Welcome to cd one track for most people occupy or experience encounter states.

Here's the sober reality that follows talking about the excitement of action
states. Sure. IT's nice to chat about and imagine getting all the things we
want for ourselves and others. IT's excITing to visualize leading people to
strong decisions and to plan for outrageous success. But it's sobering to
remember that we don't typically encounter people there when we first walk up
to them or when they first walk up to us or when we first get a hold of them
on the phone.

For most of us, we often initially encounter people in a range of emotional

states that could best be described as either negative or neutral, or mildly
positive. Most people we meet throughout our daily lives are caught up in
their daily drama. Certainly, I know a number of people who are happy and
content, but I know a lot more people than that who are discontented,
distracted, busy, annoyed, exasperated, depressed, angry, stressed out,
frustrated, undeserving, self critical, and more. And I bet you've had or have
had the same experience I have had here.

I even know a number of people who from the outside looking in ought to be
blissfully happy. But for whatever reason, whether it's senseless or the
reason is just hidden from public view, they're not happy at all. How many
stressed out people are ready right now to take on a whole new project that
would require their time? Not many, right? How many highly self critical
people are going to believe a strangers compliment enough to want to date
them? Not many especially for the stranger complemented them on is exactly
what their self critical about how many angry husbands are going to be
interested in spending money on a second honeymoon? Not too many.

How many exasperated wives are in the mood to offer their husband and massage?
Not too many? How many unhappy managers are going to offer their employees a
huge bonus? Not many. How many people run into your store already frothing at
the mouth to buy one specific product? A specific model at your existing
price? Not many. The point here is that very few people are in those action
states. When we first encounter them, we're going to refer to these less
resourceful initial states as encounter states. And since emotional influences
all about learning how to move people from encounter states to action states,
we are not going to be able to do that well unless or until we begin to
understand certain principles behind emotional communication, we need to
become more emotionally intelligent.