What’s your typical response when someone shares a frustration, problem, or issue with you? Or when they state an opinion or desire you disagree with?

Sometimes we get impatient, exasperated, or annoyed with them and simply don’t want to hear it.

Sometimes we get mad. Or defensive. And want to line them out.

Sometimes, however, we want to help.

And wouldn’t you know it, but we sometimes cause as many problems with that last reaction as the first two.

How can this be?

Your teenage daughter comes home and expresses disappointment about something that happened at school, and you want to help. How in the world could that be wrong?

Your spouse shares a frustration about something that happened with a friend, and you don’t want him or her to be sad. This is a bad thing?

Your coworker expresses annoyance with a program management is trying to implement, and you know exactly what will fix the problem and want to share it. This is going to cause problems?

In their fabulous book, I Don’t Have to Make Everything All Better: Six Practical Principles that Empower Others to Solve Their Own Problems While Enriching Your Relationships, Gary and Joy Lundberg show two different ways of acting on the desire to help others that have dramatically different results. If we try to help using the first method, we actually create more issues. We will make the person less willing to talk to us, introduce strain into the relationship, and create a lot of stress for ourselves. On the other hand, if we try to help using the second method, we’ll find the person more willing to talk. There will be more friendliness in the relationship. And our own stress will go way down. Furthermore, we’ll end up helping the person far more than we ever could with the first method.

Gary is a licensed marriage and family therapist. His wife Joy is a writer and lyricist, and they have held marriage retreats, firesides, and seminars throughout the country. And the six principles they share in the book for using the second method all revolve around accepting this one statement: “I do not have the power to make anything all better for anyone else. I can offer my help, but I cannot make it all better.”

Accepting this view has a dramatic impact on how we approach helping others.

So when the teenage daughter comes in and expresses disappointment, instead of trying get her to buck up or tell her she just needs to do xyz with her friends, or do 123 in sports practice, we listen, validate her emotions, leave the responsibility for the problem where it belongs—with her!—and then, when it’s all out, offer to help in a way that empowers her, not have us take over.

When the spouse shares frustration, it’s the same. When the coworker expresses annoyance, the same. When someone comes in to complain to us, it’s the same.

What the Lungbergs do in this book is show exactly what this looks like with tons and tons of examples. They even have a whole chapter (a short one) which gives a list of validating phrases and questions. The first six chapters of the book explain the principles. The last eight each apply them to a different group: young children, teenagers, adult children, spouses, parents and parents-in-law, friends, and coworkers.

Folks, this book is a gem. It’s loaded with wisdom and insight. Every time I practice what’s in here, my interactions go better. This stuff produces immediate results. I just wished I’d studied and practiced it more. But it’s never too late. And that’s why I’m rereading it now.

And why I wanted to share it here. If you want to improve your interactions with others and enrich your relationships, do yourself a favor and immediately go get this book.

Part of my research for Bad Penny led me to the Utah state prison. I was able to attend a session with five of the convicts. Let me tell you: walking through those high fences and electric doors and hearing them close behind you was something.

The five men all had interesting and unfortunate tales to tell. But they were all hopeful. I was there with a couple of kids in a troubled youth program and their leader. And of course there were a couple of guards.

We got to ask questions and chat. It was an upbeat session despite the topic. One thing I asked about was the food, and one fellow said that the worst thing was this “crack wheat” they served for breakfast.

“Cracked wheat?” I asked with a smile. “That’s good old Mormon food.”

He said, “It’s awful.”  We laughed.  There were many times we laughed.

And there were a lot of things asked and shared. One of the key things that stood out to me was that all of them were there because of drug addictions. And as they shared their goals of staying clean, they revealed that this wasn’t their first time inside. For one it was his third, another his fifth, another his ninth.

And it was with those comments I realized just what a hold addiction had on these guys.

Fortunately, most folks with addictions don’t have to go to prison. But a lot fail to break out of them and miss many opportunities for joy, sometimes wrecking the ones they have. The 12-step program has one of the best success rates of any program.

My church has meetings and programs all over the country. They’re free and open to anyone. If you or someone you know is struggling with an addiction to alcohol, drugs, tobacco, porn, or eating disorders, you might want to go here to see what to expect from a 12-step meeting and how to participate.

Even with all the vicissitues, life is meant to be enjoyed.

Folks running for office, especially our wonderful citizens running for local county offices, business owners, and any of the rest of us who what to persuade people to listen, I’ve got something for you.

I will bet that most of you aren’t aware that you’re muddling your message and losing votes, sales, and converts to your causes.

Of course, maybe you’re way ahead of me. I thought I knew what I was doing. I have a master’s degree in business, spent a few years in business consulting, have created a few small startups, and currently am a product manager for large software company. Despite all of that, I had somehow missed something vital. Something simple and powerful. Something that has a dramatic effect on sales, votes, and converts. On getting people to even listen to what I had to say.

And I’m not alone. I saw another company struggling with it this weekend.

On Saturday I went and watched the latest Marvel movie at a theater in Logan. One of the pre-movie video ads was for a local company called Conservice. I don’t know how many thousands of dollars they spent on the ad they played. Or how much they spent on the many other ads we’ve seen over the years. But when it finished, I turned to Nellie and said, “I still don’t know what that company does or why I should care.”

“I know,” she said. “I know.”

We were both baffled. After years of seeing their ads, we still have no idea what they do, how it would make our lives better, or what action we should take to use their service.

They have wasted thousands and thousands of dollars on their marketing.

There’s another local company that advertises during those pre-movie slots. It’s called ARS. I saw one of their ads this weekend as well. But it only reminded me of what I already know. I know exactly what they do, how it would make my life better, and what action to take.

If you have a flood, fire, or plumbing backup—whatever—they clean it up. “Got a mess? Call ARS.” That’s their one-liner.

If I ever have a mess, I will call ARS. I will never call Conservice. I have no idea what they do.

What’s the difference here?

Clarity.

And what generates that clarity?

A complete focus on the customer. The ARS ads are all about the customer and their problems and needs.

The Conservice ads, on the other hand, are all about Conservice. We’ve been in business for x years. Here’s what our building looks like. Here’s a worker planting a bush. Blah, blah, blah.

The ARS ads are all about me, the guy in the theater seat, the thing I want and the problem I have. ARS features me as the hero in my own story. They present themselves as the helper—the Yoda or Gandalf or Haymitch who helps the hero get what they want. You got a mess? We’ll help you.

The difference in the power of the two ads is night and day.

Of course this means it’s been verified that I’m a dolt. After all the years in business and education, I should have known this. But the surprising truth is that I’m not alone.

I look at the marketing we do at the billion-dollar company I work for and see this same issue everywhere. Millions of dollars spent on muddles. I look at company websites on the internet and see more muddles. I recently listened to pitches by many of our local citizens running for office and saw the same thing. It seems this communication muddle afflicts a lot of us.

About five years ago, when I began investigating an idea for a new company, I came across the Lean Startup method pioneered by a guy at Stanford and began to see the light. But a few months ago, the curtains were completely pulled aside to let in the sunshine. And wow! What a revelation.

If you want to get people to listen, you have got to hear what Donald Miller has to say. He’s consulted with thousands of companies on how to clarify their message so people will listen. His framework and method make clarifying your message so easy.

He calls it the StoryBrand framework, and it’s brilliant. What it does is help you clarify your message so that a customer or voter or whoever will know within three seconds:

1. What you offer
2. How it will make their life better
3. And what action they should take if they are interested

But it goes beyond that. It helps you actually define what you should be offering in the first place. It’s a powerful product development tool. I’ve started using this in all my business efforts. And in my training and presentations.

For example, I just used it to develop a presentation I delivered at a huge writer’s conference last week. The results were that after the presentation, I had a line of people wanting to thank me. I had people telling me I made them cry. Others wanted to give me a hug. They were grateful. I had people tell me it was the best presentation of the conference.

This was not because I’m brilliant. I’m a dolt, remember. It’s because I used the StoryBrand framework to focus on those people. Their needs. Their problems. Their aspirations.

If you’re running for office, if you have a business, if you want to persuade anyone to do anything, then let me recommend you listen to this guy and learn about this framework.

• Start by signing up for the free 15-minute intro to the framework (the signup is at the top).
• Next watch this 30-minute presentation on the StoryBrand framework
• And then this 1 hour expanded application of framework
• Finally, read Building a Story Brand by Donald Miller (you’re going to love this book)

Get the revelation. Get out of the muddle. And get people to listen.

And when you’ve finished the Miller stuff above, read How to Write Copy That Sells by Ray Edwards, the guy who has partnered with Miller. It’s all about clarifying your message as well.