A more accurate title for Charles Duhigg’s Supercommunicators would be “How to Use Friends and Get Things From People.”
Some of the insights are interesting enough, until you realize they are a guide to straight-up sociopathic behavior.
Even if you make it up with the lipstick of “connection,” using vulnerability to obtain an outcome is repellent. You’re being a pig.
(Not really—pigs are actually quite nice)
But here’s my “what if…” utopian scenario.
What if we engaged with people for no ulterior motive at all? What if we respected people’s right to withhold discomfort and trauma? What if we considered intimacy as more of a sacrament than an instrument?
How would we treat each other then? How would we hope that others treat us?
Think about it. There’s value to old-school “that’s none of my business” manners. There’s honor in not trying to make it my business, whatever it might be.
And that’s my trademarked “Chris Fox ‘Cut the Shit’ Moment™” for 19 April 2024.
