Leslie Charles said, “Of course I’m yelling! I’m wrong!”

You have to love the honesty there. But don’t you even see that as being true for a lot of people?

When they start yelling and needing to be right, it’s usually because they haven’t taken in the other side of the story into consideration. Oftentimes, it’s easy in this world to forget the fine art of dialogue.

I have had a dear friend for the last 20 years, and one of the things I love about him is he’s a brilliant, brilliant man at the very top of his profession. Anytime you bring up any subject at all, he’s intrigued.

No matter how much information he already has, he’s always open to listening to another perspective. And he says: “Hmm, there are always more sides to the story” and “I’m curious.”

What if the whole world operated like this? This is the world where we’ve forgotten how to have a dialogue. Where we read the paper, and just go with some dogma… not even curious about another side.

Wouldn’t the world be better if we all just had open hearts to learn from each other and say: “Hmm, that’s interesting, tell me more” as opposed to waiting for them to stop talking so you can teach them why they’re wrong.

I think there are a lot of opportunities to be open to being wrong. Be inquisitive. And be okay with that.

Why not? And here’s the answer anyway… we’re always wrong about everything anyway, there will always be new information that proves everything we know to be true to be wrong.

So get over yourself. It’s time to open up to dialogue.

Maya Angelou said: “They will never remember what you told them or what you did. But they will always remember how you made them feel.”

Every moment, we have a chance to have encounters with our clients, with our co-workers, with their children in a way that makes them feel better about themselves.

How we feel about ourselves impacts how we make others feel about themselves.

How we bring joy into the room matters because we’re either breathing life into life or sucking it out. We are never a neutral event.

We have a choice. We can make sure other people feel better because we choose to bring joy to the conversation, talking about possibilities as opposed to what’s wrong, moving things through quickly, and celebrating the successes along the way.

Listen, it’s easy to find things that are wrong. I’m very capable of doing it.

I am not talking from the mountain here as someone who is capable of always being in this place, but I do know that my life goes better and that I make other people’s lives better when I sincerely make an attempt to breathe life into life, to bring joy in my heart, and to make sure that I’m thinking about bringing joy into their heart at the same time.