Preventing your WW3

 

From a lawyer

There is something I wish I'd understood much earlier in my legal career.

I used to prepare for what I thought should happen.

The reasonable outcome.

The logical response.

The thing any rational person would obviously do.

And then I'd watch someone do the exact opposite.

Reject an excellent settlement.

Spend $20,000 fighting over something worth $5,000.

Make an accusation that could easily be disproven.

Create another problem when everyone was finally close to resolution.

I'd think:

Why would anyone do that?

Eventually I realized I was asking the wrong question.

Stop Predicting What Makes Sense

Start predicting what makes sense to them.

That's completely different.

If you're dealing with a high-conflict personality, don't ask:

"What would a reasonable person do next?"

Ask:

"What does this person have an incentive to do next?"

That question has saved me more times than I can count.

Because people don't necessarily make decisions based on what is objectively best.

They make decisions based on what they value.

Control.

Money.

Status.

Privacy.

Winning.

Avoiding embarrassment.

Punishing someone.

Protecting a narrative.

Keeping access to you.

Those incentives can be completely different from yours.

Here's Something You Can Do Today

I call this the Incentive Test.

Take the person on the other side of your conflict and answer four questions:

1. What do they SAY they want?

Write it down.

2. What does their BEHAVIOR suggest they want?

This is usually much more interesting.

3. What are they trying hardest to avoid?

Expense?

Exposure?

A deposition?

Losing control?

A particular person seeing certain information?

Uncertainty?

4. What would make resolution more attractive than continued conflict?

Now you're thinking strategically.

You're no longer predicting behavior based on what you would do.

You're looking at the world from their side of the chessboard.

Fucked over? Here's how

DARVO meaning

Deny = Reject what you’re saying, change the frame, gaslight.
Attack = Move away from the original point to whatever puts you on the defensive. Destroy your credibility.
Reverse victim and offender = Reposition themselves as the victim. Recast you as the villain and moral wrongdoer, so the whole story is rewritten around what you supposedly did to them, making their retaliation seem justified to themselves and onlookers.

DARVO always wins when it's just people talking. Complicated truths can't compete against simple lies and moving goalposts.

Delete it's a bigger skill

Dan Pink

 Since ChatGPT launched, the number of new books published each year has tripled. Researchers at Cornell and the University of Minnesota looked at what all that abundance actually produced — and found that as output soared, average quality sank.

Here's the thing: that's not an argument against AI. It's a map of where the value is moving. When producing almost anything becomes nearly free, production stops being the scarce skill. Judgment becomes the scarce skill — knowing what's worth making, what's worth fixing, and what's worth deleting.

And taste isn't something you're born with. It's something you build. Read better stuff. Notice why the good work is good. Be willing to toss your own B-minus drafts before anyone sees them. The machines can generate endlessly. Deciding what deserves to exist is still our job.

Follow @danielpink for more on how work is actually changing — and what to do about it.

#ai #creativity #taste #writing #danielpink

The cost of humility

 The cost of humility

https://youtube.com/shorts/gWrgQIThVBA?si=evzVxIJWQCz5lwJg

The problem is this only works if you've got a baseline of acceptance from inside and out. You can't put that full load on someone who doesn't have the strength to carry that - All men were once children. Some did not have an environment to establish this baseline. A wild animal will attack if corned because it's in their nature. Hurting people hurt people. (If you have the capacity) Lift up others even if they can't lift back.