The secrets of relationships. The art of understanding oneself and others

Essentially from our ability to understand others. And, before that, of understanding ourselves.

The aim of this book is to provide you with a set of theoretical and practical tools that can help you analyse your daily behaviour at work, in the family or in any relevant area of life to identify your strengths and all those critical aspects that can be changed. Once you understand what your favourite games are, or what script you recite in your relationships with colleagues, superiors and family members, you will also be able to actively intervene to modify your behaviour in every situation. The book is conceived as a step-by-step process: in the first part I will show you a very effective and intuitive model that will enable you to better understand how your personality has developed, why you tend to behave in a certain way in certain situations, why other people behave in another way and what mechanisms regulate our interactions with others. This model is called Transactional Analysis, a psychological theory that, through personality analysis, gives us the tools to explain how we and others function and behave.

In the second part of the 'journey', we will understand together what are the consequences of the influence that the environment exerts on us. When I speak of environment, I am referring both to the physical environment, consisting of the spaces and objects that surround us, and to the personal environment, consisting of all the people who are around us and who, for one reason or another, relate to us. The environment thus understood has an enormous influence on our behaviour and well-being, both positively and negatively. Of course, the awareness of the influence the environment has on you can be frightening, but the good news is that you can choose which environment you live in! It is you who, the moment you become aware of the negativity of your environment, can decide to 'change the air' and look for a different environment or use your energy and resources to make the environment in which you live or work more empowering. And I will tell you how to do it.

The focus of the third part of the book will be on relationships at work, both as a group leader and in your relationships with your boss and colleagues. We will analyse together the di" erences between a "group" and a "team" and what are the "illnesses" that can occur in a work group. I will tell you about my experiences as a coach of corporate and sports teams of great prestige, during which I have seen that the results of a team are in direct proportion to its state of health.

A sick team produces only poor results, regardless of the talent and experience level of its individual elements. This is because a team is more than just the sum of its parts, it is a complex reality in which each part must proceed harmoniously in the same direction. What makes the difference is the way in which team members relate to each other and work together: on the type of relationship that is established between them, the level of health of the team depends. Here are the most common symptoms of team sickness: members do not trust each other; a 'cold war' is preferred in order to avoid open conflict; it is not clear who is supposed to do what, i.e. what each person's responsibilities are, and when goals are not achieved, the blame game and 'passing the buck' are triggered; but above all, there is a lack of focus on the results of the whole team.

Yet: 'Great goals are never achieved alone'. This was said by a great champion who wrote some of the most beautiful pages of Italian sports history: Pietro Mennea. This quote o" re already a good reason to read this book and extends its scope to other areas of life. I am sure that in it you will find excellent insights into how to win as a team, not only in the professional sphere but also in life in general. If you think about it, life is a team sport and the fate of the lonely one is a sad one anyway, regardless of the material resources he or she can count on. The true winner is never alone. Winning together gives much more taste!

In the fourth and final part of the book, we address two other relationships that are decisive for the well-being of your life: the male-female relationship and the prejudices we all have against money.

The subject of the man-woman relationship is a very thorny one because, as you know, we are talking about two universes that are often diametrically opposed. However, this does not mean that men and women are destined never to understand each other. No way!

Paradoxically, the awareness of the distance between these two worlds builds a bridge, traces a possible way of communication. Now I am not promising that, by reading this book, you will be able to live in perfect harmony with your partner. And I do not do so for two reasons. Firstly because perfect harmony is a utopia, impossible even between people of the same sex. And secondly because in any kind of relationship conflict, besides being inevitable, can also be evolutionary: if well managed, it can lead both of you to grow as individuals, as well as a couple.

Understanding and giving to each other without losing oneself in the other: that is the formula for successful relationships. It sounds easy, but in reality we all know that it is not at" act, especially today when we are bombarded by a thousand stimuli and never have time to stop and listen to the other person, to ask ourselves what our partner really wants. We often limit ourselves to projecting onto him what we would like, forgetting that the other is different from us. Already recognising that there are gender differences, that men and women think, act, deal with problems and stress, experience sexuality differently is a first step towards understanding our partner. The second step is actively and deeply listening to the other to better understand his or her needs, desires, what is really important to him or her. The third step is the open communication of one's expectations. One of the main enemies of the couple relationship is the unspoken expectation. The couple is a more complex reality than the sum of two individuals. In a couple you are stronger, you can do things that an individual alone could not achieve, but at the same time the couple needs two people with their own identity to be healthy. A relationship where one of the two decides and leads or where one is emotionally dependent on the other risks becoming a prison for both and in the long run makes one feel weaker. The formula for a successful couple relationship is one of interdependence, where each element can grow in the couple but only if it is not dependent on the other. In the book, we will provide a kind of simultaneous translator of male behaviour for women and female behaviour for men, so that both can better manage possible conflicts and use them to live a happier and more fulfilling relationship.

Finally, as I anticipated, the relationship between you and money will dominate in the last part of the book. I will tell you how most people, unfortunately, a! give the responsibility of becoming rich to the Sorte, which, however, kisses only a very few people, leaving everyone else high and dry, dreaming for the rest of their lives. Yet there is a more valid and effective alternative than Aladdin's lamp. It is about developing the right mindset, the mindset of those who have become millionaires by their own merit and not by fate. This book will tell you exactly how to develop this mindset.

Convictions, habits, advice from our parents or, even worse, from our grandparents, transplanted into a society completely different from their own, are all constraints that keep you firmly in that confined space where you have always lived, that zone shared by most people who think it is normal to complain (but then, to change the status quo, what do they do?), that 82% of the population who believe that the future will be worse than the past. I have quite different beliefs. I am sure that in a world like ours there are a sea of opportunities to be seized. We can and must allow ourselves not to live in the shadow of verist beliefs, whereby we are only secure as long as, like oysters, we cling to the rock on which we are born, without 'cravings' for improvement. I am sure that it is possible to improve oneself and one's lifestyle, that it is possible to find a permanent solution to one's financial problems, a solution that is accessible to everyone, even to those starting from zero or below zero.

Why am I sure? Because I have experienced it first hand, on my own skin. That is why I am also certain that being rich (and we will see my definition of 'wealth' together) is a fundamental condition for being happy in life. That it is not the only requirement to be happy is another matter (see health and a" etti, first of all). Most of the world's population lives on less than $1 a day. This will make us reflect, in the course of this reading, on how lucky we are to have been born where we are and how we can use this luck to our advantage and that of those around us. How many of your dreams could you realise if you had enough money? How do you think you would feel? We will see together that money is not bad or good but that it can "amplify yourself and your emotions". The truth is that there is a way to be truly financially free, which 98% of Italians ignore, because in Italy personal financial education has been undervalued for too long and unfortunately still is.

In countries like the United States, on the other hand, it is more than normal to inform yourself and learn how to manage your money independently. I can tell you this because I have seen it with my own eyes and because, if I have made the 'quantum leap', I have done so by travelling and meeting internationally renowned investors and entrepreneurs. In these pages I will explain what Financial Freedom is and show you a new way of looking at things, as well as a concept of wealth that you probably had not considered.

You will discover a different approach to today's reality and to money, a world view that is essential to guarantee you and those you love a better life if only you have the courage to embrace it... The aim will be to help you improve your relationship with money in order to 'attract' it and improve your situation.

Having said that, it only remains for me to wish you a good read and leave you with one last lesson, which I have learnt throughout my life, to have winning relationships: 'The more you give the more you get', and it is no coincidence that this is the title of the chapter that closes the book. To live relationships as a true leader you have to learn to give others what they need in order to evolve and develop their skills.

Tell me what kind of relationships you have and I will tell you how you live. Yes, because the quality of our life depends on the quality of our relationships.

You can have a great house, equipped with every comfort, but if you have a bad relationship with your partner and no dialogue with your children, you will eventually feel like living in a gilded prison.

You may have an important and well-paid job, but if conflicts with your boss and colleagues are the order of the day and you are always on the alert for fear of someone stabbing you in the back, then what looks like a happy island from the outside is in reality a jungle, which day after day makes you lose energy and the pleasure of working.

And do you know what the quality of our relationships depends on?

Essentially from our ability to understand others. And, before that, of understanding ourselves.

In this chapter I will show you a very effective and intuitive model that will enable you to better understand how your personality has developed, why you tend to behave in a certain way in certain situations, why other people behave in another way, and what mechanisms regulate our interactions with others.

This model is called Transactional Analysis, a psychological theory that, through personality analysis, provides us with the tools to explain how we and others function and behave.

Transactional Analysis was born in California between 1956 and 1970 thanks to the work of a group of psychoanalysts from the United States, among whom the names of Eric Berne, considered the leader, and Thomas Harris stand out.

The GAB MODEL IN ACTION

There are three states of the ego according to Berne. Here is how to learn to understand and recognise them.

When we talk about communication, we must not forget that we primarily communicate with ourselves and our inner self.

Berne defines ego states as 'uniform patterns of feeling and experience, directly linked to a corresponding uniform pattern of behaviour'. Put more simply, they are a mix of thoughts and emotions that influence our behaviour, causing us to act in a

particular way in a particular situation.

The ego states defined by Berne are three.

- When I behave, think and feel as my parents (or other important fi gures during growing up) would have done, I am in the state of a parent.

- When I behave, think and feel on the basis of the information available to me at that particular moment and take the action I consider best and most appropriate to the situation, I am in the state of an adult.

- When I behave, feel and think as I did when I was a child, I am in the state of a child.

If we put these three states together we obtain the model of ego states, the key point of transactional analysis, which is often called 'the GAB model' (parent, adult, child), which can be represented with the diagram below.

GENITOR: defines, cares for, sets limits, gives advice, imposes, protects, teaches.

ADULT: gathers information and data related to the 'here and now', quantifies, calculates, schedules and plans.

ChILD: reacts emotionally to different situations

The GAB system is very useful in understanding how our personality has developed, why we behave in a certain way in specific situations and, above all, how we can evolve and avoid repeating thought patterns that prevent us from relating to others and the world in a positive way.

To understand this, let us first see how important each ego state is for our personality. Yes, because we need all three of these states to have a healthy, balanced personality.

The Adult represents our rational part, the part that allows us to make the best decisions for the situation we are experiencing at a given moment.

The Child recalls a traumatic childhood experience and induces the corresponding emotion, it represents our most spontaneous, most creative, most intuitive part.

The parent represents the set of internal norms and rules that have been passed on to us by our parents (or those who raised us) and which enable us to adapt to social life.

This tripartition of the human personality is very reminiscent of the psychoanalytic theory proposed by Freud, who suggested the existence of three psychic entities: the ego, the id and the superego, but unlike it, the peculiarity of transactional analysis is that it never conceives of the person in isolation but in relation to others.

The relationship is in fact the main place where we see the various states of the ego at work. When we meet someone and begin to communicate with them we initiate a series of exchanges, of signals with the other person that Berne calls 'transactions'.

That the focus of this theory is on the relationship is therefore stated by its very name, transactional analysis, i.e. the study of these transactions.

In the next few pages we will take a closer look at the different types of transactions that take place between people, how they work and above all how we can recognise dysfunctional behavioural scripts to improve our relationships with others.

Recognition, stimulation and time structuring are the basic needs for the psychophysical health of every individual.

Berne says that the basic needs for the psychophysical health of every human being are essentially three: we hunger for recognition, we hunger for stimulation, and we hunger for the structuring of time.

We need others to make us realise that we exist for them and are not a number, possibly to appreciate us and give us 'strokes'.

We want to be constantly stimulated by our environment, just as if we had a little man inside us running around our bodies shouting: "NO to boredom!".

And finally, we need to live in a well-organised reality and carry out a range of activities in it (working, going out with friends, going to a restaurant with a partner and so on).

All three of these needs are essential for man (and the child) and cannot be satisfied alone, but exclusively in exchange with the other.

Precisely in order to emphasise the need for contact with others, Berne goes so far as to assume that 'any social relationship is always more beneficial than no relationship at all'.

Let us now focus our attention on the hunger for recognition, which is perhaps the most basic of all.

Each of us has a real need to be recognised and to receive what Berne calls 'caresses' from others.

Think of the pleasure we feel when a person we met a long time ago remembers us or, conversely, the annoyance we feel when a person mispronounces our name.

Being important, having a purpose, a goal allows us to feel good.

Very often, if you ask a person who has lost their job what is the thing that makes them feel worse, the answer is that it is not so much the lack of money as it is having nothing to do, hanging around the house hoping that time will pass quickly. And why is this? Because if we do nothing, we feel like we are nothing and, what's more, in doing so, we cannot get any 'caresses' from others.

Some recognitions leave us 'free' while others limit us, at least in part. An example of a recognition that leaves us free is when our partner tells us: 'I like you exactly the way you are', which means that there is nothing in us, neither in appearance nor behaviour, that we are asked to change.

It is a completely free acknowledgement (it does not require anything in return and was not provoked by a specific event), which makes us realise that we are good people in the eyes of those we love.

An example of limiting recognition may be that of the mother who is bound to a certain behaviour.

"If you're a good boy, Mummy loves you": how often do we pass on similar messages to people close to us? We may not be so explicit, but the sense of the message is basically that. The need to be satisfied is therefore a fundamental pleasure in the relationship between us and others; when the need for recognition is not satisfied, the consequences can be very negative.

And because the need for recognition is irrepressible we sometimes behave like children who throw tantrums or mischief, for the sole purpose of attracting attention and receiving negative recognition, which is always better than nothing.

In short, if we really cannot receive a 'caress', better a 'smack' than nothing at all. Negative acknowledgements can have two consequences: they can make us believe that we are incapable or limit our spontaneity.

The more we are able to appreciate our strengths, the more we will be able to withstand criticism and lack of recognition from others.

There are some people who are just not able to recognise that they are worthwhile and do beautiful and important things. Have you ever complimented a person and that person said to you in response:

"It's nothing, it's just my job, anyone could do it," and did he really believe what he said (he wasn't, to be fair, being false modest)?

It is therefore possible that this person really feels that they have done nothing special and worth receiving a compliment for. This person is probably also 'annoyed' by receiving the compliment, feeling that they do not deserve it.

This difficulty in recognising one's own abilities and self-cultivation is accompanied by the attitude of 'I am not OK', i.e. I am not worth enough, I am nobody. To grow up healthy and balanced we all need to receive a good amount of positive recognition and learn to appreciate ourselves when we deserve it.

In the book published in 1967, but still very topical, entitled I am OK, you are OK, Thomas Harris distinguishes four existential positions.

"I am not OK, you are OK, i.e. I am ugly and bad, you are nice and good."

This is the position of Charlie Brown, the loser who is mocked by everyone, even himself, for his many inabilities.

"I am not OK, you are not OK, i.e. I am ugly and bad, you are ugly and bad."

The world is a horrible place populated by bad people and there is nothing we can do about it.

situation.

"I am OK, you are not OK, i.e. I am good and handsome, you are bad and ugly."

I am superior to you, I have merits to which you will never attain. You are nothing and you need me and my light to guide you in the right direction.

"I'm OK, you're OK, that is, I'm handsome and good, you're handsome and good."

All people are beautiful and good, the world is a beautiful place and I can give myself to others and collaborate with them without fear.

An existential position is not forever. We may take different existential positions at different times of life. The same person might also take different existential positions in different contexts at the same time of life. He might have a certain attitude in the family and an 'I'm not OK, you're OK' attitude at work. He might be content telling himself things like: 'Well, you can't have everything from life.

At least at home I feel protected and comfortable'. But why settle? We all have the right to feel OK at any time in our lives with any person, even with those who would like to make us feel not OK. The problem, after all, should be theirs (that of those who take the position 'I am OK, you are not OK'), not ours.

We all have the right and also the duty to ourselves to take the position 'I am OK, you are OK' and we can do so regardless of the position of the interlocutor.

In spite of those who believe that the only winning position is the 'I am OK, you are not OK' position, the only way to have winning relationships is to always assume the 'I am OK, you are OK' position.

When communication is effective

In the theory of transactional analysis, communication is the channel for understanding the person in front of us.

But what does communication mean?

The first axiom of communication says that 'You cannot not communicate'.

And that means that in general our behaviour is communication.

Even when we do not speak, we always communicate something. But this axiom could be read differently. That is, in the sense that communication satisfies all the needs set out in the previous chapter.

Through communication, people exchange 'caresses', thus satisfying the need to be recognised.

In the theory of transactional analysis, communication is the channel for understanding the person in front of us.

But what does the word 'communication' mean? The first axiom of communication says that 'You cannot not communicate'. And that means that in general our behaviour is communication.

Even when we do not speak, we always communicate something.

But this axiom could be read differently. That is, in the sense that communication satisfies all the needs set out in the previous chapter.

Through communication, people exchange 'caresses', thus satisfying the need to be recognised. Through communication, people exchange stimuli.

Finally, communication is the way human beings structure their time

According to transactional analysis, there are six ways in which human beings structure their time and they all involve relating to each other.

Without going into detail, these six modes of interaction represent the ways in which human beings communicate, impersonating different roles in different situations. In all six cases, actors interact with each other by asking questions and receiving answers.

Each response of the people involved in a transaction represents the stimulus for the next transaction and Transactional Analysis allows us to understand what is happening during this communication process.

At this point we need to better understand what we mean by transaction. According to Berne, the transaction is the fundamental unit of the social relationship.

To do this, let us start with an example. We enter the bar and give a big smile to the girl behind the counter. She smiles back at us and says: "Good morning, what can I get you?". This exchange represents a simple transaction.

1. Withdrawal, which is not a real form of transaction, but an activity that takes place in the social environment anyway.

2. Rituals: e.g. greeting each other when we meet.

3. Activities: a series of relationships established in view of a concrete and well-defined objective.

4. Pastimes, which are 'semi-ritualistic social conversations', such as talking about the weather with someone you barely know, in order to avoid an awkward silence.

5. Games, i.e. sequences of actions based on individual and not social programming (as in pastimes).

6. Intimacy, which begins when individual play programming becomes more intense and both limitations and secondary movements disappear a little at a time. Intimacy is the only truly satisfying response to the needs I mentioned above.

We will answer the girl's question: 'A juice and a jam croissant', and so on until we pay and leave the café satisfied. In all this time we will have developed chains of transactions.

Each response of the people involved in a transaction represents the stimulus for the next transaction and Transactional Analysis allows us to understand what is happening during this communication process.

According to Berne, the transaction is the fundamental unit of the social relationship.

Transactions may be parallel, cross or hidden.

In parallel transactions, people communicate at the same level of ego-state. For example, the bar situation described above, where the customer's Adult addresses the barmaid's Adult, who in turn responds with her own Adult.

In cross-transactions, people do not communicate at the same level of ego-state. For example, one colleague asks the other where the stapler is and the latter replies with a resounding: 'I don't know. You used it last time. But is it possible that you never know where you put things? I have told you a thousand times to put the stapler back in its place when you finish using it!'.

In this case the Adult of a person asks the Adult of a colleague for information. And the colleague instead of answering with the Adult answers with the Normative Parent.

In hidden transactions, spoken words conceal a second meaning. The classic example is the child who says that the cake is very good because he actually wants more of it, or the girl who walks past a Tiffany shop window and stops and admiringly describes a ring on display, hoping that the boy will give it to her as a present.

In companies, the lack or difficulty of communication between people is the main cause of failure to achieve objectives. In the personal sphere, communication problems are among the biggest factors of stress and malaise in general.

In Transactional Analysis theory, communication is the channel for understanding the person in front of us.

It is, in fact, during any conversation, even the most banal, like asking for coffee at the café, that our ego states meet and influence our behaviour.

But, at the same time, the risk of misunderstanding is high. This is because what we say takes on a different meaning depending on how we say it, where and when. Above all, it changes depending on the person in front of us, who will interpret it in a particular way depending on a whole set of elements that condition him or her at that specific moment.

The phrase 'Enjoy yourself, you who can', pronounced by the boss to the employee, may indeed be a wish for a good evening or holiday, but it could also mean 'What a life you employees lead, while I have to lock myself in the office and check your work!

Berne says that when two people talk to each other, it is as if they were meeting six different people (and so on as the number of people involved in a conversation increases).

This is because, in reality, the three mental states of one and the three of the other are all there, ready to intervene.

Someone said: 'Communication starts not with the mouth that speaks, but with the ear that listens'. Actually, Transactional Analysis suggests that it starts from the ego state of the speaker.

How we speak, in fact, depends on our ego state: we can speak as Adults, as Parents or as Children.

The more you are able to recognise the state of the ego that is activated in that particular context

the more you can edit it, directing the conversation where you want it.

The key word here is awareness. To interact well with others we must interact well with ourselves and, before this, we must know ourselves internally.

Awareness is the first step to change and to improve the way we relate to others.

Awareness is what makes our Adult Ego evolve and leads it to be ever more alert in its relationship with ourselves and others.

The adult ego evolves above all when it makes a commitment to itself, when it signs a 'contract of change'. Understanding oneself means accepting and loving oneself as we are and at the same time making a daily commitment to improve.

This is not a contradiction. It is only from understanding ourselves that improvement can arise. If I do not accept myself as I am and aspire to simply be different, perhaps similar to another person who embodies success for me, I only risk losing myself.

As we have seen, the main purpose of transactional analysis is to free you to be yourself to the best of your ability, to build quality relationships, because on them, as I said at the beginning of this book, the quality of your life depends.