This is critical to remember …

There really is no such thing as a shared reality.

Our perception of the world is based on our very own set of experiences and history and just like our fingerprints, NO TWO ARE ALIKE.

Each of us has a story that has been created over our lifetime. And even if we grew up in the same family or worked with the same people, when we experience a common life event, we may think that we have a shared reality .. but in fact, we don’t.

Even if we are exposed to the same information — consisting of sights, sounds and feelings — we all don’t receive it in the same way. We each notice or focus on different aspects of the situation.

And on top of that, we interpret the information we see, hear and feel in ways to give it meaning to us. Not someone else.

So, what we draw from information and conclude something … it is totally unique to us.

What does that all for mean for life – especially when we are in conflict?

When we are in conflict with someone, we tend to TRADE OUR CONCLUSIONS back and forth – these are also known as POSITIONS.

For example, “We lost our best client because you weren’t responsive the last time she called.”

This conclusion on our perception of reality and we tend to assume that the other person has that same point of view.

That is where we are mistaken.

Because we each have our own path to our conclusions, we need to explain WHY WE HAVE REACHED THESE CONCLUSIONS and instead talk about our INTERESTS.

In other words, why we have concluded what we think — only then can you begin to build a bridge to a shared reality.

Jeanette