Right Attitudes

Ideas for Impact

Social Skills

Making the Nuances Count in Decisions

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Making the Nuances Count in Decisions Holding your tongue and withholding a definite opinion is often more prudent than being rapid-fire because the topic at hand may compel a bit of nuance.

These frazzled and frenzied times are the antitheses of active inquiry. No one pays attention. Not anymore. The open-ended conversation quickly devolves into spewing ill-considered opinions. Active inquiry and thoughtful dialog lose out.

No need to shoot your mouth off in response to negative emotional triggers. It’s okay to be ambivalent about some things. It’s good to be skeptical about what you think you know. That’s where the nuance begins.

Idea for Impact: Reality is often more nuanced than you may realize at the moment. Take the time to consume information more deliberately, allowing shades of meaning. Seek first to understand.

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The #1 Learning from Sun Tzu’s Art of War: Avoid Battle

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The #1 Learning from Sun Tzu's Art of War: Avoid Battle

The Art of War, Chinese strategist-philosopher Sun Tzu’s treatise on military strategy, is studied not so much for the advice it gives but for the state of mind it encourages. Developed in only six thousand Chinese characters and 25 pages of text, this way of thinking has held vast sway in such fields as military planning, strategic management, and negotiating. “Every battle is won or lost before it is fought.”

Something exceptional about the Art of War is the extent to which it’s devoted to methodically avoiding battle altogether. War isn’t something to be entered rashly or for petty reasons. “A sovereign should not start a war out of anger, nor should a general give battle out of rage. While anger can revert to happiness and rage to delight, a nation that has been destroyed cannot be restored, nor can the dead be brought back to life.”

'The Art of War' by Ralph D. Sawyer (ISBN 081331951X) Nor is war’s dominant purpose to cause physical destruction to an enemy. Instead, the pinnacle of military skill is to conquer one’s opponent strategically—by penetrating his alliances, rattling his plans, and coercing him diplomatically—without ever resorting to armed combat. “Why destroy,” Sun Tzu poses, “when you can win by stealth and cunning? To subdue the enemy’s forces without fighting is the summit of skill.”

Sun Tzu’s insistence that an enlightened strategist can attain victory without fighting echoes the foundational Taoist doctrine of “non-action (Wu-Wei.”) Armed conflict, therefore, is the last resort. War in itself represents a significant defeat. As a matter of course, Sun Tzu allocates a good chunk of the Art of War to the line of combat and attack. A savvy general must, however, take every accessible measure to gain victory swiftly, with minimal casualties and suffering for both sides. “The best approach is to attack the other side’s strategy; next best is to attack his alliances; next best is to attack his soldiers; the worst is to attack cities.”

Again and again, through implication, Sun-Tzu’s war document posits peace and restraint—the avoidance of battle—as the utmost victory. To fight at all, Sun-Tzu insists, is already a substantial loss, much worse than losing in war.

Idea for Impact: The Art of War is a worthy course on conflict management because avoiding confrontation requires more remarkable skill than winning on the battlefield.

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Stop Trying to Fix Things, Just Listen!

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Just Listen, Don't Solve Their Problems In these distraction-packed times, it’s harder than ever to create the mental and physical space necessary to really listen—actively listen—to another person.

A common listening pitfall is trying to have all the answers. Instead of fully hearing out a friend, you’re scrolling through your brain, being all frustrated that this problem has an obvious solution and concocting a hasty fix.

As a listener, your most important job is to listen with curiosity and immerse yourself in the person’s message. Just try to understand the person and listen to their feelings. Validate their suffering, take their perspective, and let them know you understand. That’s often what people want most.

Idea for Impact: To be a better listener, talk with each other about the ways they’d like you to give support. People have different ways in which they prefer to seek and provide support.

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You Need a Personal Cheerleader

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You Need a Personal Cheerleader Many people credit some of their success to others who believed in them and urged them on when their confidence waned.

A personal cheerleader could be a companion, friend, or family member who believes in you, takes an eager interest and encourages you, and helps lift your self-confidence, even if they raise some practical questions.

This cheerleader could indeed be a mirror through which you can see yourself. Somebody who encourages you to process and think through your experiences and reframe mistakes as opportunities to learn. Somebody who can help you notice things you do well, however small.

Idea for Impact: A personal cheerleader is pivotal to a meaningful, resilient life. Curtailing negative self-talk is difficult when you’re trying to build your self-confidence.

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How are You: Always Have to Say ‘Good’

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Don't ask 'How are you?' if you're not going to listen with genuine respect and interest

“How are you?” is usually meant less as an actual question and more a greeting-on-autopilot—a casual call-and-response.

The unwritten rule of conversation is that you’re expected to reply with nothing more than a declaration of utter satisfaction with life.

People aren’t usually interested in hearing the real answer. Responding with a “Well, to be honest, I’ve been kind of down today. Had a bad day at work” could be a faux pas. You aren’t supposed to burden every interlocutor with your situation, particularly with people who aren’t close.

So “how are you?” isn’t a bad thing to say at all—most of the time. But, there’re occasions, readable with empathic awareness, when you shouldn’t ask someone how their day is going unless you’re going to listen to their response with genuine respect and interest.

Idea for Impact: Showing that you care about people can do wonders, but if you don’t care, don’t feign that you do—people can see through it.

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How to Be Better in a Relationship: Assume Positive Intent

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One secret to good relationships is to assume positive intent.

This applies to all sorts of personal and professional relationships—even chance relationships, such as customer service dealings.

Assume Positive Intent When You're Feeling Angry with Someone Whenever you’re upset—even repulsed—by somebody’s off-putting behavior, try to push yourself to allow for the possibility that the perpetrator’s intent was fair, well-meaning, and wholesome. In other words, seek the least malicious explanation for their behavior.

Instead of getting irritated and judicious, if you pause to reflect and reconsider their actions by stepping into their shoe, you may see if you’re misconstruing what they’re saying or doing.

Assuming Positive Intent Can Herald a More Informed Vantage Point

When you assume positive intent, you get more insight into their actions and choices. Stepping mentally outside of whatever is happening to you right now allows you to assign it some context and mull over its significance. Possibly the other person is having a bad day. Maybe they are culturally or emotionally tuned to think and behave in a particular way. Perhaps the situation harks back at an earlier incident where they’ve been hurt and, therefore, are trying to protect themselves?

Assuming positive intent overcomes the human tendency by which we judge and rationalize our actions versus others’: when we make mistakes, we often blame the situation’s circumstances rather than take responsibility for the error. When others make mistakes, we tend to over-emphasize their role in mistakes—we blame them quickly and challenge their intentions.

You Can’t Change the Past, But You Can Change Your Perspective About It

Giving people the benefit of the doubt helps you identify the details of their situation. Assume the person causing your problem is giving it their best shot. Seek to understand. Empathize. You may be surprised to learn something that you hadn’t expected.

Positive Intent is the Foundation of High Trust Your whole outlook on a problem transforms when you follow this approach. Becoming aware of your unconscious responses can allow a calmer, kinder response to conflict and frustration. It makes it easier to assimilate information and commiserate with people you’d rather not listen to.

How many misunderstandings, disputes, frustrations, and misgivings could be forestalled this way!

Idea for Impact: Assume Positive Intent. It’s the Foundation of High Trust. It’s a Huge Game-Changer.

Until proven otherwise, assume positive intent as you go about your day—even when somebody cuts you off in traffic. Misunderstandings will happen and can be resolved with reality-testing and understanding, grace, and dignity. Assuming positive intent allows you to retreat from the narrow, restrictive perspective that can aggravate the situation into two negatives fighting one another.

Now, then, assuming positive intent does not mean naïve goodness or unassertive deference to everything that’s happening to you. Beware blind optimism. Don’t overlook patterns of deliberate ill intentions and fundamental incompatibilities with their outlook on life.

Being pleasing and agreeable and wishing the best for everybody could blind you into refusing to accept the bare facts of an unfortunate situation and overlook others’ excesses. A noble view of the world is not always helpful. Sometimes problems are best nipped in the bud.

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A Short Course on: How to Find the Right Relationship

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  1. How to Find the Right Relationship Know yourself—what you want and what you don’t want. Having clear goals can help save you from being caught up in the moment and disregarding what it is you really want and need.
  2. Have good boundaries—they’re how you should take care of your needs. Identify what’s healthy and what crosses that line.
  3. Appreciate your value, and expect respect. Faults become thick when respect wears away. Assess concord in how you both approach openness, sincerity, and conflict resolution.
  4. Get out there and meet a wide range of people. Be persistent in your search for the right relationship. Give people a fair chance. No one can be perfect. So, think about how you’ll work around their imperfections.
  5. Don’t put people in a box, especially when there isn’t actually a box that characterizes who they are. Let yourself and the other person be who you each are. Don’t deny their individuality; be open to being surprised.

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Let Go of Toxic Friendships

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Let Go of Toxic Friendships Friendships are an integral ingredient of happiness, and they often help you feel better—but not always. Some friendships are just bad for you.

Occasionally, you can fall into the trap of hanging onto unhealthy relationships because they’re familiar—even when you’re constantly let down. Worse yet, ‘ambivalent relationships’ can cause you more anxiety than being with people you actively dislike.

It takes two to define a friendship. Relationships are grounded in social exchange, and with unbalanced friendships, the other draws more from the “friendship bank” over time than they care to put into it. If you’ve set clear expectations and boundaries, and the other isn’t consistently sticking to them, perhaps it’s time to re-evaluate your relationship.

What you get out of your friendships ultimately affects your physical and emotional health. It pays to focus your attention on strengthening healthy relationships and letting go of toxic friendships.

Luckily, most friendships are not too difficult to escape. Downgrade the friendship. Make yourself less accessible. If the relationship isn’t very close, merely drift apart.

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How to Reliably Tell If Someone is Lying

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How to Reliably Tell If Someone is Lying There isn’t one reliable behavioral cue that consistently reveals that a person isn’t telling you the truth, but the most expected sign of dishonesty is evasiveness.

Does the other person evade answering direct questions or declare, “I don’t know,” “that’s about it,” or “I don’t remember doing that?”

Instead of making direct denials, do they seem to have been caught off guard and take more time to think up a believable response?

Idea for Impact: To detect a lie, listen and pay attention. If lying is nothing more than communicating false information, dwell on what’s being said. Does it make sense? Does it align with other facts you’ve mustered or anecdotes you’ve heard? Do the answers to your probing questions stand up to scrutiny? Does the story begin to shift?

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No, Reason Doesn’t Guide Your Politics

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“The human mind is a story processor, not a logic processor,” observes the American political scientist Jonathan Haidt in The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion (2012,) a captivating voyage of discovery of the social psychology of politics and ethics. Haidt makes a compelling case for why reason and logic aren’t what people use to contend with problems and steer through to the right answers.

Most people’s politics tend to be ill-informed. People don’t engage in deep causal thinking about the consequences of their favored political positions. Information and analyses tend to provoke—not calm—their preconceived judgments.

No, Reason Doesn't Guide Your Politics

Reason is Motivationally Inert

As the Scottish philosopher David Hume noted in his masterful Treatise on Human Nature (1739,) “Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.”

Reason becomes subordinate to the passions that have come to life in people’s tribal allegiances and their confirmation bias. People are prone to making decisions derived from instinctive, emotional, and fast thinking of psychologist Daniel Kahneman’s “System 1,” not the slow, logical deliberations of “System 2.”

Most people feel good about sticking to their guns, even if they are wrong. They tend to read newspapers, periodicals, blogs, and social media feeds to settle ever more comfortably into their preexisting beliefs. They use their tribes’ “notice boards” not to reassess their established opinions but to have them validated, comforted, legitimized, and intensified.

On the rare occasion that they do converse with someone or read something they may disagree with, they don’t revaluate their judgments, let alone change their minds. They merely use reason as a weapon to discredit contrasting evidence, spot others’ flaws, and convince them that they are wrong. Consequently, reason doesn’t bind but drives differing people apart.

Idea for Impact: The Opinions You are Blind to Could Be Your Own

Be conscious of the internal conflicts brought on by your passions. Seek and assess the counterevidence. Incorporate these counterarguments and strengthen your positions.

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