Social-Preneur

When we’re participating in an activity with other people, earning their cooperation is critical to succeeding with them, if nothing else, succeeding in the way of co-existing in a state of peace towards a mutual aim.  When we’re driving in traffic with other people on the road, something as simple as everyone acknowledging red lights and green lights can be the difference between money in your pocket and a ticket; or, a safe commute to work and a detrimental one.  If we all follow the rules of the road, in theory, we should be able to avoid a lot of problems.

But some arenas that we participate in don’t come with a set of hard pressed rules, but, they still come with a variety of penalties of sorts, not always in the way of a traffic tickets or collisions, but in the way of disdain, resentment and hostility.

During the last few years in particular, most of us have observed that we have been living in a very socially volatile era where the sensitivities around subjects are tender to the touch – but some of that grievance may not come from the wound itself, but the acknowledgement of its existence and the trouble that the person experiences from it.

While many of the serious issues we deal with need to be remedied with structural adjustments in the society in which we live, others often times fall under a range personal annoyances to conflicts within personal interests: which can be treated with adjustments in our collective personal attitudes.

Here are a few tips for managing what we can control immediately –our own attitudes and thus behaviors, for the purpose of reducing problems in the pedestrian settings that we find ourselves in daily:

• Come to a realization that as strongly as we feel about or opinions and beliefs that people with vastly different views than us have the same level of conviction around theirs.

Not only has it been proven that not one person or group has all the right answer towards the affairs effecting people, but we may even reason that no person or group has developed the best answer to any single thing in the society in which we exist.  We may not agree with someones thinking, but we may be able to at least attempt to consider where they’re coming from.

• Adopt the outlook that people are probably trying their best to navigate their way through life, according to their own understandings, identities and capabilities.

If we focus on the results that people are looking to produce more than the differences in approach, we can have an appreciation for their activities and efforts and not look at them as being in opposition to ours, but as an extended collaboration effort with ours, which can earn their respect, cooperation and even a sense of community with us as well.

• Let each person play their own role.

There’s a place for everyone.  We all have our own strengths and identities that we’re comfortable with and some that we are not.  Just as you would not likely expect to use a knife to hammer a nail, it isn’t a reasonable expectation to expect a person to perform outside of the individual that they have been designed into over the years.

• Control the negative emotion of feeling that if a person doesn’t accept your way of thinking that by default they are against your cause or ideals in a discriminatory way or against you as person.

Some people may simply not understand your stance on a subject. Some may be indifferent towards the matter.  Some may fully understand and yet strongly disagree with no willingness to have flexibility in changing their thinking on it.  No matter which category that they or that you may fall under from time to time, taking every matter to heart as being personally against you and your beliefs is a breeding ground for social contamination.

• Allow for a “margin of error.”

A parent to a young child may have done a great job in getting the child in the habit of putting their toys away at night and the child may have grown accustomed to doing so.  In fact, they may get it right about 90% of the time.  However, on nights where the parent is stressed out or upset and the child neglected to clean up their mess, it can become a recipe for yelling, put downs and immediate reprimand. To the parent, any noted frequency of not fulfilling their desire is a problem.  To the child, constantly hearing about the times that they failed gets internalized for regularly not doing a good enough job.

The mind looks for consistency and when it knows something is off, that thing gets emphasizes it. For some instances this is helpful like pouring a glass of water and seeing that it’s clear and clean looking; whereas if we went to pour a glass only to find the water brown and rusty, we would should know suddenly that something is wrong.  But for other things such as our dealings with people, recalling all of their faults and times of failing to do something that we wanted them to do, can be a relationship handicap.

Having a friend or significant other that has been texting you every night for several months until one night, you don’t hear from them can automatically make some people assume negative ideas around their relationship with that person.  Take a moment or two and ask yourself…Is it really a big deal or am I making something bigger than it is in my head?  Do the times that someone has not lived up to my expectations outweigh the times that they have?  Have I clearly communicated what my wishes are in a certain area and have I accepted that they still won’t be fulfilled flawlessly every single time? Do I catch people doing the right things more often than the times that I catch them doing the wrong things and if so, am I more vocal about the positives in their actions than the negatives?

• Understand that to really persuade someone to your line of thinking, they may need to see the benefits of your way in terms of how it is positively affecting your life and enhancing you as a person.

To promote a change, some people need to see that a person or a way of behaving is worth considering, accepting and eventually modeling. Like a desirable favorite food or song, you wont have to chase someone to accept your way when it’s something that they really want because they know that it really does something for them.

Social-Preneurs can find ways to create opportunities to enhance the lives of other people by being a leader in their communication skills, a necessary component to entrepreneurship.

Copyright © 2018 Waymon Brown

 

 

Written By: Waymon Brown. Creator of theesquireproject.com. Email info@theesquireproject.com