It’s that time of year again. There’s a good chance you have holiday or year-end celebrations ahead, and a high probability you’re negatively anticipating—maybe even dreading—being with a family member or two. A politically-charged climate only makes this 10 times harder.

Last week’s tip focused on 10 negotiations pitfalls. This week offers a very specific checklist to use at your next negotiation. Live by each tenet and you’ll distinguish yourself not as a “good negotiator,” but as someone who negotiates from and with trust:

You may know the parable about two monkeys and one banana that vividly illustrates the way negotiations usually play out. Being monkeys, they both want the banana. They struggle briefly and the banana gets ripped in two. One proceeds to peel his half of the banana and eat the skin, while the other throws away the peel and just eats the meat inside.

Last week’s post on faking it less reminded me of a phenomenon I once read about called “Athlete Talk.” Not sports talk; this is different. I find myself guilty of it sometimes, and wonder if you do too.

I caught myself faking it last week. She who prides herself on “getting real.”

It was—what shall I call it—an unexpected kind of morning on the heels of very little sleep for a lot of people (myself included) as a result of watching U.S. election returns until the wee hours.

Last week’s tip about untrustworthy sales language got me thinking about another problem with conventional sales/influence training: a plethora of bad advice about how to “overcome objections.”

I’ve borrowed the headline for this week’s tip (“How (NOT) to turn ‘suspects’ into ‘prospects’”) from the title of a recent article shared by a well-respected sales training organization. I added the “NOT” and some choicely-placed quotation marks as an act of rebellion against the words they chose. Why the fervor?

Astronaut Chris Hadfield opens his TED Talk with this question: “What’s the scariest thing you’ve ever done?” He then recounts being outside on his first spacewalk—i.e. floating around in the vacuum of space—when his left eye went blind, immediately followed by his right eye.

When it comes to personal risk-taking, most professionals operate in the mode of “less is more”—consciously or otherwise. That’s too bad, because there is no trust without personal risk.

Last week, I shared a two-question test to help you discern when it’s effective to shift gears from listening to advising/problem-solving (“Am I confident I really understand the real issue?” and “Am I confident they’re really able to hear me?”). This week, I’ve got specific tips to help you accurately and confidently answer the second question. You might be surprised at how often you miss some or all of these cues.