Labels are primarily about emotion. You are amplifying a positive emotion or diffusing a negative one. “Once people get upset at each other, rational thinking goes out the window.”. If you can identify and label emotions, you can influence them.

Enhancing positive emotions:

It sounds like you love to do that.

It seems like you enjoy making a difference in that way.

It feels like that made a big difference for you.

Diffusing negatives:

It sounds like that makes you upset.

It seems like you feel hesitant about this.

It feels like something is bothering you.

Just don’t use “but”, or otherwise deny the negative. This is about acknowledging an emotion, even if we don’t agree with it.

Josh

P.S. The quote and most of the information we’ve been covering recently came from Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss.