A model to replace jerks with people who improve your life

by Joshua Posted on May 22, 2013

[Today is the fifty-first in a series on daily and weekly beliefs that improve my life and may improve yours, in no particular order. See the introduction to the series and the value of flexibility in beliefs for background.]

Who hasn’t had to deal with an annoying coworker? Or boss? Or family member? … someone you couldn’t get away from and had to treat respectfully, no matter what you felt about them?

I once worked on a consulting project for a company with a difficult-to-work-with (to put it mildly) CEO. He was friendly before the project started, and you could see how he brought in clients, but I found him overbearing with his team.

Soon after the project started I decided to leave, since why bother working with someone I didn’t like working with. But before leaving I thought, “If I leave every time I don’t like a coworker or boss, I’ll have to leave a lot of companies. That won’t help my life.” I had just finished business school where I supposedly learned how to work in business. This was my chance to put those skills into practice in real life.

I already wrote my belief that social skills are among the most important to develop. A major part of learning them is practicing them.

Difficult-to-handle people (jerks) are how you practice and learn. Exercises like I post here help start the process. I design and share ones that are safe and easy to do, to start the process. Practicing on friendly people in regular life helps and challenges you more than practicing in alone or in a safe context.

But practicing with difficult people challenges you the most. If you don’t like working with them, they’ll help you grow the most. Normally the idea of seeing challenging people as helpful may normally sound odd, but I hope it makes sense in this context.

If you want to build muscles, working with only light weights won’t help much. The heavy weights strengthen you most.

If you want to run fast, sprinting as fast as you can gets you that last bit of speed.

If you want to learn an instrument, playing scales helps, but you learn the most from the most challenging pieces.

Of course the heavy weights, sprints, difficult pieces and so on work best when you build up to them. If you use them unprepared you can set yourself backward. I take for granted on this page that you use things effectively. Or that you can find a coach, trainer, or equivalent.

If you want to develop social skills, the most challenging people are like the heaviest weights. If you agree with me on the value of social skills, difficult-to-handle people help you the most.

A model to make difficult people so helpful you’ll want to thank them: Difficult-to-handle people are like the heavy weights in a gym: they help you develop the most.

Back to the challenging CEO I had to deal with. Once I decided to use working with him as my chance to practice in regular life what I learned in business school I started to look forward to seeing him. Not like I looked forward to seeing a friend, but like I looked forward to going to the gym. Like I was going to work out.

Seeing working with him like exercise meant I prepared for meeting him by reviewing what I’d learned. It meant reviewing interactions afterward to figure out how to improve for next time. It meant seeing ill feelings afterward like soreness after working out — it meant I was growing.

The result? While I wouldn’t say he became a close friend, I came to look forward to seeing and working with him. After a while we developed a working relationship and finished the project.

But the major result came afterward. I felt confident I had developed and refined some important social skills and wanted to move to the next level. Like a successful weightlifter, I wanted to move to heavier weights.

Crazy as it may sound, I consciously looked for a harder-to-work-with person to work with. To my surprise, I couldn’t find a bigger jerk! What I learned from him applied so broadly, I found I couldn’t find anyone that could annoy me as much as he had a few months before.

Did the rest of the world change? No, I did. I could handle people better than before.

I first thought of him as a jerk. Now I don’t think of him as a jerk. Nor do I think he was a jerk then. On the contrary, I look at myself as having limited social and business skills then. I took responsibility for improving myself. I improved myself, but the result feels like I improved my world because now my world has fewer jerks in it.

(I feel funny that I wrote “I couldn’t find a bigger jerk” above because I don’t think of him as a jerk anymore. I now interpret someone calling someone else a jerk to mean they have poor social skills.)

I look back at my time with him as one of my periods of greatest professional growth. It happened in a professional environment, but what I learned applied to all types of relationships.

When I use this belief

I use this belief two times. The first is when I face someone I don’t like working with. I ask myself what I can learn from this person. Then I look at them like a weightlifter looks at heavy weights — a challenge, not pleasant, but necessary for maximum growth.

The second is when I suspect I might feel too proud about my skills. I know someone out there can push me past my limits, so I look for someone to take me down a notch so I can learn again.

What this belief replaces

This belief makes jerks with your best teachers. It replaces frustration with discovery and personal growth.

Where this belief leads

This belief leads to a life devoid of jerks. It fills your life with people who improve it.

What more could you ask for?

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A model for what makes a great story

by Joshua Posted on May 21, 2013

[Today is the fiftieth in a series on daily and weekly beliefs that improve my life and may improve yours, in no particular order. See the introduction to the series and the value of flexibility in beliefs for background.]

Storytelling seems so common to all cultures it’s probably in our genes to like a good story. We love hearing messages in the format of a story. If any has given you advice on how to give a presentation, someone probably told you to make it like a story.

Storytelling skills are a universally useful and attractive social skill.

So what makes a great story?

Why do we like to listen to some but not others?

I don’t claim to be the best storyteller, but when I started the personal development kick I’m still on, I organized a group of like-minded people to meet and practice storytelling. I figured the skill would benefit everyone no matter their goals or field. Getting the group to meet wasn’t that hard, so I imagine people saw the benefit.

I read a bunch of books on storytelling for ideas and suggestions. I used to think plot and theme were the main elements of a great story, based on what teachers asked us about books growing up.

These books suggested otherwise. I boiled down several books’ suggestions to what they all agreed on.

A model for what makes a great story: CCSG: Characters, Conflict, Struggle, Goal

All the books agreed, and I’ve found, that characters make the most important element of a story. If you wonder where to invest time into your stories, you almost can’t go wrong giving characters depth, detail, motivation, and such. If your characters have no richness or motivation, people lose interest.

Most stories have main character and an antagonist. Often the antagonist is more interesting, but we side with the main character.

As you describe the characters, a conflict almost always emerges. If they don’t have any conflict, you end up just describing people and a series of events. That might not bore people, but they won’t get hooked like when they learn of a conflict. For some reason we want to know how it plays out.

The struggle among the characters is what most people consider the plot. Usually most of the story plays out there.

Achieving a goal makes the story feel complete. Without it people feel cheated or consider the story empty.

Put those four elements together and you’ll have a decent story, even if you make it up on the spot. Leave any out and your story will feel incomplete or empty.

Like I said, I’m not the best storyteller, so I don’t claim my word is final here. I’m sure people can tell great stories without this structure, but I find when I use it I don’t lose people.

One of the easiest things to add to make it funny is to talk for the characters in a funny voice. Or to react in character.

The structure is only one part of a story, but it’s a big part. Other things include how you use your voice and arms, your confidence, timing, and other things. But I find this structure one of the quickest things to learn to improve with.

When I use this belief

I use this belief when starting to tell a story to think about how to structure it. If I don’t know, I focus on giving richness to the characters at the beginning. That description usually reveals a conflict. Once the conflict emerges, people are hooked.

I often use this structure when creating presentations.

What this belief replaces

This belief replaces for most people just recounting a series of events without exposing the underlying conflict that would hook people to hear the struggle and goal with a structure that does hook people.

Where this belief leads

This belief leads to more engaging stories. Since people in all cultures like stories, storytelling is a universal social skill.

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A model that explains why your enthusiasm when planning disappears when doing

by Joshua Posted on May 20, 2013

[Today is the forty-ninth in a series on daily and weekly beliefs that improve my life and may improve yours, in no particular order. See the introduction to the series and the value of flexibility in beliefs for background.]

Scene 1: You plan something big. You’re excited. You know there will be challenges, but you also know you’ll overcome them. You will do what it takes no matter what.

Scene 2: You started the project but it petered out. You don’t know what happened to that feeling of invincibility, but it’s gone.

What happened? How did you lose your motivation? Why didn’t your willpower work?

Today’s model answers.

A model that explains why your enthusiasm when planning disappears when doing : Your emotions react to what perceive in the moment. When the moment changes, your motivation changes.

When you’re planning, you’re comfortably thinking about what you could do, which isn’t the same as doing it. You’re also thinking about the great consequences. Thinking of doing the project takes moments and suddenly you’re thinking about the great results you’ll get.

Doing the project takes time and requires overcoming the challenges. The need for motivations kicks in then. But you’re in a different time and place, perceiving different things. Your motivations now are different than then.

Motivation comes from your perceptions of your world in the moment. Our ancestors evolved motivations to react to their world in the moment. If a lion starts chasing you now, you better run or hide now. Not a moment later.

Facing actual obstacles evokes actual discouragement you don’t feel when imagining obstacles.

Your emotions react to what perceive in the moment. When the moment changes, your motivation changes.

Psychologists call this effect “empathy gaps” and it’s a popular study now.

Empathy gap examples

  1. Trying to make a hot shower fast on a cold morning. Even if you were in a huge hurry to get to work on time before the shower, feeling that warm water will motivate you staying in that shower.
  2. Trying to eat healthy when surrounded by rich food. Whatever your diet plans, we evolved motivation to eat rich foods.
  3. Distance running. It’s easy before starting a ten-mile run to say you’ll run the whole way no matter what. By eight miles your motivations may change.
  4. Maintaining an exercise plan. When you plan to get in shape you feel relaxed. A rainy day exhausted from the office discourages you from going to the gym.
  5. Not getting angry. Before talking to someone who always pushes your buttons you can easily say you won’t take their bait. When they’re pressing your buttons you don’t think, “I’ll drop my plans.” You think “they need to learn a lesson and I’m the one to teach it.”
  6. Waking up quickly when tired. You might say before getting in bed, “I’ll wake up quickly tomorrow no matter what.” You wake up to different perception, so your motivation changes.

Strategy

Overcoming empathy gaps isn’t easy. You don’t always realize your environment is changing so you can lose your motivation without realizing it, just thinking you’re behaving consistently with your environment.

One strategy is to know about the effect. When planning, remember how your environment will change when you’re trying to go to the gym after a long day at work. How will your willpower work then? What can you do to prepare for feeling discouraged?

Another strategy is to observe empathy gaps in others, where the effects are easier to see. Their change in emotion might not happen with you. Then you can better understand the effect.

Another strategy is to build on experience. When you sense your emotions have changed, note how the change feels. consider how you can prepare for it next time.

Also, build experience by creating empathy gaps and overcoming them. Marathon training helps me prepare for marathon-like obstacles because the motivation to climb a hill at twenty-miles is like the motivation to keep my patience with someone antagonizing me at work. Overcoming one prepares me for overcoming the other.

A big strategy is to change your environment. When you don’t feel like doing something you told yourself you wanted to before, simply changing your environment can change your motivations. Getting up off the couch, turning off the TV or computer, and changing into your workout clothes may do the trick.

Another big strategy is to change your beliefs. Your beliefs filter how you perceive your environment. My model for processed industrial food is that some major corporation is trying to deceive me to make money at the expense of my health. Whatever pleasure their products might give me, I don’t want to do business with people like that. I don’t even want to increase demand for their products. So I don’t eat them.

When I use this belief

I use this belief when planning something that will require motivation in a difference context than when I’m planning.

What this belief replaces

This belief replaces losing motivation in the middle of a big project with preparing for it and knowing you can do something about it.

Where this belief leads

This belief leads to foreseeing, preparing for, and handling emotional challenges more effectively.

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A model to think deeper

by Joshua Posted on May 19, 2013

[Today is the forty-eighth in a series on daily and weekly beliefs that improve my life and may improve yours, in no particular order. See the introduction to the series and the value of flexibility in beliefs for background.]

Have you gotten to consider and tackle the important things in your life? Do some important issues still elude you? Do you still spend time in the unimportant parts of life? Or even when on the important parts, do the urgent fires take more of your time than you want?

Urgency
Importance Important, not urgent Important, urgent
Unimportant, not urgent Unimportant, urgent

Today’s belief helps you get to those topics.

A model to think more deeply: You think on the time scale of what distracts you.

When you’re thinking about an idea that takes five minutes to understand it but something distracts you every two minutes, you’ll never fully get that idea. The distractions could be email, kids, colleagues, or anything. Most television shows keep you from thinking about anything at all.

The most important distraction is how much your mind wanders. If you can’t keep your mind still for more than a few minutes, the most complex ideas you’ll be able to understand will be few-minute ideas.

Distractions aren’t always a problem. When you’re riding a roller coaster or playing sports you’re living in the moment and probably don’t want to think about complex ideas. No problem.

But if you never take any time to free yourself from distractions and slow your mind down, you’ll never tackle or even understand some important issues. Your life will lack richness and complexity.

Can you sit still without any distraction for ten minutes? Five?

Strategy

This belief leads you to realize how distractions and an unfocused mind limits you from understanding important things. It leads you to

Identify and limit your distractions. Then learn to slow your mind down.

Meditation, yoga, rock climbing, hiking, walking, and things like that give you the chance to think beyond few-minute ideas.

When I use this belief

I use this belief when I realize I haven’t thought about rich, complex ideas in a while. If my schedule feels busy and I feel like I’m doing a lot of work but not getting a lot done, it usually means I’ve gotten distracted from important things by unimportant things.

What this belief replaces

This belief replaces distraction with focus, unimportant things with important things, reactivity with leadership, and busy-ness with relaxation and flow.

Where this belief leads

This belief leads to a life with more meaning, value, importance, and purpose (MVIP).

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My Seminar on Leadership Through Emotional Intelligence and Self-awareness in four evening sessions starting June 17, 6:30pm-9:30pm in New York

by Joshua Posted on May 18, 2013

I’ll be leading the next session of my leadership seminar in New York in June.

I’m experimenting as four three-hour evening sessions

  • Session 1: Monday, June 17
  • Session 2: Wednesday, June 19
  • Session 3: Monday, June 24
  • Session 4: Wednesday, June 26

I’ll give the same full attention I do for a weekend session.

Sign up here. Here’s the course description:

What You’ll Learn

If you don’t know how to lead, you can only do what you can do yourself. If you can lead, you can achieve anything anyone else did with a team. Even if you want only to live a quiet, happy, rewarding life you still have to lead yourself.

The more you know how to lead, the more you are in control of your life, career, and relationships. The less you know how to lead, the more your life, career, and relationships are out of control or controlled by others.

Whether you want to lead only yourself to an authentic life of integrity by your values or teams of others to great things, you need to know how to lead yourself first. When this book talks about leadership it always includes leading yourself – that is, choosing and creating your life consciously and intentionally through self-knowledge.

In a four-session seminar, learn how to develop your personal leadership skills, self-awareness and emotional intelligence using the latest advances in cognitive behavioral science, evolutionary psychology, and positive psychology.

The instructor has taught this course at the Columbia Business School, NYU-Stern, Parsons The New School, INSEAD, the New York Academy of Science, London, Shanghai, and elsewhere.

What is Modern Leadership?

Top universities, business schools and corporations are increasingly focusing on personal leadership, self-awareness, and emotional intelligence as foundations for leading others. Few have had the opportunity to take a formal course in personal leadership since they tend to be available only through corporate training, business schools, through personal coaches, and similarly limited and expensive places.

Joshua Spodek, MBA, PhD, has developed an independent, experiential course combining advances in cognitive behavioral science, evolutionary psychology, and positive psychology with successful business leadership practices.

Takeaways

Benefits of the course include improved:

  • Personal leadership skills, particularly self-awareness and emotional intelligence
  • Interpersonal skills of a business school leadership class, such as decision-making, negotiation, perceiving others, influence, motivating others, and teamwork
  • Ability to transform your greatest challenges into both professional and personal growth
  • Awareness of your values and what brings you meaning, purpose, importance, and happiness, both professionally and personally
  • Ability to focus on what is important, professionally and personally, decreasing time and resources wasted on unimportant things
  • Ability to experience reward from your efforts
  • Calmness, patience, and understanding

You will leave the course with tools to continue your development on your own as well as a network of like-minded people, both as resources and for accountability. The course also makes all other leadership resources – books, videos, seminars, etc – more valuable through better understanding their foundations.

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A model to help you get more out of traveling and to save money traveling at the same time

by Joshua Posted on May 18, 2013

[Today is the forty-seventh in a series on daily and weekly beliefs that improve my life and may improve yours, in no particular order. See the introduction to the series and the value of flexibility in beliefs for background.]

Most people I share today’s belief with seem surprised or even shocked when I express it. Probably because the way I say it — that I don’t like traveling — seems contrary to something nearly everyone values. Also, I travel a lot and talk about how much I get out of it.

If I have to travel, I’ll find ways to make it amazing, but if I don’t travel I can make staying home just as amazing. The best way I know to put it is through one of my favorite passages of the Tao Te Ching, which describes how the opposite of traveling opens opportunities unavailable to those who don’t learn to stand still.

A model for traveling: You can learn as much from your next-door neighbor as anyone else.

From the Tao Te Ching:

Learn how to stand still
if you want to go places.
Get on your knees
if you want to stand tall.
If you want wisdom,
empty your mind.
If you want the world,
renounce your riches.
Push yourself until you’re exhausted,
and then you’ll find your strength.

You can go far
if you don’t have anything to carry.
The more you acquire,
the less you can really see.

Most people view traveling as an unqualified good. You learn about the world, other cultures, other people, other food; you learn about yourself, your culture, and so on.

I agree you can get these things while traveling, but I believe you can learn as much from your next-door neighbor as from anyone else in the world — whether from Paris, in Machu Picchu, on the pyramids, in the jungle, or anywhere. People are people around the world. No matter where you go, you’ll always find certain similarities. Likewise, between any two people you’ll always find differences. No matter how similar your next-door neighbor is to your, and their background to yours, they’ll always have differences you can learn from.

Sure you can find differences between foreigners and you, but those differences are harder to find when there’s an Eiffel Tower in the background. Most people go to where famous sites are, which means they’re interacting less with what might be different. I believe that if people go to where famous sites aren’t, they’ll find people more like the people back home.

If you think you can learn more from people in different cultures than you can from your neighbor, I believe you haven’t learned how to learn from your neighbor yet. Which means you aren’t getting as much out of travel as you could.

That said, I recognize some things only travel can bring you. Travel exposes you to different parts of nature — different plants, animals, geology, climate, and so on.

Also, if you do learn to stand still, you can get things out of traveling you can’t from staying in one place, though while traveling you don’t get what you could from staying in one place. Again, I don’t see traveling is an unqualified benefit. The only way I can is if I devalue what I get from staying in one place. Maybe I spoiled myself living in as diverse a place as New York City, but then I value diversity. I figure someone who doesn’t would get as much from where they chose to live. Unless they chose a place to live they don’t like. In which case traveling will cover up and possibly extend the misery they’ve inflicted on themselves for choosing to live in a place they don’t like. Again, I think they would do better for themselves by staying in one place, realizing they don’t like it there, and moving.

In today’s world, traveling usually involves putting a lot of jet fuel or gasoline into the environment. I don’t like polluting. Also, coincidence or not, when I leave New York City, I almost always get invitations to awesome parties I miss for leaving.

When I travel, I tend to travel for work, when someone wants me to, pays for it, and gives me time to explore while I’m there, not just work.

When I use this belief

I use this belief when deciding if I should travel or not.

When I travel, I use this belief to get more out of the experience.

When I don’t travel, I use this belief to get more out of staying where I am, generally as much as I would get from traveling.

What this belief replaces

This belief replaces feeling compelled to travel with the freedom not to travel, knowing you can improve your life just as much without it. It replaces feeling like you lose out when you don’t travel with the opportunity to benefit from your neighbors.

Where this belief leads

This belief leads to traveling more purposefully, learning more from your neighbors, and getting more out of your travels.

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A model to help get you in better shape

by Joshua Posted on May 17, 2013

[Today is the forty-sixth in a series on daily and weekly beliefs that improve my life and may improve yours, in no particular order. See the introduction to the series and the value of flexibility in beliefs for background.]

Today’s belief counteracts a common trend I see about exercise. I forget if I’ve written about my impressions of seeing five-kilometer walks in Central Park with water stations and ambulances. While I support being prepared, I can’t help but wonder if the suggestion that a five-kilometer walk could be a health risk might stop more people from exercising than these walks promote.

I’m sure there are people for whom walking five kilometers could be a risk, but I imagine they would know it enough not to try. Humans lived before cars and I can’t help but imagine there used to be a time when nearly everyone walked more than five kilometers daily.

Today’s belief comes from the many times when I’ve felt sick, sore, tired, hungry, depressed, or in any way less than enthusiastic and happy and still managed to exercise. Or times it’s been raining, too hot, too cold, too far, too early in the morning, too late in the evening, too anything less than totally convenient.

I don’t remember ever regretting exercising. However hard to motivate before, I’m always glad I did after. However physical the activity, I’ve never permanently injured myself. I’ve never hurt myself more exercising as much as I hurt myself sitting on the couch.

I should note I didn’t always feel this way. Growing up I didn’t exercise much. I was chubby. My parents didn’t promote sports much. I was scared to go to the gym until I started getting good at Ultimate because I though people would make fun of me. My sisters and I watched a lot of television after school growing up.

Strategy

Find reasons to exercise. Could this be simpler?

A model to help get you in better shape: Exercise never hurts one’s life and it usually helps.

Whenever I’m trying to decide if I should exercise or not, I know I’ll never regret choosing to exercise. I always feel better after I exercise. It’s almost an unqualified good in my life.

By exercise I don’t necessarily mean changing clothes and going somewhere. It could mean walking somewhere instead of taking the subway. Or taking the stairs instead of an elevator.

I don’t even exercise that much. I do burpees twice daily, but I think of that as a part of regular life, not exercise. I don’t belong to a gym. My running shoes are barefoot style, not fancy. I don’t have much workout clothing.

I just find getting my heart pumping improves my mood. And I like how my body feels when not covered with fat. And I like participating in sports with others. Those are the only reasons I exercise. But mostly because it makes me feel good.

Oh, and when I’m in shape I feel more free to eat whatever I want.

Oh, and I think it keeps me from getting sick. Or rather, when I have a cold, allergies, fatigue, or other things that keep me from homeostasis, exercise always helps restore it. And if I have a cold, upset stomach, or something annoying or painful that takes time for my body to overcome, it never hurts while I exercise and I recover faster. I haven’t found lying in bed as effective in overcoming sickness as getting my heart pumping.

When I use this belief

I use this belief when I’m deciding between exercising or not.

What this belief replaces

This belief replaces not exercising with exercising. It replaces indecision with surety.

Where this belief leads

This belief leads to feeling better, eating better, and living healthier.

EDIT: I just did fifteen push-ups just for the fun of it.

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A model to get more sales and to stay calm under pressure

by Joshua Posted on May 16, 2013

[Today is the forty-fifth in a series on daily and weekly beliefs that improve my life and may improve yours, in no particular order. See the introduction to the series and the value of flexibility in beliefs for background.]

Do you want to get more sales? Even if you don’t sell anything, you probably propose things, pitch things, apply for things, and so forth. Do you want to be more successful there and to close more?

I learned today’s model in sales class in business school, but it applies to many cases — nearly any situation where you try to persuade someone of something nontrivial they have to agree to.

Think of anything you bought for more than pocket change. Take the clothes you’re wearing now, for example. I bet for at least a couple of the items after you were pretty sure you would buy them but before you did, you had objections. Maybe you wanted to make sure the price was right, or the fit, color, or whatever. But you still bought it.

When you’re selling, pitching, or influencing, objections near or after you thought the deal closed can be incredibly frustrating. Losing your composure then can lose you the sale.

Today’s model helps you keep cool at times like that.

A model to get more sales and stay calm under pressure: An objection is a statement of an unmet need.

People buy things to meet their needs. A big part of sales is communicating that what you’re selling meets their needs. An inevitable part of any sale is that, no matter how much you think you covered everything, before signing they will always object about something.

Many people get frustrated. “How could they not understand?” “I already explained that to them!” “Why didn’t they mention that before?!”

Today’s belief overcomes this frustration. It says that

An objection is a statement of an unmet need.

Instead of being frustrated, this belief tells you they are still interested (they wouldn’t have objected if they didn’t care). It doesn’t mean they disagree. If you listen and follow-up right, you have a good chance at getting the sale. They want you to get the sale.

When I use this belief

I use this belief when I’m in sales mode and somebody objects to whatever I’m selling. I also use this belief when preparing my presentation. Since I know they’ll object with something at the end, I don’t have to get every last thing in the presentation. I know they’ll ask me if I miss anything.

What this belief replaces

This belief replaces the frustration of thinking the objections criticize my product with the expectation that addressing unmet needs at the end is part of the sales process.

Where this belief leads

This belief leads to greater sales and increased ability to influence and persuade.

Posted in Awareness, Blog, Entrepreneurship, Leadership | 2 Comments

A model to get in fewer arguments and influence more effectively

by Joshua Posted on May 15, 2013

[Today is the forty-fourth in a series on daily and weekly beliefs that improve my life and may improve yours, in no particular order. See the introduction to the series and the value of flexibility in beliefs for background.]

Do you get in more arguments than you’d like? Do you feel like people don’t understand you and you have to explain yourself a lot in these arguments?

I can’t stop all your arguments, but today’s belief and strategy will cut down on them.

It will also increase your ability to influence.

A model to argue less and influence more: No two people completely agree on what’s right, wrong, good, or bad and they resist when you try to get them to agree with you

People intellectually get that others have different values, but they often forget when they want someone to agree with them. They often find conflict when one want to help the other person. Trying to help often deepens the conflict, despite their best intentions.

Some people condemn the belief that morality is not absolute, pejoratively labeling it “moral relativism.” Yet I’ve never found two people who agree on all issues of what is right, wrong, good, bad, or evil. Even people who agree on some tradition or book as the source of what they consider right, wrong, good, bad, or evil still disagree on major points.

People seem comfortable with moral absolutes on issues others agree with them on. They seem to want others to change, but not themselves.

When we lead or even just work in teams, we have to face others’ values and recognize they disagree.

Strategy

Whatever system you have of right, wrong, good, bad, or evil, nobody seems to mind as long as you keep it to yourself.

So what do you do when you have to communicate your ideas?

An exercise I made up for fun once helped me a lot. Before doing it I thought it was too superficial to make a difference, but it ended up influencing me a lot.

The exercise is simply not to use judgmental language. Why not try it for a week? I started by avoiding the words good, bad, right, wrong, and evil. I later included should, ought to, balance, better, worse, improve, and some other words.

What made a big difference in this exercise for me was finding I could substitute “I agree” and “I disagree” for “right” and “wrong” and “I like” and “I don’t like” for “good” and “bad.”

Judgmental words
 Example Non-judgmental words
 Example
Right “You’re right.” Agree “I agree with you.”
Wrong “You’re wrong.” Disagree “I disagree with you.”
Good “The President’s policies are good.” Like “I like the President’s policies.”
Bad “The President’s policies are bad.” Don’t like “I don’t like the President’s policies.”

This seemingly small change in language had a few big effects:

  1. I realized communicating opinion communicated values better than communicating judgment.
  2. I got in fewer arguments.
  3. People communicated more openly with me when I used non-judgmental language.
  4. Judgmental words seem to imply absoluteness that opinion doesn’t.
  5. I realized how often people impose their values on each other, often without meaning to or realizing it.

When I use this belief

I use this belief when I find myself imposing my values on others — that is, judging them.

What this belief replaces

This belief replaces judgment with opinion, argument with seeking understanding, imposition with consideration, and push-back with discussion.

Where this belief leads

This belief leads to fewer arguments, greater understanding and empathy, and more effective influence.

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A model to help accept things without judgment or feeling sorry for yourself

by Joshua Posted on May 14, 2013

[Today is the forty-third in a series on daily and weekly beliefs that improve my life and may improve yours, in no particular order. See the introduction to the series and the value of flexibility in beliefs for background.]

Do you find yourself feeling sorry for yourself and not like feeling that way? Do you get depressed or feel helpless when things don’t go your way?

Do you wish you could take things in stride better so you could move on from or solve problems and get on to better times?

A model to help accept things without judgment or feeling sorry for yourself: “Good thing bad thing, who knows?”

Here’s an old story that comes in many versions (here are seven, dating back to before most existing religions), but I learned from Srikumar Rao‘s book Are You Ready to Succeed (text edited from this blog).

An old man lived happily with his son. One day, the old man used all his savings to buy a young wild stallion, a beautiful horse for breeding. The day he bought it, the horse jumped the fence and ran off. The neighbors sympathized. “How terrible!” they said.

“Good thing? Bad thing? Who knows?” said the old man.

Ten days later the stallion returned. It came with a whole herd of wild horses that the old man was able to corral. “What good fortune!” the neighbors said.

“Good thing? Bad thing? Who knows?” said the old man.

His son started to train them. One threw him and stomped on his leg. It healed crookedly and left him with a permanent limp and pain. “Such misfortune,” said the neighbors.

“Good thing? Bad thing? Who knows?” said the old man.

The next summer, the King declared war, forcing all the young men from the village into the army. They spared the old man’s son because of his injured leg. “Truly, you are a lucky man,” exclaimed the neighbors who cried over the loss of their own sons.

“Good thing? Bad thing? Who knows?” said the old man.

I come back to this story and its lessons all the time. I can’t change what happened in the past. Calling a past event good or bad doesn’t change it. The model that we can’t tell if something is good or bad serves me better than labeling things I can’t change. It brings me freedom to live my life rather than categorizing or labeling things.

I find accepting (or celebrating) things without judgment and moving ahead with the situation as-is more productive.

Alternative perspective

Imagine you’re a pianist, conductor, actor, or some other performance artist. You’re performing in front of an audience. If you prefer, imagine you’re giving a business presentation. While playing, acting, presenting, or performing you make a mistake. You play the wrong note, miss a cue, … whatever.

You know you did something you consider wrong or bad. What do you do?

For the audience and probably yourself, the worst thing you can do is stop or call out that you made a mistake. In most cases, the best you can do is recognize it’s in the past, you can’t change it, you have other notes to play, continue in the moment you’re in now, and keep playing.

The same follows for the rest of life. Whatever happened that you didn’t like, once it’s in the past you can’t change it. It exists in the present only in people’s memories, all the more so for the more you dwell on it.

When I use this belief

I use this belief when something happens a way I don’t like. Instead of categorizing it as right, wrong, good, or bad, I skip judging it. It happened and I can’t change the past. All I can do is act in the present.

What this belief replaces

This belief replaces judging and evaluating the past, dwelling in it instead of figuring out what to do in the present, and disagreeing with people over how to label events of the past.

It replaces feeling sorry for myself with living my life.

Where this belief leads

This belief leads to freedom from past events weighing you down.

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