Balance

Tap the ones you want to practice. They stay marked on this phone.

1. 1Balance here means perspective, not evening out work and life. It's the ability to see a situation from more than one place and choose where to stand.
2. 2Don't hand people your answer. An answer they accept in their head rarely reaches the part of them that actually decides.
3. 3The story we tell about a situation shapes the situation. It doesn't just report on it.
4. 4Treat one option or two options as a red flag. Two options look like a choice but signal a person gripping the bars, unable to see the open sides of the cell.
5. 5Separate topic from perspective. The topic is neutral ("my assistant"). The perspective is the state wrapped around it ("losing a friend").
6. 6This isn't positive thinking or "look on the bright side." That lands on the surface and doesn't hold. A real shift changes how you carry the thing.
7. 7A perspective is a state of being, felt in the body. You can't argue someone out of it, but you can help them stand somewhere else.
8. 8Understand the full exercise: name the current perspective, physically move, describe a chosen object fully on its own terms, bring the topic back, name the new perspective last, repeat, then choose. Don't run it untrained, but grasp the mechanics.
9. 9Don't help them pick, don't hand them a third option, and don't ask for "option three." You can offer a thought without attachment. Then ask, "How would you want to feel about this instead?" and stay silent longer than is comfortable.
10. 10Use your expertise for technical questions. Use this for questions that belong to them. No perspective is the right one. The win is that they know where they're standing when the feeling comes back.