Book of the Week: "Mean People Suck" by Michael Brenner

Yes mean people do suck, but there's two ways that work best in dealing with these type of people. First, is don't listen to people and second, have a little bit of empathy. A Simmons volleyball captain put it best last fall on how she handles less than pleasant people, that they aren't necessarily mad at her, but had someone or something upset them prior. 

So the do's and don't's. DON'T listen to people, but DO have empathy. It will go a long way. 

I grew up on the PBS show Ghostwriter. I used to love the show about the group of teen friends in Brooklyn, New York that solved mysteries with the help of their ghost friend who could only communicate through reading and writing. I couldn't wait to get home after school and watch the next 30 minute episode in the series arc. 

Ghostwriter since left the airwaves in the mid 90s, but there are still a few story arcs out there on a wonderful platform called "YouTube." Midway through last week, I re-watched one story arc where one of the team members, Rob, got trapped in an old abandoned subway tunnel with a non-team member friend. While the pair were waiting to be rescued, Rob told a short story he wrote. 

Because the story was about seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and is something that parallels to today's world, I jotted it down and posted it on my social media. 

What Rob was doing in the dire situation they faced without saying "everything will be ok." His friend was frantic that those words would not have helped, so he told a story about believing there is a light at the long tunnel's end and they would be ok. That's empathy and putting yourself in the other person's shoes because sometimes you need to hear the blunt truth as opposed to platitudes. 

It makes people feel real and feel as though they are heard. It's why saying "don't listen to people" is more powerful than anything else you could say or do. 

Telling stories is what generates interest and is what keeps people coming back. In the world of college athletics it's not enough to showcase only what your student-athletes are doing on the playing surface, but overall. Being a student-athlete is only a piece of who they are. They have other interests and specialties outside their sport and it's paramount to showcase those. 

Last April, I had the privilege to speak with a Harvard wrestler, who while off the mat was noodle chef at a Japanese restaurant in Cambridge, for the program's feature story. It was truly a great story because it paints a broader picture of this young man as more than an athlete. Of course, the original plans were to film inside the restaurant and get some footage of him actually cooking the noodles, but COVID happened and we had to make do with Zoom. But it still came amazing and after speaking with him you could tell his passion for cooking was equally as great as his love of wrestling and excelling academically. 

Telling stories allows for greater empathy and eventually leads to increased awareness or profits. 

(Post Editor's Note: The book also re-iterates something I've always advocated for and it's the need to ask "why." When employees ask why an idea matters, it helps bosses be better bosses. Bosses have to think through why they are doing what they doing and really analyze the reason. The term "because I said so" doesn't cut it and the worst words in business are "it's always been done this way.")