Thread by @startupdaemon

LAW 13: When asking for help, appeal to people's self-interest, never to their mercy or gratitude.

To get people on side, seek out their selfishness, which can be about being a do-gooder.

The law stands on the nature of virtu and gratitude: they are individual, not collective.

1. Gratitude goes one way – out of yourself. It’s not a transaction, and warrants no expectations.

What comes out of obligation doesn’t come out of kindness or gratitude.

When you act out of kindness, you do so because that’s your way of Being.

When you act out of gratitude, you do so because of who you've become.

2. Taking someone’s acts of gratitude as fulfilling an obligation is profane and demeaning.

Obligation arises out of the collective – its expectations, judgements and contracts.

Kindness and gratitude are all yours. When you defile them with projections of the group mentality, you diminish yourself and your Being.

3. Expectations and neediness invite people’s resentments. Instinctively, they know it’s a Base way to be.

4. You don’t feed a live relationship on what has been, just like you cannot rely on your past accomplishments to define your future value.

5. Being is becoming. If you don’t become greater, you become lesser.

6. If your relationships and alliances don’t evolve to get stronger, they get weaker. Never forget this.

7. Let the past be the past. Learn from it, but understand that it CANNOT make you who you want to be.

To be defined by the past is to be defined by nothing, by circumstance, by the whims of the crowd, by deluded narratives.

8. Despise “philanthropists” who put their names on public events, grants and buildings.

Publicized virtue is little more than a base form of marketing – base because it defiles authentic virtu like mercy and gratitude delivered discreetly.

Honest marketing offers a clear Choice of Value to the consumer – take it or leave it.

Virtue-signaling philanthropy imposes an unsolicited sense of obligation on the public.

Authentic mercy and gratitude are private. Virtue-signaling good deeds is profane and distasteful – a crude form of grasping for validation and power.

9. You may suggest your generosity only to inspire others'. Do so seldom and judiciously – without expectation and judgement, and NEVER in self-interest.

10. The future is a source of dread for many, and this is why it also has great appeal.

If you can paint a bright future with someone, you are both relieving the dread of becoming and delivering an immediate cognitive payoff.

When you fixate on the past, you only emphasize the uncertainty of the future. You’re asking people to walk towards the edge of a precipice, their backs turned towards the abyss. That’s petrifying and aggravating.

11. Understand that covert contracts are a pathology and most people don’t understand them. Even people who operate with covert contracts may find yours foreign and unreasonable.

To connect authentically, make things as explicit as necessary.

A lot of people don’t take hints and suggestions.
Others don’t take well to directness.

Know which is which, and avoid unnecessary mistakes.

12. Take people as they are – in what they do. Be careful that your expectations are obvious to everyone involved. Or, better yet, have no expectations. And adjust course accordingly.

13. People experience stories as reality.

Much conflict and suffering are from ignorance. Masterful communication is a great Power of Mind.

Learn where people come from and why they communicate the way they do.

Sign up and forget neediness.

startupdaemon.net/signp