Picture this: you’re sitting down to a festive family dinner, early cocktail in hand, ready to enjoy a truly American serving of turkey. Suddenly, you overhear dear ole Uncle Jeff start saying something that sends a knot to your stomach. Maybe it’s about vaccines, or religion, or his unique brand of parenting advice, and you have a moment to decide - do you engage? Ignore it? Throw down and Thunderdome an intellectual battle to the death?

⚡️ The Holiday Chaos We Know Too Well

Many of us have family members with whom we don’t see eye to eye. These differences of worldview can feel like an invitation to valiantly save others from their misguided ideas. The problem is: it usually doesn’t work.

Neuroscience backs up why this approach is so often ineffective - when a belief is tied to a person’s identity, presenting facts & data that contradict it doesn’t actually change their mind. Instead, the brain goes into protective mode and actually doubles down.

🎯 A Menu of Options

You can’t control other people (what they think, believe, or how they react), only how you respond. Depending on your relationships and priorities, you can take a few different paths:

"Last Monday, I tried to fit too many rocks in my jar.

Ok, let me back up. In one of his books, Stephen Covey tells a story to illustrate a point about prioritization – a professor walks into class one day and proceeds to fill a jar with rocks, then pebbles, then sand, then water, to illustrate that if we don’t make space for the big, important stuff, the small stuff will crowd them out.

On Monday, I tried to fit too many rocks in my jar....Mistaking speed for efficiency, I started frantically running around haunted by my own to-do list, while my emotional regulation flew out the window and my communication skills crashed."

“What’s the difference between someone saying all the right things, and someone genuinely feeling empathy? And if it’s just saying the right things, why can’t AI replace us?”

Hi, my name is Tali Graham, Training Facilitator & Coach for leaders at Fortune 500 companies, and founder of Practical Habits Consulting. I help people build practical, sustainable habits to achieve goals, have better conversations, and lead themselves and others…with a dash of fun to make it stick!

“When we talk about relationships, and working collaboratively, it’s hard to do that without talking about TRUST. I’ve consulted with many professionals, and will sometimes hear trust described as a choice, or a feeling, or just “having a little faith.” Call me a skeptic, but that’s just not specific enough for me. What I love is a mathematical equation for a nuanced human experience. (Nerd alert! I know.) It’s the same reason I love spreadsheets - taking complex data, and compiling it into a condensed, digestible structure for easy consumption.

🧠 Enter The Trust Equation….”

“☁️ Imagine this: You’re at your desk, deep in your work, when a message pops up from your manager: “Can we talk? I have some feedback.”

Suddenly, your heart starts pounding, as your mind scans through anything you might have done wrong. Am I in trouble? What did I miss? Am I getting fired!?

Why is feedback scary? Humans are social animals. Our brains are amazing pattern recognition machines, and a part of our brain is always scanning for potential threats so it can keep us safe. Unfortunately, our brain doesn’t always differentiate between a literal physical threat (bear!) or a perceived social threat (scary conversation!). So, sometimes our emotions get kicked into high gear, as if we are facing a bear instead of a co-worker.

✅ So, let’s reframe how we think about feedback!”

“When we disagree on a topic, whether personal, professional, or political, we tend to lead with our own opinion: this is what I think, why I’m right, and how you’re wrong. The other person responds in kind, and now we verbally battle it out to see whose argument wins.

What if winning wasn’t the point? You can choose to lead with asking curious questions to better understand the other person’s perspective, position, values, priorities. Only when you can recite back their experience correctly do you start to share your own. Now, the dynamic shifts from you vs me to us vs the problem…”

Introducing Habit Snacks! Starting with the 20 second rule and habit stacking.