Week 46 - Should I Stay or Should I Go 👀

Hey my friend, have you ever had a feeling that you don’t want to talk to a person you’ve been introduced to, but you still do it because you think about what other people will think about you, and you also want to look nice? 😲

That’s exactly how I constantly felt a few years ago (and, sure, still find myself in such situations from time to time), but guess what? There is a 99.9% chance they don’t care 😝

Still, you are spending the most valuable thing you have in your life—your time—pretending to be nice, and you also spend your energy, which might be so hard to restore afterwards (especially if you’re an introvert).

But the reality is that you are in charge of where you want to focus (even though sometimes it doesn’t feel like that), and if you won’t talk to someone you don’t want to, it doesn’t mean you’ll be excluded from society, and anyone will ever want to talk to you (unless you’re not the main character of the Nosedive episode of Black Mirror 😲). Still, there are over 8 billion people in the world, and, trust me, you’ll find people you would adore talking to.

And here are a few kind variants to leave a conversation that work for me:

• in person: “Oh, I have to say ‘hi’ to my friend over there, let’s catch up later!”

• online: “Sure! Please share with me your Calendly link.”

Which doesn’t really mean that I will avoid a person forever, but if we intersect more (or if this person will follow up), it means they really care, and it’s a sign that maybe I have to get to know them just a little better 😊 but usually, they don’t 😅 

tl;dr If you dislike a conversation, allow yourself to leave it. The world is huge, you’ll find much better conversations!

On another note, this week I’ve had the shittiest internet connection ever. It was so bad that I had to reschedule some calls for later, which is totally unacceptable in my professional life.

So I called my internet provider, told them I have extremely low internet speed, and asked whether something could be done (maybe it’s me, not them), but the first thing they asked me was: “Are you using wi-fi?” Of course, I do, and they told me that they are not responsible for the wi-fi connection speed, and unless I connect their cable right into my laptop, there is nothing they can guarantee (even though I’m using their wi-fi router, and I don’t even have a slot for connecting the cable).

There is not what I expected to hear (and it’s not helpful at all), so after a few minutes of asking what can be done, they told me they could check my router if there are some errors (there were some, as they told me, minor ones), and hard-resetting it might help.

It actually helped, and I was relieved that I didn’t have to change my provider (as I was ready to), but the way they spoke with me sucked so much that 🤷‍♂️ It reminded me of two quotes from the “Getting Past No” book by William Ury:

1. “Offering a full and respectful hearing can often be enough to keep the customer coming back.”

2. “The single most important skill in negotiation is the ability to put yourself in the other side’s shoes.”

In this case, just listening to what I had to share, telling me they understand that low connection speed might influence my work, and proposing to check the router because it can help, would save 8 minutes out of a 10-minute conversation we had, and would make me so much happier about their service.

The same thing happens when you disagree with someone in a conversation. You don’t really need to always choose another person’s side and give up your point of view, but if you are genuinely curious, ask additional questions to understand the person’s opinion, you might find a solution that wasn’t even on the agenda in the very beginning of a conversation. And if you can turn your kinda enemy into an ally, it’s a crucial step in building strong long-term relationships 😉

tl;dr Listening to someone, being curious, and asking genuine questions brings you far forward in finding a solution and building strong relationships.

So yeah, that’s it for this week, and if you have any questions, thoughts, ideas, or personal examples of how to build better human connections, please answer this email, or connect with me on LinkedIn, and let’s talk 🤗🤓

💡 What influenced me this week 💡

Thoughts of the week:

• “The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into small, manageable tasks, and starting on the first one.” - Mark Twain

• “People are not lazy, they just work on shit they are not passionate about.” - Max Sturtevant, Personal IPO podcast

• “Customers need to be exposed to your message far more than you expect. The more we see something, the more familiar it becomes, the more familiar it becomes, the more we like it, and the more we buy it.” - Nudge podcast

• “Every closed sale should end with a referral ask.” - Alex Hormozi’s newsletter

• “What everyone seems to forget is that the people with passive income often had massive active income first.” - Alex Hormozi’s newsletter

• “If you’re curious about the world, and you want to learn and you want to make the best things you can, then there’s never been a better time to be alive.” - Colin Raney, For Starters newsletter

• “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” - Winston Churchill, The Economist’s daily quotes

Song of the week:

Book and quotes of the week:

Money Master the Game: 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom - Tony Robbins

• “80% of success in life is psychology, and 20% is mechanics.”

• “Telling yourself it’s good for you instead of harmful could mean the difference between a stress-induced heart attack at 50 or living well into your 90s.”

• ”Disappointment is inevitable when you are attempting to do anything of great scale.”

Tools that I use with referrals:

• Descript - for anything around podcasting and video editing

• Beehiiv - for a newsletter (that’s what you receive 😅)

• Text Blaze - to access message templates with shortcuts (like “/ty”)

• Exali - promo “FROMYURII” - indemnity insurance for independent experts in Europe

• Scripe - to write better posts on LinkedIn

• Manus - for building complex systems and projects

Daily actions:

• tell 1 person what I’m thankful to them for

• read a self-development book/listen to a professional podcast for 15 minutes

• make a valuable post/comment on LinkedIn

• tag 15 people in my connections database

• connect with 30 interesting people on LinkedIn

• invite 5 people to join the 👋Friendworking newsletter

Weekly actions:

• transcribe one new episode of the Creator Spotlight and Personal IPO (bi-weekly) podcasts, learn something from them, and connect with guests on LinkedIn

• transcribe two new DOAC videos, and learn one thing from them

• connect 2 people who I believe need to be connected

• ask 30 people about what they want to learn about Community ROI.

If you have any thoughts, ideas, or questions, please 👇

And if you’d like to have more 👋 Friendworking in your life 👇

See you next week! 👋