FYB #5 - Clearly Speak Your Truth

This week a business acquaintance did something that didn't work for me. He was very late for our scheduled appointment. I'm not sure exactly how late, because I left after waiting for 40 minutes. Communication about his lateness also didn't work well for me as it was through his secretary, and not to me personally, so there was no consultation about whether waiting would work for me or not.

Certainly this has flavored my feeling about wanting to do business with this person and when I saw him, though he apologized and gave excuses for his behavior I let him know I wasn't interested in continuing a business relationship with him.

However, I felt that I didn't do a great job in communicating with him since I really hadn't explained why I was making this choice. This also is someone that I see every week, so I felt it was important to ensure that I 'cleaned' up the relationship so we had no ongoing and uncomfortable yucky feelings.

So - I sat down and composed in writing my experience of the event, how it impacted me, and how I now viewed him, which impacted my choice of whether or not to do business with him. Then I e-mailed it to him.

While I have hope that this will be helpful information for him, I actually wrote this for me. I wrote it because I kept thinking about it and so it was taking up needed space in my brain. I also have a standard for myself of walking my talk, so I felt it important that I uphold my standard. And, I held a boundary and spoke an important truth for me, which feels freeing and powerful.

I am now confident that the next time I see this man we can continue our conversation and hopefully work on a more meaningful relationship - one in which he is clearly aware of a boundary because I communicated it.

Fill up your bucket by speaking your truth to someone in your life. To do this well so that you fill your bucket rather than creating yet another leak, remember the following:

• be clear about what part of the situation is your responsibility - own your truth
• be clear about what you want the other party to do differently - don't speak in code
• leave the emotion out of it - words spoken with anger are reacted to in defense
• let go of the other person's outcome - you are not speaking to manipulate their response

If you don't feel confident about doing this well, or about the reaction from the other person, then practice with someone - a friend, coach, mentor, or family member.

Speaking your truth is a intensely powerful way to fill your bucket.