Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on October 27, 2023, 12:20 pm

John, about this post here (bold is mine):

Quote from John Freeman on October 27, 2023, 11:38 am

Off-topic

Hello Lucio,

First, I want to say I'm happy to share ideas here. I'd be grateful if you could share a little feed-back on this one. I think it helps the community to know what's relevant or not for you/TPM. I think it could help boost engagement/enthusiasm for the development of TPM.

/Off-topic

I think you know this and would 100% agree:

When, if, and how to answer on this forum is always our own decision -mine included-.

And albeit I think you'd also agree that's everyone's right, that type of pinging does the opposite.

To expect a reply and to externalize that expectation as a wish/hope/gratitude for a reply turns into an (unwilling) guilt trip on me.

Because albeit not said, we all (subconsciosly) know that the opposite of "being grateful for" is often "being disappointed for not".

Now one time may not make a huge difference.

But it's still the dynamic behind it that the receiver must check.

And if not, he may end up setting his own future cage.

Imagine if:

• 5 different people all had great ideas and expect a reply
• Then 3 different people may have great case studies and expect a reply
• And 5 different people just bought PU and expect some help
• And 2 different one ask me about admin support stuff

And if I don't reply they all feel bad/spurned.

I don't want them to feel spurned because I want to give and add value.
But on the other hand... I also got other priorities.

Result:

I'm between a rock and a hard place (which is the guilt-tripping dynamic).

Result if I don't give in:

15 different people will think poorly of me, feel spurned, like me less, like the business less.... Everyone loses.

Result if I give in:

15 different people are now governing my life out of unwitting emotional manipulation and forcing me into the forum.
I lose.

And, guess what... I don't want to be stuck between those rocks and hard places :).

So everyone's free to decide when, if, and how to reply.

Me included.

So:

Resetting one's own expectations is not easy, but I'd exhort everyone to do so because it's worth it.

But changing external behavior IS much easier.

And since that concerns the receiver much more than the sender, I don't want to be on the receiving end anymore.

So no more pings, please :)

---

OFF-TOPIC

P.S.

It's a GREAT idea and thank you for sharing it.

Something like that was already in the "possible future approaches", but your angle added several new angles and food for thoughts.

There are some more priorities to tackle though, and one of them is because of my tendency to always put product quality first.

So before that I plan to add a few more lessons + add a video path with each major lesson having its own video summary / overview + potentially an Ultimate Power in video format.

P.P.S.:

And yes, the reason I reply here and not there is because of power dynamics:

I can't be forced to reply by an (unwitting) guilt-trip, or I'd submit and open the door for more of it to come.

And you never want to be the person who makes other act out of a guilt-trip power move because that destroys social capital.

OFF-TOPIC

Quote from John Freeman on October 27, 2023, 1:10 pm

Hey man,

Thanks for your answer. I just spent 30 min writing an answer. After having written it I don't think it's worth posting it. I keep my answer in a file and can post it any time as it is or edited.

I think there are deeper issues that we must be solved between us 1-on-1 and that this is only a symptom. It probably grew over time and we probably could not solve it through the forum. I'm starting to understand it.

It's up to you. I wont't take it personally whatever you choose. If you choose so I don't care if I contact you or you contact me (privately or publicly). As you prefer. Just that you know improving our relationship is my current priority.

Again, thank you very much.

Sincerely,

John

Quote from John Freeman on November 5, 2023, 6:32 pm

Hello Lucio,

thank you very much for your answer again!

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on October 27, 2023, 12:20 pm

John, about this post here (bold is mine):

Quote from John Freeman on October 27, 2023, 11:38 am

Off-topic

Hello Lucio,

First, I want to say I'm happy to share ideas here. I'd be grateful if you could share a little feed-back on this one. I think it helps the community to know what's relevant or not for you/TPM. I think it could help boost engagement/enthusiasm for the development of TPM.

/Off-topic

I think you know this and would 100% agree:

When, if, and how to answer on this forum is always our own decision -mine included-.

And albeit I think you'd also agree that's everyone's right, that type of pinging does the opposite.

To expect a reply and to externalize that expectation as a wish/hope/gratitude for a reply turns into an (unwilling) guilt trip on me.

You're right, I agree with you. There was an expectation on my side for you to answer. As you know I viewed it as

1. Thanking back like Kavalier proposed which had become a new norm here
2. Since I felt I was giving value, I felt I was due a "like" or a "thanks"

So I think there were different expectations on both sides: on yours expecting me to respect your right not to answer. On mine expecting you to comment on what I felt was a contribution.

Regarding the unwilling guilt trip. Again, you're right on both count, I agree:

1. It was guilt tripping: I hesitated in using "I'd be happy" instead of "I'd be grateful". But it would be the same effect. Here I thought I was power protecting since I was using the "if". But here the "if" has a different meaning than in power protection. In power protection, the "if" means: "if you want" as in "I respect your freedom and can do as you please, your choice is intact". But here the "if" means more: "If you don't do it then..." so it's more a "if" that conditions the writer's appreciation in regard to the recipient's behaviour. So same word but totally different meaning.
2. It was unwilling: I don't think guilt tripping is cool at all. So my sincere apologies. Got it.

Because albeit not said, we all (subconsciosly) know that the opposite of "being grateful for" is often "being disappointed for not".

Now one time may not make a huge difference.

But it's still the dynamic behind it that the receiver must check.

Yeah I understand.

And if not, he may end up setting his own future cage.

Imagine if:

• 5 different people all had great ideas and expect a reply
• Then 3 different people may have great case studies and expect a reply
• And 5 different people just bought PU and expect some help
• And 2 different one ask me about admin support stuff

And if I don't reply they all feel bad/spurned.

I don't want them to feel spurned because I want to give and add value.
But on the other hand... I also got other priorities.

Result:

I'm between a rock and a hard place (which is the guilt-tripping dynamic).

Result if I don't give in:

15 different people will think poorly of me, feel spurned, like me less, like the business less.... Everyone loses.

Result if I give in:

15 different people are now governing my life out of unwitting emotional manipulation and forcing me into the forum.
I lose.

And, guess what... I don't want to be stuck between those rocks and hard places :).

So everyone's free to decide when, if, and how to reply.

Me included.

It makes sense to me. I understand one wants to check the overarching dynamics. I thought about this: it was not because one would answer once that all people would expect it from the person. But still it's a slipping slope: both internally and externally. Internally: then it can become a habit to answer when people are insisting for an answer. So it could become self-disempowering. Externally: people would then expect it out of the person.

So:

Resetting one's own expectations is not easy, but I'd exhort everyone to do so because it's worth it.

I agree with you it's an important topic. I think it has to do with emotional strength and detachment. Just like not taking things personally. I think expectations is an important topic regardless of this particular event.

But changing external behavior IS much easier.

And since that concerns the receiver much more than the sender, I don't want to be on the receiving end anymore.

So no more pings, please 🙂

Alright!

---

OFF-TOPIC

P.S.

It's a GREAT idea and thank you for sharing it.

Something like that was already in the "possible future approaches", but your angle added several new angles and food for thoughts.

There are some more priorities to tackle though, and one of them is because of my tendency to always put product quality first.

So before that I plan to add a few more lessons + add a video path with each major lesson having its own video summary / overview + potentially an Ultimate Power in video format.

I'm glad! Thanks for your feed-back. It's encouraging to participate here with ideas for TPM, even if those are unrequested nor forcibly very much value-adding. On the other hand, sometimes members may not know everything that is going behind the scenes and/or what is relevant for TPM. So a bit shooting in the dark which can trigger an imbalance in expectations as well.

P.P.S.:

And yes, the reason I reply here and not there is because of power dynamics:

I can't be forced to reply by an (unwitting) guilt-trip, or I'd submit and open the door for more of it to come.

And you never want to be the person who makes other act out of a guilt-trip power move because that destroys social capital.

OFF-TOPIC

Yeah, it makes sense.

Of course, feel free to disagree. I checked for power moves, should not be any and did my best in the communication. If any, please let me know so I can correct.

Quote from Power Duck on November 29, 2023, 9:52 am

@John Freeman (can't quote John for some reason)

In this post, I committed a mistake here:

and the note about the "good" (may use it more often since it seems to be a win win for both parts in my opinion)

What I wanted to convey was that the note about whether or not the "good" was a power move (not the power move itself) would be something I would use in the future since from my view:

1. It prevents misunderstanding and bad feelings from arising.
2. Allows the other party to reempower themselves by pointing out that it was indeed a power move.
3. The party that pulled the move gets to learn something new that may be useful to prevent breaking rapport.

My wording is not the most adequate in said post, so what my message seems to convey is that I will keep pulling that power move. Not cool in the least.

Maybe you did understood what I wanted to say from the beginning, still i want to point this out to prevent any possible misunderstandings.

Cheers.

Quote from John Freeman on November 29, 2023, 8:37 pm

Yeah so if what you mean is that if you’re not sure if something is a power move I think it’s a good idea to ask. If I got it correctly. Otherwise feel free to let me know. And no it was not clear to me the first time. I thought you meant if using « good » in this way was a good idea or not.

Quote from Power Duck on November 29, 2023, 8:40 pm

Yeah, you got it right.

Cheers.

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on December 7, 2023, 5:02 pm

Hello @Bel

I'd like to go over this exchange in my journal -including the first version of your reply. For which, by the way, I think it's a good idea to avoid editing. Especially when in more sensitive exchanges. I'm the first to break that good general rule, but it still applies. It's hard to avoid giving the feeling of low-power second-guessing, edging, and general sneakiness with editing-.

I think you didn't like my reply.

And I didn't think your original message was particularly edifying either -out of possible missteps, rather than intention-.

Starting from your first reply, this part:

Quote from Bel on December 7, 2023, 1:40 am

(quotes my message)

Interesting, to me it’s a definite power move.

I think this could have been phrased better.

And included power protection and may be exceptions.

For example:

I totally get it you meant it as a compliment (<---- power protection, carving out an exception)
In my experience though...

Without that power protection, to say "definite power move", without exception... I think you know the sub-communication of that, now.

It's the equivalent of saying "you pulled a power move on that guy / you had bad intentions".

Which can certainly be the case.

And still... Better to power protect anyway.

If nothing else to avoid what may be perceived as an attack on one's public reputation, and to maintain rapport and social capital, which almost always help.

My reply then tried to add plenty of power protection to basically say:

"I think you're over-focusing on the dark side, without considering (enough) the possibility for more uplifting intent".

I stand by that message.

You then wrote:

Quote from Bel on December 7, 2023, 10:58 am

(...)
and I interpret things in good faith, when I deal with good people, as I think I’ve shown many times both in person and on this forum as well.

OFF-TOPIC
It was also not a good idea to go down this road without first adding the power protection.
Because now it could turn into a "I do interpret things in good faith with good people, but that wasn't your case (cause you're not a good person)". :D
This is just for general feedback, I know you didn't mean it this way, so skip this part.
OFF-TOPIC:

Which to me felt defensive.

As if you read my message as more extreme, and more of an attack than I may have intended to.

To be clear, in my opinion, that message did over-focus on the dark without leaving not nearly enough room for the possibility of "honest praise".

And, in my opinion, I do also think there may (still) be a general tendency to focus more on the "dark" that I picked up from some other of your posts.

May be a phase.
Maybe a simple tendency.
And maybe I'm totally wrong.
And maybe you're instead far more clear-eyed than I am (I certainly have been too naive more times than I can count).

But sticking to my opinion...

To say that one may over-focus on a certain aspect is NOT to say one is incapable of interpreting things in good faith, of course.

A general tendency to be more toward a certain end of the spectrum is MUCH different from being at the extreme end of that spectrum.

Or being unable to take things in good faith.

I hope this clarifies, happy to read your thoughts if you have any.

Quote from B on December 7, 2023, 5:18 pm

Hi Lucio,

First of all, thank you for this.

I agree with your points, including the first: my post could have used more power protection. My bad, and I’ll certainly do this from now on.

And you’re right, the fact that my former boss used that on me so many times, and I finally got why, probably made me express in some totally unintended blunter tone.

My point was only based on the effects its prolonged use had on me - which I should have clarified from the start. Probably some unintended anger surfaced in my post, which was related to my former boss.

EDIT: your point on the edits is very interesting as well. Maybe people who do edit their talk, me included, unconsciously recognize the need to “tone down” their primal impulses and unresolved past. In contrast, the absence of edits may be a symptom of having resolved any projected anger/suffering. One simply speaks congruently.

While resolving it, however, editing may make sense. First version of a message by people who may have not resolved this may be overly blunt, as my message above. It’s some sort of a dog biting its tail.

In any case no removal edits in this post, even though I probably repeated myself once or twice :)

Quote from Ali Scarlett on December 10, 2023, 12:50 am

Hey Bel,

Wanted to say that in this thread, I felt it was a great strategic decision on your part to be careful with which posts you chose to give a like.

For example, I think it was a great move not to like my post which shared my personal feeling: that a white lie would've been OK (albeit things change some once one has already sworn to tell the truth and is then under oath, but I didn't say any of that in my post).

Even if you may have felt the same way/agreed with my stance, withholding a like still felt like the better decision to me because it preserves your credibility more as an actual lawyer (which is a part of the overall package of Bel and added value you bring to the forum here).

Also, I think it helps forum members maintain respect for your opinions in your future posts surrounding legal matters. (People may read your thoughts knowing it's coming from a place of legal knowledge and wanting to do things the right way, not so much "personal feeling" which can be more subjective and wrong.)

It's a small thing, but the small things add up. So thank you for it, it gave me a good reflection today :).

P.S.

You probably already know this, but to be clear anyway, I also don't think the opposite is automatically true in your case either—that by adding more personal opinions to your posts, you'll then be seen as uncredible—because you've already demonstrated your knowledge in multiple threads, including your journal.

So, withholding that like had better upsides with little downsides, in my opinion.

Edit:

Changed some wording.