Give First

Give people your best – the best version of you and the best commitment to them that you have.

When you go first, they will buy/follow/cooperate/respect and feel they want to give their best to you.

How about the people you interact with today?

What can YOU do?

Don’t think about what you don’t have and about your limitations.  Think about what you can do with what you do have and go do it.  The result in and around you will be a step to the next thing you can do.  Proceeding in this way, you can live an extraordinary life no matter where you started.

This has been my story, and you can do it too. 

Trust begets trust

I met with a businessperson the other day who I had known of but hadn’t really talked to.  He was open and forthcoming with details of his large business.  I found it refreshing and before I knew it I was telling him things about my business that I wouldn’t normally tell someone new.

Many take the opposite approach and hold their cards close, whether it be about business or their life, so they don’t get hurt/taken advantage of/look imperfect.  But when talking to other human beings, the sooner we drop the illusion of perfection, the sooner we make real connections.

Trust begets trust.

Friends first

You can’t influence someone who is convinced you are his enemy.

“If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend.” – Abraham Lincoln

Who are you trying to win over?

"This too, shall pass"

“Events are like telephone poles, streaming past the observation platform of a speeding train.  They loom large at first, then melt into the distance, becoming so tiny they finally disappear altogether.” – Erle Stanley Gardner

What event looms large in your life right now?

The Inner Game

Throughout my career I have learned, tried and done a lot of things.  I had skin in the game the whole way – and that makes a huge difference.  When I began to teach others, in small increments at first many years ago, and now almost full time, my key ideas coalesced over time.

If there is one “Larry Janesky idea” that I feel is central to living a happy self-actualized life it’s this –

From nothing, comes something.

From the inner, comes the outer.

From the invisible, comes the visible.

And there you have it.  Everything going on around us and all the results we get in our lives is a result of what is going on inside our heads.  We are not likely to win the outer game if we don’t win the inner one.  

It’s the inner game that counts.

The Courage to be Disliked

In his book “The Courage to be Disliked”, Alfred Adler says –

“It’s not your task to be liked; it’s your task to be likable and let others decide what they want to do.”

Let’s stop worrying about if others like us, and control the controllables.

What a relief!

Your growth requires courage

“You can’t test courage cautiously.” – Annie Dillard

You have to be bold sometimes, and just go for it.

Origins of the Fear of Public Speaking

I have been thinking a lot about how life for humans has changed so quickly in the last few hundred years and how we are ill-equipped for parts of it.  

Let’s explore the origins of the fear of public speaking, which most people have an abundance of.  

While there are a few causes such as the risk of being embarrassed that you don’t know what you’re talking about, I wanted to give a different viewpoint.  For most of human history we needed the direct cooperation of each other to survive. (Today we still do but through the miracle of capitalism and markets we get the cooperation at arm’s length – i.e. we don’t have to know the people who grow our food for example.)

We may have a deep onboard fear that if we speak out and are disagreed with we will be cast out of the tribe and starve.  So, literally, our life depended on this not happening.  (We may fear we will not have anyone to procreate with (since there were so few choices back then) and this is still a risk depending on the content of your speech.)

The next fact is that for most of human history it was strong man rule.  It was a violent time, far far more than today, and if you spoke out in disagreement with the strong man, he’d just kill you, or at least beat your a@#.  So again, our life depended on laying low and not speaking out.

Today, in most places, these factors are gone.  It’s still never a good idea to go around pissing everyone off, but we have to recognize that our native fears (and desires and preferences) come from a different time when our mothers father’s mother’s father’s mother’s father was just trying to feed themselves and their family and survive.

So next time you get the jitters when you are about to address a group, just remember the fear is for a time gone by, that you will not be killed or beaten up or starve following your speech, and get out there and make your point.

What are you arguing about now?

What is your grievance?  

Will it matter in 20 years?

No? Then let it go.