"If you whisper to a crying toddler, they’ll quiet down to hear what you’re saying.If you make your words almost imperceptible, they will really quiet down. And if you mumble and throw in some words like “ice cream” or their favorite TV show, it works even better."
"My son won’t eat dinner, but he will eat a snack. Dinner is now called snack time for everyone."
"I listen more than I talk."
"Assume stupidity instead of malice.
There are a lot more stupid people than evil ones, and we all do stupid things now and then. It helps empathizing with people who did something you don’t appreciate."
"The power of “Might as well…” It’s particularly useful if you’re depressed and don’t have a lot of energy to do things.
So for example, if I get up to put food in the microwave I’m going to be standing in my kitchen for exactly 1.5 minutes. Might as well put dishes away while I wait.
If I’ve gotten up to grab my phone from the other room, I might as well take this garbage with me and put it in the trashcan. Instead of letting it pile up.
I’ve just gotten home and am changing out of work clothes and into pajamas. I’m already standing in my closet. The pull up bar is right there in the doorway. Might as well do one or two pull ups. (I even throw in a couple squats while I wait for the shower to warm up.)"
"I guess I would call it using inertia. It’s a million times easier to keep doing something once you have started. So if I don’t feel like working out I tell myself I’ll just do a short work out. Or if the dishes need to be done I’ll tell myself to do one. More often than not once I start doing something my brain stops fighting so much against it."
"Silence. Silence is easily the most powerful tool in conversation. Don’t like what someone just said? Go silent and they’ll backpedal. Want someone to elaborate when they might be reluctant? Just wait silently. They’ll do it. Stay silent during a negotiation and they’ll fight against themselves for you."
"I get terrible anxiety attacks from time to time, and my brain basically convinces me I’m seconds away from dying. When I start to go down this spiral, I tell my brain in Samuel L Jackson’s voice “I don’t remember asking you a GODAMN thing!”"
"This won’t be applicable to everyone, but as a sysadmin I’ve learned years ago that for career advancement it’s much better to be visible to the rest of the company than 100% on top of things and mostly invisible. I will occasionally let something go wrong that I could have prevented because I knew it was coming, and have the fix ready immediately. You look like a hero for fixing things so quickly and management loves you. You have to space it out though you don’t want things going wrong so regularly that they start to question why things break, but you also don’t want things never going wrong so they wonder why they even have you in the budget."
"“How?” – I got this one from a negotiating book by Chris Voss – former FBI Hostage Negotiator, lots of parallels for parenting young kids.
How can we go to the playground if you don’t put your shoes on?
How can we put dessert on your plate when there are vegetable in the way?
How can you have fun tomorrow if you don’t go to bed?
It flips the script on my kids – instead of giving orders, I’m trying to help them get what they want (by having them do what I want) and asking them for the solution. Yeah they can get smart and give chippy answers, but you just keep asking them how…."
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2. Call yourself a boss/supervisor or if you can't make people think of you as one. For instance if you can run a training on something you're good at. Be the go to for all new hires' questions. I worked in a call center and I convinced my bosses to take supervisor calls from angry customers for other reps and introduced myself as "acting supervisor" so and so. That way when a position comes up everyone already associates you with management.
3. Only give 60% everyday. If you give 100% you WILL burnout its inevitable or just get more work. If you stick to about 60% when a promotion becomes available you can bump up the effort to stand out to.your boss. That way right when they are looming for the best fit they keep seeing how much you've "improved" and they will be thinking about you when you need them to.