Win Friends and Influence People By Not Being an A**hole

For him, the hard thing to do would've been to walk over to me, gently touch my elbow to get my attention, say "hey, sorry to bother you" and then follow that up with a, "I'm not sure if you noticed, but this section of the park is strictly for runners. Fortunately, the bike path is right over there. Would you mind?"

I would have gladly obliged. 

Instead, he did the easy thing: he grabbed my by the shoulder, spun me around, asked me to look at his dumb fucking face and proceeded to inform me that, THERE ARE NO BIKES ALLOWED ON THIS PATH. EVER. EVER!! YOU GOT THAT? EVER!!!!!!!!!! EVERRRRRRRRRRRR!!!! AUGHGHHHHHHGHGHHHHHHH!!!!!

I'd been riding on that path for approximately sixteen seconds at that point, strictly from the inner-rim of the park, to the outer-rim, at which point I would then leave said park. 

Not once did he even consider taking off his Bose headphones. (Yes, headphones.)  

Because this wasn't a conversation, or even a request. 

It was a demand.

So, of course, at no point during his demand was he even going to consider giving me the opportunity to apologize and wish him a nice day. 

Immediately following his demand, he ran off into the sunset and combusted into a million different pieces. 

I wish. 

The Easy Thing

It has become practically routine for us to be assholes in everything that we do. 

And I don't mean asshole, in that: we're spitting in someone's face, making them feel crappy or anything like that. 

I mean: we could be doing so, so much more, but the effort that it generally takes to help others and to do the nice thing, is generally way, way more effort than we ever want to expend, because we'd rather be assholes. 

Because giving is hard. 

I'll give you some examples: 

1. A salesperson sends you an email, and instead of telling him, hey, cool idea, but I'm not interested, you simply ignore it. Or say, . You're wasting their time. 

2. A co-worker tells you, I'd love to become a writer one day, and you think, oh, shit, I know somebody who's a writer and who would be a great person to introduce them to, but instead of actually doing that, you forget about it the next day, work piles up on you and your kind-hearted thought, quickly becomes a relic from a past-life where you could've done something nice for somebody. 

3. A friend celebrates a special occasion, and you think, I could really go the extra-mile and write them a handwritten card, or get them some flowers. Yeah, I think I'll do that! And then you look into it for a few seconds, realize that it takes some amount of effort to do said thing, and that email that's been sitting in your inbox since Monday suddenly takes over and, 30 minutes later, you're angry and frustrated because somebody mentioned something slightly passive aggressively about the report you put in the other week and you're not even thinking about your friend anymore. Now, you're thinking about yourself. 

And that can be totally counter-productive, because it prevents us from building relationships, and relationships are hugely fundamental to, like, everything. 

Givers v. Takers

In Adam Grant's book, Give and Take, he writes about two distinctly different and opposites types of people: givers and takers. 

Takers, he argues, are generally focused on themselves and getting as much value out of a situation as they possibly can:

"They like to get more than they give. They tilt reciprocity in their own favor, putting their own interests ahead of others’ needs. Takers believe that the world is a competitive, dog-eat-dog place. They feel that to succeed, they need to be better than others. To prove their competence, they self-promote and make sure they get plenty of credit for their efforts..." 

Givers, on the other hand, have a totally different approach: their goal is to give as much value in every interaction, regardless of whether or not that other person will reciprocate. 

And in the long run, as Grant found in his research, that is far more effective: 

"Givers tend to start out with lower sales revenue and lower medical school grades. In sales, givers often put their customers’ needs above their own sales targets. In medicine, before big exams, givers are so busy helping their friends study that they fail to fill the holes in their own understanding. Yet after a year in sales, the highest revenue belongs to those same generous people, and by the end of medical school, the top grades belong to the students with the most passion for helping others." 

Giving is hard. It takes time. It takes energy. Resources, connections.

But if I've realized anything over the years, the more and more you become accustomed to giving, and simply bring value to others, the greater your access to those sorts of resources. 

And, fortunately for you, dear reader, there are a number of hyper-effective ways that you can train yourself to think exactly like a Giver in every interaction: 

1. Try to understand what they're struggling with. The easiest way to do this is to ask, what are you struggling with in your business? The hardest way is to understand their business, figure out their goals and present thoughts and ideas on how they can improve those things. Don't immediately ask, how can I help you, because, all things equal, most people have no fucking idea what you're a rockstar at, who you know or what you can do to help their business.

It's vague and stupid.

It's still a question I ask far too often. 

2. Always think, who's one person I know that they can meet that they will learn a lot from?

The more and more you do this, the better you'll get, because you'll start running into and introducing people from all sorts of different industries. Eventually, it'll become so second-hand that, within a few minutes of meeting a complete stranger, you'll have half-a-dozen people you can introduce them to off the top of your head and they'll be absolutely floored. 

3. Stop expecting shit from people. 

Nobody owes you anything. Even if you introduced them to the biggest, baddest VC in the world, interviewed them on your radio-show and helped them develop the coolest idea for a hip marketing campaign in the world, you shouldn't expect anything from them.

The reality is, though, that the more you do this, the more your relationships will grow, people will trust you and the more willing others will be to reciprocate when you actually do ask them for favors. 

Oh, and you'll be happier too. 

So, stop being an asshole. 

Do the hard thing. Be a giver.