topic of violence-free. Conviction is one thing. Picking someone up and engaging with what people want is something completely different.
Thank you so much. I still have one question regarding, could almost say, in the reverse direction. Namely the following case. A few years ago there was a colleague who had something with me, no idea, somewhere something seems to have gone wrong once, or whatever. There were repeatedly various attempts at attack. And in some constellation it happened that he expressed something and I responded with a few sentences and then said, “okay, and now I’ll just go outside for a smoke, and then we can gladly keep talking if you want.” And he exploded, and really properly so. He said, “you can’t argue with you at all,” and really freaked out, ran through the whole office down the hallway, slammed all kinds of doors and so on, because he was totally frustrated that he couldn’t argue with me. How do you classify something like that, Zeus?
That’s a good, good point. Okay, we have to distinguish here. There are people whom other people’s emotions affect less, who are rather aiming for the goal, the overarching goal. Then there are people who are absolutely not neurotic. That means they can’t withdraw, they want to stay in the storm. They’re, so to speak, if they, well, neuroticism in the sense of volatility and capacity for withdrawal, that’s one of the personality dimensions you can research, and they’ve been researched for, well, however many decades now. And then there are those who are very high in neuroticism. They have to withdraw immediately and instantly, so to speak, yes, they’re super volatile. They can’t, for example, argue at all, the latter type. They don’t want that under any circumstances. That’s a rupture in their world for them. And the more neurotic a person is, the more violent every word you utter becomes. In that moment. How can you classify that with the person? So the person is, they want to argue, because in the argument they obviously, so if they’re accusing you of it, they want to give their emotion space in the argument, and you robbed them of the opportunity. That’s how they see it in the moment. And then they make further accusations, to keep you in the room. So is it a smart move to say, I’m leaving now. With the following words it’s a smart move. “I see that with every word I lose, I can’t find a solution. So we have two options. Either we briefly separate and come back together, or we briefly calm down and think about what we actually want.” And then you can continue with objection handling. But setting an ultimatum, saying, “now I’ll go have a smoke first,” clearly shows, “I don’t fucking care.” And then you can’t pick up the emotion. You know what I mean. I’m not speaking against you now, Yasemin. I’m speaking now for the emotion in the room, which was obviously extremely big.
Could that have had something to do with you? The probability is very low that it had something to do with you. Were you maybe a valve for him? Guaranteed. I’ve had arguments — you won’t believe me — where the person afterward said, “yeah sorry, I had difficulties, especially because my girlfriend and the move were stressful for me.” What the hell does that have to do with me? Your girlfriend and the move? Are you kidding me? But the person absolutely wanted to let it out. Found the next best victim, let it out on me. Misjudged a bit when picking the victim, and accordingly never allowed themselves to do that again. You can already tell, there are different ways to react in that moment. Saying “let’s calm down a bit and figure out a goal, is your goal right now to argue and make accusations, or is your goal to find a solution with me? Okay, if you don’t want to, then let’s put that aside briefly and keep working.” Because at work we have a different contract. We don’t have a human contract at work. At work we have a competence contract. Many people don’t understand that. “Yes, but it’s so difficult for me at home.” Yes, and? And then what? You assume this human contract applies everywhere. But if you want to have it, you have to explicitly frame it. At work it’s often something else. There we can often refer back to that. But the consequence is devastating for obviously many people. Because the consequence is, your feelings aren’t important to me. And people can’t understand that. Not at all, fundamentally.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. I think an incredible amount has come together, and quite different aspects we’ve opened up, backed up with examples. Really great. Thank you so much, Zeus.
And in the chat it also says, thanks for your contributions, Zeus. Apt use of examples, compliment from Jürgen for example. And at this point I’d like to warmly invite everyone again to maybe signal with emojis toward Zeus. Did you take away impulses for yourselves today, good examples that you had along, that help you move forward at this point too? Since we didn’t have further interaction on stage now, I find it all the more important that this becomes clear again as feedback. Look, Zeus, this is for you here with hearts and thumbs up. I find that great. Thank you all so much for being here, and especially for listening to this message for yourselves.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. Wonderful. Thank you so much too, dear Zeus, for your time, for these impulses you shared with us, brought in, and the wonderful examples to make it illustrative too. That was Zeus on nonviolent communication, myth or reality, as a guest at our expert talk. And I’m definitely looking forward to continuing with you tomorrow with our next topic under the overarching theme of power and violence. Let’s look at tomorrow. Institutional power, to what extent does the power of institutions shape our daily life, is the topic we want to look at tomorrow with this question. And so you’re all very warmly invited to join again tomorrow morning at 8 German time, and then together shape the reflection room, to see what insights we can draw from it. And with that I wish you a start into the new week, and yes, just say see you soon. Ciao! Bye! Bye.
