Everyday training practices for better human relationships

Human relationships shape much of what happens in our lives, in our communities, and in the major events of the world. This site offers simple practices you can use in everyday life to become more observant, more responsive, and more effective with people.

And there's nothing for sale, no money involved.

It's what we can do here and now to help dreams come true and nightmares fade.

These practices are chosen to:

• Cost no money at all, and need no special privileges, education or equipment, so they are available to almost anyone, almost any time;
• Provide gentle guidance even for lifelong problems in human relationships - and for working with difficult people;
• Require no extra time, since they work within whatever we are doing anyway;
• Be a hobby, a business skill, a way to meet people, and/or a path toward a better world - as you wish;
• Assist personal and community success - and defense in an often hostile world;
• Be invisible if necessary, to avoid embarrassment from early failures, or to protect from bullying or other oppression.

The skills and relationships you build are yours, with no institution controlling them.

You can try the training practices below in any order. You might start with Messages, a practice in observing and listening. It helps build the attention that supports everything else on this site.

The Big Picture

Human relationships are important determinants of personal, community, and global "fate." We can improve them here and now in our personal lives - and maybe improve public life as well.

This site suggests some training practices to try. Anyone can propose others. What's important is not this list, but the framework: collecting and testing interpersonal training methods available to anyone, anywhere, any time.

About This Site

See About This Site for information on vision, education theory, privacy, contact, comments, and more. Or try some of the training practices below.

You can try these in any order, whatever works for you. We do suggest the first practice, Messages, as a starting point.

Some Personal Training Practices

• Messages
• Find the Positives
• When Telling Stories to Yourself, Consider Making Them Interesting to Others as Well
• Switch Sides in an Argument
• Negotiation Training

Community-Building Practices

• Couples, Marriage, and Friendship (bid and response)
• Note Bonding Opportunities [don't throw good ones away]
• Asking for Assistance (practice this first when stakes are small)

Incomplete and Miscellaneous

• Making a Living
• Collaboration Practices
• Dealing with Difficult People
• Advice Columns
• Cold Reading
• "What's Going On Here?"
• Study the Rich, Powerful, and Successful

This work by John S. James is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.