If You Want Respect, Do This
We can all agree that we should respect others.Respect their opinions, respect their time, respect their space, blah blah blah.Yet, I've found that few people can name discrete actions that are respectful.Let's take a typical office meeting as a quick scenario.
Try this:
- Before every meeting, ask if anyone has an obligation immediately afterward. Let them speak first so they don't risk missing anything if the meeting runs late.
- When answering a question, use an appropriate amount of detail to stay relevant to the people in the room. It'll also help prevent people from falling asleep.
- Instead of waiting for the speaker to stop talking so you can make your point, try responding to what they've said and roll it into your point. It'll make conflicts easier and it'll help others actually begin to listen to what you've said, too.
This is respecting others' points of view and respecting others' time.
2 Minute Action
Who is someone in your life you respect?Can you text/call/tell them right now?Chances are, the more you treat others with respect, the more you'll also be respected.It's hard work to do this consistently, but it's worth the effort.
4 Unintuitive Ways To Be Useful To People
One of my favorite humans, Derek Sivers, has a phenomenal talent.
It's not just that he's good at software.And it's not that he's built a huge following of fans.It's not even that he's articulate and kind and an all-around good person.Probably my favorite thing about him is how he distills complexity into palatable, pithy nuggets.It might be the single most useful thing in today's day and age.We're living in the "Age of Distraction," more than the "Information Age."Think about it, you get my email, along with how many others? Too many to count.The problem isn't having the information, it's knowing useful information from useless information. This is where Sivers adds a ton of value.Just like my list of 11 Rules That Will Change Your Life Forever, he's spent his whole lifetime (so far) breaking down concepts, books, ideas, and strategies into digestible chunks. Admittedly, he's truly a master of this.Here's his list of ways to be useful. I was surprised at how much I agree with him on some of these.
How To Be Useful To Others
- Get Famous. Do everything in public and for the public. The more people you reach the more useful you are. The opposite is hiding, which is of no use to anyone.
- Get Rich. Money is neutral proof that you're adding value to people's lives. So, by getting rich, being useful is a side effect. Once rich, spend the money in ways that are useful to others, then getting rich is doubly useful.
- Share strong opinions. Strong opinions are very useful to others. Those who are undecided or ambivalent can just adopt your stance, but those who disagree can solidify their stance by arguing against yours. So even if you invent an opinion for the sole sake of argument, sharing a strong opinion is very useful to others.
- Be expensive. People, when given a placebo pill, where twice as likely to say the pill worked when told that pill was expensive. People who paid more for tickets were more likely to attend the performance. So people who spend more for a product or service value it more and get more use out of it.
Whoa.I didn't see all of that coming, did you?
2 Minute Action:
Is what you're doing useful? Do you want it to be?Reply here with one of these rules that resonated with you and another that really surprised you.And then (the most important part) write why you might be feeling this way.