Best New Year Change

Don’t think too much about what the start of a new year actually is. Think a lot more about how it can help you organize yourself. The passing of a planet past an arbitrary point on it’s orbit is unremarkable. It is something not worth noting. Yet we do. Humans seem to like beginnings and ends to things.

You will see a lot of new year advice. There are the oldies to make a resolution. Be a better person. There is the more modern remove anyone or anything that doesn’t serve your purpose. These are ok. If you don’t want to think too hard they work for you. If you surround yourself with a bunch of people who think just like you and don’t challenge you, nobody will get in the way, even if they should be. For a long time yes-men were looked down upon. Oh, how times  have changed.

All this to say, maybe there is a bit more to the celebration of the passage of time. Maybe this isn’t a time to make changes but to look inward and see who you really are and what you really want. 

I’m finding that you need to put your stuff out there, amongst people who don’t always agree with you if you want to grow. Honestly, I’ve known this for a long time. But how do you get people who differ from you to hear you out in a world where so many people are quick to drop anyone from their life who doesn’t unilaterally support them? How do you get people to open up to you?

First, you need to look at how you approach interactions. It matters less who is right or wrong and more about how people feel interacting with you. No matter who you are speaking with and what you are speaking about, it is critically important to try to leave them thinking that even if they don’t agree with you, they felt heard. They felt like they could share their thoughts and answer follow up questions. The last part is a lot more critical than you realize. If people don’t feel like they can clarify their position, then they probably won’t have a good feeling about the interaction. They will not feel seen and they are less likely to engage with you in the future.

Most people know that not all of their ideas will be accepted and incorporated. However, they want to have a chance to share them. If you don’t give people a forum to speak, they will take their best ideas elsewhere.

Second, you need to subdivide your message into manageable bite sized pieces. You may have the best idea in the world but if it is presented in an overwhelming manner, almost nobody will take it in and spend some time pondering it. Human attention spans have always been short. With the current access to information and the ability to quickly switch it off or move on to something new, most people’s attention span will not be getting any longer. So you need to get them hooked quickly and make a part of your point succinctly. You will often need to elevator pitch someone. Admittedly, I don’t love this. I enjoy long-form story telling. I like losing myself in a long story from someone else. But most people tune out and move on quickly, even if there are only two of you in the room. Know this and use this.

Third, it has to generate a response. You have to make them care. You can talk to me until you are blue in the face about New Zealand’s corporate tax scheme. I will never provide feedback no matter how well you present it and how important your issue is. I don’t live in New Zealand, it just doesn’t really matter. 

So, what should you put out there to help you look inward. You need to look at how you make decisions. This is central to anyone’s character. When given choices, what do you choose. What are your guiding principles. What must be preserved above all else? You need to think about these things. You need to understand what your decisions really do. You need to know that people will be looking at what you prioritize and why it matters. This is who you are. It does’t matter what slogan you put on the wall, it matters what you do when you are faced with a decision. It matters what you put first in order to get what you want. 

If you want to do the impactful new year activity, look at how you make decisions. It will make the biggest difference.

Meet People Where They Are

 There has been a definite emphasis on boundaries. In the last few years a lot of people are setting boundaries and not doing things that they shouldn't be doing. This is a good thing and it helps protect people from harmful situations. However, it can go overboard and I'm seeing a trend where people are not having decency, or are being tribal in the name of boundaries.

You always have a decision how you interact with other people. If you feel what they are asking is too much, you can decline to engage. This can be a great idea and will protect you in some situations. If what you are being asked to do can cause physical harm, is illegal, is morally ambiguous, is over-stimulating, or is socially unacceptable, please don't do it.

However, if you are setting boundaries to make it easy for yourself or because you are simply being lazy, while this is your choice, you are only going to make it harder on yourself in the long run.

You need to meet people where they are.

You need to change your approach to get through to people. You need to change your approach to draw people in to your way of thinking. You need to be the difference maker in the interaction to get what you want now, and in the long term.

All this is contingent on people understanding delayed gratification. Doing the hard stuff now and everyday will one day make life a lot easier. It will make you indispensable and you will be able to command how things go because, you have their trust, you have their attention, and you have their answers. You have all this because you met them where they were. You have this because you made the first step easy and now they are on a journey that they like because of you. You have this now because you made the effort.

Effort, maybe that is the difference these days. Maybe the secret sauce is just keep trying. You don't have to be perfect, you just have to keep moving forward and putting out the effort. It will put you in a place to shape the world around you because you are meeting people where they are.

Success comes to those who do the work. The work is really just putting I the effort on a consistent basis. Being consistent is hard at times and getting out of your comfort zone is even harder but, if you consistently meet people where they are, you will be their hero and you will move them forward. Over time, this will all come back to you so many times over. It isn't a quick fix, it isn't revolutionary, it is really just a slow easy way to make a difference and get what you want.

Being Bad

I don't really know why bad people do bad things. I think they may to advance their cause or ruin someone else's day.

Yesterday during the Boston Marathon a device exploded in the finishing area. This is terrible. It's wrong. There is no way to describe it any other way, and their shouldn't be.

All that being said there is something good people can do.

There are a couple of images of Fred Rogers floating around the internet with the following quote "When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.'"

It made me thing a bit. This is what I realized as I read that. The bad people will try to do bad things, sometimes they will be stopped, sometimes they will be successful. That's not the important part. What really matters is when the bad people do bad things good people help each other get over it. Not because we have to but because we want to.

If we can help each other when it matter then they can't win. It becomes less effective because we lean on each other to get through it and we do it not because we have to but because we want to.

I'm not saying we want tragedy so we have a reason to help each other. We should be doing that every day. I'm just saying when these bad things happen we just have to change how we help each other.

So, the next time something bad happens, if you are in the position to help someone somehow, help them. Don't do it because you have to, do it because you want to and we will take the power away from bad people.