As many of you know, in 2014 and 2015 I wrote three self-help books that were published by SelectBooks:  People Tools; People Tools for Business; and People Tools for Love and Relationships.  I’m pleased to say all three books are still selling well on Amazon.

A few weeks ago one of my grandsons visited for several days.  At breakfast he said, “Grandpa, I’m reading three of your people tools chapters every morning, and one of my favorites is “The 80% Solution.”  I was surprised, especially because Daveen had recently told me that one of her favorites is also “The 80% Solution.”

The basic idea of this short chapter from the original People Tools book is that in any relationship, whether business or personal, if someone meets 80% of my ideal then “I will stick with him or her and not spend one second thinking about a replacement.”

There is no particular “magic” to my choice of 80%.  Your yardstick could be 70% or, if you never want to be satisfied with anyone, you could set it at 100%.  My point is that we all have to be satisfied with less than perfection, at least in others. The popular singer Shakira told 60 Minutes she has never been 100% satisfied with any of her performances. Despite those impossibly high expectations for herself, I’m confident that most people in her audience are quite satisfied with a lesser standard.

One of my favorite (and most practical) tools in People Tools for Business is “Wait Three Days.”  Whenever I receive a business email that bothers me, I wait three days before responding.  In the book I share an example of how I made a nice profit on a real estate transaction because, after waiting three days, I was able to respond in a polite and creative way rather than impulsively or with anger.

In People Tools for Love and Relationships the initial and most fundamental chapter is ‘The Key is You.”  I grew up believing that the secret to enjoying a successful relationship was simply to pick the right person.  I was naïve about this, and wrong.  You don’t find the right person.  You have to be the right person. You have to put in the effort to make any relationship work.

As a teenager I read many books and magazine articles about love.  The best advice I ever found was a single sentence. “If you want someone to love you, love them first.”

In all relationships we begin as strangers. The goal is to lower our barriers.  (See the chapter, “Is it Safe?”).  Every couple that celebrates a tenth, or fiftieth, anniversary has learned, to a greater or lesser degree, to get along in a relationship, reduce barriers, and be satisfied with less than 100% of their ideal.

Today I’m tempted to summarize all of my People Tools about relationships with one short statement:  Be appreciative, and be nice.

Alan

I’ve always been obsessed with the idea of efficiency.  For example, whenever I walked anywhere I always took the shortest route I could.  Maybe I was just physically lazy. But now I’ve replaced that habit.

Last year, after I had surgery on my spine, my son, an MD, strongly recommended that I walk briskly for 20 to 30 minutes every day.  “Dad,” he warned, “at your age you have to exercise a least six days a week.”  Ugh.

I felt intimidated.  For most of my life I’ve held the belief that the shortest distance between two points is simply to sit in one place.  After all, I’m going to end up where I started anyway, so why not just stay where I am, or at least combine trips, or, better yet, persuade myself that I really don’t need what I thought I did anyway.

But in deference to my son, and in the interest of good health, I reluctantly began to walk 3,000 steps a day. Before last year, I hadn’t even realized that my iPhone kept track of every step I took.  In 2018 I averaged 2,635 steps a day.  In 2019 my average was 2,229 steps even though, after my surgery, I hardly walked at all for three months.

But I’m delighted to share that in 2020 I’m up to 4,791 steps a day.  Now I make a game of it.  This month I reached a pinnacle of 7,000 steps a day.  That’s about the maximum I can regularly sustain, but I’m optimistic that I will because I feel more energetic than I have in years.

To achieve this goal I’ve developed an entirely new mindset, discarding my tendency towards “efficiency” in favor of “effectiveness.”

Tonight I was waiting for Daveen to join me for dinner. She indicated that she would be ready in five minutes.  Two years ago I would have simply sat at the table.  But instead I took the opportunity to walk three laps (about 400 steps) around my house.  Now I look for opportunities to walk, rather than opportunities to sit.  And whenever I walk somewhere, I don’t take shortcuts because that’s no longer the point. Now I deliberately take “long cuts,” since the point is to gain more exercise.

That isn’t the only change I’ve applied in my life. Years ago my goal at work was to finish every project as quickly as I could. Today I work a little slower and the result is a lot better.

I know that eventually each of us will end up in the dustbin of history. But our lives take meaning from how we live in the moment. Accordingly, it seems that the shortest path to good health is to take a little longer, and the best way to accomplish a task is to work more deliberately.

This is why I now realize that longer is often shorter.

Enjoy your long, or short, week.

Alan

For those of us who live with another human being, especially when it’s 24/7, we need to think about the issue of conflict and compromise.  I believe I have a unique view on this that most couples would find helpful.

All of us have core issues – those personal needs we will not compromise. I think of these as “deal-breakers.”   Some of my core issues are:

1. No drinking to excess.
2. No physical or emotional violence.  In other words, “fight fair.”
3. Spending a certain amount of undivided time together almost every day.

I will not compromise any of my core values. From my perspective, core issues, once identified, are easy to deal with.  If my partner disagrees with mine, or I disagree with hers, then we’re not compatible as partners.  This may be easier said than done, but it should be both said, and done.

All other issues are preferences that can be negotiated.  You might be a vegan while I’m an omnivore.  You might prefer to eat dinner at 8:00 while I favor 5:30.  You might like to talk to many people on the phone every day while I communicate by email. I see no reason why I should even attempt to coerce you into changing your preferences.  To me that would be a fool’s errand and cause unnecessary conflict.

The best way to avoid conflict is to be as flexible as you can, and to accept your partner “as is.”  That’s easy to do when the flower of love first blooms.  It’s not so easy when the petals begin to drop from the rose.

After living for 80 years, I no longer believe that there is a “right” or “wrong” way to do anything.  There are just preferences.  I may be comfortable with clutter.  You might prefer to organize and label every box, can, and bottle in the pantry. Personally, I really like everything to be physically organized. I just don’t like to do it myself.  (I have learned over the years, however, that it’s best for everyone, including me, when I throw my own clothes in the hamper at the end of the day.)

One constructive piece of advice I offer to anyone in a relationship, is to actively try, when possible, to minimize conflict.  When you realize that differences are just inclinations, and not the end of the world, you become easier to live with and disputes tend to dissipate.

It is said that compromise is when both sides are unhappy with the result.  In politics that may be the way it has to be.  Just pass the legislation, or not, and move on.  But in my life why would I want to continually make compromises that I’m unhappy with or that become the source of unhappiness for my partner?  That’s why I favor cooperation, rather than compromise.  Let’s both be as flexible as we possibly can, and share compliments rather than criticism.  I’m thinking of the title of a book I read years ago, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff – and It’s All Small Stuff.

I enjoy being part of a couple.  I love caring and being cared for.  But I have to do my part first, and trust my partner to reciprocate.

I hope Daveen reads this and realizes how wonderful I am.

Alan