How about prioritizing Good Manners as a Competitive Advantage?
Manish Gvalani, CFA
Leading an A-Team of Wealth Advisors and building an Unbreakable Future. I also publish a weekly newsletter covering longevity, investing, and human psychology.
Imagine being in a conversation and being interrupted even before you have finished your sentence. How does that feel?
Imagine being in a meeting and someone barging in without permission only because they thought they could. How does that feel?
Imagine being around people who want their points to be heard and resort to being the loudest in the room, compared to the one who is silent almost always until an opportune time comes for them to speak crisply and impact the audience. Whose viewpoint will you register?
Imagine being overwhelmed at work and someone noticing that and asking you if you’d like something to drink or eat or a few minutes of small talk to destress or release. How would that feel?
That would feel like a breeze brushing through your face in the midst of a heat wave. That would make you feel lighter and make you feel that there is someone respectful or thoughtful. That would slow the pace of your mind instead of rushing with emotions and feelings that are weighing you down.?
But it rarely happens many because life takes over, there are things to do, a hundred things to juggle, personal and professional lives to balance, umpteen insecurities having a tug of war in the mind for being the first to express themselves, and it doesn’t stop, weekday or weekend.
Hence, many are in a hurry to get to the point and move on to the next thing. It shows up in the following manner in their lives -
The direct outcome (first-order consequence) of this on a daily basis is Stress, which leads to emotional and cognitive biases/errors that adversely affect the execution of the job at hand or the intent they had.
The second-order consequences could be personal and/or professional stagnation, loss of youthfulness and purpose, feeling lost, or just surviving another day that goes nowhere.
You don’t want to wish this existence on an enemy, and definitely, not on yourself. So how do you ensure staying miles away from this happenstance?
That’s where Good Manners come in as a Competitive Advantage.
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If everyone around you is submerged in a deluge of thoughts and emotions, you could be the one who is everything that others are struggling to be, i.e., focused, present in the moment, organized, patient, youthful, and filled with empathy.
You can’t fake this, and you will fail even if you try.
But the only way you could do this successfully is when you realize that everyone is fighting hard to win their battles, internally and with the world, and maybe, you could help.
The utmost priority is not to expect anything in return. Just be there to help, i.e., assist/facilitate/empower/encourage/inspire/educate/lead/follow. It could show up in many ways, but you are trying to help in all its versions.
This would essentially require you to take care of your affairs first, i.e., mind and body, personal and professional to-dos for the day, relationships, and promises.?
You can’t help if you are the one needing help. But if you are on top of your game, then you could move the community ahead only because you care.
It’s like the farmer who educated everyone else around him to sow better seeds and farm in better ways so he could have his farm along with others to become the most bee-friendly haven, leading to cross-pollination and a great harvest season after season.
That’s when Good Manners becomes a competitive advantage which could bring a lot of benefits for you -
Follow the lead of Clarence Thomas, who once asserted, "Good manners will open doors that the best education cannot."