Words to live by - how to deal with difficult people in business
Originally sent exclusively to The Letter subscribers on August 19. Want to be the first to get my personal newsletter in your inbox every Monday at 7am? Subscribe for free here.
Have you ever wondered just how completely off-the-wall we are as a species, say compared to the others we share the planet with?
For example, our lust to collect stuff. We are obsessed with collecting treasures along the way.
I’m guilty, too, and I am aware. After all, we’re all leaseholders at the end of it.
Perhaps the best treasures, that completely outweigh the material possessions that drive us all, are thoughts - thoughts that lead you to be a better guy or gal, or whatever you want to be these days. “Penguin” seems to be the new favourite gender to pursue.
“There’s nowt as strange as folk,” as my dear old nan would say.
As we wander through life, we collect quotes and then recycle them. We may even come up with a few of our own.
I love quotes - they give simplicity to life's complications.
You know when someone says their keynote phrase and strikes you down with thought and brilliance? Just a few simple words, when composed together well, can stop us to really think.
I have often claimed that real success in life is down to the quality of how we think. Thinking better can give you absolute leverage in success. I’d go so far as to say it’s a rare and protected form of leverage that earns you a gold medal in business success:
Read my full article on Rare and Protected Forms of Leverage on the Business Blog.
The trouble is that we’re tribal as a race. We follow poor thinking too often—very often by the people closest to us.
Their poor thinking is exposed to us like a dodgy sunbed, giving us the worst gift of all: a negative and closed-off mindset.
It’s almost like a cancer, but easily curable if you change tribes.
I’ve been enjoying some time in Puerto Pollenca this week, basking in the natural rays of the sun that bathe my slightly extended but nevertheless slowly receding stomach. Or, as I prefer to call it, the veranda over the toy shop. (That constant exercise is working…)
The sun is pumping vitamin D into my pores as I crisp on a sun bed.
I’ve been mulling over why people think so differently from me. Sure, this has been heightened due to pool chats with people who know me from socials and have approached me after watching my content (I felt like a "has been" reality TV star!).
Perhaps the people who read this letter and my close business friends are the rare few who understand why we entrepreneurs think so differently.
I’m attracted to big thinkers with big results — I want to delve into their brains.
The labyrinth of a big thinker’s brain makes for an entertaining place to get lost in, compared to the small thinkers, naysayers, gossipers, and mood hoovers. They’re usually the same people!
Your job is to navigate out of that maze of pessimism and boredom faster than flies discover a barbecue.
The thing is, the latter are the majority - they’re the chocolate bar you know you shouldn’t have. Compounding you with poor thinking, one step at a time. And because we’re tribal, we join in, desperate not to be isolated from the pack.
That’s why I love entrepreneurs—we couldn’t give a flying wotsit about what others think.
We’re happy to change tribes or, better still, create our own tribe if we don’t like where we’re at. Or - dare I say it - be in a tribe of one, lost in our quotes of self-improvement.
Being alone may get you somewhere, but it won’t get you all the way there.
An enterprise is a collection of entrepreneurial and management DNA.
A James Sinclairism or quote is: E + M = S (entrepreneur plus management = success).
What I love about managers and teachers is that they can quickly influence a group of people to be better and think better, resulting in better habits and behaviour.
Remember at school how a class's behaviour could change from subject to subject, class to class?
That’s all due to the skill and brilliance of that teacher who manages the outcome and culture of that hour’s lesson.
The same is true of managers in our empires of entrepreneurship. You absolutely need both.
Swing the pendulum too far in one direction, and no innovation happens (where an entrepreneur should excel); swing it too far in the other, and no organisation or completion of tasks occurs.
That’s the lesson for us. We can make people better by being better ourselves, and you’ll be happier for it. Getting involved in negativity and gossip is a drug of discovery at another’s downfall.
If you have the courage, you can change the momentum by just not responding or saying this phrase…
“If you haven’t got something nice to say, don’t say it at all.”
This quote is one I try so hard to live by, even when people are abhorrent and deserve some nasty words said about them.
If you collect some decades on this planet, you’ll meet them and brush swords with them.
They’ll have made you so angry—like a bull ready to charge at the lure of red in the distance.
When they rear their head, kill them with kindness. Don’t be bitter, be better.
When the next mood hoover approaches (and they will, as certain as the seasons changing), they’ll be mustering up their next concoction of wicked gossip. Get ready to block it.
I don't mind Henries, but you must know how to handle mood hoovers. (Credit: Pete/Wikipedia)
They will immediately feel remorse, and you’ll stop the nastiness in its tracks, point blank. They’ll think, “I can’t infect this person,” and they will see you as an elder, a good person, and trust you.
Hopefully, they’ll even become better themselves and they will respect you.
I said I’d share some quotes from my readers, and here they are. I had many duplicates, so I picked my favourites:
“Beware of the tyranny of the minority.”
“What doesn’t get measured doesn’t get managed.”
“Don’t be bitter, be better.”
“You become the average of the five people you spend most of your time with.”
“Be careful who you share good news with.”
“If you think someone’s ruined your life, you’re right: it’s you.”
“If it’s to be, it’s up to me.”
“It’s better to have a hole than an arsehole.”
That last one is all about teams - never panic-employ.
It’s one of the most common questions I get asked: “How can I build a great team?”
So much so, I have just finished writing a book on recruitment.
In another blog, I’ll share a chapter from that and my thoughts on finding A-players to help you on your journey.
This time, I felt I needed to leave you with something that just sums this all up. It’s the words of Rudyard Kipling in the poem “If”.
Andrew, who has mentored me more than most, told me about these wisest of words.
To this day, if I am to enter an altercation of sorts, I’ll read this poem before the clock strikes for the summit of words between two opinions
For your convenience, I've placed the words below. Have a read, print it off, save it. It works. It hangs in my kitchen as a reminder…
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
Until next week. To your continued success,
P.S. My next major business event is happening in a few days. There are just a few tickets left for the Business Masterclass - a value-packed two-day event in London. If you haven't already, book your tickets now!