My friend, Traci, and I were talking one day a few months ago and right in mid-sentence she stopped talking, backtracked, and corrected herself.  She had been saying something like: “what I want to do is …, but …”  When she corrected herself, she changed the word BUT to the word AND.  I must have given her a funny look at the time because she said “I’m trying to use more ANDs.”  You see, she had seen this write-up on the CTI (Coaches Training Institute…where we both took our coach training courses) website that talked about the “Power of and.”

Now, this power is not….as my husband teased me this morning…the ability to create run-on sentences!  Although I guess it really is the same concept….it’s the combination or addition of thoughts or ideas or concepts or ideology or phrases or <you name it>.  CTI’s definition of the power of and is: “when you strongly hold and merge desirable dimensions that are commonly experienced as divergent. Rather than choosing one or the other dimension, or compromising between the two, we hold both equally rigorously, and harness the power that emerges from the integration: the power of and.”

In other words… the power of the word and emerges when we integrate more than one thing that we really want to have together…AND that we usually don’t hear, see, talk about, experience, or expect to have together.

So let’s take a look at one of these aspects…what we talk about.  Have you ever noticed how your speech affects people?  Simply by the words we choose, we can change the tone of an entire conversation.  This is very true of the words BUT and AND.  The exercise that Traci was doing when she corrected herself….and that I encourage all of you to try… is to notice when you use either of these words in your sentences.  Sometimes the word BUT is necessary, while many times you can use the word AND instead.  Using the word AND instead of BUT can have a profound impact on your conversations…it can be seen as less confrontational, it tends to put people more at ease and less on the defensive.  It lends a feeling of being more open-minded, considering more options, and being more present.  That is truly the power of AND.

For instance, how do the following statements affect you:

I understand what you’re saying, but I think that we should try a different approach.         (versus)

I understand what you’re saying and I think we could try an additional approach.

I like your idea, but I think we should have some different words here.     (versus)

I like your idea and I think that we can add some additional words here.

Do you feel the difference in these two different ways of speaking?  For the next month, I encourage you to begin noticing your conversations.  Pay attention to when you use the words BUT and AND.  Try replacing the word BUT with AND in your sentences…even if it means stopping yourself mid-sentence, backtracking, and correcting yourself as Traci did in our conversation!

Practice the power of AND for yourself and see where it takes you!

Copyright 2005 © Spiral of Life Coaching – Laurie Valaer