Our personal growth and evolution are highly dependent on how well we connect with our fellow humans. Connecting with others makes us feel safe, feel loved and makes us live longer.
Day 15 of the 28 Day Self-Growth Plan
How to Make People Like You in 90 Seconds or Less by Nicholas Boothman
First, I need to express gratitude for how thrilled I am that I have emerged from the “money & career” week. I’m not knocking it. That’s just not where I am. There have been moments in my life where that was my focus (hence the fact that I had already read 5/7 books offered). And occasionally I dip my toe back in for a little refresher, focuser, ass kick (typically a quick Gary Vee podcast will do it). So, going seven days straight with those summaries became a bit…tiresome.
However, this exercise isn’t about doing what I do when it is fun or easy. It is about building a discipline. Therefore, I feel good about making it through and I am not sorry I combined the last two days OR that I am more excited to move into week three – Love and Sex.
I am glad I was excited. The title of this first offering put me off. The beginning and end of the summary made it better. The middle, not so much.
I’ll explain the put off first.
- “Make people like you”
- “Anything that increases the common ground and reduces the distance between you and the other person is a good thing.”
- “…synchronization gives off the illusion that you deeply relate to the person’s concerns and share their feelings.”
Just yuck. All of that sounds like manipulation and fakery. I can’t get down with either of those things.
But excitement can often lend itself to optimism and that is exactly what has happened here. I noted that I was, in fact, reading a summary. I am well aware that certain ideas can lose their nuance sans context. Because of all the other things I appreciated about this text, I am giving up the yuck to the assumption that context would make it better. Could I be wrong? Sure. It’s worth being wrong to pull the lovely out of the message.
And it was lovely.
Nicholas Boothman identifies two attitude types – Really Useful or Really Useless. Yes, they are capitalized and I kinda love that.
The importance for the Really Useful Attitude is established in the importance placed on connection. This is where I found all the lovely and the inspiration.
The truth is no one can live a quality life in isolation; we need other people to survive. Our personal growth and evolution are highly dependent on how well we connect with our fellow humans.
Quality. Need. Connection.
I feel this in my bones. I have seen it repeatedly. It has changed dramatically in my own life.
I made 44 this year. I absolutely love that. I always answer the “how old are you” question proudly. I was more excited than anyone I know to turn 40. I own all my time, all my years, all my experience. I enjoy the journey of getting older.
And there are things you aren’t quite ready for – things that you wish someone would have told you about so you could be ready. And maybe they did, and you just couldn’t hear it because you can never be ready.
Things like the way your lipstick starts to feather, maintaining a pant size becomes more difficult, sleep patterns shift, patience waxes and wanes in various areas, number of fucks given start to decline, hormones shift, tolerance changes, boundaries move.
You think you are controlling these things, but it is different. Age changes things on a molecular level and you cannot control that. You just have to accept the movement and figure out how to make it work for you.
I made a lot of changes when I turned 40. Damn near all of them. As I look back, I am shocked I made it out as well as I did. It was reckless…”damn the torpedoes” comes to mind. But I did it and it created an overarching shift in everything. Everything. Every. Thing.
At first, I surrounded myself with all the people. I was scared and unsure. I needed distraction and acceptance. That required all the people. This worked fine for me because I have always been extroverted (you’re shocked, I know).
It didn’t last long. The brilliant words of my therapist kept ringing in my ear. “The intensity of the need for distraction increases with the intensity of avoidance.” Yeah, she is THAT good.
If I was going to reclaim my life, I had stop avoiding it. I had to go deep to figure out what the hell was going on. I spent a lot of time there.
I still spend a lot of time there. I have learned a lot about boundaries, energy, intention, authenticity, influence, and relationship. The result has thankfully been that I am more comfortable with myself. The byproduct has also been that I am less comfortable with people. More correctly, I am less comfortable with Useless Attitude people.
In the beginning of the pandemic, I did not leave my home for nearly three months. This is a thing I have never done, come close to doing, or even considered. It was interesting. Most notably, I enjoyed it – a lot. It provided a large chunk of time for me to establish what I would do if I had to do nothing. It enabled a period of clarity that was both eye-opening and comfortable.
The pandemic also created a lens through which we could see other people. A new form of interaction that I can only label as “combative compassion” emerged. It was distressful for me. It is still distressful for me. It also loosened a bit more the hold other people’s opinions have on my mental wellbeing. Lines drawn became so hard as to be unrealistic. Judgements became so singular as to be unfair. The idea of “pigeonholed” reached ridiculous heights.
Attitudes became Useless. Caring for people became a hammer. My ability to people plummeted.
But relationship is so very important. Quality. Need. Connection.
Then it occurred to me while reading this summary that I could, in theory, apply these principles to myself. Connect with myself, listen to myself, impress myself, synchronize with myself, create a Really Useful Attitude towards myself. Make me like myself in 90 seconds or less. Then put that energy out into the world in a way that is open to connecting with like energy. I know there is a lot of it out there. Instead of focusing on being more peoply, I will just be useful and focus on being people ready.
That seriously reduces the yuck.