When he was young, one of my sons told me, “Dad, the secret of getting along with other people is to always be sincere. If you can fake that, you have it made.” I’m not going to comment on his statement (which was intended as a joke) other than to say that faking sincerity is not the best idea, even if you’re good at it. You might end up fooling yourself.

Even if you’re not running for public office, to succeed in life you need other people to like you. You need friends. And the more people like you the more successful you become. Here are a few tips:

1. Like Them First. If you want someone to like you, like them first. And let them know that you like them. Don’t leave it to chance. Don’t be proud. Don’t try to play “hard to get.” Say to them, “I really like you.”
2. Listen, Listen, Listen. The three most important factors in real estate are location, location, and location. The three most important elements in business are management, management, and management. The three most important factors in being a friend are to listen, listen, and listen. People love to be heard. Years ago a business associate of mine complained about his problems. I made suggestions, which he always rejected. We both ended up frustrated. This continued for more than a year. Finally, he said to me, “Alan. I don’t want your suggestions. I just want to complain.” Bingo! I got it. That was one of the best bits of relationship advice I have ever been given. I changed my approach. I began to listen to him without offering suggestions. Our improved relationship has lasted for more than forty years.
3. Give value. When you spend your money, you look for value. When you spend your time with someone, you also look for value. Be enthusiastic about a friend’s successes and supportive when they fail Find out what your friends like by listening to them. Provide as much of what they like as you can. If my mom had listened to me, she would not have given me a scratchy wool sweater for my birthday present four years in a row. She would have given me a game or a toy.
4. Keep your relationships balanced. Give as much as you receive, if not more. No one likes to feel taken advantage of, and an unequal relationship will not be satisfying to either of you. This advice works both ways. Don’t let yourself end up being taken advantage of either. Mutual give and take is the foundation of every good relationship.
5. Be there when it’s important. One of my daughters loved her dog Bryce. So did I. One morning Bryce was chasing a squirrel, ran into the street, and was hit by a car. Bryce died in my daughter’s arms on the way to the animal hospital. My daughter’s boyfriend at the time had previously scheduled a camping trip with other friends, and left an hour later. He was gone four days, and wasn’t there when she needed him. Shortly after, my daughter moved on.

I think I’ll modify what my son told me years ago. The secret of getting along with other people is to always be authentic. Once you have mastered that, you won’t need to fake anything.

Alan

I like numbers, which is one of the reasons I became an accountant. For fun I even took a bookkeeping course in high school. I may be weird in this respect, but I often think about numbers and run calculations in my head. On one flight to Hawaii the passengers were asked to estimate the time at which we would reach the half way point. I figured that the trip would take about five and a half hours, and that the first half of the flight would take longer than the second half because we were climbing to altitude. I entered two guesses – one for me and one for my wife. These were only thirty seconds apart. I took both first and second place and won two bottles of wine. Hooray for math!

But when I fly from Los Angeles to New York I think about that 9:00 am breakfast tomorrow, which is 6:00 am in Los Angeles, and that means I have to get out of bed at 4:30 am. Ouch!

A friend who is an airline pilot recently suggested that I don’t do the math. In other words, don’t remind myself that I will have to get up at 4:30 am. Instead, he said, I should adapt to Eastern time, and if I’m in bed at 11:00 pm I will have no problem waking up when the alarm rings at 7:30 am. Following his suggestion, I don’t do the math any more. Well, at least not as often as I used to. I have also applied this idea to other areas of my life. I am pretty successful now in not doing the math when I am late for an appointment. Before I used to calculate how long the trip would take, using different assumptions for traffic. If I left at 11:45 for a noon lunch, and realized that my journey would take thirty-five minutes, then I was tempted to cut some driving corners, literally. At the very least I was upset for all of those thirty-five minutes.

I don’t like to be upset, and a few months ago I realized I could stop doing the math. I decided I was not actually late until noon. So from 11:45 until noon there was no reason for me to be angry with myself, or fear upsetting someone else. I then took this idea further. While I do call if I expect to be more than ten minutes late, I don’t rush my driving, or beat myself up, because the more important issue for me is to arrive safely and enjoy lunch. I don’t want to arrive angry, with a dent in my car (this has happened), and out of breath.

Of course, there are times when you should do the math. After twenty years at the same bank my father moved his checking account to a new bank. I asked him, “Dad, did you cash out the remaining balance after you deducted for all of your outstanding checks?”

“No, Alan. I’m just going to let the checks clear, and take out whatever’s left.”

“You mean you don’t balance your checkbook every month?” I was incredulous.

“Not once in twenty years.” I think that to please me he added, “I do look at the

checks when they come back.”

This system works just fine for my dad (and I fear it is also common for many others). For me, however, it wouldn’t work. I still remember writing a check for $120.00 that my bank cleared for $1,200.00.

Perhaps there are areas of your life where you, too, could cut stress by not doing the math. If so I encourage you to try. But please be cautious about applying it in every situation. You don’t want to unintentionally overdraw your bank account.

Alan

Throughout my life I have made a number of prophecies or predictions about myself that have come true. Some are trivial (“I think I’ll enjoy that movie”). Some are important (“I think I will like being married to that woman”). Perhaps my personal prophecies merely reflect my confidence (“I will succeed in …”) or the lack of confidence (“I can’t do this . . . ”). Either way, they are often self-fulfilling.

If I attempted to walk along a long twelve-inch-wide wood plank I would have no problem. If that same wood plank was suspended between two twelve-story buildings I would be terrified and either refuse or, more than likely, fall. I am terrified of walking along the edges of cliffs or high buildings. Same activity (walking the plank), different prophecy, different result.

Tim, a close friend of mine, told me about one serious self-fulfilling prophecy from his first marriage. Tim had met his future wife, Marilyn, in high school when they were both sixteen-years-old. They dated, went steady, were engaged, and when they were both twenty-one they married. For the first seven years their marriage was excellent. Then, from Tim’s perspective, their relationship deteriorated. After three years of on-and-off arguments—often the same one—Tim concluded one night that he wanted to let Marilyn know that he was at a point in their marriage that required a make or break conversation. He felt that he needed to get her attention, and chose his words carefully.

As Tim tells it, they were sitting in the front seat of their old Pontiac and he said to Marilyn, “I’m thinking of leaving you.”

Tim did not say he was actually leaving because there was still an open question in his mind. He did want to let Marilyn know that their problems were continuing, and bothered him a lot.

Tim said he will always remember her immediate reply, which shocked him. “I’ve always expected this.”

“I’ve always expected this”? After five years of almost exclusively dating each other, more than ten years of marriage, after three children, after thirteen years of mutual loyalty, “I’ve always expected this”?

Tim was stunned.

Later he realized that Marilyn had been living for many years with a scary self-fulfilling prophecy—that Tim would eventually leave her. Perhaps she felt inadequate in some way. She may have been filled with the memory of her father, who was unreliable. I never asked. But Marilyn’s prophecy did come true. Tim told me that he wished her unconscious forecast had been that they would always be together because there might have been a different result.

By comparison, I visited a psychic years ago. I was concerned about three important business deals.

The psychic told me that all three would fail. Please note that this was her prophecy, not mine. I responded to her prediction by deciding to be even more careful and to pay more attention to each transaction. My prophecy, which turned out to be self-fulfilling, was that all three would succeed, and they did.

I realize that few, if any, of us ever want to be wrong, and it is easier to fail than to succeed. So when you predict failure you might be correct more often than when you predict success. In my mind, however, the real question is this: which prophecy will help you to succeed more often? That is the entire thrust and purpose of my People Tools series of books: to help you succeed more often. I know that when I predict failure or uncertainty for myself I am often accurate. But when I predict success, I am also often correct.

If prophecies tend to be self-fulfilling, I prefer to infuse them with optimism. I would rather succeed than correctly predict my own failure.

Alan