Immediate Improvement
• Stop ending declarative sentences on a higher note (“uptalking”). It makes you sound uncertain and seeking permission. Women are worse than men at this, but men do it, too.
• For the love of the epicurean gods, get a book or watch a video and learn how to use cutlery and dine properly. You do not hold a knife like a dagger in a fist, you do not use your fingers to push food onto your fork, and the bread dish is on your left, unless you’re stealing from the person on your right. It’s not a sin that you don’t know, but it is that you don’t bother to learn.
• Don’t justify every opinion. State what you believe and we’ll all consider it. But the next ten minutes of quotes, ancient Greek philosophers, books, and various authorities just make our lives that much shorter. This is a sign of massive insecurity.
• If you’re in doubt, tip. If you’re in doubt about the amount, choose the top of the range. In the long term, you won’t miss the money, and the other person will be grateful. There are two toxic personality disorders, chronic cheapness and total self-absorption. The combination of the two in a victim provides for a justifiable homicide defense at any trial.
• Stop cutting off other peoples’ sentences to insert your own views. If you are that smart as to know what they’re going to say, they you should also be smart enough to know how they will feel when you do it.
• Stop playing “gotcha.” Grow up. I have trouble accumulating deep enough disdain for people who tell me there’s a typo in my books or my web site has a wrong date on it somewhere. Ask yourself if you’re really trying to help. Informing me about a typo in a book that is the publisher’s responsibility and can’t now be changed is not for me but for you in some perverse way. (I’ve found people who track typos to be THE most boring, anal-rententive people I’ve ever encountered. And I’ll bet we get some letters here protesting that they’re providing a service.)
• If you believe it’s ethical to ask someone to endorse you—on Linkedin or anyplace else—who doesn’t know you and is completely unfamiliar with your work, then you ought to find another business, like running a Ponzi scheme (AKA: “multi-level marketing”).
• Never start a speech, conversation, or article by apologizing or denigrating what’s to come. That puts everyone off their feed.
• The only way you’re going to grow is by forming close relationships with true all-stars and people who are better at many things than you are. Stop building moats and fortifications around your ego.
© Alan Weiss 2013
