Last Saturday evening I was seated in the third row center at a Broadway play, “The Band’s Visit.”  Ten minutes before curtain I was catching up on the news, courtesy of my iPhone, when I felt someone push my right elbow into my side and forcefully take sole possession of our mutual armrest.

Out of my peripheral vision, I noticed a woman had invaded my space.

I have attended hundreds of plays, but I have never discussed this situation with anyone.  Maybe I’m unusually sensitive to the art of sharing a theater armrest, which, after all, is only designed for one arm.  My wife typically sits to my left, so that side is easy.  We hold hands, usually on her lap or mine.  But occasionally, there is a problem with the stranger sitting on my right.

Before the show begins they always tell you to turn off your cell phone, but there are never any instructions on how to share your armrest.   I suppose the applicable etiquette comes under the heading of “Invisible Rules” which I wrote about in my book People Tools. Everyone knows the rule but no one talks about it.

It seems to me that there are only two possible systems.  Either you take turns, without talking about it, or the more aggressive person seizes sole possession.  That seemed to be the case here.

I prefer to avoid confrontations, but I will also defend my personal space from invasion when I feel it is necessary.  In this situation I ignored the intrusion.  Just before the show began the woman sitting to my right said, “You hit me with your elbow.”

“What?”

Louder.  “You hit me with your elbow.”

I didn’t hit her with anything, but it was easier to simply smile and say, “I’m sorry.”

I also took advantage of the opportunity to reclaim possession of the armrest.

The play was well performed, but I remained distracted.  I began to worry that after the show this woman might use her cellphone to take my photo, then circulate it on the internet with some sort of false allegation that I elbowed her.  That thought bothered me for ninety minutes, until the play ended.

While I would normally have exited to my right, after the curtain call my wife and I promptly departed to our left.

That’s where the matter ended, as far as I know.

But I wonder if this was an isolated incident. Are we all becoming more protective of our personal space, especially with strangers, as a way to carve out a zone of safety in what appears to be an increasingly contentious, neighbor against neighbor, world?  To put it another way, is there enough space for all of us?

Alan

If you want to know a secret for living well and achieving greater success both personally and professionally, I have one simple and effective tool.

Add perceived value.

There were two candy stores across the street from an elementary school.  When a child ordered a quarter pound of candy from the first store, the employee filled the bag, then poured candy out of the bag until the weight was down to a quarter pound.

At the second store the employees were instructed to put a little candy into the bag, then add more until the desired weight was reached.

Even though each store offered the same candy at the same price, the second candy store thrived.  The first store failed simply because its young customers thought they received more candy (greater perceived value) from the second store – the one that added candy to the bag, rather than taking it away.

This analogy applies well to our lives. I contend that we do not respond to “value.”  Rather, we respond to “perceived value.”  You might buy a dress for $50.00 when it is marked down from $100.00 because it sounds like a good perceived value – fifty percent off the original price.  This is exactly what the seller intended.  But suppose the next day you find the same dress in a different store at the full, not marked down price of $42.00?  Which is the greater “perceived value” now?

“Perceived value,” not merely “value,” is our actual hot button.

When I was a kid, my mom sometimes answered the doorbell to our home to find a vacuum cleaner salesman who walked right in and dumped a sack of dirt on our living room carpet.  He then demonstrated that our old vacuum cleaner couldn’t pick it up, but the new handy-dandy vacuum cleaner he wanted to sell us could easily do the job.  Mom never bought a new vacuum cleaner, but I did develop a dislike for both salesmen and salesmanship.  To my young mind sales meant that you knocked on a hundred doors a day trying to sell a mom something she didn’t want, and you were rejected a lot. I knew that whatever I did later in my life I would never become a salesman.

But I was wrong.  We are all salespersons, all of the time.  We have to sell ourselves every single day – at work, at lunch with a friend, and even, sometimes, to our family.

In your work, I suggest you find your niche. Do something you enjoy, and learn to be good at it.  Then, to really succeed, bring perceived value to your customers, your co-workers, and your boss.  Give them the perceived value they want, consistent with your own values.

And with your friends and family the same rule applies.  Never take them for granted, and always aim to listen carefully and to be helpful.  Listening carefully and being helpful are the two perceived values that each of us can bring to everyone who makes a difference in our lives.

And if you perceive value in this blog, please pass it along to others.

Thanks.

Alan

My absolute deadline for completing my blog each week is five pm when Lauren, who posts it on the website, leaves for the day. And yet, here I am at two pm just beginning to write.  So why did I start so late? I am always trying to understand my own process (as well as the process of everyone else). I like to know why people behave the way they do, perhaps because it makes them more predictable (and for that reason more safe). So here are some insights into my process:

Why did I start so late?

1. Starting at the last minute makes it more exciting. My adrenaline is rushing, my fingers tingle, I wonder if I will make the deadline, or will I miss it for the first time in more than four years?  Yes, excitement is definitely one of the reasons I start at the last moment.
2. I focus better when I have limited time. If you gave me a two-hour project and I began to work on it three days in advance I would find it difficult to focus because, perhaps like many of you, there’s always tomorrow.  Until, of course, there isn’t.  Not everyone is like this.  My friend Susan once stayed up until three in the morning to finish a term paper.  I asked her if that was because it was due the next day.  “No,” she said.  “It’s actually due in three weeks, but I didn’t want to have it hanging over my head.”
3. I write faster when I have a limited time to complete my work. This means that the writing is more unfiltered and that often enables me to get closer to saying something true I might otherwise have avoided .  So if I write this blog in thirty minutes instead of my usual two hours not only will I have ninety minutes available to do something else, but I might be more authentic and share something meaningful that I might not have written about if I’d taken more time.
4. This reason is a little embarrassing. When I rush my work I have a more credible excuse for not doing my very best. That takes some of the pressure off of me (and maybe I write even better that way). I can easily sell myself the “story” that I didn’t really have enough time, so less than my best is more acceptable.  Of course, there are many other excuses for failing to do my best, but since I don’t own a dog the “dog ate my paper” isn’t available.
5. I can write more concisely. You will understand that I don’t have time for six hundred words, so you and I can settle for five hundred.  And maybe you’ll be happier since I’ll be brief and more to the point.

I think my blog next week may be titled, “Rationalizing for fun and profit.”  Or maybe, “How to create an excuse which will at least satisfy you.”

Gotta go now!

Alan