🗺 A User Manual for Your Relationships
Have you ever gotten to know somebody so well that you could both finish each other's sentences? Or maybe you have a friend who you could give that look, and both of you would start laughing because of an inside joke?
Now for the opposite, think of the times your feelings were hurt because you either made an incorrect assumption about a person, or they made a judgment about your character based on something small you did.
This is the miracle and madness of mindreading.
In fact, it's something our brains are programmed to do.
According to Nicholas Epley, Professor of Behavior Science at University of Chicago:
"Knowing the minds of others is essential for social success because it enables you to anticipate what others are going to say it before they say it [...] At its best, [mindreading] enables understanding between friends, forgiveness among enemies, empathy between strangers, and cooperation between countries and couples and coworkers."
As children, our survival depended on our caregivers successfully intuiting our needs before we had the words. But as adults, it is our responsibility to not just know what we need, but to also communicate it.
Mindreading ALWAYS incurs a risk because it can miss the mark on both ends as listener and speaker.
When it pays off, it fills our lives with awe, delight, and connection.
When it doesn't, it frustrates us, blindsides us, and leaves our hearts broken.
This is why we need a user manual for our relationships:
We get to know ourselves better.
We increase our capacity to understand and appreciate differences between ours and others’ communication styles.
Through our self-awareness, we can make explicit what we need and what makes us tick.
In this 3-day series, we will help you create a mini-user manual so that the people you care most about know how best to communicate and connect with you. We'll be diving deep into the following topics:
Mon 3/6: 📶 Levels of Communication
Tue 3/7: ❤️ Attachment Style
Wed 3/8: 🌎 Cultural Influences on Relating
By having the courage to know yourself, you make it possible to spend LESS time working ON the relationship through trial and error and spend MORE time being IN the relationships with people you love.
What more worthwhile task than to give you and your relationships the intention & care they deserve?
Norman Tran is a facilitator for Stanford Graduate School of Business' legendary Touchy-Feely class, which has trained MBA's on interpersonal dynamics for over 50 years. After facilitating and creating learning experiences for companies like Facebook, IDEO, Stanford d.school, he co-founded 🌈 Relating Between the Lines, a 6-week program that teaches the art of skillfully navigating conversations with the people we care about most. Norman is on a mission to “queer-eye” communication by sharing what he’s learned as a gay neurodivergent (ADHD 2e) man trying to find a sense of belonging in a world that is not designed for people like him.
Stephanie Tran previously founded a wellness company that taught people how to design healthier lifestyles by talking about shame, not running from it. She is a natural hypewoman, and something that is meaningful to her is to help others bring their dreams to life. As a 1st gen Chinese-Vietnamese American woman, she has been on a lifelong journey of accepting her emotions fully, translating them into needs, speaking up for herself, and is a mission to empower others to do the same. As a daughter of immigrants, she grew up in a household that valued professional success over creative expression. Stephanie has reclaimed her voice by infusing delight, heart, and craftswomanship into every step of a student’s journey in 🌈 Relating Between the Lines.
On Wednesdays, they sometimes wear pink, and can be found getting their Vietnamese Iced Coffee fix, while thinking about how to bridge the profound and the profane in their next learning experience.
In 🌈 Relating Between the Lines, we are fortunate to have been able to serve students from these companies:
The next cohort of Relating Between the Lines will be running for 6 weeks from April 5, 2023 - May 12, 2023. Interested in joining? Click here to apply for the program or attend our upcoming Info Session.
Here's what past participants of the series have shared about their experience:
“It was such an energetic, life-giving hour well-spent for my wife and I. We enjoyed every single minute of it, and the hour seemed to FLY by. We also made some new friends during the breakout sessions! Norman was so fun & engaging - he has a keen ability to simplify terms & demystify concepts in communication that either of us have never thought to put words to. We walked away from this RBTL workshop feeling more connected to each other as newlyweds, and we are excited to practice acknowledging and affirming each other in new ways as we both grow in our marriage together. Thank you, RBTL team! <3” - J.C + M.C.
“The week's overarching scope and sequence crescendoed to a profound final session as Norman casually dropped koan-esque nuggets like "choose the people in your life who are going to honor your no's" and "all behaviors make sense, just not to you." Thank you, thank you, thank you for the vision that went into designing this experience! I'll be applying to the course. :) P.S. The aesthetics of the slides were on point.” - G.P.
“Norman and Steph and Kevin have all really amazed me on how they kindly help others be the best version of themselves and give us the tools and resources to be so much more and connect on such a deeper level to those we want to connect with and even find it in those we didn’t know we could connect with. I thank you all from the bottom of my heart. I never thought that at almost 50yrs old I had so much to learn about myself and those around me.” - C.P.
“Thanks for an amazing bootcamp! The material is so well put together, and design 💯. So much positive energy and I’ve definitely learned a lot.” - V.Z.
“Thank you, RBTL crew for hosting another thought-provoking session. Love all these concepts and practices and am excited to continue exploring more with you all <3” - V.L.
“These sessions go by so fast, probably because enjoying every moment” - J.D.
“Thank you everyone for being open + RBTL team for putting such an incredible program 💙💙💙” -A.B.
”WOW. Mic drop. I’m speechless. That was excellent yall.” - M.L.
“Thank you for this bootcamp! Definitely learned a lot this past week and found new ways to improve myself :)” - R.A.
”Thank you all for providing these much-needed tools and having these conversations! <3” - K.M.
“Deeply appreciating the thoughtfulness of this workshop!” - A.L.
“These slides & worksheets are beautiful for real though” - J.W.
“Excellent content, format, and leading.” - W.H.