1: Getting better at getting better is what RiseWithDrew is all about.
Monday through Thursday, we explore ideas from authors, thought leaders, and exemplary organizations. On Friday, I share something about myself or what we are working on at PCI.
Searching for a bit of wisdom as we push to end 2024 on a strong note and start 2025 with a bang.
“You’re standing in front of an elevator. The doors open. And inside the elevator is one solitary stranger. You’ve never met this person before in your whole life,” reflects Peter Kaufman, editor of Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charlie Munger.
“You have three choices for how you’re going to behave as you walk into this elevator,” Peter observes.
Option one is to smile and say, “Good morning.” If we do that, “98 percent of the time the person will smile and say good morning back,” Peter predicts.
Option two: We can “scowl and hiss at this stranger in the elevator. And they have no idea why you’re scowling and hissing at them. And I say 98 percent of the time, they may not hiss back at you, but they will scowl back at you,” says Peter.
Option three?
We can walk into the elevator and do nothing.
“And what do we get 98 percent of the time?” Peter asks.
Nothing.
2: Peter calls this “mirrored reciprocation.” We get what we give.
“We’re going to get back whatever we put out there,” Peter comments.
“Do we want to spend our one lifetime like most people do, fighting with everybody around them?” asks Peter.
Peter tells us there is a better way.
“Instead of an antagonistic fighting life, all you have to do is go positive, go first, be patient enough.”
3: Good things happen when we “go positive and we go first.”
And, yet, we don’t.
We don’t smile and say “good morning.”
Why not?
Because there’s a two percent chance the other person will scowl and hiss at us.
Peter points to the research of Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel Prize winner in behavioral economics.
What did we win his Nobel Prize for?
“For answering the question, why would people not go positive and not go first when there’s a 98 percent chance you’re going to benefit from it, and only a 2 percent chance the person’s going to tell you to screw off and you’re going to feel horrible, lose face, and all the rest of that.”
What does Daniel’s research show?
“There’s a huge asymmetry between the standard human desire for gain and the standard human desire to avoid loss,” Peter says.
Our desire to avoid loss is so strong it wins the day even though there is only a two percent chance of it actually happening.
How does Peter live his own life?
“I risk the two percent.”
He quotes U2 lead singer Bono: “I know 10 percent of people are going to screw me. That’s okay. If I’m not willing to be vulnerable and expose myself to that 10 percent, I’m going to miss the other 90 percent.”
“Those are his numbers—90–10. That’s why that guy’s had such a great life,” Peter reflects.
Go positive. Go first. Be patient.
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Reflection: Do I generally extend trust or make people earn my trust? What would it cost me to extend trust first?
Action: Be intentional about extending trust.
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