Weekly I/O #24
Not Louder, When Told You’re Wrong, Treat People, Only Imperfect Produces Art, Rule of 3 In Conversation
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Weekly I/O is a project where I share my learning Input/Output. Every Sunday, I write an email newsletter with five things I discovered and learned that week.
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The below is extracted from the email sent on May 16, 2021
Here’s a list of what I’m exploring and pondering this week.
1. When things aren’t working, be smarter, not louder.
Book: Your Music and People
It is an observation from Derek Sivers. When he’s in New York City, a man was barking something loud at top of their lungs and everyone was avoiding going near him.
When Derek Sivers got closer, he finally figured out what the man was saying. The line the man was shouting was “20% coupons for window shades! 20% off! Get your coupons here!”, but apparently the barking was not working.
A week later, similar barking happened again somewhere. The yelling wasn’t working as well despite the loudness. Everyone is avoiding the yelling guy.
How many of us do this? We weren’t getting the results we wanted, so we thought if we shouted louder, more people would hear. But people avoid those barking types like someone always pitches his business to friends at parties.
When promoting, make sure we are not barking. When things aren’t working, be smarter, not louder.
2. When someone tells you something is wrong, they’re usually right. When someone tells you how to fix it, they’re usually wrong
Also in the 99 additional bits of unsolicited advice, Kevin Kelly mentioned “Your best response to an insult is “You’re probably right.” Often they are”.
3. Don’t treat people as bad as they are. Treat them as good as you are
I mentioned this from the 99 bits just to bring up something that isn’t directly related but I always find it interesting.
This line suggests that you should treat people regardless of who they are, like what Immanuel Kant said “Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” or the idea we meet within all the main religion: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.
And the question that may somewhat not be directly related but still interesting for me is: “Should you treat others like how you want to be treated, or like how they want to be treated because everyone is different?”
I first thought about this question when listening to a talk between Kevin Yien and Gary Chou in the Startup Studio class at Cornell Tech talking about team management.
4. Jesus, Superman, and Mother Teresa never made art. Only imperfect beings can make art because art begins in what is broken.
5. Rule of 3 in conversation. To get to the real reason, ask a person to go deeper than what they just said. Then again, and once more. The third time’s answer is close to the truth.
Article: 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice
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