An employeee-employer relationship is a common example of this as your salary as an employee is generally fixed. You don’t really get appreciated for taking a smaller salary, so the way that you can be a 40-60 person is to do more than a person in your position is expected to!

What You Can Do At Work

Here’s a few ways you can accomplish that at work:

Produce more than your position demands – Your number one purpose when hired is to accomplish a certain task. Therefore, try to be more efficient and accomplish more in the time that you have. If there’s some extra time at work when you’ve done your assignments, take some initiative and ask for more work! Aggressively seek things that nobody else wants to do but definitely needs to be done. Seek ways to do things faster and better.

Produce a better quality product – On the same note, if no extra work is available immediately, you can use your extra time to produce a better product. If you are a software engineer, you can look over your code and make sure it’s bug free. If you are a construction worker, you can make sure the wall you put up is polished and clean looking as well as sturdy!

Offer other people your help – Of course, your time might be better spent investing into the relationships at work. After all, you might need other people’s help in the future. You can offer to help other people with their projects instead of sitting back and relaxing. It’s a way of doing more work, but doing it through other people!

Have a better attitude – You can also give more emotionally than a person in your position demands. Is there a nitty customer that drives everyone nuts? Maybe you can make the company more money by being calm with him and listening to his needs. Is there a coworker with a lot of problems? Smile, be patient with him, and help him solve his problems. The positive emotional energy generated is reward on its own!

Seek out new sources of information and improve yourself – When there really isn’t anything you can do or help with at that particular time, you can always try to improve yourself to prepare for the next task. Read articles and magazines regarding your field. Read some books on interacting better with people. Make it so that you can accomplish the same task you did this time in 1/2 the time next time around!

What You Get For Your Extra Efforts

By being generous and taking on more responsibility, you generate goodwill with your coworkers and more money for the company. The next time a raise opportunity comes around, who will your manager give more to – you, a person who did more than his fair share, or someone else who only did his “fair share” of work?

Also, when your manager moves on, who do you think will take over his responsibilities? A person who doesn’t know what’s going on and nobody really knows, or you, someone who everyone likes and does all the work?

By being generous, you put yourself in a position to take advantage of new opportunities – in this case, raises and promotions.

Hey, even if your company doesn’t appreciate your efforts, maybe a competitor will hear of you and give you the salary and position that you deserve!

The Problem

In the deal, we’d acquired a website but without the license, which we’d understood would come later. However, the seller, not quite understanding that the software on the website required a license, wasn’t aware of it as part of the deal. As a result, he didn’t have the license and didn’t want to buy a new one, leading to an unpleasant situation where we needed to collect $300 from a person who didn’t want to give it!

This is probably a relatively common situation that everyone experiences at some point in their lives! You lent money to a friend and he doesn’t want to pay you back. You did some extra work and the employer didn’t want to pay you extra. You bought a product online and didn’t get it. Learning to handle this situation better would be very beneficial since it happens so often!

What Happened

Normally, in these situations, we’d just forget about it and not really worry about it. Unfortunately, in this situation, the seller kept telling us that he would give us the license and that he’s working on it. We tried asking and there were always little progress that he’s somehow working on it. We set deadlines and they were just ignored. We tried settling it but that didn’t work either!

Finally, the seller just ignored us after continuously promising us that he’s not arguing and that he’ll do it!

How Generosity Would Have Helped

So in the above scenario of what actually happened, we expended a lot of effort and didn’t really get any results! Not only that, but it made the seller stop talking to us, preventing him from bringing us further deals.

Let’s consider a more generous approach though! Say when the seller asked us about it, we could have simply said that since he feels the licenses were not part of the deal, he doesn’t have to pay for them. What a difference that would have made!

Instead of an angry seller, we would have one that would be more open to our perspective and eager to do more deals with us. Since each deal is like $6000, $300 is only a small portion of the amount. And since we are buying websites at that price, we make a significant return on it!

Instead of trying to make him pay us $300, we could have allowed him some way to create $300 of value for us.

Not only would it have made us more money in the long run, it would have allowed us to keep him as a friend who’ll possibly sell us websites for the entire duration of his life! Isn’t that worth just a little more than $300 we didn’t get?

The Negotiations Situation

Imagine there are three research companies A, B, and C. Because they’re in such an important field, the government is giving them a grant, but it’s structured a bit strangely! The companies are presented with the being able to pick only one of the following options:

Company A+B = $600,000
Company A+C = $800,000
Company B+C = $1,000,000
Company A+B+C = $1,100,000

Pretend you are one of the companies, what is your strategy to maximize your returns?

A Company Value Analysis

Because the government grants contracts to each pair of companies, each company has a certain value in the government’s eyes:

Company A = $200,000
Company B = $400,000
Company C = $600,000

You can do a quick check to see that these add up to the totals for the contracts above!

Of course this means that any of the companies can work with any of the other companies and come to this theoretical value for the deal. For example, Company A can work with Company B or Company C to get their $200,000 fair share. Or, the three of them can work together and split the $100,000 difference somehow ($200k + $400k + $600k = $1.2 mil, which is $100k more than the $1.1 mil offered by the government!)

So what’s the deal that should result?

A Loop For The 50-50 People

This is an interesting situation that presents a loop to the 50-50 people, assuming that everyone is going for these theoretical company values. Company A can offer Company B $400,001 and only take $199,999 to try to get the deal. However, Company C can in turn offer Company A $200,001 while Company C takes $599,999. Knowing that offer though, Company B might offer Company C $600,001 while Company B takes $399,999. But then Company A can….

This situation just never made sense to me in college. Wouldn’t the loop just go on forever and ever?

As I asked this question, the results for the class came in and a variety of deals developed. Some with Company A taking $150,000 and Company B taking $450,000. Some with Company B taking $380,000 and Company C taking $620,000. Some with Company A taking $210,000 and Company B taking $390,000. It all seemed so random!

The part that just kept bugging me was, why would Company B choose to take $390,000 when Company C is probably offering him $400,001? Wouldn’t it make sense to switch over to Company C’s deal?

Think about the situation for a second… what would you do?

How The Solution Makes Sense In The Context Of Generosity

After an hour or so of talking with the professor and my classmates, the answer to the burning question of “What does Company B get in exchange for that $10,001 difference?” finally emerged. It is… the deal! That’s right – by taking $10,001 less, Company B was able to secure the deal!

For some people, they’d probably much prefer to be in the situation where Company B took $450,000 and Company A took $150,000. However, in the long run, it might actually be better to be taking the $390,000! By taking $390,000 as opposed to going for the $450,000, Company B significantly increases the chance of getting the deal! Besides, life is a series of such “free” pies that are created. That $10,001 can bring a lot more of those!

Even from the perspective of the deal at hand though, by getting a deal, Company B gets $390,000 extra. By losing the deal, it gets nothing. It only needs to increase its chance of getting the deal by 1/400 in order for that $10,001 “loss” to be justified! This is not to mention the goodwill Company B would get from Company A by giving that $10,001. If such a situation arises again in the future, Company A might just go straight to Company B and not even talk to Company C! That’s what generosity does for you!

However, do note that this tradeoff does level off at some point. For example, if Company B only took $10, either the other companies would pretty much accept immediately. In this case though, it’ll need a lot more deals to make up for the $399,990 it missed out on!

This is not to say that’s necessarily a bad choice, as maybe it knows that there’ll be a $10,000,000 grant next year that it’ll need the goodwill of the other company.

Either way though, the main take away is that less than $200k/$400k/$600k may be the optimal choice for each of the respective companies!

The Solution When Everyone’s Generous

There is that special option where all three companies get some money though. However, it requires that the three companies each give up something and not get their “full” amount. It is a perfect example of how everyone benefits if they are generous! If each of the company is slightly more generous than 50-50, then they’ll all feel great accepting that slight loss so that everyone can be happy!

In the end, if they all cooperate and give a little extra, they get a bigger pie to share. If they do not, then they’ll have to fight over a smaller pie and one of them gets nothing! Not a bad reward for cooperating right?

A Situation To Test Your Generosity

Imagine yourself in a business venture with a friend. It’s new, it’s innovative, and you’re just completely excited! As a result, the business does really well and makes you a ton of money! Now suppose your friend gives you a blank check and asks you to split that money any way you want. That’s right – you get to pick your share and his share!

In glee, your first thought is probably whether you should take all the money. After all, he asked you to do it! If he’s willing to give it, why not take it right? Hmmm… but maybe he would be pissed off and force you to give a fair share…

Maybe you can take a little more than 50%, an amount that he barely cares about and wouldn’t really argue over. Perhaps 52%? He’s not going to give you crap for taking an extra 2% right? And with that 2%, maybe you can buy an engagement ring for your girlfriend…

On the other hand, he is your friend, so maybe you should give him his fair share. Being what you feel is very generous, you graciously decide to make it 50-50. Whew… he gave you a chance to be greedy, but you resisted! Good job!

Now, what if I told you that it might be better if you only took 40%?

Say WHAT??? Take less than 50%? Maybe you think I made a typo.

No really, take 40%. You’ll most likely make more money.

Yes, make more money.

The Nature Of Wealth

It doesn’t seem to make any sense on the surface. Let’s say the business made a million dollars. 60% of it is $600,000. 40% of it is $400,000. $600,000 is greater than $400,000. So how are you making more money by taking $400,000? Like, what?

Before going into the reasoning for that, let’s take a look at the nature of wealth in general.

Let’s assume Person A has some corn, and Person B has some apples. Person A got sick of eating his corn and wants some apples and Person B is in the same situation with apples and wants some corn. A field of apples is worth $1000 to Person B but $2000 to Person A. A field of corn is worth $1000 to Person A and $2000 to Person B. Therefore, Person B gives Person A some apples and Person A gives Person B some corn. They both become happier (see Do You Get Money?).

Before trading, Person A has a field of corn worth $1000 to him and Person B has a field of apples worth $1000 to him. Total wealth: $2000.

After trading, Person B has a field of corn worth $2000 and Person A has a field of apples worth $2000. Total wealth: $4000.

By trading, $2000 of wealth is created out of thin air.

This is also what happens when two people work together. One person brings a certain skill set, and another person brings a different skill set. Together, they accomplish things that neither of them could have alone. As a result, while Person A alone can make say $1000 and Person B alone can make $1000, together they might be able to make $3000 having expended the same amount of effort (see How To Get Your Partner To Do More Work).

So the real question here is how to divide up that extra $1000 of value created through both people. So 50-50 right? Doesn’t that sound really fair? Well, here’s why taking $400 might be better than taking $500.

How Being More Generous Makes You More Money

Assume for a moment that you are now the partner of the person and he took 60-100% of the money. How would you feel about it? Wouldn’t it feel kind of like he screwed you over? Wouldn’t you want to look for someone else who can maybe be happy with 50-50? Or god forbid give you a little more? How would you react the next time this person wants to work with you?

By taking more than your fair share of the money, you make other people annoyed. They despise you. They think you’re petty. They want to get as far away from you as possible. Sure, you got your extra 10-20% this time, but who’d ever want to work with you again?

Now, let’s say he picked 50-50, which is probably what most of the world runs on. “Not bad!” you think, “that’ only fair!” If you find a good deal again though, you’ll probably shop around see who’ll do the most work for their 50% cut. Hey, plenty of 50-50 people out there right?

Now, what if your partner offered you 60% of the money? Boy would you be eager to jump on board and start working hard! After all, you’re getting a bigger part of the pie! Would there be any question of who you’d want to work with?

Think about this for a second… how many 50-50, or even say 55-45 people, are there? Doesn’t that describe most of the world?

And who would they want to work with? Other 50-50 people, or you, a hard working 40-60 person? If word got out that you’re a generous person who’ll give other people more than their fair share, you can expect all those people to come knocking at your door!

With so many more offers to chose from, isn’t it more likely that you’ll find a better opportunity? 40% of a $1 million dollar opportunity is certainly much more than 60% of a $100,000 opportunity! Oh, so is 40% of 100 different $100,000 opportunities!

What you trade off as a smaller portion of a deal is greatly made up by more deals and better deals.

In this way, not only are you wealthier in money, you’ll also be much wealthier in friends!

The more I think about this concept, the more important and astounding it is to me. So many events in my life that didn’t make any sense now suddenly does. It resonates with me strongly both emotionally and logically!

To better understand this concept and spread it to other people, I will write an article once a day for the next 30 days to demonstrate this idea in action!

An Interesting Problem

Pretend for a moment that you are a kid playing in a sandbox with some other kids. You are all running around, laughing, having fun! Yay!

They’re all a lot of fun, except for this one kid in the corner who is pouting all the time. He’s mean So for the most part, you stay away from him and let him beat other kids up. So far so good!

One day, some adults came over and gave everyone some toys to play with. In glee, you run over to your little model train and start playing with it. Whoosh, whoosh, clank, clank. Heeheeheehee!! Lots of fun!

All of a sudden, yoink! The big bully steals your model train and starts playing with it!! How dare he? You got it first! You run after him demanding him to give it back, but he just keeps running away and ignoring you!

Some Solutions To the Problem

In anger, you consider your options… What can you do to get that model train back?

Option 1: You can just let the bully have the model train. Maybe getting that train back isn’t that important after all. There are other things to play with!

That would be soooo unfair though! It was your model train first so you should get to play with it! Besides, it would set a bad precedent for the future and show him that he can bully you around! You’ll lose even more model trains in the future! You certainly can’t have that!

Option 2: You can try to take it back from him. Yeah… that’d get you your train back and teach him a lesson! Happy at your idea, you assess your chances. The first thing you notice is his bulging muscles. You then look at your weenie arm and conclude that your chances aren’t quite as good as you’d first thought! You’d probably end up on the ground with a black eye and not get to play with your model train! Still… might be worth it just to get a few punches in!

Option 3: Scream and yell at him, which you really feel like doing right now. Doesn’t seem like that’d get your train back though! Still an option to consider… you know you’d feel better!

Option 4: Tell the adults about it and “tell” on him! Yeah! That’d work! Hmmm… none of them seem to be around though!

Option 5: Talk to him and try to reason with him. Maybe that’d work if he was listening, but messages don’t appear to be actually reaching his brain at the moment. He practically never talks and just sits in his corner sulking anyway! Better not try… you’ll probably just end up getting your butt kicked!

Uh oh, you seem to be out of options! Hmmmm, all of them seem to have some sort of problem, with you not getting your train and feeling angry or even worse, ending up on the floor bleeding. Now, if there was just some way to solve the problem!

The Other Solution That You Can’t See

In school, they teach you that you have to do well in class. They tell you that getting an A is good, and getting an F is bad. After a decade or two of this, you get used to the idea of having to solve the problems they shove at you. The thing is, nobody ever told you that in real life, you don’t actually have to be there if you don’t want to! Instead of coming up with the right answer, you can change the problem!

Imagine that Bill Gates took a chemistry exam and failed. Some teachers walk up to him and say, “You FAILED! These answers are horrible!! You will never make it as a chemist!” Do you think he’d care? He’d probably be like, “Okay, so?” and continue making his billions of dollars. Doing well in school being a good thing is based on the assumption that you are trying to solve the “get ahead in school problem”!

In school, people give you problems to solve and you solve it. In life, you set your own problems to solve! You don’t ever have to do anything! Of course, most people like to solve the problem of “staying alive for some period of time” (which incidentally triggers the idea that the desire to exist is the basis of all meaning).

So how does this apply to the us and the big bully? What should we do?

Well, you only are unhappy because you want to a) teach the big bully a lesson and b) play with the model train. The solution? Re-evaluate what you want and make sure that this is actually what you want! If it was your spouse or your close friend, wouldn’t you let him/her play with your model train and not care?

The Same Solution From Two Perspectives

Therefore, if you change your goal to “make big bully my friend and play together in the long run”, then all of a sudden, Option 1 seems like a good idea! You can go over there and say, “I like you and want you to be my friend, so please feel free to play with the train and all these other toys I got for us! ” Isn’t that a lot harder to resist for the big bully? You’d probably get to play with your model train once he gets tired of it anyway! Plus, you get to play with all these other toys he’d probably get for you guys!

This solution viewed from the angry person looking for revenge standpoint though would appear that you’ve caved in. The angry person would literally not understand at all what you are doing!

It is the exact same solution, but viewed with an additional perspective!

A Little Dimension Lets You See A Lot More

This reminds me of the book Flatland in which a bunch of two dimensional beings (living on a plane) meet a three dimensional being. When the three dimensional being intersects the plane, all the two dimensional beings see is a particular type of line (which is a bad thing in this 2-D world if I remember correctly). However, as the three dimensional being starts passing through the plane, the length of the line changes and these 2-D inhabitants are quite stunned and confused.

This would be the same situation above, with the angry person staying in his 2-D world and only seeing the line. As the months pass and you become the bully’s good friend (and the bully becomes a better person), it would probably be a complete shock to the angry person!

Luckily, we have the power to think about other perspectives and in doing so, may be able to see the bigger picture better. Then, hopefully, we can just redefine these unsolvable problems into solvable ones

Getting What You Want

In How To Win Someone’s Heart, we looked at ways to secure the loyalty and trust of our fellow human beings. In this article, we’ll see how this concept applies more generally and from a more logical perspective.

Okay! We’ll get right down to it. Let’s say you’re walking around and there’s this person with something you want. Maybe it’s the $100 bill in his pocket, or maybe you want to have sex with her, or maybe you want him to vote for you. So how do you go about getting that person to give you what you want?

Well, let’s take a look at your options. You can either use force or not use force.

Option 1: Force The Other Person To Give You What You Want

In the case of the $100 bill, you would run up to the guy and rob him. In the case of the girl, you would rape her. In the case of the voting, maybe you would put a gun to the guy’s back and shoot him if he doesn’t vote for you. This is probably the most direct and the quickest way to get the object of your desire. And actually, it does work. You’ve gotten exactly what you want from this person. So what’s the problem?

Well, the problem is that you are also getting something you don’t want along with it! The guy you took the $100 bill from would probably want to kick your ass if he ever saw you again. The girl you raped would probably have you arrested and put behind bars for good. The guy who you forced to vote for you would probably kill you if he ever got a chance. That’s what happens when you take something from someone – they lose it and aren’t happy about that loss!

Beyond these problems, what are the chances of that person giving you what you want again? Do you think that guy would walk around with $100 bills sticking out of his pocket again? He probably doesn’t carry around more than $5 anymore! And that girl you raped – she probably got a big bad boyfriend named Bubba who’ll smash your head in. And that guy you put a gun to – he’s probably a black belt in some sort of martial art now and can probably take your gun and shoot you before you can say “vote for me!”

Forcing it does get you want you want, but at a very high price! It might be worth it if you are in a really desperate situation. Maybe you’re starving and need that $100 bill to buy your family food, or you are the last man on earth and that girl won’t have sex with you.

Just be aware of the price you are paying if you pick this option – it’s a one time thing, the other person will hate you and oppose you at any opportunity in the future. Whatever it is, it’d better be pretty damn important!

Is there a better way?

Option 2: Give The Other Person What They Want

Now, let’s say you are the guy with the $100 bill. A guy walks up to you and gives you a big diamond and he says, “I would really appreciate it if you could give me that $100 bill!” Wouldn’t you be much more likely to give it to him gladly? And the next time you have a $100 bill, wouldn’t you go around looking for him to see what he has to offer you?

That’s what happens when you give other people what they want! They’ll come back time and time again looking for that thing, and giving you more of what you want!

Of course, if you’re mean to them and laugh at them or something, then you’ll also be offering something they don’t want. As a result, they might go find someone else to get their needs fulfilled. For example, if you have an expensive jewelry store and you look down on a guy who comes in without a suit, that guy will probably go to another jewelry store even if you are offering better prices! Or if you give your spouse money and make them feeling like they owes you something, then they will probably go out to make their own money so that they can get away from you!

However, if you not only give it to them but you do it cheerfully, is there any reason why they would go to anyone else? When you become an indispensible source that fulfills other people’s needs, they will do whatever they can to keep you happy!

And therein likes the way to get what you want – Give other people what they want, make yourself indispensable to them, do it cheerfully, and they’ll come back again and again with what you want!

Does this sound like a conversation that you’ve experienced at some point? Have you been both Person A and Person B? Most of us probably have! There comes a point in an argument where both people seem to be talking to each other, but have actually ceased communicating because neither of them is listening!

While the above may seem like a conversation, they are actually two soliloquies by the two people that just happen to be interspersed together! The two people’s speeches make sense without the other person around! If that is the case, then what is the point of having the other person around? If the “conversation” is just as fruitful with and without the other person, then there’s really no conversation going on at all!

The irony is, on some level, person B is actually agreeing with person A. However, because Person A isn’t listening, he doesn’t realize that Person B is agreeing! And because Person B isn’t listening, he also doesn’t realize that they are essentially saying the same thing! Why would this happen to two people who want to communicate with each other? Wouldn’t it make more sense to listen?

Well, it seems that there is a point where our emotions take over and we become defensive. This point differs from person to person, but it almost always will happen when we don’t feel understood. That is exactly what is happening with Person A and Person B above – each is trying to explain their own positions and refuse to listen until he feels that his point has been understood! However, that’ll never happen if both people are in that state!

This is where mediation can be very useful. When we’re in that state, it’s more that we need someone to understand – it doesn’t necessarily have to be the person we’re arguing with! Therefore, if both people can find someone to listen to them, then they can get past the point where they need to be understood and start listening to the other person’s perspective! And when they listen, they can understand and come up with ways of fixing the problem.

Of course, it helps even more if that person can understand both people’s perspectives. When we’re not listening to the other person and are emotionally committed in an argument, it is hard to understand and even harder to come up with mutually beneficial solutions. However, having an unbiased person that understands both positions, he is much more likely to come up with something feasible that takes the needs of both parties into account!

It is important though that this person truly is unbiased and is respected by both people as such. Otherwise, the solutions that this person comes up with will not be given its full consideration. Also, this person also needs to have the capability of understanding both people and to make them feel understood! Without that, the people arguing would still feel a need to be understood first and as a result, wouldn’t be open to hearing any solutions to the problem.

All these minor issues aside, talking to a person you respect can give you a lot of insight – especially if he understands the other person’s point of view as well!

With all the advantageous of mediation though, the downside is that this becomes kind of a crutch in the relationship. What if that person isn’t around anymore? In a way, it’s like the two people saying, “We can’t handle this problem, we need your help!” Over the long run, it’s probably more beneficial for the them to come up with their own system of conflict resolution that doesn’t require outside interference.

However, if you are truly at an impasse, it doesn’t hurt to get some help, right?

Do you have awkward silences in your conversations or not know what to say? Do you walk away from conversations not knowing what you’ve talked about? Here are a few important tips to improve your conversations within other people.

1) Be Genuinely Interested – The point of a conversation is to communicate with the other person, meaning you need to actually want to talk them to begin with! If you don’t know why you are having a conversation, then you probably shouldn’t be having it! Of course there would be awkward silences if you have nothing to talk about! Genuine interest in another person is essential to keeping the conversation flowing and making both people feel comfortable.

If you actually have something to say, you can always state your reason for wanting to talk to the other person. For example, “I am new to the area and would like to get to know the people here”, “I want to know about mechanical engineering and heard that you were a graduate here”, “I like you and would like to get to know you better”, “I’m studying people and would like to know who you are as a person”, “I always see you here and was wondering who you are”, etc. There would never be any awkward silences in this case because you know what you want to talk about!

Of course, if you did state your desires and the other person looks like he/she feels nervous or uncomfortable with the subject, stop. You can try to find another topic to talk about, or talk with someone else you are interested in. For example, if you said “I want to know about mechanical engineering and heard that you were a graduate here” and the other person tells you that he/she is not, then you can simply move on to something else you are interested in about this person. You can say, “Oh, I’m also new to the area and would like to meet people” or “Oh okay, thanks! Do you know anyone who happens to know about mechanical engineering?”! If that was your only point of interest with this person, you can say “Oh, thanks!” and just go to someone more interesting.

Even if you are genuinely interested in someone, they might not want to satisfy your particular interest. Remember that conversation is a two way street and should occur naturally. Both people should want or need to talk about something!

2) Make The Other Person Feel Comfortable – It may not be so easy to get the other person to satisfy your interest if they don’t trust your motives or feel uncomfortable disclosing information that they deem to be sensitive. For example, you may say to someone of the opposite sex, “Hi, I’m new to the area and would like to meet some people”, but if you are smiling at him/her creepily, he/she might think you want to molest him/her or something.

Therefore, it’s always good to smile and appear friendly and harmless. Then, if the topic is sensitive, you might want to [[build up some trust]] first by disclosing some information about yourself. Introduce yourself, tell them what you do, let the other person know you’re not a serial killer. Then, whether directly or indirectly, disclose your purpose so that they know why they should talk to you!

For example, as I am writing this article on the train, a guy just sat next to me and started asking me, “Where are you from?” The whole time, I am thinking, “What do you want?” There are clearly other seats on the train, and he did not demonstrate some reason why he would like to speak to me. So, the most probable reason is that he wants to make some small talk to pass the time, but I’m someone who’s sitting there typing on a computer. Obviously, there should be some important reason for interrupting me! Additionally, he is sitting way too close to me, making me feel uncomfortable.

When I did answer, he gave me a weird laugh and kept asking me other questions as if he didn’t hear my answer. He also started reading my article out loud, one word at a time, very slowly. He doesn’t look stoned, but is staring creepily at my article, trying to read it. Even though he seems to pretend not to understand, the gaze in his eyes seems to say that he does, so I have absolutely no idea what he wants. As he asks me more questions without answering any of mine in return, I am forced to ignore him.

3) Listen Carefully – This is the next most natural thing to do if you’re actually interested in the person! You are talking to him/her because you want to know what he/she says, right? So wouldn’t it make sense to listen to what the other person is saying? However, like in the situation with the guy who sat down next to me and started talking above, it is surprising how often we don’t do that!

Not only is it insulting to the other person, it defeats the point of having a conversation in the first place! Since people talk because there is a need to communicate, by not listening, that need is not being fulfilled! How can you have a conversation when it’s essentially just one person talking? That is a TV station broadcasting a show, not a conversation!

The guy sitting next to me right now is the perfect example. He is asking me questions and I am occasionally answering, but he doesn’t really react to my answers. It’s as if I never said anything. That’s just a radio channel of some guy. A very bad radio channel.

4) Give The Other Person Time To Think/Speak – In order to listen though, the other person needs to actually be saying something! And they can’t do that if you are talking, right? Just like you don’t want the other person to become a boring TV show, you wouldn’t want to become one for the other person either! So, after you have talked for a minute or two, make sure to pause and give the other person a chance to speak!

Oftentimes, especially if the conversation is interesting, it may take a while for that person to process the information that has been said. This means that even if there is a silence for minutes, he/she is probably just thinking, so let him/her think! Don’t make them uncomfortable by becoming impatient or saying something yourself. Don’t speak again until the other person has given you some sort of indication that they heard you and understand you! You’re just giving them time to give you an insightful response!

Wouldn’t that turn into an awkward silence then, you may ask? Actually, no!! When both people have the understanding that the break is for time to think, it’s actually very very comfortable! In fact, when I talk with the the girl I’m in love with on the phone, we sometimes say nothing for five minutes That’s right, a phone call with 5 minutes of silence! Yet, it’s extremely comfortable because we know the other person is just thinking and taking it all in.

If you have a continued need to keep talking when there is a silence, not only do you not hear what the other person says, the conversation is actually much shorter. It’s simple math:

You Talking Time
Vs.
You Talking Time+ Other Person Talking Time + Silence Time

Of course the second way yields a longer and more fulfilling conversation! Not only do you not have to keep coming up with “topics” to talk about, you get to learn something of interest to you (otherwise you shouldn’t be talking to this person), and make the other person comfortable by giving them a chance to express themselves. Everyone wins!

Hopefully, these four tips will make your conversations better and more fulfilling! Now go out there and talk to someone interesting!

The Battle You Can’t Win

For some reason, my mother has this unrelenting desire to stuff me with food. Growing up, there are always requests to “eat more”. When I leave home, there’ll always be packages of food stuffed away in my luggage somewhere. Whenever I receive a present, half the package is guaranteed to be some sort of food. When she comes to visit, the cupboards are definitely fuller after she leaves than before she arrived. And it seems like no matter what I do, I can’t stop it!

I’ve tried firmly stating that I don’t want it, but it just keeps coming. I’ve tried telling her that sending despite my objections shows me disrespect, but it keeps coming. I’ve even tried throwing the food out in front of her when she came to visit to set some boundaries, but they somehow reappeared in my home after she left.

There seems to be an entire books of tactics that she has to get food to me! When you’re little, it’s “just one more bite and you can stop”! However, there is inevitably another bite after it. Having learned quickly from such mistakes, that particular one no longer works. My mother has since then resorted to other strategies though. When I’m not looking, she would secretly stuff food into my luggage and/or drawers. When I tell her not to send me food since I can buy my own, she somehow gets hold of food that I can’t easily purchase, from like a little town in China or something and sends it to me. When I tell her not to send food just because I don’t like it, she insists that it’s necessary as a packing material for my other items. No matter what I do, the food just keeps coming!

Interestingly enough, the girl I am in love with has the same issue with her mom. It’s scary to think what would happen if we got married. Each of our moms would think that two people would require twice the amount of food, so we would receive FOUR times as much food! And since there seems to be some unwritten rule that says you’re not supposed throw perfectly good food, I can already see the huge piles of food in the kitchen.

At some point, you realize that this chain of food is never going to stop coming, no matter what you do. For any solution you come up with to block the food, they will find some way around it. Our moms would never give that up, no matter what we do!

This has some very interesting implications. First, it means that we can’t win! No matter what we do, they will always send food to us. The best we can do is tie, perhaps by always sending the food back.

However, if you think about it, this life long fight isn’t really worth it. After all, the food is pretty good sometimes

A Battle Of The Wills

The story above is an excellent example of how thought creates reality. Our mothers wanted to express their love by sending food to us and that is exactly what it became, despite a decade or two of resistance. Because they have absolutely no intention of giving up no matter what we did, they put themselves in a position where they cannot lose. Winning someone’s heart is no different in the application of this principle.

In a way, winning someone’s heart is a battle of your will to be with them vs. that person’s will to not want to be with you, just like the food situation above is a battle of my will to not get food from my mom vs. my mom’s will to express love through sending food. As long as she intends on sending more food, there is nothing I can do to “win”. Similarly, if you always express that you care for that person and do everything in your power to express that care, there is really nothing they can do to “win” either.

Let’s examine the two parts of this “battle” more closely.

Your Will To Be With Them

First, make sure that your will be with the person is genuine. Let’s say you want to win the heart of your friend. Is he/she really very important to you? Can you see your life without him/her? How badly do you want his/her loyalty and trust? Why? The key here is to access just how strong your motivation is.

For example, if your motivation is only to get some attention, that might be a strong temporary motivation. However, after a while, if you don’t get any attention from your friend, then you might start seeking it elsewhere. When this happens, it would be obvious to your friend that your desire to be with him/her isn’t really a genuine long term thing. Even if you do manage to gain his/her trust, it’ll go away as he/she realize that your care is fake. What you care about in this case isn’t him/her, but the attention that he/she gives you.

It is very important that your desire to be with that someone stems from respect, admiration, and love for that person. That is the only way he/she will feel genuine care. For example, if my mom was only interested in something superficial like getting attention, I would have no problem simply throwing the stuff she send to me out, or maybe even get a court order to get her to stop. However, because she genuinely cares about me, I know each little package of food is a piece of her heart and she really wants me to have something unique to eat.

These positive motives have several very important advantages:

Every time you express your care for the other person, you get a feeling of satisfaction. Because you actually care about that person enough to want them to be happy, increasing their happiness makes you happier as well. You’ll feel no regrets at sending your gifts and not getting a response. You won’t be angry at the other person for not giving you what you want in return. In other words, your care is not conditional!

Your care will always come across as genuine. Because your gifts have no strings attached to them, you won’t hold a grudge. In the long run, this will show through in your actions so that you would not feel manipulative to the other person. In the “getting attention” example above, you might become pushier and pushier as you don’t get what you want. The other person would start to feel this neediness and wonder what you want from them so badly. Whereas respecting that person would be more along the lines of “Here’s something to help you, don’t trouble yourself to respond”.

Only a positive view on someone else would really give you enough motivation to care about them for the long term. If you don’t actually respect or admire a person, then why would you even want to be near him/her? The only conclusion is that you want something, which means your motivation isn’t genuine care, but something else. This’ll make you go away fairly quickly if the person doesn’t give you what you want as you have no other reason to be around him/her. However, if you actually respect and admire the person, then you would be glad to be around, regardless of the circumstances.

Their Will To Be Apart From You

After you’ve established that you really, truly want to be with that person because you respect and admire him/her, you have already “won” in a sense. You’ve gone into my mother’s caring and supportive role, always offering your care no matter what the other person does. Because you will keep trying forever, you can’t “fail”. Any “failure” would be just be a temporary thing on your road to success.

However, that doesn’t mean you’ll gain that person’s trust and loyalty – they can “fight” you forever.

For example, my mother’s constant stream of food was annoying to me for a long time. Every time she sent it, I felt like I wasn’t respected and the “gift” lost all sense of the spirit of care for which its intended. By forcing it on me, each “gift” felt like another insult. The gift was more to satisfy her need so it brought into question what her true motivations for sending them to me were.

Therefore, it is important to express your care in ways that the other person understands and appreciates. You need to offer him/her something of value, as perceived by that person, not by you! In the example of the food, it was perceived as an insult for many years, and did a lot of harm in that regard. Had my mom sent me something of sentimental value that showed she understood me, it would have been of much greater value. You want to make it easy for the other person to be with you.

This is not to say that the continual stream of food was a bad thing. There is a good part – it showed that my mother cared about me. That in itself is of value as it gives you the sense that the person has your best interest at heart. If all you want to do is help, but ask for nothing in return, who can refuse an offer like that?

Some Cautions

While the above portrays this process as a “battle” of the wills, remember that the other person is not your enemy. What’s actually happening is that you are trying to express to the other person that you respect, admire, and care for him/her. If you interpreted this as forcing the other person on a consistent basis, that is very very wrong! I don’t want any stalkers or more moms sending me food on a regular basis!!!

The idea here is to offer the other person something of value, without encroaching on his/her freedoms or time. From time to time, you’re saying, “here’s something I thought you might want, feel free have it or not have it”. If you keep offering things that the other person wants but ask for nothing in return, why wouldn’t they want to be with you?

If that person continually rejects your offers, then take a hint that this is not something he/she wants. A big part of your will is to keep trying to find something despite these failures, because you feel that gaining this person’s trust and loyalty is worth the effort. Be very careful that you are not trying the same thing over and over again, especially if it bothers or angers the other person.

Remember that you are trying to continuously offer something the other person wants and to be open and honest with them, not trying to force that person to like what you’re giving!

Also, make sure that you actually do like doing the giving! If you truly feel the other person is worth the effort, then the giving should feel satisfying and sincere. Otherwise, you’re just entering into a very one sided relationship that is not in your favor! Just remember, give because you want to, not because you want something in return!

Some Conclusions

In the key to a healthy relationship, we know that relationships are formed based on a mutual exchange of value. You may be wondering just exactly what kind of value you receive when you offer unconditional care. After all, it seems to be a lot of giving, and not getting much back right? Well, what you’re going for is the foundations of a strong relationship by building an atmosphere of trust. Because you respect and admire this person, you know that they are capable of providing a lot of value. You keep trying because you feel that the possibility of having this other person in your life is worth the effort.

Additionally, from the bigger perspective, we’re only here for like 90 years. A rare connection with someone is a rewarding experience on its own.

Winning someone’s heart does not mean you’ll necessarily be together or do things together though. Its sole purpose is to convey to the other person that you care about them, which establishes an atmosphere of trust. Circumstances may still make it so that your lives don’t intertwine, so that’s all the more reason to make sure you actually enjoy the process!

Getting Things Done

Here are several stages that people seem to get into when they think of something to be done. The level you are at largely determines how effective you will be in accomplishing that task. From my experience, these are the states people tend to get into:

It’s Impossible

At this stage, the task seems preposterous to you. Not only can you not do it, you can’t even conceive of doing it. The thought of the task doesn’t even merit serious consideration in your book. If someone tries to convince you it’s possible, you’ll be annoyed at such an obviously impossible thing. Your mind is completely closed here and it’ll take a lot of proof from various sources before you’ll move into the next stage.

Only The Smartest People Can Do It

This is almost as bad as the “It’s Impossible” stage in getting something accomplished. Here, you acknowledge that the task is doable by somebody, somewhere, just not you. Generally, you get to this state because you actually think it’s impossible, but somebody seems to have done it, so you grudgedly acknowledge that it can be done. It’ll probably take a lot more people doing it or some significant mental breakthrough for you to move into the next stage.

I Can Do It But It’s Really Annoying/Hard

This is the first stage where something is actually accomplished. However, it’s done with great mental power and probably over a long period of time. That’s because while you can do the task, you don’t really want to do it. You see the task as some really hard and almost insurmountable hill. This is where you try to procrastinate as much as possible, in hopes that somehow you won’t actually have to do the task. Once the task becomes familiar either through repetition or some extra knowledge, you’ll naturally move into the next stage.

Yeah, It’s Kind Of Boring

This is probably the stage where most people work at. A lot of mundane work that doesn’t challenge or excite you. You go through the motions because you’ve done it hundreds of times before. You don’t really learn anything new, and don’t really want to. It’s all just a grind. After a while though, your might come up with something interesting and move on to the next stage.

I’m Going To Build A Tower!

This is where you see a lot of excited people talking to everyone about their big plan to make tons of money. “I’m going to build a huge tower!” you tell everyone you meet. “No really, I AM!! Come on, why don’t you believe me?” Except the only problem is that they’re wondering, “Hmmm, then how come you’re telling me about it instead of building the tower?” Just a lot of idle speculation and hype at this point. Although, after a while of everyone getting tired of hearing you talk, you’ll either give up or move into the next stage.

Leave Me Alone – I’m Working!

This is the stage where a lot of stuff gets done. You don’t tell anyone about your big plan, you don’t brag about it, you don’t sit around thinking about it, you just do it. People walk by and wonder what you’re doing, but you’re too busy working on your plan to explain it to them. Months later, you have this awesome tower standing up and people wonder just how on earth you managed to find the time to do that.

In college, I focused on the this level all the time to take 8 classes per semester and do well in all of them. People look around after the fact and wonder how that’s possible. Instead of explaining or bragging, I simply worked on next semester’s stuff.

However, with just yourself though, you can only accomplish so much. Eventually, if you want to accomplish great things, you’ll need other people.

Look At How Cool This Is!

This is a level that I’m currently struggling to work at myself. A single person can only produce so much, even if it is 1000x the average employee. To be able to produce 100000x, you need the help of other people. That means inspiring them and motivating them to work for you, which is why solid relationships are so important.

This takes a lot of time, patience, imagination, and understanding though, so it’s definitely not an easy level to achieve!

So which of these levels do you work at?