What are some ways to get people to accept and share your ideas? What strategies have worked for you in the past?

I spend some time thinking about, and formulating my idea or ideas, and what I want to communicate.

I also spend some time thinking about whether this communication is best done in person, over the phone, on social media, through a blog article, through a training template.

I have used all of the above, in different scenarios.

Timing is also important.

You need someone’s full attention and receptiveness to communicate your ideas effectively.

You shouldn’t do this when they are tired, or rushed, or in a bad mood.

Also, if the idea is opposed to an idea they hold, you want to slip it into a future conversation, rather than oppose their idea head on. Ideally, at the right moment.

I will give you an example.

I met up with an acquaintance, after I returned from a trip to India.

In talking about my trip to India, I mentioned to my acquaintance about one of the houses I had stayed in, and I said “It was so beautiful, it was like walking into an interior decoration showroom.”

The acquaintance, who like me, is a minimalist said, “Oh it seems you have a desire for a home like that!”

It was said enquiringly, but with a hint of disapproval.

I was taken aback, and I can’t remember how I responded.

But after the conversation, those words stayed with me.

While it was it was true that the house I had stayed in was beautiful, it was not true that I desired to own a place like that. How could I reconcile this contradiction?

A few weeks later, I was able to formulate my thoughts, and I realized…

“You can admire something without desiring it”.

I thought of all the things I admired, but did not desire.

It was months and months and months later, when the same acquaintance and and I were back in touch, and started having our famously long phone chats, that I decided to bring it up in one phone chat, slipping it in, when the right moment presented itself.

We were talking about finding the right words for the two of us being not frugal, not stingy, but value-conscious, and this word exercise gave me my opening.

I said “yes, we will have to figure out the right words”.

And then I told her, how what she had said about me wanting to own a beautiful place had stuck in my mind, because I didn’t have the words for explaining that it was not the case.

And then I said that I had found the words.

And I told her how, one can admire something without desiring it, and I gave her examples such as a luxury car, a book collection, a piece of art, even climbing the Himalayas.

She listened attentively, and didn’t argue, and I could tell she could see my point.

“You can admire something without desiring it.”

That’s one of the ideas I communicated successfully.

And now you know how I did it.