Last night I went with a couple other guys to see a popular speaker from Australia named Matthew Kelly come to speak about a recent book of his, The Seven Levels of Intimacy. Here they are for your benefit, from lowest to highest. Get a lot of work done in your relationships by intentionally climbing this ladder:
1. Cliches. Typically, these are used to block intimacy. The absolute bare minimum gets communicated, and it can shut down the conversation.
2. Facts. How's the weather? How about that game last weekend? Guess what happened?
3. Opinions.
4. Hopes & Dreams. If we communicate these to each others, we find ourselves thinking about *their* hopes and dreams, and helping them with them.
5. Feelings.
6. Fears, Faults, & Failures. People accomplish great things because they are able to turn their faults into strengths. Michael Jordan didn't make his high school basketball team.
7. Legitimate Needs.
He also spoke about how we human beings are very bad at Healthy Conflict and that it's something we desperately need to learn. Otherwise we tear each other apart, or we shut down the conversation from real content. We work best when we have a Common, Unchanging Purpose between ourselves, and we remain focused on that instead of who is right and who is not. He suggested that our Common, Unchanging Purpose be: "What will make you the best version of yourself?" and for that to be a universal question... that we always consider that question for the person we're speaking with.