Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on February 8, 2023, 4:15 pm

Smaller tweaks and details, Bel, otherwise you've already taken off and flying :)

EDIT:
I think I inverted the order within "first one / second one".
Of course directly asking for a call is higher pressure (and it demands a reply, so it's a form of tasking as well) while saying you're nearby and "happy to meet" is lower pressure and more casual.

Quote from B on February 8, 2023, 4:23 pm

Oh, OK!

So my way of phrasing the request (“happy to call”) was the better one!

Thank you so much Lucio!

Quote from B on February 10, 2023, 2:34 am

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on February 10, 2023, 1:30 am

But same as above, I'm most likely going to skip it because it puts me in a different spot because:

1. High demand for my investment, because addressing 3 different cases is time-consuming
2. I'm forced to ignore & power move, since if I pick 1 it feels like I'm ignoring Maverick for 2/3 of his content. And I don't want to power move members of the community, I want to give value. I don't like being put in a position to ignore people -not with people I like, at least-. Instead, I want to deal with eagles to whom I give my best (so your task is to make people want to give their best to you).
3. Forced into low-efficiency work, since because my reply is under a thread with limited connection to the title, I wouldn't be able to find it later on, and most readers looking for something similar would equally miss it.
   Meaning, my time ends up being used for very low-efficiency work (and driven people dislike being low-efficiency)
4. Forced into lose-lose half-assed work because if I decided to reply and address everything, I spread myself thin trying to be quick and efficient.
   I'd end up giving less attention to each single use case and lose both in terms of quality and social status because I produce mediocre reflection and mediocre work, and you lose because you don't get the full value of my replies

Got it on "one thread, one topic" and "when in doubt, open a new thread".

Just quoting your post here for my future self, as your explanation makes me now understand that this is exactly one more mistake I made with the email here below that I mentioned some posts above and that, alas, I'm now sure will receive no reply:

...

As you will remember I have a doubt on the opportunity, in view of the imminent changes in the social security system, of opting for an integration ... that would allow me to remain in the ....

Can you provide me some indication about the choice I have to make?

I am happy to call you or also to meet you in person.

I basically generically asked him to counsel me via email on a very complex matter of social security.

I realize all your points above are perfectly replicable here as well. Including the "forced to ignore" part.

Hence the reason for my feeling, and your confirmation, it would have been best to "skip the question".

Or alternatively I could have made it more specific.

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on February 10, 2023, 3:15 am

Yep, you said it, Bel, same principles and dynamics apply to email.

Maybe a sub-case and more advanced application of the broader and more general "make it easy for the receiver to do what you want".

So also in the emails you want to make it congruent with the subject, stick to one topic, make bullets if you can't avoid several topics or questions (easier for the receiver to reply bullet by bullet), and only mention complex topics while referring to in-person, call, or external docs for the added details.

In your email example you righteously salvaged it by adding "happy to call or meet you in person" so he could skip the question and go for the call/meet.
But yes, avoiding the question altogether would have been (quite a bit) better -also because you don't know each other much, have little leverage and social capital, and the question re-inforces the "taker frame"-.

Quote from B on February 10, 2023, 12:18 pm

Thank you, Lucio.

Some of these things I was doing, but getting the concept clearly now is going to make a big difference.

Quote from B on February 13, 2023, 5:56 pm

Unexpectedly, I did receive a reply to my email:

Yes I remember of the dialogue we had. The situation on this is still fluid. Let's update in a couple weeks. Cheers, X

Quote from B on February 17, 2023, 10:49 am

Quote from Bel on February 13, 2023, 5:56 pm

Unexpectedly, I did receive a reply to my email:

Yes I remember of the dialogue we had. The situation on this is still fluid. Let's update in a couple weeks. Cheers, X

I answered this by writing:

Me: Thank you Mr. ...,

I wish you a good day.

Bel

Reasoning was:

• not answering would have compelled me to write back in two weeks; now it's possible he may write back;
• I initially thought of writing "Sure!", but then I realized he was not asking, so it would have probably sounded off;
• I avoided including "talk in two weeks" as per Lucio's incredibly helpful insight and suggestion, to avoid "hounding".

Quote from B on February 17, 2023, 10:57 am

A proposal to change restaurant

We had arranged to go to dinner with two friends. One of them had proposed try a small diner he knows.

The day of the dinner, Bella received a text by one of them saying:

Friend: Hi! Jack had this idea to change venue tonight. Not going to the diner we planned, but proposing we go eat fish in [upscale place].

Bella asked me what I thought, and we agreed that we both wanted to go to the place they had initially proposed, and not to this new place.

So Bella replied:

Bella: Hi! Well, we have our mouths already watering for the original place, so why don't we stick to it?

Friend: I agree! I don't know why Jack changed his mind: he had already booked at the diner, but he then told me "Well that place I originally proposed is very small, and without pretenses..."

Then I had this realization:

Our friends were proposing changing place because they felt insecure that we could "not have liked" the place they had originally proposed.

And, if I hadn't gotten here on TPM and studied PU, I would have totally gone along with the request, while thinking Jack was "behaving strangely" and "changing plans at the last minute".

In that case:

• they would have probably felt we were "stuck up snobs" (as our going along would have "confirmed" their thought we didn't really want to go to the diner);
• we would have felt they were behaving erratically.

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on February 18, 2023, 8:14 am

So you told them to stick with the original plan, and they were happy to go with it?

Nice one, Bel!

That's good emotional intelligence in action.