I am going to share a tip with you that a gentleman who was once the top Life Insurance Salesman in the Country shared with me.  It was something he thought of while he was still in high school.  It was just a natural part of how he thought.  But, it is contrary to the vast majority of sales training and conventional sales wisdom the world over.  So, let’s help out your dating life, first, and we’ll make you a great salesman in short order.

My friend, who we’ll call, Tom, because that’s his name, comes off very confident.  Some might even say, cocky.  But, people gravitate to him, like few other people I have witnessed.  However, inside that confident and cocky shell, and especially a much younger Tom, before all the success that he has enjoyed in his life, Tom was still just as concerned about the same things as the rest of us.  He feared, and still fears, REJECTION.

So, when we are interested in a girl and want to ask her out, what do we do?  Presumably we all know we at least have had a conversation with her, if we don’t know her reasonably well, already.  But, we’ve decided we want to go out with this girl.  Our interest is more than just friends.  What do we do?  We take the plunge, and ask her out.  Maybe she says yes, OR MAYBE SHE SAYS NO!  Then what, we either never see them again, or our former friendship has now turned awkward.

Tom was way more sophisticated than this.  He never wanted a girl to say NO.  He never wanted to risk rejection.  And, throughout his sales career, he never wanted to risk rejection either.  So, how does our master salesman do it?  Tom does not ask the girl out.  Tom asks the girl, “You know, you seem like the kind of girl who likes to make cookies.  I love cookies.  Do you think you could make me some cookies, sometime?”  Now, you can substitute brownies or cupcakes, or what you like.  The point is, there is never really an opportunity to say no.  Tom has gone for a lower level of commitment, before he goes in for the date question.  If the girl bakes him some cookies, or brownies, or whatever, she likes him.  He pretty much already knows the answer to the date question before he ever asks.  Rather than going straight for the date, he went for a lower level of commitment.  If she bakes the cookies, that’s a guaranteed yes for the date question.  If she doesn’t, then, who cares.  It was just a test to see if she was really into him or not.  He saved both him and her the embarrassment of rejection.

Now, go boost your date life, and your bottom line.

Let’s face it, people are terrible. Obviously, I don’t mean all people. I think there are a lot of great people. In fact, there are a number of truly good-hearted people who are doing extraordinary work. Unfortunately, however, in the people business, and in leadership, sometimes, the under-performers and trouble-makers take up more than their fair share of our time and attention. Also, unfortunately, though we think of the trouble-makers among junior employees, bosses and other people who can influence your life can also be a trouble-maker for you. While you have some control over subordinates, you have a lot less control over this other group of supervisors and influencers.

With our articles and teachings, one thing that we pride ourselves on is that we are not going to just share all positivity. Sure, always keep a good attitude and a sense of humor, but bad things happen in life, including in your professional life. We would do our readers a disservice if all we shared were success stories, when, in the real world, you can be dealt with some serious challenges in your professional life and life in general.

Let me list a few examples to illustrate what we mean by “Mistreatment”. All of these are real life examples I have learned about from people whom I know and have worked with or have observed myself.

1. A new Administration Pastor was hired at a mega-Church, and, among his first acts as the new Admin Pastor, he set his cross-hairs on an otherwise successful youth minister and succeeded in getting him fired. Being betrayed in this way in a Church environment was devastating to the youth minister, and he attributes this moment of betrayal with consuming his thoughts, and eventually leading to his losing his wife to divorce.
2. A talented young executive was invited to be a part of a management buyout of a subsidiary in a larger corporation where he had been a rising star. However, 30 days prior to the planned closing date on the transaction, senior execs in the corporate parent conspired with his business partner who had invited him into the deal, with the intent of excluding him from the deal and ousting him from the corporation. A deal he thought was a God-send, due to a medical condition he was contending with, instead, was ruined, and, further, destroyed his career with the corporation where he had been a rising star. Worse, once he exposed what these executives had done, rather than accept responsibility for their corporate misconduct, they demonized him and blackballed him for a decade in the city where he and his family lived, FOR A DECADE, ACTUALLY 10-PLUS YEARS.
3. A star retail manager once worked for a store manager, her supervisor, who, for over a year, tried to undermine her and get her fired or make her so miserable that she quit. At times, she feared that his efforts to undermine her reputation with senior management would be effective. Fortunately, in the end, senior management figured out what was going on, and terminated the store manager.
4. Not long afterward, this same retail manager, also worked for another store manager in an entirely different organization, who tried to do exactly the same thing. The new organization was more sophisticated than the one where she had previously worked. But, this new store manager was also more cunning and more difficult to expose. He employed many sophisticated tactics of deception and political manipulation to undermine the junior leader. Again, it took about a year for this situation to be resolved. This time, the store manager was not terminated. In fact, the full scope of his mistreatment was never fully exposed, or I believe that he would have been terminated. Instead, it was chalked up to poor job performance, not a good fit. He was transferred to a different geographic region, where he had people who would accept him onto their team.

These are just a few examples from corporate environments, even churches. We know of many, many more examples. Of course, in addition to career mistreatment, there are other mistreatment events: divorce or other family issues, mistreatment by teachers or professors in school, coaches and volunteer board members manipulating youth sports for their own gain or to put their children on advantaged teams, and others. For this article, we are primarily focused on career issues, but this advice will help in all instances in which you or someone you know has been mistreated.

Realize, that a career will only be 20-30 years long, on the long side, sometimes longer, sometimes less. So, when someone in a position of power mistreats you in a way that sets you back for years, that is a serious setback, and some of these setbacks set these executives back a decade or longer. And, there are worse instances of mistreatment.

In the end, regardless of how long it sets you back, regardless of how much it costs you, regardless of how much it may hurt, regardless of the psychological trauma that it may have caused you, all you can control is how you react to it. It can be bewildering. You want to know what happened, and sort through and make sense of it all. So, I am going to give you a few cardinal rules, so you can re-focus as quickly as possible on what’s next, which needs to become your laser-like focus.

CAREER CHANGING OR ONGOING MISTREATMENT: First, let’s differentiate between relationship-ending mistreatment and ongoing mistreatment, where someone is trying to undermine you. Remember, we had 2 examples in which career change was automatic, because they lost their jobs in the process. The other two examples were ongoing mistreatment, undermining efforts in a professional work environment. When you are living under threat, due to mistreatment, the name of the game is to outlast your opposition. You are not trying to win or get retribution, very important. When it is relationship-ending mistreatment, your objective should be to re-establish your new path as quickly as possible, and get the event in the rear view mirror as quickly as possible.

ACTIVE, ONGOING MISTREATMENT: Outlasting your opposition can take a very long time. In our examples, we had an excellent manager being undermined by her supervisor, not once but twice, two separate and unrelated instances. The reason she tended to attract this kind of attention is because she was so competent. This lady is an extremely hard worker, who also works smart. She wears an Apple Watch, which records how far she walks over the course of her business day. A 12-hour day for her is almost a given. She has not worked an 8-hour shift in years. Over the course of her workday, on her “slow” days, she will walk 6-8 miles. Routinely, she walks 8-14 miles. During busy seasons, she walks 14-21 miles over the course of her work-day. She often walks half-marathon distances most days of her work-week. This is a person with an extreme amount of stamina to sustain these levels of activity over the course of 12-16 hour work shifts and to then repeat that pace day after day, week after week, month after month and year after year.

She is not only physically active, she is also extraordinarily bright, observant and strategic. She can easily keep up with minute detail about her employees, even in this high-turnover industry and even with well over 100 employees to manage. She can have 50-plus new employees for “season”, and she will remember off the top of her head the days they are available and their family situations. Not only can she remember vast numbers of people, but conversations, even months later, word for word. That extends to the location of products on her store floor. All that information is available for her, right off the top of her head. Whereas other managers often need a computer to store, look up and use that kind of information, she has savant-like memory. Her memory and mental speed is akin to Rainman.

For marginally-competent managers and incompetent managers who are already burdened with insecurity, this creates discomfort. Promotion to a position of authority, despite competence deficiencies, is usually the result of either cronyism or deception. So, a highly competent subordinate manager with these extraordinary capabilities is a threat to their professional existence. A person who can remember every conversation, months later, does not fall for the deception, pivoting, shifting, twisting, insinuation and suggestion that a smooth talker uses to deceive. Despite her diplomacy, it ultimately becomes apparent to them that this woman is a threat to their survival. To senior management, she represents a cog who can easily be placed in the manager’s position, a ready replacement for a struggling Store Manager.

STAY ULTRA-PROFESSIONAL: I will not belabor these points, but just wanted to set the stage for what happened in both instances, and why someone might be targeted like this, twice. I would add that the woman is super-professional. Despite her managers’ deficiencies, she approached each day trying to do her best job, regardless of what was happening, despite the non-support from her manager and the unnecessary obstacles thrown in her path. That was extremely important to her ultimate success. If she had started to complain about the manager, report him to senior leaders, and the like, she would have played right into their hands. When a manager is undermining you and placing unnecessary obstacles in your way, they are likely expressing unfavorable things about you to senior management. Once they plant that seed in senior management minds, they will be looking for confirmation in everything you do. So, if the manager is telling senior management that you are undermining them, and you complain to senior management and/or are reporting him or her on the company hotline, those actions are viewed as “confirming” to senior management. Then, they may conclude that you are the subversive element that your manager said you are. So, YOU HAVE TO STAY ULTRA-PROFESSIONAL.

PREPARE FOR LONG-TERM OPPOSITION: In a situation like this, you have to be prepared for long-term opposition. Managers do not change every day, every week or even every month. Those assignments are viewed as permanent, for all practical purposes. Senior Management has made a decision to place that manager in that position. Even if the manager struggles initially, Senior Management, is highly unlikely to turn around and make a change anytime soon. Even once they begin to sense that this person may not work out, which could take 3-9 months, they will counsel the manager in the hope of coaching them into the manager they thought they could be, when they first gave them this assignment.

Remember, retail manager in our stories was working for bosses who were undermining her for over a year in each situation, OVER A YEAR. How long can you keep your head down and remain professional? That means that this lady has had to spend well over 2 years of her professional career, working for direct supervisors who would like to see her gone. That is a very long time. Imagine going to work day after day, week after week, month after month, bleeding into years, and wondering when senior management will wise up and bring about the change you and the organization so badly need. Your professional life is “on hold”, because there is almost no way you are going to get promoted under those circumstances. If the top leader is marginally competent, at best, then, that means the organization is not likely performing as expected. Unfortunately, senior management often has the mentality that if the organization is not achieving its potential, then no one must be doing a great job in that organization. I liken that reasoning to someone concluding that Hank Aaron must not have been a good baseball player all those years, when the Braves were not a winning team. It is a boneheaded mentality, but that is the reality you may be facing under such circumstances. So, hunker down for the long haul. Remain the epitome of professionalism. Go to work every day, and do everything you can possibly do to professionally support your manager, even though you know what they are trying to do to you. Never let them see that you see right through their deception. Don’t complain to senior management, unless senior management asks you direct questions. Even then, be careful. Survive to fight another day. Take comfort in your position of wisdom. You know what they are doing. You know what your objective is. Do not allow their lack of professionalism to get you off course. They may needle and torment you every day. Don’t let that get you down. Smile and accept it. Know that the change you, your organization and the business needs is coming. You are not trying to win every day, just win in the end. So, do not allow the day to day get you down. You will certainly be frustrated, but don’t let your emotions hang on every day.

TRUST THE SENIOR LEADERS APPOINTED OVER YOU: In the Old Testament of the Bible, there is a story of King Saul and David, who would later succeed Saul as King. Saul was in pursuit to kill David. David and some of his men had hidden in the back of a cave. As luck would have it, Saul went into that very cave to relieve himself. David was in a position to easily kill Saul. However, with King Saul having been anointed to be King by God, David did not see it as his position to kill the King. Instead, he stealthily cut a piece from Saul’s garment, while Saul had partially disrobed to relieve himself.

This is an excellent example for those being mistreated to follow. David was trusting God to make the change in God’s time. Likewise, if you find yourself in a position of someone out to kill you, professionally, do not take it as your job to kill them. Trust the leaders appointed over you. Accept the condition that your tormenter was appointed over you for a reason. There is a lesson that God wants you to learn from that situation. Reflect upon your situation with that spirit and attitude, and not only will things work out for you, you will get everything God has in mind for you from that situation.

In David’s situation, some time later, Saul killed himself, falling on his own sword, rather than be captured in battle, in a battle in which he also witnessed the death of his own sons. I cannot promise that your situation will turn out this way, or that it will all turn out the way you want it. But, I can assure you that this is the best course of action. Consider your tormenter as anointed by God, appointed over you for a purpose. Learn from it what God has in mind for you to learn. And, like David trusted God, you can also trust God and the other, more senior leaders, appointed over you. It may take longer than you wish, but change will eventually come. You, for your maturity and professionalism will be wiser and will earn greater respect for your maturity and professionalism.

CAREER CHANGING MISTREATMENT:

With the access to information and highly detailed maps and directions at our fingertips, we can only reflect back in time to try to feel what it must have felt like to not even know where you are on the planet. Prior to mass-scale printing, the vast majority of people did not even have a paper map to know where they are or how to get to where they may want to go. People’s travels were generally limited to short distances, where they could walk or ride by horse, and generally only on well-worn paths they knew, not too far from home. To travel farther distances, and in some cases, even to the nearby town, it was essential to have a marked trail, a marked road or a marked pathway.

For early Americans to fulfill what was viewed as America’s Manifest Destiny, people migrated West, what became known as the Wild West or the Frontier. Fortunately, for the masses who followed, they benefitted from the experiences, mapping and trail marking (blazing) of the original pioneers who had made the journey before them. In fact, millions set out for a new life with the promise of potential riches and other rewards, employing experienced guides, using the maps they had created and following their previously reconnoitered trails, marked with blazes. Though we know that even with the benefit of guides, maps and blazes to keep them on a safe course, their journeys were still frought with risks, The risks and their probability of success, and safely, were vastly improved, by following guides, maps and blazed trails.

Today, we can only imagine the old days of the Wild West and American Frontier. We have mind-boggling detailed maps at our finger tips. That has made traditional paper maps, obsolete, though we do still, rely on marked roads, and sometimes ask the advice of someone who has been there. So, there are modern ways from getting from one point on the planet to another, whether you are going halfway around the world, or just the other side of town. If you need to get from here to there, they have an “App” for that.

However, navigating life has only gotten more complicated, more difficult. Modern-day technology has created thousands of career fields, specialities and sub-specialties that are equally mind-boggling. And, there is no one to tell you about them all or help you decide on which might be a good fit for you. The healthcare field is another that has exploded with career specialties. I won’t belabor the point, other than to say that this explosion of life options, pervades every aspect of life: career decisions, where you live, decisions about marriage and family, even how to resolve a conflict. Just look at all the bickering you see on social media. So, life decisions have become more more complicated. The repercussions and/or rewards of your life decisions have become more substantial. And, there ain’t no “App” for that. This is part of the background for why we started Pathfinders (TM), and why this blog is called “Blazes and Pearls”. Each of our articles are intended to be short, but impactful, helping to enrich your life, helping to light the path, blaze the trail and map out your life decisions, with the advice from experienced guides who have been there, and provide some wisdom (Pearls) along the way. I assure you that if you plug-in, start studying and reflecting on our content, our experience and observations will help you navigate all life decisions more successfully.

Let me start by saying that I don’t think euphemisms are bad.  Actually, I think they great.  They help to anchor ideas into our minds, often constructive and helpful ideas.  For a student of leadership, which we all should be, these hallmarks will and should remain with you as guideposts in your leadership throughout life.  However, I frequently come across leaders, some of whom are even passionate about leadership, but their knowledge is limited to lists of euphemisms.   Their ability to apply their personal judgement to real  life situations revolves around their list of euphemisms, and sometimes it is a fairly short list.

Let’s start with some euphemisms that many may recognize.  Lead by Example,

Now, let me share a couple of examples.  I once read a cover letter with a resume, which kept referring to the colloquial expression “that dog won’t hunt” and “that dog will hunt” and he kept referring back this reference.  Needless to say, I was not impressed with his inability to express himself more formally nor his inability to think about the precise language that would articulate the virtues of his strengths.

Another time, I was interviewing candidates for a C-Level leadership position, and during the interview, the candidate referenced one euphemism after another.  There was one that he used several times in response to various questions, and that was that he was going to “inject some vitality” into the organization.  He came from an organization where almost all their leaders used these euphemisms frequently, but that was a crutch which inhibited his further learning and personal growth.  He probably had the intellectual capacity to do our job successfully, but he had this major shortcoming with his leadership profile.  He would need several years of coaching and personal commitment to practice thinking beyond these euphemisms and articulating his independent thinking before he could be ready for this level of leadership.  He would be fine in his current organization, but even there, he would be a superstar if he practiced more independent thinking. People are very complex.  They have complex personal attributes, skills, capabilities, levels of professionalism, ideas about how to interact with one another, personal life circumstances, complex relationships within an organization and so forth.  That makes leading them properly equally as complex.  So, we all should aspire to advance our understanding of leadership.  The way to do that is to intentionally practice independent “thinking” beyond our set of euphemisms.  Articulate complex situations without relying upon and utilizing the crutch of euphemisms.  In so doing, over time, you will vastly improve your personal judgement, and your vocabulary, and you will elevate your ability to lead to unprecedented levels.  It will put you head and shoulders above your peers.

The military completes an After Action Review (AAR) after every mission, even after training events and after stages of training events. It is an excellent tool for organizational and individual learning. An AAR is a formal or informal way to review an activity and all the elements that go into the activity against actual and intended results. In addition to organizational and individual learning, it can be an excellent tool for leadership development, innovation, organizational engagement and continuous improvement.

When I conduct an AAR, I usually like to keep it simple, and see the direction the group takes it. We walk through a structured discussion, using the following questions:

1. Did we accomplish the mission? Why? or Why not?
2. What went right?
3. What went wrong?
4. What should we sustain or maintain when we conduct this activity (or similar activities) again?
5. What should we change?
6. What other suggestions would anyone like to make to improve the activity or outcomes in the future?
7.  

These are my questions, and most of these are consistent with what I learned in my time in the military. However, you may add your own questions or specific points to discuss. You can also walk through the stages of the operation: Planning, Execution, Completion and Folow-through. And, you may talk through the elements such as Communication, Clarity of the Mission, How the mission was developed, Resource Sufficiency and Allocation, Clarity of Objectives, Timing, Teamwork, etc.

It is important when conducting an AAR that it not be a time for critiquing individuals in the organization. We do not want to cause people to clam up, concerned about hurting someone’s feelings or making someone feel as though they are attacked. Likewise, it is important to encourage and remind participants that the purpose is organizational improvement, getting better. Regardless of the activity, we all have room for improvement. Be thick-skinned, not sensitive, to hearing critique. Accept the feedback. This may be especially true if actions of individuals need to be discussed, and they may need to express what they were thinking in the moment. We all understand that hindsight is 20-20. We are not trying to “Monday Morning Quarter”, but to understand the rationale for decisions in the moment.

I believe that the AAR is a simple, but impactful, tool that should be included in school leadership programs. Schools host many activities, some led by staff, but many, maybe most, hosted by students and staff. An AAR process, fosters foresight, planning, leadership and student and staff involvement.

Let’s take one big event, for example, to illustrate. It is prom season. I’ll speak for myself in observing that the Prom has not changed much since the 30-plus years ago when I was in high school. That is because we all have a fixed idea of what the Prom should be: Formal Attire, some food or refreshments, a DJ or Band and a Dance Floor. Check, Prom Complete. Did anyone ever ask the participants for formal feedback? Did we play the music they wanted? Did we ask them before the prom what songs they wanted played? Could game areas be set up, away from the dance floor, for gaming, playing Guitar Hero or darts, horseshoes, etc. What is the mission or purpose of the Prom? Were there opportunities for Flash Mob routines, and choreographed dance and singing? Would participants like that? Perhaps certain groups may want to put together short performances, such as a competition choir. You get the idea.

Imagine students going through this kind of activity evaluation. What all would they learn about planning, leadership, innovation, customer feedback, communication, . . . . Imagine if they went through an AAR after every significant activity. The learning would be enormous and the skills practiced, over and over. We would produce adults who are much better positioned to lead and begin the process of becoming a mature leader.

Now, how could we improve the Friday night football game? Are we being as intentional at developing leadership and other life skills via our sports programs as we could? Are we demonstrating excellence in sportsmanship with all we do in our sports programs? Does every participant and volunteer know what we are trying to accomplish? Are we impacting all who attend our events with every element of the event from parking, ticket sales and collection, PA Communications, and the like? Do attendees know what is available at the concession stand and where restrooms are located? Have they been welcomed? How good was the welcome? As you may see, I suspect there are elements that you may not have considered, or may have left on autopilot. You can use the AAR for intentional organizational learning and improvement. Let us know your ideas, how you can or have used the AAR to improve aspects in your organization.

You and many of the things around you are influenced more by opinions than you realize, so we need to put opinions in perspective.  Part of our philosophy at Pathfinders Institute is what we call, “Eyes Wide Open”.  This is where we seek to remove your blind spots, so you can make more fully informed, well-thought-out, well-considered, rational decisions.  Furthermore, we want you to rise to your full potential level of leadership, whether that be in your career, within your family, a civic organization, your church or in whatever area you choose.  One of the blind spots that we sometimes see in people is the influence and power that they allow other people’s  opinions have over them.

So, let’s look at opinions more closely, and we are intentionally using the word opinion, because we think you will be surprised, as we were, at how influential opinions can be.  We throw around the word opinion, as if it is an insignificant word, but as you will see, opinions are very powerful, sometimes for good, sometimes bad and sometimes downright destructive.

Let’s start in the professional environment, because this is one of the areas we really want to address.  Do you realize that your boss’ evaluation of your work performance is nothing more than his opinion?  We often see people who have been working under a boss, who beats them down, undermines them, fails to support their work efforts, and they, in turn, internalize their boss’ poor opinion of their work performance.  Now, let’s caveat this with an important note.  Hopefully, these situations are rare.  Hopefully, they are not the norm.  So, for the vast majority of employees, you need to take your boss’ evaluation seriously and internalize their feedback.  Don’t use this article as an excuse to reject your boss’ evaluation of your work.  That said, unfortunately, bad bosses are more common than we ever thought was possible, when we first began our careers.  So, keep in mind, that your evaluation is an opinion.  Maybe it is correct, professionally delivered, given to you by a person who has your success and the improvement of your job performance at heart.  However, if it isn’t, then, you need to be prepared to wait it out, hope for change while you continue to professionally and diligently perform your duties each day.

The amount of vitriol, crassness and even vulgarity in the public discourse is stunning.  We see it in politics.  We see it with simple news posts on social media.  We see it with the lack of loyalty and haste to discard and even demonize college coaches when they are not winning.  20 years ago, you had to turn on Saturday morning wrestling or tune into Jerry Springer to see this kind of behavior.  It has since expanded into many other reaches of life, for entertainment and political purposes.  No one in real life actually acted like that.  Back then, if we happened to stumbled onto a channel with Jerry Springer, we would say, “Where do they find these people?”  Today, if I click on virtually any news post on Social Media, it is like I turned on the lights in a cockroach infested kitchen.  They are everywhere, and I like it about as much as I would like a roach-infested kitchen.

As much as I hate seeing what already exists in the form of bad thinking and horrific attitudes, it scares me to think about the way this negativity is reinforcing these attitudes and ways of thinking among children and adults in our society and those around the world for generations to come.  So, I want to start taking small steps to begin influencing people in a different direction.

Many years ago, a gentleman sent me a message, which he closed with “With Care and Respect”. I liked it so much, and found it so counter our current cultural trend toward negativity, I adopted it, often using it to close my own messages. Encapsulated within this short phrase are the key elements that seem to be increasingly missing in social media-based modern society, “Care” and “Respect”. 

Our quarterback did not perform well this weekend, so let’s slaughter him on social media.  I see this in the pros, in college football and even down at the High School level, sometimes.  Let’s say, “NO” to the slaughter, and, instead, let’s treat him and the team with care and respect.  Let’s let the coaches figure out what happened.  And, within the quarterback’s psychological framework of what works best for him, let’s let them work with him, so that next week, he will perform better.

Let’s voice our political differences without snatching someone’s hat off their head.  Let’s stop making Facebook, ShoutBook, where we, too often, respond to political posts that are designed to anger, with our own angry post.  I am not naive enough to think we could just stop posting political posts on Facebook, at all.  But, responding, if you must, thoughtfully, is much more appreciated.  Even if the other person responds in anger, we control our own selves.  We are not required to respond in kind.  I like to tell my children to drive their own car and let other people drive their car.  We don’t blow the horn just because someone is taking longer at an intersection than we prefer.  And, we don’t respond to other people blowing their horn at us.  That’s called self-control and discipline.

Now, a good way to continuously remind people of these ideas is to sign off our messages, especially emails, “With Care and Respect”.  That’s going to be our tag, and ongoing reminder to be an example of this ethos and to share it with others.

The words Crass to Class(TM) serve as a catch-phrase for the ideology that everyone should apply to every reaction or response to the world around them. Any person who applies the principles of Crass to Class will find more success and develop into a better employee, a better friend, and a better person. Dale Carnegie tells us not to criticize people because criticism falls on deaf, defensive ears. That advice helps the person in a position of authority, but what happens when the roles are reversed? Each person will inevitably face criticism and feedback in his or her career and relationships, but the choice of reaction remains: Will that person react with a class response and receive the feedback, internalize it, and through introspection find a way to better themselves? Or will that person react with a crass response and brush off the feedback with ignorant complacency, and continue being less than excellent. When pondering the philosophy of Crass to Class, I often think of the book Unconditional Excellence. The title stands by itself in explaining the dedication required to reach excellence in anything. The crass response certainly does not strive for excellence, while the class response aspires to be just a little closer to perfect. After reading this article, the phrase Crass to Class will stick with you and the people you share it with, and once you apply the philosophy, you will find it to be a transformative way of thinking.

You can apply Crass to Class to any aspect of life. Whether you’re forming a new relationship or breaking off from a business partner; reacting to feedback or coping with disappointment; even just responding to seemingly insignificant events, you will find it worth to work up from a crass response to a more respectable class response. Every man faces adversity, but do not let your disappointment define you. Make your class response the person you strive to be.

I do not mean to confine human behavior to a dichotomous division of reaction, though. Naturally different reactions can span a broad spectrum.  One may observe a crass response that exhibits a bit of class, and, likewise, a class response may falter without losing its overall intention. As such, it would be impossible to exemplify to you each possible example of a response. But the observant person can learn to see crass and class responses in hisor her family, peers, and superiors, and thereby learn to improve himself from responses of others. Think of a time you may have witnessed a crass response. Consider the traits that person exhibited in the moment. Think, too, of a time when you may have witnessed a class response. What traits made that person’s response admirable? How can you mirror that person’s response in your own affairs?

In truth, the concept of crass and class responses may not be so foreign to many. Often, one can easily identify a reaction as one of the two categories. Humans are so good at this that we already do it subconsciously. Each person we encounter undergoes the scrutiny of human judgement. Using the concept of Crass to Class, you can go forth with a new tool in your repertoire for behavioral analysis. You can also utilize Crass to Class in your own responses to live a better life and develop better, stronger relationships at home, with friends, and at work.

NOTE:  This post is re-posted with permission from Andrew Tillman.  Andrew’s original post, as well as any edits and revisions he may have made, can be viewed here:  http://andrewtillman.com/2018/02/25/crass-to-class/

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