TIP #2 - Be Low Maintenance
When someone has a lot of unreasonable demands or requires constant attention, they are labeled as “high maintenance.” In the real world, unless you happen to be a highly-paid pop music star, it usually pays to be the opposite. Sometimes when someone treats you dismissively or without the respect you think you deserve, it is not about you.
Feeling overwhelmed can make us all behave badly or slight someone without intending to. If someone doesn’t return your message, choose to follow up with kindness instead of accusations. Most of us are just doing the best we can and many times the thing you need just won’t be at the top of someone else’s to do list. Get over it and try instead to have more empathy for someone else’s situation.
TIP #3 - Don’t Mention It (for Real)
When you hold a grudge or dwell on a string of failures, the usual way that it comes up over time is through minor comments or remarks mentioning it in passing that demonstrate how much you have not forgotten about it and have not moved on. To fight against that, make a mental commitment that once you have publicly shared that you are “over it”—you will not mention “it” anymore—even in small side comments.
This commitment is the ultimate self-fulfilling prophecy. In other words, once you make the mental commitment to not mention it, you will end up really getting over it much more quickly. Of course, this doesn’t mean avoiding a problem—so if something is unresolved, you need to face it head on first … then you can actually move on and not mention it.
chapter 3
Start Smoking
the secret: control your destiny
When I first moved to Australia, the best way I found to get to know my fellow workers was to join them on the several smoking breaks many of them took throughout the day.
I had never been a smoker, but I decided to give it a try despite all the health concerns. As I did, I made a promise to myself that after a month, no matter what, I would stop.
So I started smoking—and enjoyed it. For that month, every day I would go out with my new colleagues and we had a low pressure moment during the day to just hang out—the more modern equivalent of the old water cooler conversations.
After a month I stopped smoking, but kept going out for those smoking breaks. Looking back I know that smoking helped me build some professional relationships because it gave me a time to socialize outside of the usual work day. You might be wondering why I couldn’t have done that without ever smoking.
It is easy to cave to peer pressure and do something like smoking because you are pressured to do it or would feel excluded if you didn’t. Making your own choice (whether to start smoking, or to stop) is much harder.
Is smoking dangerous and can it kill you? Of course. So is having a poisonous snake for a pet—but some crazy people do that, too. The problem with smoking isn’t having the occasional cigarette. The problem is how easy it is to become addicted.
Smoking worked for me because I chose to start so I had a reason to join those smoking breaks, and I chose to stop because I knew I wasn’t going to let myself get addicted.
As you probably already figured out, this secret isn’t really about starting to smoke at all. It is about making symbolic choices, though they sometimes may be risky, to control your own destiny.
why you should pick the window seat
How does this idea translate to doing things other than smoking a product which can give you cancer? Symbolic choices don’t always need to be this life-threatening. They can even come from something as simple as choosing where to sit on a flight.
When CNN ran a poll asking business travelers whether they preferred the window seat or the aisle, the vast majority tended to prefer the convenience of the aisle seat.
When you sit in an aisle seat, it is more efficient and takes less time to get off the plane when it lands. It is much easier to go to the bathroom. It is more convenient to be served any meal or drinks. And you can access any items stored in the overhead bins easily. No wonder it is far more popular among business travelers.
Except me. I always choose the window seat.
it’s not about the view
Sure, I love the view—but the window seat offers more than that. In a closed environment, having the window seat offers you just a little control over your in-flight experience.
In the window seat, you choose whether to keep the window shade open or closed. When you need to go to the bathroom (if you do), everyone else gets up to let you out. If you don’t and choose to stay in your seat for the whole flight, no one disturbs you.
Where you choose to sit on the plane (assuming you have a choice!) can change your experience of traveling. This same principle applies to much more than picking a seat for a flight.
How many situations are you just along for the ride but not really in control? It can be easy to feel this way professionally and sometimes even personally as well.
Being empowered is a choice that we all must make, even if it comes in the smallest seemingly insignificant of places … like picking the window seat on a flight.
Ultimately, it comes down to controlling your own destiny … a phrase that we commonly hear from the world of athletics as well.
champions don’t lose their way forward
In every sport that features championships, there are generally two ways to make it to the final rounds of competition. You can beat the teams that you need to beat and earn your spot. That’s the best way. But then, there’s the other way. You can hope that another team loses, back into a spot and accidentally make it by default.
Coaches talk about that in terms of controlling your own destiny. Winning teams earn that control. If they win, they get in. Outside of the sports world, the importance of controlling your own destiny can be equally important. In surveys of workplace cultures, empowerment always ranks highly as something the best workplaces always offer to employees. For many entrepreneurs, this can be a primary motivation for starting their own businesses as well.
how to control your destiny
TIP #1 - Choose to Lead Instead of Follow
Controlling your own destiny from the back seat is tough. Sometimes you have the role you have, and there’s no way around it. Other times, however, there is an element of choice. When I got my first job in Australia, it was a short three-week gig doing programming, and halfway into the project, I realized the real reason they hired me: the project was behind because of bad management. What they really needed was a new project manager. So I started doing
