Yes to the Total Yes!

There is a useful habit: in a new situation, in an argument or in a heated conversation, agree first. With the situation, with the other person, with the new experience. The habit is called the TOTAL YES. This is not about Jim Carrey in «The Yes Man». It is more about taking life lightly, accepting people as they are, and keeping the climate of a conversation friendly.

But first I would like to protect myself and you from fanaticism. Many people think the word NO must never be used. They believe our brain does not understand the word "no", so it takes every negation as a call to action. As in, "no to war" means "yes to war". Not a bit of it: what the brain takes in first of all are images of meaning. And plenty of them do not exist without the "no" at all, for example:

• unkempt and uncouth
• a nonentity and a forget-me-not
• a ne'er-do-well, a nobody and nonsense

In the film "Yes Man" Jim Carrey's character learns, with exactly that kind of fanaticism, to say YES to everything always, and his life changes for the better in many ways. And the film ends the way I wish it to end for you: the hero starts using the skill of "saying YES" deliberately, when he needs it — and even using it against other fanatics.

So, the «Total YES» is a technique of communication. It forbids you to say «No» and requires you to look for sensible ways of agreeing with the other person. Originally it is an exercise from the Distance, the coaching programme run by Nikolai Ivanovich Kozlov at Sinton in Moscow. But it applies to every area of life. Let us first talk about how the skill is built.

The theory of the «Total Yes»

Every STATEMENT always has THREE PARTS:

1. something STUPID. That is the part ordinary people grab hold of straight away and start proving the opposite. And in doing so they turn the other person against them. Why would we want that?
2. something EMPTY, carrying nothing at all. Arguing with this part is not done for a result but for yourself, for the sake of talking. So why argue with it?
3. something SENSIBLE. Every statement contains something useful and true that you can SINCERELY AGREE with. If we ignore this part, it is not the other person who loses — only we do.

So, to push your own point of view effectively, it pays to: (1) Hear the other person out and agree SINCERELY with the «sensible» part of what they said. (2) Slide gently in the direction that suits you, using one of the many Spin-ups or sleight of mouth patterns that we drill so carefully at the Freud's Legacy meetings. (3) Say what suits you. For example: «This is my pie!» — «Yes, darling! Whatever you say, my love! This is your pie! This slice of the pie is yours! And this one is mine!»

How do you master the «Total Yes»?

It is a step-by-step process. First we take the little «no»s out of our speech. The task: get through a day, then a week, without using the word NO. That does not mean you always have to say YES, as in the film «Yes Man» with Jim Carrey. Simply replace NO with a different sentence. «Fancy a cigarette? — Let's have a chat instead.» This is the first step towards deliberate speech and towards finding a common language with the other person. We disagree rather often, don't we? Or if we do agree, it comes out as «NO YEAH, I agree!». And what good is that? WHY NOT YES? And after that — practise, practise, practise! One friend of mine used to train by reading articles he hated and looking in every single line for the Sensible part, hunting for something he could agree with. The task: find what is reasonable in the other person's words.

• Do not object, either openly or covertly.
• Look for what is reasonable in the other person's words.
• Agree inwardly with that Sensible part.
• Agree out loud with whatever it makes sense to agree with.
• And the advanced level: agree in a way that moves the other person in the direction you want. articles/kak-pridumat-tost-raskrutki will help you here!

The result looks like the films «Crew», «Jeeves and Wooster» and «Django Unchained».

How does it change your life?

After a year or so the «Total Yes» turns into a form of thinking, changes how you perceive the world and turns life into a curious adventure. For me it happened through several side effects.

1. I began looking for the common denominator in the way people think. I am not an esotericist and I am not inclined to explain life with notions that are not taught at universities. BUT! For example, talking to an astrologer, I hear propositions from psychoanalysis. And I hear that people are heading for the same goal (showing a person their possibilities) while explaining it by different means (planets in one case, the unconscious in the other). A perfect reason to agree sincerely with the astrologer that our intentions are the same. As for methods — those are a matter of taste, and of which client you have.
2. I stopped arguing and started going around. It is by now scientifically established that arguing and proving switches a person into «defence» mode over their values. As Protagoras put it, «No truth is truer than another truth. But there is a better truth.» If many values are fundamentally the same (see point one), then what is there to argue about? The thing is simply that the other person has not seen those shared values yet. So let us give them the chance to take on my point of view by another route))).
3. In everyday life I began agreeing far more often with other people's suggestions, especially when those people are dear to me and I have not tried the idea myself.

«Let's go that way», I say.
«Let's go this way», says my woman.
«What happens that way, I already know», I think. «But what happens this way, I don't know. Why argue with my woman if this is where she wants to go? There might be something new there. Maybe bad, maybe interesting and useful. Come on, take it as a new experience!»
the author

The recipe here is simple. «Take whatever you disagree with as a new experience.» That, by the way, is a side effect of another exercise, the one called «climbing out of the arse of infantilism». But that is a separate post)

(+1) I began treating unplanned situations in life (usually called «trouble») as an occasion to discover new pleasant sensations. For example: off I go to the seaside for a holiday, planning to learn to surf. I am tired, I want peace and quiet, and there is no peace to be had, and the surf keeps roaring! On the third day of the holiday a wave throws me off the board and its fin cuts my leg open))) Off to hospital, stitches. Goodbye, seaside holiday! BUT! Not at all! A «Total Yes» to lounging in the room, looking at the sea, meditating… Watching films. Being released from goals, including the goal of learning to surf. Inside, freedom sets in. Freedom from goals. From obligations. You are a «cripple», after all, and you are supposed to lie down! When was the last time I simply lay there, unable to do anything at all?

Now that is wonderful! And life becomes light, calm and free!