Exact Words Matter

The exact words I use with myself and others matter much more than I used to think.

When I was younger, I was at a family gathering, perhaps Christmas. I remember trying to help my mom by carrying a dish filled with food from the kitchen to the table. I dropped it, shattering the dish and spreading the food all over the floor. Someone said, “You broke the dish. Don’t carry heavy things. You can’t do it.”

Those twelve words did a lot more than describe what happened. They blamed me, told me I was incapable, and suggested the best solution was to never try doing it again. The experience became even more powerful because at future family gatherings there was a running joke: “Don’t let Barry carry it.”

I don’t think anyone was trying to hurt me. They probably forgot about it five minutes later. I didn’t. If the me of today had been there when young Barry dropped the dish, I would have said, “No big deal. It’s just a dish. Let me help you clean it up. It’s great that you want to help—keep doing that. If a dish is a little too heavy for you, pick up a smaller one.”

As a general rule, I try to avoid words that accuse. Rather than “You broke the dish,” I prefer “The dish is broken.” Instead of “You didn’t do your job right,” I try to remember to say something more like, “I’d like us to handle that situation differently.”

I also try to avoid taking one specific event and turning it into an unfair general conclusion. In the past, if I lost a business deal or made a mistake, I might tell myself, “You can’t do anything right.” It may be true that I didn’t get the deal, and there may be reasons I can understand and learn from. But “You can’t do anything right” is a phrase I try not to use. Among other things, it isn’t true, it damages my self-confidence, and it encourages me to stop trying.

I have also become very careful about making sweeping statements about another person. If one of my kids came home with alcohol on their breath and told me they weren’t drinking, I might be tempted to say, “You are a liar.” But that shifts the focus from the real issue to arguing about whether they are a liar. Not to mention, it isn’t even necessarily true. One lie does not a liar make. I try to catch “You are a liar” before it escapes my lips and change it to something more like, “You are very important to me and I love you very much. I’m worried about drinking and driving. I want to keep you alive.”

The same thing applies to the words I use with myself. “I should do this” and “I have to do this” become “I want to do this.” “Should” and “have to” can sound like orders from somebody else. “I want to” reminds me that I am making the choice.

Exact words matter.

He Doesn’t Lack Social Skills, He’s a Jerk

When I was in business school a long time ago, I was talking to a friend about somebody we had just met. After the person left I said, “Wow, that guy is a jerk.” My friend said, “You mean he lacks social skills.” I thought, “No, that is not what I meant, I meant the guy is a jerk.”

This happened over 50 years ago and was probably my first experience with the concept of “politically correct” terminology. To me “politically correct” means not saying what you really mean. Unfortunately, being “politically correct” has become more important over time.

The phrase “He Doesn’t Lack Social Skills, He’s a Jerk” reminds me to use words that clearly “say what I want to say.” When writing this book, I use this principle. I want to communicate an idea as clearly as possible so the reader can evaluate it. I think trying to word things in a “politically correct” way makes it harder to say exactly what I mean.

There is another phrase in this book, “Exact Words Matter,” and in this case the exact word I want to use is “jerk.” Stop for a second and ask yourself what you hear when I say, “that guy is a jerk” versus “that guy lacks social skills.” I’m not sure what a person who “lacks social skills” looks like, but I know a jerk when I see one.

Remember the Good People and Forget the Bad

In almost any group, there are far more good people than bad. However, the bad people can be so loud and obnoxious that they capture most of my attention. I can end up spending my time and energy dealing with one difficult person and even continue talking about that person long afterward. Meanwhile, all the other great people fade into the background.

In my twenties I coached a youth hockey team. One of the dads was a complete jerk. He constantly criticized my decisions and yelled at the kids and referees. He brought a steady stream of anger and negativity to every team event. I was young and did not know how to deal with him, so my solution was to quit coaching the following year, even though I loved it.

Several years later, I returned to coaching. This time, I was determined not to let one jerk parent ruin the experience. When I encountered another difficult parent, I confronted him directly and told him that his behavior had to change. If it did not, I would ban him from the rink. Once I had dealt with the problem, I shifted my time and attention back to all the great kids and parents around the team.

I ended up coaching for another thirty years and enjoyed every year immensely. I made lifelong friends among the players, parents, and coaches I met. There were plenty of bad people along the way, but I have little recollection of most of them. The good people are the ones I remember.

Now, when I encounter a jerk at work, at a party, or around a hockey team, I quickly remind myself, “Remember the good people and forget the bad.” I deal with the person when necessary, but I do not allow one difficult person to consume all my attention and hide the many good people around me. If I am with a group and the conversation begins focusing on how terrible someone is, I try to shift it toward someone worth talking about. Jerks do not deserve my time when there are so many wonderful people in my life.

Don’t Let the Jerks Win

I run into jerks from time to time and they can be hard to deal with. They can make my life miserable and often seem impossible to avoid. A jerk wins when he makes me quit something I want to do.

In my twenties I coached a hockey team that included one awful parent. This person would scream at the kids, referees, and me. We got to the end of the season and were playing for the league championship. We lost 2-1 in overtime. As I was leaving the bench this jerk got in my face and said, “What is wrong with you? Why did you have Smith on the ice for that last goal? Everyone knows he sucks. What, are you having sex with him or something?”

I wanted to punch him in the face, but instead I quit coaching for five years. When I got back into coaching, I clearly thought, “I’m not going to let the jerks win this time around.”

We had one customer who was a jerk, always screaming at support people, rude, ungrateful. One day I noticed one of my support people was crying. This was a tough, hard-nosed lady, the last person I could imagine crying. I went over and asked what was going on.

“This guy is just such a bastard, you wouldn’t believe the things he said to me.”

I had not been aware that this guy was a legendary pain in the ass with my support team, but it was now very clear. I grabbed the phone and said, “I am canceling your support contract. Your refund check will be in the mail today. Do not ever call here again. You are fired.”

He yelled at me and said, “You can’t do that. Get me your boss.” I said, “OK, sir, I will.” I paused for 30 seconds and then said, “Hi, I’m Barry’s boss. You’re fired.”

I remember working on a big deal. The owner was a nice guy with ten properties in his portfolio. We got along great and he said, “I’ll get you a deposit check tomorrow, I just need my lawyer to look at the deal.”

Well, the lawyer was a jerk. He read our terms and conditions of sale and rewrote them entirely, putting in ridiculous things like, “If there is a problem that you can’t resolve in 24 hours, you will pay a $100,000 penalty.”

I called him and he was rude and combative on the phone, not willing to talk reasonably. His tone was, “Hey, buddy, it’s my way or the highway. Sign the contract and shut up.”

I was tempted to give up the deal—to quit again. However, “don’t let the jerks win” popped into my head. So I called the owner and related my experience. He said something like, “Wow, sorry about that. I don’t need to change any contracts. Let me get you a deposit check.”

The jerk did not win.

Sue Being Sue

Some people are remarkably good at getting under my skin. They say or do things that push exactly the right buttons and send me into a bad state. Years ago, it sometimes took me hours—or even days—to recover. These people are often family members or others who are going to stay in my life, so simply avoiding them is not always the answer.

When I was working with Lee Shulman, a therapist, I would tell him about my latest horrible experience with someone: what the person had said, why it was so offensive, and how upset I had become. Lee would listen and then calmly say, “Oh, that’s just Sue being Sue.” He pointed out that there were two distinct issues: the irritating thing Sue had done and how much energy I spent on it afterward.

I was giving the incident a great deal of energy by talking to friends about what had happened and trying to figure out why Sue had done it. Each time I retold the story, I relived the hurt and prolonged its effect on me. The phrase “Sue being Sue” helps me in three ways:

1. It reminds me that a person is likely to behave the way they always have and that I am probably not going to change them.
2. I stop hoping the person will suddenly behave differently and accept that the irritating behavior is not going away. When it happens again, instead of being shocked or disappointed, I think, “Oh, there it is again—Sue being Sue.”
3. The phrase does not mean the behavior is acceptable or that I must tolerate anything someone does. I may confront the person, end the conversation, establish a boundary, or spend less time with them.

The most important benefit is that I no longer keep the incident alive by repeatedly talking about it or looking for an explanation. I deal with whatever immediate action the incident requires, and then I let it go. Sue may continue being Sue. I do not have to give her the rest of my day.

Don’t Argue with a Crazy Person

The phrase “Don’t argue with a crazy person” is very useful to me, but I want to be clear about what I mean by “crazy.” I do not mean that the person is mentally ill or that anyone who disagrees with me is crazy. In this phrase, “crazy” describes a conversation in which the other person is expressing a completely irrational belief or is so angry, rude, or threatening that a calm and reasonable discussion is impossible.

I do not apply the phrase to rational conversations with people who disagree with me. For example, I may plan to vote for presidential candidate A while someone else supports candidate B. I find it interesting to learn why the other person supports B and to explain why I support A. Ideally, we can have an intelligent and enjoyable conversation. We may end up agreeing to disagree, but I would never think of that person as crazy merely because we reached different conclusions.

Sometimes, however, I find myself talking to someone whose belief is so irrational that debating it would accomplish nothing. At a cocktail party, I once ended up in a one-on-one conversation with a man I had never met. The first words out of his mouth were, “I’m not really here. I’m an avatar.” That was certainly an interesting opening line. I did not have anything pressing to do, so I asked, “Oh, really? How did you become an avatar?”

He explained that he had attended “Avatar School.” In fact, he said he had failed the school the first time and passed it the second time. At that point, I thought, “Don’t argue with a crazy person.” There was no reason to debate whether he really was an avatar. I did not want to embarrass him or create a scene, so I simply said, “Oh, I understand,” and walked away. He may have thought I meant, “I agree with you.” What I meant was, “I understand what you are saying. I think it is absolutely crazy. I am not going to argue with you about it, and I am moving on.”

The phrase is not only useful when someone believes something that makes no sense. I also use it when a person is unwilling to have a calm, reasonable conversation. The person may speak in a loud, angry voice, refuse to listen, or become threatening—as though disagreeing might lead to a physical confrontation. When I was younger, I might have matched the person’s anger and intensity. I would think, “I’m not backing down from this guy. If he wants a fight, I’m ready.” That response never accomplished anything useful. I merely made a bad conversation worse.

Now, the phrase “Don’t argue with a crazy person” reminds me that I do not have to match another person’s anger, prove that I am right, or win every argument. When there is no longer any point in talking, I end the conversation and move on.

Sometimes Agree When You Don’t Agree

The phrase “Sometimes agree when you don’t agree” is one that at first glance makes me think, “What does that mean?” It means that when winning the argument isn’t worth the time and effort, or could get me physically hurt, just agree and move on.

I was in a parking lot driving around looking for a spot when a car backed out very quickly and smashed into my vehicle. There was no way I could have avoided it. The other driver had not looked and came out at full speed. We both got out of our cars, and the other driver was a big guy and extremely angry. “You hit my car, it’s all your fault, you’re going to pay for this…” Now none of that was true, and my first reaction was to argue with the guy, “Hey buddy, you backed out at full speed without looking, what was I supposed to do, you moron?”

We were not in a controlled environment like a debate class or courtroom. We were alone in a parking lot and this guy was dangerous. I was angry and wanted to set him straight, and the hockey player in me was ready for a fight. However, the lunatic might have a gun or knife in his pocket.

I remembered that “sometimes agree when you don’t agree” and this was one of those times. I said something like, “You’re right, I’m very sorry, it was all my fault, I’ll make sure my insurance pays for everything.” When the police got there, I would tell a different story, but for now it was better to just agree.

If I’m at a party and somehow end up talking to someone who has a ridiculous idea that I strongly disagree with, the best solution may be to “agree when I don’t agree.” “Yep, that makes a lot of sense. Hey, I see my wife wants to talk to me. Bye, you freaking idiot.”

I also applied this principle to close an important deal for my software company. There was a company in Hawaii that had four hotels, one on each of the four major islands. The owner was in his 80s but still vibrant and actively involved. He had built the first hotel right after World War II, and by “built” I mean with his own hands.

I met the owner’s son at a seminar I was giving on Maui about our hotel software product. The son came up to me afterwards and said, “I love your product. We are 100% manual, and I’d like to buy four copies.” Great, get out your checkbook. However, he went on to say, “The problem is my father hates computers, thinks they are worthless, and won’t let me get any.” I said, “Well, arrange a meeting and I will give it a try.” He set it up but warned me, “You are the third computer guy to try to convince him.”

We met in one of the owner’s hotels. He didn’t have a meeting room, so we used one of the hotel rooms. It was clean but very dated. It had two twin beds. The owner, who was Native Hawaiian and spoke Hawaiian Pidgin, sat on one and I sat on the other. Before I could speak he said, “Why I need computer? I very successful for 50 years, customers come back, make lots of money. Computers are worthless, just get in way.”

I didn’t agree with him at all. I knew computers could greatly benefit small hotels like his. However, it was very clear there was no convincing this man. So I said, “You are absolutely right, you do not need computers. You have a fantastic business here, one of the best I’ve ever seen.” Before he could reply, I pointed at his son standing in the corner of the room and said, “He needs computers for the next 50 years.”

The owner’s demeanor changed immediately, and he said, “Good answer. How much they cost?” I said, “$200,000 total,” to which he replied, “No, I give you $100,000 right now, no more. What you say?” No bullshit negotiations with this guy, so I said, “Okay.”

He wrote me a check, and I asked him, “Where were you when they bombed Pearl Harbor?” He said, “Ah, you make sale, change subject. I do that.” He went on, “1941 I senior high school. After graduate 17 join Army. 16 dead by end. I come back, build hotel.”

I agreed with what I did not agree with, got a deal in five minutes, and was now getting fascinating stories instead of trying to convince him why he needed computers!

Never Get Angry When Someone Speaks the Truth

I was chatting with a friend the other day, and during the conversation he said, “You really need to lose some weight.” The comment triggered a defensive reaction. I had a flash of anger—something like, “How dare you say that?” I became mad and lost focus on the conversation. Then I remembered a phrase from Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged: “Don’t ever get angry at a man for stating the truth.” This helped me get back on track.

It is not clear why this truth caused such a defensive reaction, but the anger was not helping me. Did I need to lose some weight? Yes, definitely. While I was not obese, my beer belly was not helping my overall health. My friend was looking out for me and trying to help. He had spoken the truth, and getting angry about it was not going to get rid of the weight.

The phrase “Never Get Angry When Someone Speaks the Truth” not only reminds me not to get angry but also tells me something more important. I have noticed that when I get angry about a true statement someone makes about me, it is usually a sign that I should pay close attention to it. It is often something I already know is true, have wanted to do for a long time, and for some reason have not done.

Interestingly, if someone says something critical about me that I know is not true, it does not bother me or provide any useful information. If someone says, “Barry, you just aren’t very smart,” I know it is not close to true, and I let it go. However, I now take it seriously when someone speaks the truth and it upsets me.

Consider the Source

I use “Consider the Source” in two very different situations: when somebody criticizes me, and when I’m trying to figure out whether something is true.

There are a lot of people out there who are ready to criticize what someone is doing. Unfortunately this trend has increased over the last twenty years, probably because of all the social media channels available.

I like doing things, being the “man in the arena.” I used to be very sensitive to criticism and might even stop what I was doing because of it. I gave up coaching youth hockey for a few years because of intense criticism from one parent. Someone told me, “Consider the source, that parent has never done anything productive in their life and just complains about everyone and everything.”

I still don’t like criticism, but now I “Consider the Source.” If someone I respect offers some “constructive criticism,” I’m all ears.

The other way I use it is on information. In the social media and AI world we now live in, it is very difficult to determine fact from fiction. I find it useful to ask myself, “What is the source of that claim?” The problem is I’m not sure what sources to trust anymore. If the source is a good friend with a lot of integrity, who personally saw or experienced something, that is a good source for me.

If You Don’t Understand Someone, It May Be Their Problem, Not Yours

I was at a party yesterday and someone was rambling on about artificial intelligence. This person sounded like they knew what they were talking about as they included all sorts of technical phrases, “metadata, neural network, tokens, machine learning, teraflops, retrieval-augmented generation, etc., etc., etc.” I noticed that several people were very impressed, thinking something like, “Wow, I have no idea what this person is saying, but they sure seem smart.”

I know a fair bit about AI, and I thought, “This person has no idea what they are talking about, they are deliberately trying to confuse people so they can appear superior.” I stepped in and tried to explain AI in a way that a non-technical person could understand, and the other person said, “That is an oversimplification, it is really all about vector databases and blah, blah, blah.” I walked away and chatted with someone about an unrelated topic, but I could still hear the pompous bullshitter droning on to an ever-dwindling group of people.

The phrase “If You Don’t Understand Someone, It May Be Their Problem, Not Yours” reminds me that when I am completely confused by what someone is saying it is usually not because I can’t understand the topic. It is usually because they are either a very poor teacher or just showing off and deliberately trying to make me feel stupid.

It’s Good to Be a Nice Guy but Don’t Tell Anyone

When I was in college I asked a girl for a date and she said no. I asked her why and was told, “You’re just a nice guy.” I had no idea what she meant by “nice guy.” She ended up dating a guy who was kind of a jerk, perhaps even a “bad boy.” At about the same time I heard the phrase “Nice guys finish last,” attributed to the feisty baseball manager Leo Durocher.

It appeared that being a “nice guy” was not going to help me get a date or be a winner. The problem was I liked the idea of being a “nice guy”—being kind, considerate, honest, helpful, and treating people well. It seemed to me those characteristics should be attractive and should also allow me to succeed. I was confused and disheartened. Over the next few years I heard it again, more than once. Was I supposed to be mean, inconsiderate, dishonest, and selfish?

I realized that a big part of the problem was defining what a “nice guy” was. Durocher’s point seemed to be that winning requires toughness, aggressiveness, and competitiveness. In his version, a “nice guy” was agreeable and well-liked, but as a result might be passive, timid, and not compete hard. I think of that kind of person as a “wimp,” not a “nice guy.”

I’m sure each girl had her own concept of “nice guy.” Perhaps a girl was thinking, “There is nothing wrong with him. I like him. I think highly of him. But I don’t feel that thing that makes me want him romantically, so I’ll let him down easy with a rejection wrapped around the word ‘nice.’” Or perhaps she meant it more like Durocher did, and actually thought I was a wimp.

How did the word “nice” acquire all these negative qualities that aren’t actually part of being nice? I’m not sure, but the way I think of being “nice” is very different. You can be kind, honest, considerate, generous, and treat people well—and also be confident, competitive, decisive, assertive, interesting, and willing to say no.

I still want to be a nice guy, and by my definition I have mostly achieved that goal. However, if someone asked me in a job interview to describe myself, I would not say, “I’m a nice guy.” There is no way of knowing how the other person will interpret that.

You Are Treated the Way You Allow Yourself to Be

I have come to believe that “you are treated the way you allow yourself to be.” I wanted to put heat in my garage and found a plumber. He started the work but then disappeared partway through. When I called, he said, “I’ll be there tomorrow,” but he didn’t show up. The next phone call went unanswered, and so did the next. I finally managed to contact him and he did a little more work but disappeared again. More phone calls and more pleading with him to return.

My thought was, “This guy is treating me with a total lack of respect,” which put the blame and responsibility entirely on the other person. The implication was that he was doing a bad thing, I had nothing to do with it, and I had no control over the situation. It was a blaming and victim mentality that reduced my self-confidence.

I have discovered that changing the thought to “I’m allowing myself to be treated poorly by this person” is a completely different and very useful thought. It makes clear that I am allowing the bad behavior, and if I have been allowing it, I can stop allowing it. I’m not helpless or a victim. The thought leads directly to a solution for stopping the bad treatment: Find a more reliable plumber.

There are certainly times when the way a person is treated is truly outside that person’s control, such as a prisoner in a POW camp. However, in many ordinary personal and business situations, I am allowing the bad treatment and have the ability to stop it.

I used to allow all sorts of bad treatment. A friend would promise to meet me on the ski hill and not show up. Employees would take off far too much time with vague excuses that I accepted. I lent money to people who did not repay it. I would lament, “What is wrong with these people?”

What was “wrong” was that I was allowing myself to be treated badly, effectively walking around with a sign that said, “Kick me.” I could take off that sign and make sure people started treating me correctly from then on—or find different people.

Maybe Is Not an Answer

When I try to make plans with someone, I often have a hard time pinning them down. For example, I may ask someone to go to dinner tomorrow and the answer is, “Maybe. I’m not sure. I have to check with my wife, and there may be another issue, but I’ll let you know.” In the past, I would treat this almost like a yes and not look for someone else to go to dinner. Sometimes the person would let me know quickly, but often I was simply left hanging on “maybe” and ended up eating alone.

I believe people are treated the way they allow themselves to be treated. Accepting a “maybe” and then waiting around for someone to decide at some random point in the future was not the way I wanted to be treated. I was allowing them to control my plans. They may really intend to follow up and just forget. They may be waiting for a better offer. Or they may really mean no but have trouble saying no and replace it with maybe. Whatever the reason, I don’t want to sit around waiting.

Today, if I ask someone to dinner and they say maybe, I don’t let the conversation end there. I may say, “I’d like to go with you, but my wife is out of town and I want to try that new restaurant. Can you get back to me within ten minutes? If the answer is no, then I can go find someone else.” If the answer is, “I’ll try to get back to you,” I’ll give them the ten minutes, perhaps a little longer. If I don’t hear back, I ask somebody else.

I find that I sometimes use “maybe” with myself too. “Maybe I should call that old friend I’ve lost contact with.” For some reason I thought of the friend, but by saying “maybe” I can postpone doing anything while vaguely telling myself I’ll do it sometime in the future. Now, when I catch myself thinking I want to call an old friend, I either call as soon as possible or decide I don’t really want to call that guy, he wasn’t all that important to me.

I try to turn maybe into yes or no.

Learn to Say No

I have a hard time saying “no” directly to someone, and it gets me into trouble time and again.

I remember an employee asked for my help with something. It was late in the day and I had a golf tee time soon. However, I like to help people, so I quickly started working on it. It turned out not to be an easy issue, and I got sucked in. I ended up not playing golf and was angry with the employee. “Why did that person come ask me at the end of the day?” I think I generalized that to, “This job is driving me nuts.”

The problem was not with the person or the job. I was the problem. For whatever reason, when asked to help, I had not even considered saying “no.” I just jumped in. I could have asked the person, “Hey, I’m going to play golf. Can this wait until tomorrow?” The answer most likely would have been, “Sure.” If it had been a critical issue that really merited missing golf, I could have made a conscious decision that solving it was more important to me than golf and canceled the tee time.

There are a lot of ways to avoid saying no, and none of them are good for me:

• I can agree to do something and then not do it. Break my promise.
• I can respond “maybe” and then never get back to the person.
• I can avoid responding at all. Perhaps I get an invitation to a wedding with an RSVP, and I don’t want to attend. I don’t want to hurt their feelings, so I could just not respond. Later I could say, “Oh, I just forgot.”

I hate to admit that I’ve done all of the above at one time or another in my life. They do not represent the behavior of the kind of person I want to be. While saying, “No, I can’t do that,” can be difficult, it is way better than the alternatives.

You Don’t Have to Get Angry to Get Your Way

For a long time, I would put up with something someone was doing that really pissed me off. I would suppress my anger and not address the issue. The person would repeat the behavior, and again I would let it go. After this happened enough times, I would explode, screaming at the person in a fit of rage. My reaction was way out of proportion and out of control. The other person might reasonably think, “Hey, Barry, calm the hell down.”

In my twenties, I became aware that I was not a happy person. I had a great deal of stress, anxiety, anger, and negativity. Exploding in fits of rage was just one of my problems. Lee Shulman, a therapist I worked with, pointed out, “You know, Barry, you don’t have to get angry to get your way.” It was such a simple statement, and it resonated with me immediately.

The reason I was exploding at people was that I had not dealt with what they did the first time it pissed me off. I let the anger build until it came out all at once. The phrase “You don’t have to get angry to get your way” reminds me that when somebody does something I don’t like, I want to deal with it before the anger builds. The person’s action may still make me angry, but I do not have to express that anger by screaming at or belittling them. I can calmly explain what bothered me and have a reasonable conversation about it.

I am not a robot, and I am not perfect. Even though I have been practicing this principle for more than forty years, when someone does something that pisses me off, I do not always respond calmly right off the bat. I may begin with a very angry tone, and it can take me a minute to remember, “Hey, Barry, relax. You don’t have to get angry to get your way.”

Use the Broken Record Technique

The Broken Record Technique was popularized by Manuel J. Smith in his 1975 book When I Say No, I Feel Guilty. In Smith’s version, a person calmly repeats the same request, refusal, or position rather than being pulled into side arguments. The metaphor came from vinyl records. When a record was scratched, the needle could become stuck and repeat the same words over and over.

I use my own version of the Broken Record Technique when I am trying to persuade a person or group without allowing the conversation to drift away from my strongest reason. For example, I did a great deal of sales work for my hotel software company. We often competed with five or more companies for new customers. Each company had strengths and weaknesses, and prospective customers were exposed to hundreds of features and benefits, often during eight-hour product demonstrations. Our competitors usually tried to win the contract by overwhelming the customer with a long list of selling points: “Buy our product because it does this and this and this and this.” They hoped that somewhere in those eight hours they would mention something the prospect cared about.

I took a different approach. We had one benefit that almost always appealed to the ultimate decision maker, who was usually the hotel owner. Owners want to make more profit, and we had a proven track record of increasing revenue and reducing expenses. I combined the Broken Record Technique with an old public-speaking formula:

1. Tell them what you are going to tell them.
2. Tell them.
3. Tell them what you told them.

I would open by saying, “I am going to show you how our product will increase your profitability.” During the presentation, I concentrated on the features that increased profitability rather than burying that message under a hundred other details. I would conclude by saying, “Remember, our product will make you more money.” By then, the group would usually laugh, as though saying, “Yes, Barry, we heard you.”

We did not win every deal, but after a prospect had spent a week sitting through five lengthy demonstrations, much of the information blurred together. When I asked owners why they had selected us, I often heard something like, “All the products seemed about the same, but I clearly remembered that your company was going to increase our profits.”

The Broken Record Technique is also useful when one decisive reason makes all the side arguments irrelevant. A few years ago, I sold my software company. During the negotiations, the purchaser wanted me to work for them for five years after the sale. After forty years of being my own boss, there was no way I wanted to work for anyone else, but they were insistent.

I explained that one of the primary reasons I was selling the company was that my doctor had warned me that I needed to reduce my stress or risk having a heart attack. They did not seem to hear me and began talking about increasing the salary I would receive. Rather than discussing salary, I said, “I don’t want to have a heart attack.”

They suggested increasing the purchase price if I agreed to work for them. I did not even ask what the new price would be. I simply repeated, “I don’t want to have a heart attack.” At one point, they told me that company policy required a five-year employment contract and that the deal might not go through. I replied, “Sorry, guys. I don’t want to have a heart attack.”

I must have repeated that sentence fifteen times over the course of a week. We closed the deal, and I did not have to work for them for a single day.

Talk About Things You Care About

I often find myself in a group where the topic of conversation does not interest me. In the past, I would use 10 percent of my brain to appear interested while the other 90 percent wandered off to think about something entirely different. As a result, I was not very “present.” The solution was to change the subject to something I did care about.

That ability to mentally depart was useful when I was growing up. At a family holiday gathering, I might be stuck in a room listening to a conversation that bored me. I couldn’t leave, so I learned to appear as though I was paying attention while 90 percent of my brain thought about whatever I wanted.

The same thing happened in school. I remember sitting in first grade while the teacher explained the number line for the third time, even though I had understood it thirty minutes earlier. I was bored to death, but I could not get the teacher to move on, and I could not physically leave the classroom. Once again, 90 percent of my brain went somewhere else, which was a good strategy at that time.

I continued using that childhood strategy in adult conversations. If a dinner conversation was about something I couldn’t care less about, I physically stayed at the table but mentally went somewhere else. However, as an adult, I had new options. The phrase “Talk about things you care about” reminds me that I do not have to sit there pretending to participate. I can try to direct the conversation toward something I care about. If that does not work, I can leave the table.

This is one of those ideas that sounds simple but remains difficult for me to do. It is important to me to stay present in conversations rather than escape into my imagination. That shows respect for the other person and may give me an opportunity to learn something. After thirty years of practice, I still frequently catch myself mentally leaving a conversation. Sometimes I notice within a few seconds, sometimes after several minutes, and sometimes not until the conversation is over. Childhood habits are tough to break.

What Are Some of Your Favorite Things?

I don’t like it when I’m asked what my favorite is. “What is your favorite movie, color, book, food, etc.?” This question is often asked as a conversation starter, but for me it is a conversation stopper. If I’m asked, “What is your favorite movie?” I can’t easily answer because I don’t have a favorite. However, if I’m asked, “What are some of your favorite movies?” I can easily talk about any one of about 20.

When coaching youth hockey, I used to ask a new player, “What is the strongest part of your game?” I discovered the player would usually hesitate, scanning his skill set and trying to decide on the correct answer. If instead I asked him, “What are some of the things you’re good at?” I almost always got a list of several things. The player was more at ease, and I got the information I was looking for.

I have been asked, “Who is your best friend?” I am fortunate enough to have several great friends, and I don’t think of any one of them as “the best.” I don’t want to rank them, and it feels insulting to the people I don’t pick.

The phrase “What are some of your favorite things?” is valuable to me for much more than just starting a conversation at a party. At the end of every year, I would give employees bonuses based on their overall performance. I wanted to make sure that the “best” person got the most money, the second best got the second most, etc. I found myself spending a great deal of time trying to put 25 people into an exact order. So I stopped trying to decide who the “best” was and asked myself, “Who were some of the best employees this year?” It was easy—three names came to mind immediately, and I gave them all the same bonus.

I like to make a to-do list each day. As I thought of things to put on the list, I would add them to the end of the list. As a result, my to-do list was in the order I thought of things, not in order of importance. So I decided to sort the list in priority order. I found I could easily select a couple of things that were very important to get done that day, but choosing which one was “the very most important” got me into a needless debate. “Maybe it’s this one, but that other thing is also important…”

I want to spend time completing my to-do list, not creating it. I now think of just two categories: “important” and “everything else.” This allows me to quickly select a few things that come to mind as “potentially the most important” and put them at the top in any order. Then I list everything else below that, again in any order.

What is my favorite phrase in this book? I don’t know, and I don’t want to figure it out. What are some of my favorite phrases in this book? There are about 10. Let’s talk about them in any order.

People May Need to Vent but I Don’t Want to Be the Target

I like to solve problems, and I am good at it. I don’t like to listen to somebody complain about one thing after another, to “vent.” I tend to stop them and take one of the complaints and offer a solution.

There is a stereotype that men should become better listeners. The idea is that the complaining person doesn’t want solutions, they just want to “vent,” and my job is to learn how to be a better target for the venting. I call “bullshit” on that idea.

It may be true that people need to vent, which often means to complain and bitch about stuff with a general tone of “woe is me.” If venting helps, great, just find a therapist or somebody else to vent at. I don’t want to become a good “listener” if that means listening to problem after problem with no desire to do anything about any of them. I need to vent from time to time, and I find a tree in the forest is a good recipient.

I have been told, “You are not listening to me,” when the truth is I am actually a very good listener. I like to listen when my wife or a good friend has a serious issue that they want to talk about. Perhaps they are having trouble with a teenage son and need somebody to tell the story to, to “listen.” They are not complaining about the son, they want to talk about it. They may not expect me to have a solution, but if I have an idea they are all ears.

I am partly writing this book for my eighteen-year-old self, and I would tell young Barry, “People are going to pressure you to be a better listener, but if that means being the recipient of endless complaints, negativity, and general whining, you don’t have to put up with it. Being that kind of ‘better listener’ is not good for you and just encourages the other person to keep bitching. You want to become a good listener for people who want to explain a problem and are open to any ideas you might have to solve it.”

Give Because You Want To, Not Because You Want a Return

Sometimes I do something nice for someone or give them a gift, and that person does not seem to care at all. They may ignore it or take it completely for granted. I used to find this very frustrating and hurtful. I might think, “Why did I do anything for that ungrateful SOB? I’m not doing that again.” Then I discovered one of my favorite authors, Brené Brown. One idea I took from her books was to give because I want to, not because I need the other person to appreciate it. This concept has been very useful to me and completely changed how I view helping others.

In the early 2000s, the school my three kids attended did not have any computers. The headmaster firmly believed, “The colleges have told me they want to teach the students about computers, not us.” I thought this was ridiculous, but he believed it. I offered to give the school forty computers to create two computer labs. It was very clear that I would not receive a thank-you if I did so. In fact, he was going to fight me tooth and nail. If I somehow managed to get the two labs established, they sure as hell were not going to be named the “Biegler Computer Labs.”

The phrase “Give because you want to, not because you want a return” reminded me that I did not want a thank-you from the headmaster or a computer lab with my name on it. I wanted my three kids and all the other students to develop a strong foundation in using computers. That would help them tremendously in college and beyond.

To accomplish my goal despite the headmaster’s strong objections, I went over his head and directly to the school’s board of directors. I convinced them to give me thirty minutes at their next meeting. I arrived with a PowerPoint presentation explaining why it was critical for the school to improve its use of computers. Fortunately, several board members also wanted to increase the use of computers, and they quickly approved the plan and the labs were created.

I never got a thank you from the headmaster, and very few people know I had anything to do with it, which is fine by me. I wanted the students to learn, and I am proud of what was accomplished. If I had been in it for the credit, I never would have gotten past the headmaster.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished But Do It Anyway

“No good deed goes unpunished” is an old cynical saying of uncertain authorship. In popular culture, it has come to mean that trying to help someone or do the right thing often leads to unexpected trouble, criticism, inconvenience, or resentment instead of gratitude. That meaning can lead me to conclude, “Don’t help people or do good deeds because you will pay for it.”

There is some truth to the saying. About twenty years ago, I decided to help a local school improve its use of technology. I thought the first step was to buy forty new computers and donate them to the school for two computer labs. I had no idea how much difficulty this good deed would create. Among other things, the order got screwed up and was shipped to the wrong location. I had to spend a great deal of time getting the school to identify two rooms for the computers, set them up, and learn how to use them. Some people at the school thought the computers were inappropriate and criticized the donation on public forums. After they were installed, whenever a computer broke, I was dragged into arranging a warranty replacement. Several acquaintances were even offended that I had supported the school rather than their preferred charity.

At one point, I thought, “Why in the world did I do this? What a mess I have created for myself, and it does not seem to have an ending. I am never doing anything like this again.” That was an understandable reaction to the punishment the good deed seemed to be causing me, but I did not like my conclusion that I should never do anything like it again. I changed my thinking in two ways.

Focus on the Benefits of the Good Deed

When a good deed starts to cost me, I remind myself why I did it in the first place and of the benefits it created. In the school example, an entire generation of children received a much better technology education that could help them throughout their lives. That benefit was well worth the problems and criticism.

Continue Doing Good Deeds Despite the “Punishment”

I accepted that good deeds can create unexpected problems, but that was not a valid reason to stop doing them. It reminded me of “The Man in the Arena.” There will always be people who do very little themselves but are eager to complain about and criticize those who try—including people trying to do something good.

I realized that I had two fundamental choices. I could continue doing good deeds and helping people while taking the occasional hit, or I could avoid the punishment by doing nothing to help anyone. When I looked at it that way, the choice was easy.

Remember to Let People Do Something Nice for You

I like to help people. It can be a simple thing such as fixing a computer for a friend, or something that takes more time, like coaching youth hockey for a 50-game season with 100 practices. One of the reasons I’m writing this book is in the hope that I can help someone, even a little bit. However, my desire to help people occasionally prevents me from accepting help from someone else.

I remember one time a friend asked me to come over and look at his laptop. When I got there, it turned out to be infected with a bad virus and was pretty screwed up. There was no easy solution. I had to completely reinstall Windows and all the application software. It ended up taking about five hours. My friend really appreciated my help and offered to take me out to dinner as a thank-you. I resisted. “Oh, you don’t have to do that. I like fixing computers. It was no big deal.” He had to insist that we go to dinner and even selected the date and time. I reluctantly agreed.

A few days later, the two of us went to dinner, and we had a great time. When the check arrived, he quickly grabbed it. The restaurant was expensive, and he didn’t have a lot of money, so I offered to pay it or split it. He said something like, “Fixing that computer took a lot of time. This is my treat.”

I became aware of a concept from a self-help book—I can’t remember which one—that pointed out that when you allow someone to do something nice for you, it is a gift to them. At first glance, that seemed backwards—when someone does something nice for me, isn’t it a gift to me? The book went on to explain that the gift to the person doing the giving is that they get the same good feelings from helping that I do. My friend also got the satisfaction of having properly thanked me for my help rather than worrying that he had been ungrateful or had taken advantage of me. Once I understood the concept, I liked it and have framed it as “Remember to let people do something nice for you.”

Fixing the computer and going to dinner with my friend would go differently today. When he suggested it, I would enthusiastically agree: “Absolutely. I would enjoy that.” When the check came, I would not offer to pay or split it, just “Thank you.”