Yasir Ali Khan
A graduate student from Pakistan, undertaking a Master of Education, Yasir has a keen interest in the realm of human behaviour, social dynamics, and personal development. He has conducted a number of workshops centered around personal growth and communication skills. Yasir has an unquenchable thirst for acqui …
Analyze Comments
Filters
79 Comments
Add a comment...
@likeaphoenix6
This deserves to reach more people, his talk was awesome, this really works putting ourselves into others shoes and seeing through their eyes I completely agree Thank you
35
Reply
@Firdaus878
F= frame the person as subject ,use story
L= listen to understand not to respond
A= acknowledge the feeling,be present
R=relationship ,reflect ,engage with story,use language to express
E=engage to allow to provoke the feeling using connectors from the story
Happy net-worthing
11
Reply
@bigskygazingco.8886
yeah that helps for someone who is talkative. Th listening technique only works with the person you have conflict with actually communicates what they are feeling!!
21
Reply
@rachaelranogwa2520
Connect to the individual not there opinion
Reply
@rameyzamora1018
This works, and you can make it your attitude. It is a wonderful way to live! Thanks, Yasir.
28
Reply
@katrinamae3510
Am i the only one who search this?
71
Reply
12 replies
@soniadhaliwal6196
I didn’t watch this before taking your course yesterday. WHOA this really blew my mind. You taught me an incredibly valuable lesson here. What an incredible story. Thank you so much for sharing.
14
Reply
@sharpenrightservicesllc
This popped up on my feed and I liked the title. I thoroughly enjoyed this talk. That is a great acronym to remember.
5
Reply
@francismausley7239
And remember... “A harsh word is even as a sword thrust; a gentle word as milk.” ~ Baha’u’llah, Baha’i Faith
5
Reply
@tashachavez915
Yet sometimes people have no choose but to defended them selves
1
Reply
@TusharKale9
Thank you for sharing the FLARE framework
3
Reply
@DSulaiman93
Awesome work, I like how you analyse and took control of the situation rather than just accepted defeat and walk away.
13
Reply
@RichManZ
His such a great storyteller
2
Reply
@mirzarashed6412
Very strong and helpul message
3
Reply
@digineeraj_
Such a very great knowledge. Thank you
3
Reply
@FB-bo3sj
Mashallah beautifully said
3
Reply
@sofiahabtemariam6628
Thank you so much, Yasir. There’s a lot to take in, and I really appreciate your efforts.
Reply
@1oo480
Yasir! You’re amazing bro. This must be the greatest ted speech
Reply
@Austin-kd7gn
I love you. My friend said I was annoying and looked really mad. I hope this works
1
Reply
@piyushchaturvedi632
Chaa gye Yasir bhai ️
1
Reply
Imagine the last time you disagreed with someone. Both of you are firm with your opinions. Words flying in both directions, emotions really start to flare up. Before you know it, you’re pulling your hair in frustration. What I’m saying is who’s been in a relationship here? A lot of good-looking people I see. You disagree with their opinion, but you agree with them as an individual.
What does it take to get along with anyone? And how important is your opinion in defining who you are? Last summer, I discovered the answer to that question when I met someone who not only disagreed with me, but disagreed with my very existence. I work for a company that sold security systems. We traveled to Canada’s highest crime areas, and I was dropped into a neighborhood.
My job was to knock every single door and attempt to sell an alarm system. On the first day of my job, I’m following a colleague who shows me how the work is done. He walks up to a door, knocks the door, and we wait for the homeowner to answer. The homeowner opens the door, immediately looks right at me. His face flares up with rage.
You Hindu, get off my lawn. I froze. Confused, angry. He was right. I should probably get off his property. This was the first journal entry I made in my work journal. As you can see, he used a little bit more colorful language than I have depicted here. What a way to start. For the next coming weeks, I couldn’t help but think, what a racist.
I painted him with his opinion. Over the next few weeks, this became somewhat of a recurrence. We had people threatening us with their dogs, people chasing us with pepper spray, people’s dogs chasing us with pepper spray. It was ridiculous. Until one day, one particular encounter changed my perspective forever.
It was any other work day where I started out by going to a coffee shop, scrolling through Instagram for the first 4 hours, obviously, before I finally decided to get into the neighborhood and knock some doors. I walk up to a house and I hear the two most beautiful words I’ve EVER HEARD. GET LOST. NOW, I WAS FEELING PARTICULARLY persistent that day, so I walked up to the door and I rang the doorbell.
Now, I know what you guys are thinking. Yasser, why would you do that? And let me tell you, I wish I asked myself the same question. The homeowner opened the door, and he came this close to my face. Didn’t you hear me? Get your brown ass off my property. And that’s when I got the cue to do what I always do. Turn around and walk right back where I came from.
But as I was walking away, he kept hurling racial slurs at me. He wouldn’t stop. And I realized that this is not going to stop unless I do something to change it. I looked at him and I said, what is it about people like me? What is it about people of color that you don’t like? You people come to my country, you cause nothing but trouble.
Why do you guys belong here? Get off my property. Instead of retaliating, I framed him as the subject of the conversation. Of course, it’s your country. It means a lot to you. For the next half an hour, he continues to ramble about how much he hates people of color, how much he hates people like me. And I did nothing but listen.
I nodded my head, and I acknowledged everything he said. The more I acknowledged, the more he seemed to continue talking to me. It became very clear to me that this is a man who fears for his safety in a world that’s constantly changing around him. So, I asked him specific questions. What is it that happened to you? What did these people do to you to give you that belief? I had this shiny car on the outside, one of your people comes up, bashes in the window, dents the car, and scrambles off.
I can understand how traumatizing that must have been for you. I reflected with his pain. I can’t feel safe in my own house. Yeah, I I I get that. You see, what my company does is we put a camera on the outside of your garage. This thing has a motion detector built on it, so as soon as one of these guys comes to your property, it’s going to send a notification right to your smartphone.
Do you have a smartphone? Yeah, yeah, I got a smartphone. See, this is how it works. This thing has a speaker built in it as well. As soon as one of these guys comes onto your property, you press the microphone button, and you tell them to get off your lawn from the comfort of your own home. Yeah, but these things are pretty expensive, right? Yeah, they’re they are pretty expensive, but luckily, I happen to be in the neighborhood running a bit of a promotion, so uh could give you a good deal.
I was hoping we would talk more about the security system, but for the next half an hour, we ended up talking about how we both love spicy food, what kind of sci-fi movies we like, and we even agreed that the earth is actually flat. Okay, maybe not that last bit. 4 hours later, I finally walked out of his house, and he became the owner of a brand new security system.
It’s truly beautiful what happened here. I connected to him as an individual, not to his opinion. I didn’t just make a sale. I made a friend. Imagine how many people we run into every single day, and we judge them based on an opinion, based on an ideal, based on a perspective, when we really don’t know any of them.
I had a friend who would put on the left sock, then the left shoe, then the right sock, then the right shoe. What type of sociopath does that really? I disagree with his methods, but I still keep him around because I agree with him as an individual. As I reflected back on this experience, I realized that when emotions really start to flare up, it’s empathy that puts out the fire.
I wanted to make a system that will allow you to get along better with anyone. A system that will allow you to connect to the individual, not to the opinion, and a system you can use when emotions really start to flare up. And just so you know exactly when to use it, guess what I decided to call it. Flare. Isn’t that convenient? This is how it works.
You frame the person you’re talking to as the subject of the conversation. We love stories that highlight our interests. When someone’s talking about us, it makes us feel special. We want to continue talking to them. What you want to do is you want to make it about them, and that’s what counselors do so well.
They make sure the focus of the conversation is on you. They give you center stage, and it’s your show. You see, when I broke up with my girlfriend, what we did was we talked about it, and then after a few minutes, we realized we’re still friends, so it’s all good. I’m pretty happy now. It’s not about you anymore. It’s about them.
You’re robbed of your own story, and no one likes being robbed of their own story. A good way to keep track of this is to keep track of how many times you use the word I, and how many times you use the word you in conversation. The more you make it about them, the more they want to listen to you. Listen to understand, not to respond.
Too often, what we do is we listen to someone up until a certain point, and then we’ve decided our response. Okay, I’m just going to wait for him to finish, and I’m just going to say what I have to anyway. We can’t wait to take a deep breath and stick in our opinion. What we don’t do is listen to the feelings behind the words.
How was your interview? Fine. Awesome, let’s go celebrate. Let’s go have dinner. You’re not listening to the feelings behind the words. Connect to the individual by understanding where his feelings are coming from. Acknowledge how they feel. Acknowledging is not the same as agreeing with how they feel. It’s simply acknowledging that you are present.
Imagine this scenario. Someone bumps into your car and instead of coming outside and acknowledging how angry you are, they come look at the car. Ah, that’s not a big deal. That’s just a scratch. It’ll be all right. And he gets back in his car and goes home. Would you want to punch him in the face or what? He’s not acknowledging how you feel and it takes great courage, great patience, and a complete lack of judgment to acknowledge someone you disagree with.
Reflect with how they feel. Too often we’re so concerned about how we want to do things that we don’t know what it’s like to be in someone else’s shoes. In my case, that meant putting myself in the shoes of someone who hated the very idea of me. How can you possibly hate me? I mean Come on, guys. Those of you who know me.
As hard as it was for me to imagine, I could see where he was getting that deprived sense of safety. I could see what it was like to reflect in his shoes. Reflect with the individual. Engage with the individual. Engage them with language that provokes storytelling. What we do is we argue based on facts as if we’re going to convert someone else’s opinion based on facts.
I’ll give you a quick example. When was the last time you convinced someone to take you out on a date strictly based on logic? As you can see, this is a picture of my dog. You can see I’m a very loving and caring person. This is my bank statement here, which means I’m a very good economic option for you. Let’s go out on that date.
That pickup line, it might work on R2-D2, but for us humans, we don’t work like that, too. Engage the individual with language. Engage them with platforms where they can express so you can understand how they are. Let’s put all of this together. Frame the individual as the subject of the conversation. Listen to understand, not just to respond.
Acknowledge how they feel, reflect how they feel, and engage them with language that allows them to provoke their stories and for you to connect to the individual, not the opinion. Imagine we live in a community that works off a model like this. A community where we saw more in someone than what we see. A community where we listen to more than what we just heard.
In a community where we felt for more than just ourselves. A few months after that summer, I got a text. Happy holidays, Yasser. Had a lot to think about since the day I met you. I ask for your forgiveness for everything I’ve done to you. Nothing but peace in your future. This is the same friend who was going to kick me off his property.
And imagine I never saw the side of him. Imagine I had held a grudge my entire life because I judged him based on an opinion and I never knew him as an individual. I encourage you every single day wake up and see every individual who walks this earth as more than just an ideal, more than just a thought, and more than just an opinion.
There will come a time where you don’t get along with someone, when emotions really start to flare up. And when that happens, remember to frame, listen, acknowledge, reflect, and engage the individual. Connect to the individual, not to the opinion. I did that and now I know him to be the man he really is. I know him to be a deeply compassionate man on his own journey to understand the world.
I now know him as my friend. This is the power of empathy. This is the potential of a framework like FLAIR to bring us together in a world that seems to be tearing itself further and further apart. Ladies and gentlemen, connect to the individual, not to the opinion. That is how you get along with anyone. Thank you.