CHAPTER 1

What We All Want (But Never Ask For)

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.

—AESOP

In order to get the most out of your car, it helps to know what it needs to operateeffectively. You need to know what fuel and oil it uses, and how to get things fixed whenit's not running right. The same is true for human beings. Luckily, at our core, all humanbeings are pretty much the same. We all want the three As: acknowledgment,appreciation, and acceptance. In fact, the three As are like high-octane gasoline thatmakes the human personality run. They are the essential ingredients that convey lovefrom one person to another. Without them we become defensive and refuse to let anyonein. If you want to have a great relationship, you will first have to satisfy your partner'sneeds for acknowledgment, appreciation, and acceptance. And the more effectively youcan help him feel loved, the more loving he will be toward you.

I've created a metaphor that I find helpful in explaining how the human personality works. Icall it "the self-esteem bank account." I define self-esteem as the degree to which aperson feels good about herself in any given moment. Let's say the average person hasabout ten "dollars" in her self-esteem bank account. When people have only two dollars intheir bank account, they become violent. In newspapers, we read about people who wentberserk when someone simply looked at them the wrong way. These people were at two"dollars" of self-esteem. When people are at zero "dollars" of self-esteem, they often try tokill themselves. With only ten "dollars" of self-esteem, we're highly motivated to not lose orspend any of our meager supply. Yet, the way we tend to go about protecting our accountis almost always ineffective.

When couples are having difficulty, they inevitably blame their partner. Blame is a way oftrying to "take" self-esteem "dollars" from your partner and give them to yourself.Unfortunately, this results in your partner feeling attacked, who then proceeds to blameand insult you in self-defense: "You think I'm selfish, you should look in the mirror. You'rethe one who everyone thinks is selfish!" The cycle goes on. Have you ever been in one ofthese downward spirals? I sure have. It's no fun at all. Neither partner ends up getting thelove and respect they really want.

Even if your partner is very upset, the key to get him to be able to hear you is to give himplenty of acknowledgment, appreciation, and acceptance. The three As are like depositsfor your partner's self-esteem bank account. When you give your mate the three As, hisself-esteem bank "balance" temporarily goes up. As his bank balance goes up, he willnaturally become more loving, more giving, and better able to listen. Therefore, when yourpartner is feeling stressed, the best thing you can do is make a "deposit" into hisselfesteem bank account. Almost like magic, he will become more agreeable toward you.As he is better able to listen to you with love, you'll feel better too. The destructive cyclewill be over.

Bob and Jill came to see me for counseling as a last measure before filing for divorce. Boband Jill were what I call "subtle blamers." They never shouted or called each other names,but the underlying intention was still to "score points" at their partner's expense. Iexplained to them the concept of the self-esteem bank account, but Jill would still makeher subtle, blaming statements. Each time she did, I would stop her and ask, "Do you thinkBob is more or less likely to listen to you after blaming him like that?" It soon becameobvious to Jill why Bob "never listened" to her.

Jill asked me, "Well, how can I get Bob to hear me?" I told her that Bob will need at leastsome funds in his selfesteem bank account before he can risk listening to you. Isuggested she first acknowledge or fully validate Bob's experience of her. Normally, whenBob told her his point of view or how he felt, Jill would say how wrong and ridiculous hewas. This invalidation of Bob's feelings and reality just made him shut down more. So Iasked Jill, "What's the positive intention behind Bob trying to explain his actions to you?"She responded, "He wants to show me how he's right and I'm always wrong." Thisstatement made me aware Jill was lacking funds in her own self-esteem account, sinceshe was feeling blamed. Therefore, I acknowledged and validated her experience. I said,"I understand you feel blamed by him and I bet that doesn't feel very good." Once I hadacknowledged her experience, she was open to hearing what I had to say.

If, in the previous example, I had told Jill she was wrong about Bob's intention, she wouldnot have been open to hearing me. It's a little-known fact that human beings are equippedwith a secret device in their brain called a "blame detector." When anyone tries to blameus or make us wrong, even in the most subtle manner, our blame detector alarm istriggered. When our alarm goes off, it automatically shuts down the ability of our ears tohear whatever anyone says to us. Had I made Jill wrong for what she said, her ears wouldhave shut down, and I would have been wasting my breath to say anything more. Whenpeople have low funds in their self-esteem account, they need to have their version ofthings be acknowledged before they can hear what you have to say. Acknowledging theirview of things is not the same as agreeing with them—or suggesting they're right andyou're wrong. It simply means you validate their personal experience. You accept thatwhat they say is the truth as they see it.

Once I had acknowledged Jill's view of Bob, I repeated the question, "What do you thinkwas Bob's positive intention of explaining his actions to you?" This time she said, "What doyou mean by positive intention?" I explained that a person's positive intention is what theyultimately want from an action they take. Jill thought about it and finally said, "I guess he'sexplaining himself so I will stop blaming him and finally accept him as he is." Bingo! I toldher that what everyone ultimately wants is to feel acknowledged, appreciated, andaccepted, and the more you give these three...