The Antidote to Anger
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“We have 11 million bits of information hitting us every second. The interesting part is our brains can only handle 126 bits per second! That's one 100,000th of the 11 Million. That’s .001% of reality. I did the math. That's like judging your week based on a six-second experience. It's like thinking you've seen the Mona Lisa by seeing a piece of it. No bigger than a grain of sand. So we're making it up. We make up our own reality, and our behavior is based on that reality.”
– Mike Goldman
The Law Of Positive Intent
The Law of Positive Intent emphasizes assuming positive intentions in people's actions rather than assuming their intentions are evil or to harm you.
It suggests that everyone is doing the best they can with their available resources and acknowledges that not everyone is doing the right thing but highlights that everyone is trying their best.
To assume positive intent in others means to open up possibilities and allow for alternative perspectives, such as people lacking resources or information that you may have or they have information that you don’t have.
Believing in positive intent is more empowering than assuming evil intentions.
Fundamental Attribution Error
Fundamental attribution error is a bias that we all have that affects our perceptions of others' behavior.
It leads us to attribute negative behavior in others to their character traits while attributing our own negative behavior to external circumstances.
This bias prevents us from assuming positive intent unless we actively counter it.
Our behavior is influenced by the specific bits of information we choose to see and focus on, which means we can be proactive in overcoming this bias by deciding what to focus on.
Pronoia: The Opposite Of Paranoia
Pronoia is the opposite of paranoia, it’s believing that everyone is not against you but conspiring in your favor. Suggesting that people around us are secretly working to make us happy, and even obstacles are there to guide us.
To better conform to retaining pronoia, it starts with shifting your anger into curiosity when observing someone's behavior we assume to be negative, which improves understanding and increases the chances of problem-solving.
Assuming negative intent leads to a life filled with conflict and drama.
Assuming the person or thing is actually working out for your benefit leads to a life of peace and gratitude.
Cultivating the habit of asking yourself, "What else could this mean?" can lead to transformative changes in your relationships and the world.
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Today's episode is gonna be a little different and a number of previous episodes I've talked about how important it is to believe in the positive intent of the other person. I've called it the law of positive intent. I talked about this in an episode on mastering your focus. More recently, I talked about it in an episode about having difficult conversations.
So what I thought would be really helpful is to dive deeper on that idea of the law of positive intent, and instead of me talking about it, kind of live here. What I'm gonna do is play for you a TEDx that I did on this exact subject back in January. I did TEDx Gainesville. Very honored to be on that stage and the name of my talk was The Antidote to Anger.
And in that I talk about the law of positive intent and I wanted to play it for you cuz anger is something we all deal with. You know, every day or almost every day. And if we deal with it wrong, whether it's with our team, with our family, if we deal with it wrong, we could hurt our relationships or our personal relationships, our professional relationships hurt our companies.
And, you know, we can't avoid it. We all feel that. So I wanna talk to you about something that I've learned over the years that has really, really helped, and pay attention to a very specific, question that I want you to ask yourself, and that happens towards the end of the TED Talk. So here it is.
I hope you enjoy it.
I believe there's one thing at the root of harmful conflict at the root of anger between left and right Jew and Palestinian. Father and son and I learned that one thing back in 2006.
On this particular day, I had a business call, a call with my business coach Susan. Susan wanted to know how I did on all those things I committed to do the week before, it was a week from hell with our 12 year old son.
I just couldn't focus. You see, my son has something called Asperger's Syndrome, and for those of you that don't know, Asperger's is a high functioning form of autism. And at that point, we'd had some good weeks, but a whole lot of weeks from hell over the last 10 years. Then Susan asked me what I thought I did to cause the bad week.
What I did, I didn't cause his Asperger's. How is this my fault? Susan changed her tact. She just wanted to know how the week from hell started. So here it is. It's about 6:30 in the evening. I had had a really tough day. I just wanted to get home, relax, de-stress. I walk in the front door. There's my son playing his video game, not even acknowledging I walked through the door, my wife yells from up in the kitchen.
Richie, it's time to come up for dinner. And I can tell by her tone that wasn't the first time she asked, I don't need this. I had a tough day. This kid knows every button to push to piss me off. Why can't he just go upstairs for dinner? Why can't he do the simple things? Just getting him the brush, his teeth and take a shower as a nightmare?
He can't focus in school. He has no friends. Is he ever gonna get through high school? How's he gonna get into college? Is he ever gonna get married and have a normal life? And with all this swirling in my head, I explode on this poor kid, Richie, you got upstairs for dinner right now I just have to finish this level on my game.
We're screaming and yelling and I walked over to the wall and I pulled the plug. Yeah, big mistake. We finally go upstairs for dinner. He's looking for every reason to prove I'm the worst father in the world, and I'm looking for every reason to prove he's the worst son in the world. We have a horrible dinner, angry at each other, a horrible evening and a week from hell.
Then Susan asked me if I'd ever have a week that started off in a similar way, but ended very differently. That was easy. Just two weeks before I had a great day. I couldn't wait home to get home, couldn't wait to get home and share it with my family. I walk in the front door. There's Richie playing his video game.
My wife yells for him up in the kitchen. Richie, it's time to come up for dinner and I look down at my son, who's got these problems I don't really understand. Sometimes the world is so overwhelming to him. That his only escape is to hyperfocus on a video game. I have no idea of the problems he's going through.
I have no idea what it's like to be him. So I looked down at him, I said, hey buddy, you finish that level on your game. I wanna see you upstairs in 10 minutes. Okay? Sure, dad. Now did he come upstairs in 10 minutes? What do you think it was? 15 or 20, but he came upstairs. We had a beautiful dinner, we had a great evening, we had an amazing week.
And then Susan asked me the obvious killer question, what was the difference between my good week and my week from hell? And in that moment, I realized how powerful I was, but not in a good way. I look back at the last 10 years of our lives and I thought, how many of those weeks from hell were about me and my emotional state and my attitude?
What did I do to my son? What did I do to my family? In that moment, I realized it was up to me. The root of the problem was not my son's behavior. It was the story I was telling myself about his behavior during the week from hell, I assumed negative intent. I assumed he was just being a pain in the neck on purpose, on the good week.
I assumed he was doing the best he could. So what's at the root of harmful conflict of anger and assumption of negative intent. When we assume negative intent, we get angry and frustrated. We lash out. We hurt our relationships, we lose our ability to solve the problem.
We assume that maniac who cut us off on the highway was just laughing, knowing they were doing something dangerous and life-threatening, but doing it anyway. We assume our son is pissing us off on purpose. We assume negative intent. Well, the lesson I learned back on that day in 2006, I call the law of positive intent.
The law of positive intent simply says everyone is doing the best they can with the resources they have. Now, that doesn't mean everyone's doing the right thing. This isn't some world is wonderful, optimistic philosophy. It doesn't say everybody's doing the right thing, but it says everyone's trying to do the best they can.
They may not have the resources you have. They may not have the information you have, or maybe they know something you don't. Maybe that maniac who cut you off was rushing to the hospital bed of a loved one in need. Maybe your son was just trying to escape the noise and the overwhelm. Now, I don't know about you, but I've never actually met anyone.
Who was truly up to no good. I never met anyone who woke up in the morning and said, what can I screw up today? Now, I know some of you are calling BS on that. Fine. Maybe you've met someone like that. Well, let me ask you this. How often has assuming negative intent actually helped you solve a problem? When we assume negative intent, we get frustrated.
We close ourselves off to creative answers. When we assume positive intent, it opens us up to other ways to look at the problem. We could actually solve the problem. So whether you believe the person has positive intent or not, it's still a more empowering strategy than believing they're evil people.
Now, I know this isn't easy to do and it's not easy to do because most of us have a bias that's called fundamental attribution error. Fundamental attribution error says when someone else behaves in a negative way, that's a character trait, but when we behave in a negative way, it's outside circumstances.
So if for a morning meeting you're working with someone who yells and interrupts in a meeting, it's because they're a rude person. But when you do the same thing, it's because you haven't had your morning cup of coffee yet. So fundamental attribution error actually hijacks our ability to assume positive intent if we're not proactive.
So let's be proactive. How do we do that? We simply decide what to focus on. Back in 1986, a German neuroscientist named Dr. Manfred Zimmerman estimated that we have 11 million bits of information hitting us every second. That's not the interesting part. The interesting part is our brains can only handle 126 bits per second.
126, that's one 100000th of the 11000000.001% of reality. I did the math. That's like judging your weak based on a six second experience. It's like thinking you've seen the Mona Lisa by seeing a piece of it. No bigger than a grain of sand. So we're making it up. We make up our own reality and our behavior is based on that reality.
Think of the story of my son and the week from hell. My reality was he was the worst son in the world. He was being a pain in the neck on purpose. So I looked for that. On the good week, he was trying to do the best he can. I saw a totally different 126 bits from the same reality. So our behavior is based on which 126 bits we see. And which 126 bits we see is a decision we can make.
In fact, let's take it to an even higher level and talk about pronoia. Pronoia is the opposite of paranoia. While paranoia says, everyone's out to get you. Pronoia says, the universe is actually conspiring on your behalf. You believe that the people around you, yeah, look around.
The people around you are secretly plotting to make you happy. Even the obstacles in your way are there to help you find the right path. Let that one sink in. Even the obstacles are there for you. So while the law of positive intent assumes the positive intent of other people, pronoia assumes the positive intent of the universe.
So when we come back down from the land of new words and German neuroscientists, what do we do? How do we make that shift in the story we're telling ourselves? How do we shift from believing in negative intent to positive intent? We ask a simple yet incredibly powerful question. What else could this mean?
Maybe they're going through some struggle you know nothing about. Maybe what you interpreted as disrespect was just them feeling really passionate about an idea. Maybe the universe put them there to help you. What else could this mean and how do those new meanings impact how you view them or how you view their actions?
What new questions do you have for them? What new conversations does this open up to you? Shifting from anger to curiosity allows you to actually start to understand the other person and you have a much better chance of solving the problem. When we assume negative intent, our lives feel full of conflict and drama.
What does life feel like when we assume positive intent? It feels peaceful. It feels grateful. It's a great relationship with my now 28 year old son. The son who I thought would never keep a job, has had a steady job for five years. The son I thought would never eat right or exercise has lost 30 pounds.
The son I used to battle with almost every day is now a great friend. What if we can do this at a world level? What if we assume that everyone left, right, Jew, Palestinian, father, son, that everyone was just trying to do the best they can. What if we made a habit of asking, what else could this mean? How would that change your relationships?
How would that change the world? Thank you.
Hey, welcome back. I hope you enjoyed my little TEDx. And what's really important there and hopefully you've taken the message that the idea of the law of positive intent and asking what else could this mean? That's not something you learned once. That's not something I learned a long time ago, and now I've got it and I never get angry at anyone and I never assume negative intent.
I assume negative intent all the damn time, but that lesson of the law of positive intent allows me to stop and step back and reevaluate and better handle this situation. So anyway, I hope you took the lesson from that. If you watched the video, I hope you also enjoyed the very end where my microphone fell off and I very
expertly caught it without missing a beat. And, you know, if you do wanna watch it on video, you want to share it with anybody you know that can get more value from it, then just do a search on Mike Goldman TEDx. If you wanna share kind of the YouTube version of that, or of course ask people to come watch it or listen to it on this podcast.
And remember, remember someone does something you don't agree with, you don't like, pisses you off. You're telling yourself a story in your head. Remember to ask, what else could this mean?