A couple weeks ago, after I wrote an email in which I announced the imminent release of my new 10 Commandments book, a reader decided to reply with:
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Some advice… give up on the Book of 10 and take hold on the Promise of 1 – just as you so neatly summarised in this email. 1 is so much better than 10 in that, that single promise fulfils all the old hat laws you could ever throw at it.
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I never bothered to reply to this, and the reader has since unsubscribed from my list.
That’s just as well. What follows wouldn’t be useful to him, but maybe you can benefit from the advice I was silently thinking of for this reader, which I couldn’t share for reasons that will be obvious if you read on:
Don’t tell people they’re wrong.
Particularly, don’t tell people they’re wrong if they are a couple of years into a project, the way I was with my now-released 10 Commandments book.
Even if you’re right, people have to find out on their own. And in telling them, you will only antagonize them.
Ironically enough, the very first commandment of my new 10 Commandments book is directly related to this issue.
That first commandment (of 10) goes beyond keeping mum when you’re sure somebody is making a mistake, and tells you some proactive and positive things to do in order to take advantage of the underlying human psychology, which makes people so resist being told that they are wrong.
My ex-reader won’t profit from the advice in that commandment. But you can: