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How to speak up for yourself

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    Speaking up is hard to do.
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    I understood the true meaning
    of this phrase exactly one month ago,
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    when my wife and I became new parents.
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    It was an amazing moment.
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    It was exhilarating and elating,
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    but it was also scary and terrifying.
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    And it got particularly terrifying
    when we got home from the hospital,
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    and we were unsure
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    whether our little baby boy was getting
    enough nutrients from breastfeeding.
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    And we wanted to call our pediatrician,
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    but we also didn't want
    to make a bad first impression
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    or come across as a crazy,
    neurotic parent.
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    So we worried.
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    And we waited.
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    When we got to the doctor's office
    the next day,
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    she immediately gave him formula
    because he was pretty dehydrated.
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    Our son is fine now,
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    and our doctor has reassured us
    we can always contact her.
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    But in that moment,
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    I should've spoken up, but I didn't.
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    But sometimes we speak up
    when we shouldn't,
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    and I learned that over 10 years ago
    when I let my twin brother down.
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    My twin brother
    is a documentary filmmaker,
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    and for one of his first films,
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    he got an offer
    from a distribution company.
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    He was excited,
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    and he was inclined to accept the offer.
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    But as a negotiations researcher,
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    I insisted he make a counteroffer,
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    and I helped him craft the perfect one.
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    And it was perfect --
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    it was perfectly insulting.
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    The company was so offended,
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    they literally withdrew the offer
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    and my brother was left with nothing.
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    And I've asked people all over the world
    about this dilemma of speaking up:
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    when they can assert themselves,
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    when they can push their interests,
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    when they can express an opinion,
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    when they can make an ambitious ask.
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    And the range of stories
    are varied and diverse,
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    but they also make up
    a universal tapestry.
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    Can I correct my boss
    when they make a mistake?
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    Can I confront my coworker
    who keeps stepping on my toes?
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    Can I challenge my friend's
    insensitive joke?
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    Can I tell the person I love the most
    my deepest insecurities?
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    And through these experiences,
    I've come to recognize
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    that each of us have something called
    a range of acceptable behavior.
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    Now, sometimes we're too strong;
    we push ourselves too much.
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    That's what happened with my brother.
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    Even making an offer was outside
    his range of acceptable behavior.
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    But sometimes we're too weak.
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    That's what happened with my wife and I.
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    And this range of acceptable behaviors --
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    when we stay within our range,
    we're rewarded.
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    When we step outside that range,
    we get punished in a variety of ways.
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    We get dismissed or demeaned
    or even ostracized.
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    Or we lose that raise
    or that promotion or that deal.
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    Now, the first thing we need to know is:
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    What is my range?
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    But the key thing is,
    our range isn't fixed;
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    it's actually pretty dynamic.
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    It expands and it narrows
    based on the context.
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    And there's one thing that determines
    that range more than anything else,
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    and that's your power.
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    Your power determines your range.
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    What is power?
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    Power comes in lots of forms.
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    In negotiations, it comes
    in the form of alternatives.
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    So my brother had no alternatives;
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    he lacked power.
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    The company had lots of alternatives;
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    they had power.
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    Sometimes it's being new
    to a country, like an immigrant,
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    or new to an organization
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    or new to an experience,
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    like my wife and I as new parents.
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    Sometimes it's at work,
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    where someone's the boss
    and someone's the subordinate.
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    Sometimes it's in relationships,
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    where one person's more invested
    than the other person.
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    And the key thing is that when
    we have lots of power,
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    our range is very wide.
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    We have a lot of leeway in how to behave.
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    But when we lack power, our range narrows.
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    We have very little leeway.
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    The problem is that when
    our range narrows,
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    that produces something called
    the low-power double bind.
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    The low-power double bind happens
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    when, if we don't speak up,
    we go unnoticed,
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    but if we do speak up, we get punished.
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    Now, many of you have heard
    the phrase the "double bind"
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    and connected it with one thing,
    and that's gender.
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    The gender double bind is women
    who don't speak up go unnoticed,
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    and women who do speak up get punished.
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    And the key thing is that women have
    the same need as men to speak up,
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    but they have barriers to doing so.
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    But what my research has shown
    over the last two decades
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    is that what looks
    like a gender difference
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    is not really a gender double bind,
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    it's a really a low-power double bind.
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    And what looks like a gender difference
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    are really often just power
    differences in disguise.
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    Oftentimes we see a difference
    between a man and a woman
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    or men and women,
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    and think, "Biological cause.
    There's something fundamentally different
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    about the sexes."
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    But in study after study,
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    I've found that a better explanation
    for many sex differences
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    is really power.
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    And so it's the low-power double bind.
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    And the low-power double bind
    means that we have a narrow range,
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    and we lack power.
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    We have a narrow range,
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    and our double bind is very large.
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    So we need to find ways
    to expand our range.
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    And over the last couple decades,
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    my colleagues and I have found
    two things really matter.
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    The first: you seem powerful
    in your own eyes.
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    The second: you seem powerful
    in the eyes of others.
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    When I feel powerful,
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    I feel confident, not fearful;
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    I expand my own range.
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    When other people see me as powerful,
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    they grant me a wider range.
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    So we need tools to expand
    our range of acceptable behavior.
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    And I'm going to give you
    a set of tools today.
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    Speaking up is risky,
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    but these tools will lower
    your risk of speaking up.
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    The first tool I'm going to give you
    got discovered in negotiations
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    in an important finding.
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    On average, women make
    less ambitions offers
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    and get worse outcomes than men
    at the bargaining table.
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    But Hannah Riley Bowles
    and Emily Amanatullah have discovered
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    there's one situation
    where women get the same outcomes as men
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    and are just as ambitious.
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    That's when they advocate for others.
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    When they advocate for others,
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    they discover their own range
    and expand it in their own mind.
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    They become more assertive.
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    This is sometimes called
    "the mama bear effect."
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    Like a mama bear defending her cubs,
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    when we advocate for others,
    we can discover our own voice.
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    But sometimes, we have
    to advocate for ourselves.
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    How do we do that?
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    One of the most important tools
    we have to advocate for ourselves
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    is something called perspective-taking.
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    And perspective-taking is really simple:
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    it's simply looking at the world
    through the eyes of another person.
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    It's one of the most important tools
    we have to expand our range.
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    When I take your perspective,
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    and I think about what you really want,
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    you're more likely to give me
    what I really want.
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    But here's the problem:
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    perspective-taking is hard to do.
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    So let's do a little experiment.
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    I want you all to hold
    your hand just like this:
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    your finger -- put it up.
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    And I want you to draw
    a capital letter E on your forehead
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    as quickly as possible.
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    OK, it turns out that we can
    draw this E in one of two ways,
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    and this was originally designed
    as a test of perspective-taking.
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    I'm going to show you two pictures
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    of someone with an E on their forehead --
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    my former student, Erika Hall.
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    And you can see over here,
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    that's the correct E.
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    I drew the E so it looks like
    an E to another person.
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    That's the perspective-taking E
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    because it looks like an E
    from someone else's vantage point.
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    But this E over here
    is the self-focused E.
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    We often get self-focused.
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    And we particularly get
    self-focused in a crisis.
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    I want to tell you
    about a particular crisis.
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    A man walks into a bank
    in Watsonville, California.
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    And he says, "Give me $2,000,
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    or I'm blowing the whole bank
    up with a bomb."
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    Now, the bank manager
    didn't give him the money.
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    She took a step back.
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    She took his perspective,
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    and she noticed something
    really important.
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    He asked for a specific amount of money.
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    So she said,
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    "Why did you ask for $2,000?"
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    And he said, "My friend
    is going to be evicted
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    unless I get him $2,000 immediately."
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    And she said, "Oh! You don't want
    to rob the bank --
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    you want to take out a loan."
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    (Laughter)
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    "Why don't you come back to my office,
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    and we can have you
    fill out the paperwork."
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    (Laughter)
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    Now, her quick perspective-taking
    defused a volatile situation.
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    So when we take someone's perspective,
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    it allows us to be ambitious
    and assertive, but still be likable.
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    Here's another way to be assertive
    but still be likable,
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    and that is to signal flexibility.
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    Now, imagine you're a car salesperson,
    and you want to sell someone a car.
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    You're going to more likely make the sale
    if you give them two options.
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    Let's say option A:
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    $24,000 for this car
    and a five-year warranty.
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    Or option B:
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    $23,000 and a three-year warranty.
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    My research shows that when you give
    people a choice among options,
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    it lowers their defenses,
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    and they're more likely
    to accept your offer.
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    And this doesn't just
    work with salespeople;
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    it works with parents.
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    When my niece was four,
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    she resisted getting dressed
    and rejected everything.
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    But then my sister-in-law
    had a brilliant idea.
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    What if I gave my daughter a choice?
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    This shirt or that shirt? OK, that shirt.
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    This pant or that pant? OK, that pant.
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    And it worked brilliantly.
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    She got dressed quickly
    and without resistance.
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    When I've asked the question
    around the world
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    when people feel comfortable speaking up,
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    the number one answer is:
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    "When I have social support
    in my audience; when I have allies."
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    So we want to get allies on our side.
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    How do we do that?
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    Well, one of the ways is be a mama bear.
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    When we advocate for others,
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    we expand our range in our own eyes
    and the eyes of others,
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    but we also earn strong allies.
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    Another way we can earn strong allies,
    especially in high places,
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    is by asking other people for advice.
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    When we ask others for advice,
    they like us because we flatter them,
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    and we're expressing humility.
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    And this really works to solve
    another double bind.
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    And that's the self-promotion double bind.
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    The self-promotion double bind
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    is that if we don't advertise
    our accomplishments,
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    no one notices.
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    And if we do, we're not likable.
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    But if we ask for advice
    about one of our accomplishments,
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    we are able to be competent
    in their eyes but also be likeable.
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    And this is so powerful
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    it even works when you see it coming.
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    There have been multiple times in life
    when I have been forewarned
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    that a low-power person has been given
    the advice to come ask me for advice.
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    I want you to notice
    three things about this:
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    First, I knew they were going
    to come ask me for advice.
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    Two, I've actually done research
    on the strategic benefits
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    of asking for advice.
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    And three, it still worked!
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    I took their perspective,
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    I became more invested in their cause,
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    I became more committed to them
    because they asked for advice.
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    Now, another time we feel
    more confident speaking up
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    is when we have expertise.
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    Expertise gives us credibility.
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    When we have high power,
    we already have credibility.
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    We only need good evidence.
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    When we lack power,
    we don't have the credibility.
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    We need excellent evidence.
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    And one of the ways
    we can come across as an expert
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    is by tapping into our passion.
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    I want everyone in the next few days
    to go up to friend of theirs
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    and just say to them,
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    "I want you to describe
    a passion of yours to me."
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    I've had people do this all over the world
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    and I asked them,
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    "What did you notice
    about the other person
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    when they described their passion?"
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    And the answers are always the same.
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    "Their eyes lit up and got big."
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    "They smiled a big beaming smile."
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    "They used their hands all over --
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    I had to duck because their
    hands were coming at me."
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    "They talk quickly
    with a little higher pitch."
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    (Laughter)
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    "They leaned in
    as if telling me a secret."
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    And then I said to them,
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    "What happened to you
    as you listened to their passion?"
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    They said, "My eyes lit up.
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    I smiled.
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    I leaned in."
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    When we tap into our passion,
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    we give ourselves the courage,
    in our own eyes, to speak up,
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    but we also get the permission
    from others to speak up.
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    Tapping into our passion even works
    when we come across as too weak.
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    Both men and women get punished
    at work when they shed tears.
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    But Lizzie Wolf has shown that when
    we frame our strong emotions as passion,
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    the condemnation of our crying
    disappears for both men and women.
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    I want to end with a few words
    from my late father
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    that he spoke at my twin
    brother's wedding.
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    Here's a picture of us.
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    My dad was a psychologist like me,
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    but his real love and his real
    passion was cinema,
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    like my brother.
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    And so he wrote a speech
    for my brother's wedding
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    about the roles we play
    in the human comedy.
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    And he said, "The lighter your touch,
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    the better you become at improving
    and enriching your performance.
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    Those who embrace their roles
    and work to improve their performance
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    grow, change and expand the self.
  • 14:05 - 14:06
    Play it well,
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    and your days will be mostly joyful."
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    What my dad was saying
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    is that we've all been assigned
    ranges and roles in this world.
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    But he was also saying
    the essence of this talk:
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    those roles and ranges are constantly
    expanding and evolving.
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    So when a scene calls for it,
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    be a ferocious mama bear
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    and a humble advice seeker.
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    Have excellent evidence and strong allies.
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    Be a passionate perspective taker.
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    And if you use those tools --
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    and each and every one of you
    can use these tools --
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    you will expand your range
    of acceptable behavior,
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    and your days will be mostly joyful.
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    Thank you.
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    (Applause)
Title:
How to speak up for yourself
Speaker:
Adam Galinsky
Description:

Speaking up is hard to do, even when you know you should. Learn how to assert yourself, navigate tricky social situations and expand your personal power with sage guidance from social psychologist Adam Galinsky.

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Video Language:
English
Team:
closed TED
Project:
TEDTalks
Duration:
15:08
  • can i translate it to arabic?

  • Sorry, It's my task.
    If you want to translate to Arabic go to tasks on the upside of your browser and look for available Arabic Subtitles.

    ^^

  • Hi Laura,

    Welcome to the OTP and thanks for joining the team!

    Please have a look at the TED OTP Main Guide before getting started, so you can be sure to have the basic guidelines down::
    http://translations.ted.org/wiki/OTP_Resources:_Main_guide

    To address your specific issue and to elaborate on Maram's comment, please see the following:
    http://translations.ted.org/wiki/OTP_Resources:_Main_guide#How_to_find_something_to_translate

    Best of luck, and feel free to message me if you have any questions.

    Camille

English subtitles

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