A Street Lawyer’s Street Smarts #2
By: Roger Himes Esq.
Tags: Lawyer, Fun, Law, Humor, Justice

A Street Lawyer’s Street Smarts #2

This First Series is about Relating to People

I had a double major in college: business and psychology before I went to law school. I thought psychology would teach me about connecting and relating to people. But it taught almost nothing about this, and it just may be the most important point in business.

But it wasn’t about this. It was about a lot of things, but not about relating to people, — which is what this first series is about.

Relaxing Times are Best to Relate Casually

In business there often isn’t a lot of relaxation, but there are things like coffee breaks, smoke breaks, lunch, an after-work drink. People are less guarded at these times and don’t have their antenna up for something business-related. They are more talkative and transparent. You can learn a lot about a person at these times. You want to, especially if you will continue relating to them.

You listen for clues as to how they think and act. Do they cuss, even using Jesus Christ and ‘GD’ in what they say? Are they gossips? Do they put people down? Are they fidgety, restless and uneasy, or are the relaxed and at peace?

Are they positive or negative? Will they discuss more than the weather and the news?

Do they lie (or at least fib some), or are they dedicated to what lawyers should be dedicated to: ‘the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?’

There are always people we want to get to know better. This initial casual approach is very helpful if your eyes and ears are open. Is the person just an outer form of nothingness, or do they have substance and depth? You can’t consistently act on the outside different from how you think and believe on the inside. You can only fool part of the people some of the time.

10 Cultural Attitudes to Discern and Understand

Modern, western people are greatly influenced by 10 attitudes that society actually forces on us in various degrees. We should look for these attitudes in people we are relating to, and trying to get to know, to see how they may be affected by these in negative ways.

Rational Minded. We’re driving by our heads to what we think are facts.

Deductive Minded. We are analytical and assess life by our experiences.

Material Minded. There are frequent articles about our materialism.

Reactive Minded. We combative rather than compromising.

Dogmatic Minded. We are structured thinkers. A + B must equal C.

Skeptical Minded. We are cautious to a fault, not wanting to be ‘taken.’

Recognition Minded. We want appreciation and applause for what we do.

Legal Minded. We view most things legally, assess most things legally.

Critical Minded. Legal thinking makes us critical, even judgmental.

Responsibility Minded. We are self-driven: “If it is to be, it is up to me.”

These 10 ways of thinking don’t affect all of us to the same degree, but they do tend to affect all of us because they impact all of us through people we relate to, newspapers, billboards and every other way imaginable. Some of us try to protect ourselves from some of this, but we can’t from all of it.

We Must Assess What Level We Are Relating At

I’ve come to see life in three degrees of relationship:

(1) Romance. This is the initial stage of a relationship. This relates to sexual relationships, marriage, business, a new job — anything really. We see all of the good, and none of the bad. Everything is ‘a rose garden’ starting out. We must recognize when we are at this stage of a relationship, and this is when we must look more inventively and purposefully so we don’t get led astray.

A POSITIVE VIEW: Some dictionaries say that romance is, ‘an illusion, and not reality.’ It’s like a mirage, although it’s real in substance. It should be a signal to ‘engage brain before operating mouth.’ An illusion is: “A false idea that appears to be real but lacks foundation in fact.”

In romance, we can’t build a sound foundation on it — only a faulty one.

(2) Disillusionment. This is the second phase, and if you tell me you’ve never been disillusioned, you’re lying through your teeth. We all have been, just as we have all been drawn into the Romance (#1). Here, the honeymoon is over and we’ve now settled down into reality. Things are not as we had expected or hoped. We often don’t realize what a killer EXPECTANCY is. We come at things from our perspective, and there are always at least two perspectives.

A POSITIVE VIEW. Now, let’s look at this another way, just as we did romance. This can be viewed positively as, “Being free from a false idea that appeared to be real.” As we saw, romance was a false idea that appeared to be real, but it wasn’t. Now we’ve progressed and we see it is not real, but now the question is: “What are we going to do about it?”

(3) Choice and Decision. As a lawyer, I know most people RUN when they reach this stage. It’s human nature unless we choose not to be so humanistic. Most people do not make proper choices, especially in an emotional situation. They are not in control, but more controlled. You are not really ‘in control’ until you reach this CHOICE stage. Don’t REACT, as in the 4th attitude above. Instead, we say “What can I do to convert this negative into a positive?

A POSITIVE VIEW. We must assess three things about ourselves:

Our Temperament: who we know we are in our personal identity

Our Character: will we be obedient to the truth we know is right?

Our Commitment: will we follow-through on the first two?

Common Sense is Sadly Not so ‘Common’

There is a saying I’ve always thought about: “There is so much common sense available to us because so few people use so very little of it.”

What I’m talking about here is not science but ‘human interaction.’ There is no ‘science’ invented for this that I can find. It is ‘tongue in cheek.’ If we had a crystal ball that was all-knowing, there would be no need for this. All we can do is to learn — from each other — as we progress through life.

You teach me about you, and I teach you about me. The only issue is how much of you I discern, and how much of me you discern.

We hear ‘DIFFERENCES ATTRACT.’ Is this really true? Are you attracted to someone who repulses you? NO! Be real! You may want to learn about them, as to what makes them ‘tick’ so strangely, but you’re not attracted to them.

No, at a social gathering, or wherever you are, you look for people with whom you have something in common — not for people who are different from you.

The truth is that differences don’t attract, but they do mesh and bond into longer-term relationships. This is because people who are the same all the time tend to grate on each other and get on each other’s nerves, always doing or saying or thinking the same thing.

Differences bond long there because there are ‘differences’ in the relationship, and they usually complement each other and play off each other so there is vitality in the way they relate, each challenging the other.

You’ll hardly find two married people who are exactly alike and similar to each other. They are different, and it is that difference that bonds them together, not their similarities.

We are drawn together by our SIMILARITIES, but we are more molded together by our DIFFERENCES.

A woman may be drawn to a man’s humor and his ability to entertain. A may be more drawn to a woman’s reserve and ability to comprehend and engage intelligently.

Life is largely about our ability to positively connect with different people. We will look at other aspects as we go on. This is only ‘Part 1 on Relationships.’