commiserate with you during sad days?
fight oppression by your side?
make you laugh?
join you in deep, intellectual exchanges?
Hopefully, you know people who can support you in each of these ways. While you alone can initiate a rebellion, a diverse group of friends with particular emotional skills and tendencies can help you become far more effective. Is Your Friend a Net Positive Energizer?
Are they mentally and physically engaged when socializing? Energizers don’t just go through the motions of being engaged. They show genuine interest in other people and what interests them.
Do they prioritize relationship development? Energizers care about people and don’t treat them as a means to an end.
Do they follow through on commitments? There’s no better way to deflate someone’s balloon than to promise something and flake on it. Energizers wouldn’t dream of doing that.
Do they look for possibilities? Or just identify constraints? Energizers aren’t perpetual critics who’ll shit on your brilliant idea. They’re “yes-and” people.
When disagreement arises, do they show curiosity? Or defensiveness? Energizers don’t have to win every argument. Hmm, they think, maybe I don’t know everything. And when they stick by their guns, they don’t antagonize their opponents.
Do they use their knowledge and skills appropriately? Instead of rushing to find a solution or dominating a conversation to demonstrate their intellect, energizers are content to let ideas unfold via collaboration.
Do they take a one-size-fits-all approach? Or do they individualize? Rather than demand that others accept their approach, energizers draw people into conversations and projects, finding opportunities for them to contribute. Rather than assume what someone needs during difficult times, they ask whether someone would prefer a supportive ear or a helping hand. They query how they might tailor a conversation for people with particular personalities and preferences, so that they can tap others’ potential.
Seeking out people who can expand us isn’t easy. Trying to start a relationship, romantic or otherwise, that offers the potential for self-expansion is risky. In my very first research study, I conducted an experiment to determine when, if ever, people select dissimilar over similar partners. Using a mock dating site, my colleagues and I split study participants into two groups. Some believed they were looking at profiles of people who shared the same interests and values. Others believed they were looking at people with a completely different personality and interest profile. Get this: If we told participants that an attractive person liked their profile and wanted to meet them, participants strongly preferred dissimilar people. If we failed to provide information as to whether an attractive person liked them, they strongly preferred people who were like them. We humans crave inclusion even more than self-expansion and exploration (more on that in a moment). If in “shopping” for a relationship we doubt people will accept us, we’re liable to throw aside growth opportunities and settle for someone similar. If we don’t harbor such doubts, or if we happen to feel comfortable with ourselves, we seek out a partner who will help us learn and grow.
Rejection stings harder and longer when we judge the people who snub us as attractive and interesting. And we might be more or less socially anxious by temperament, taking it personally if others react negatively to our appeals. Social anxiety is perfectly normal, especially during the initial phases of forming relationships. If you’re a rebel seeking allies, wait to see if your fears of rejection dissipate before approaching a desirable potential ally. Or muster up the courage and make your approach despite your fears. Don’t overthink it—just do it. (I’ll offer more ideas about how you can work through anxiety in the next chapter.) To prepare, spend a few minutes reminding yourself why self-expansion will benefit you.
Research shows that contemplating the value of growth opportunities offers a motivational push, even during initial, uncertain interactions with strangers. Helpful alliances begin with a willingness to swallow your pride, take a risk, and approach the right people to join your mission.
FORGET SNOBBERY—GO FOR GROWTH!
Unlike status-oriented people, people who orient themselves toward growth view social interactions with strangers as an exciting challenge and an opportunity to broaden their horizons. Stay alert for opportunities to learn from people who have stories different from yours and who have acquired a different body of knowledge. Each time you gain exposure to a new person or idea, you can develop and expand yourself as a person.
You have a choice. Instead of trying desperately to impress everyone with your existing intelligence and wisdom, intentionally seek out ways to expand and grow. You will become stronger and wiser. People will find you far more likable and attractive.
PRINCIPLE 2: PERSEVERE TOGETHER THROUGH HARD TIMES
Once you’ve identified potential allies, you’ve got to build strong, meaningful relationships with them. The best way is by confronting painful challenges together. Doctors Michael Argyle and Monika Henderson sifted through scientific studies on interpersonal relationships to distill six fundamental features of friendship. Good friends (1) are there when their partners require emotional support; (2) volunteer help in times of need; (3) stand up for partners in their absence; (4) trust and confide in their partner; (5) strive to make partners happy in their presence; and (6) share triumphs and successes. Break these rules, and friendships disintegrate. But notice that the first four rules aren’t about happiness. They’re about suspending judgment, compassion, and being available when someone is in pain—abilities that come in handy when you encounter shared challenges together. The last two also relate to the tackling of shared challenges. When you’re under strain, it’s nice having someone around who cares about your happiness. Once you’ve vanquished adversaries, it’s also nice having someone with whom to share the glory.
Additional research has found that social animals are hardwired to connect through pain. If we’re in a friendship, your pain is my pain. The same regions of the brain light up when we feel pain as when our friends do. Sharing pain serves as a strategy for bringing people together. Most people think we should establish trust with others first and only then expose our perceived flaws, insecurities, failings, and pain. This line of reasoning is actually backward. Doctors Patrick McKnight, Simone McKnight, Lisa Alexander, and I found that trust emerges as we share adversity with others. When we feel uncertain about whether we’ll achieve a goal that’s important to us, and we think we must rely on someone, we come to trust in others. Vulnerability first, trust second.
Pain offers a shortcut to forming mutually beneficial relationships by speeding up the establishment of intimacy. In one study, researchers found that strangers enduring a gauntlet of painful tasks together felt a greater connection to one another than those collaborating on painless tasks. The comrades-in-pain also tended to cooperate more with one another. Other experiments found that members of groups enduring painful activities tended to make more eye contact with one another, and help, encourage, and comfort one another more than members of groups that didn’t endure pain together. We see these dynamics unfolding outside the laboratory all the time. Men and women going through the Navy SEALs super-intense, twenty-four-week, Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training (or BUD/S) bond so intensely that they show up decades later for weddings, births, and funerals. Likewise, business organizations with emotion-laden leadership development programs inadvertently facilitate long-term friendships.
THE BIG IDEA
If you wish to enlist allies to your cause, don’t shrink from tackling difficult challenges and sharing painful moments together. To the extent you can, run headlong into moments of shared adversity. It’s not easy making yourself vulnerable around others but doing so leaves us feeling more connected and courageous.
As philosopher Alain de Botton wrote, “It’s deeply poignant that we should expend so much effort on trying to look strong before the world when, all the while, it’s really only ever the revelation of the somewhat embarrassing, sad, melancholy and anxious bits of us that renders us endearing to others and transforms strangers into friends.”
PRINCIPLE 3: BALANCE CONFORMITY AND UNIQUENESS
Seeking a single ally is one thing. Building a whole team is a far more audacious undertaking. How can you integrate team members so everyone feels emboldened to contribute?
Social psychologist Dr. Marilynn Brewer argues that people define themselves by who they are as well as by their memberships in social groups. When we define ourselves as part of a social group, we seek to satisfy two conflicting psychological needs that crop up. First, we must feel that we fit in and belong. Second, we want to feel that we aren’t expendable, carbon copies of other group members. We want to know that we possess a distinct set of life experiences, a distinct personality. We want to be ourselves, contributing our unique perspectives, experiences, and strengths. As great as it might be to feel a sense of camaraderie, we never want to lose sight of who we are, what we think, and what we care about in a group.
If you seek to motivate a team of allies to break with the status quo, help them as individuals to balance these competing needs. On one hand, help them to feel like they belong. Reassure them that it is commonplace to worry about whether they fit in or whether their position in the group is secure (too many people hide and conceal their insecurities). You might even whip out some facts: 34 percent of Americans are somewhat or very dissatisfied with their social lives. Two out of five Americans say they have zero close friends. In a survey of 20,096 adults aged eighteen and older, more than half of the U.S. participants said nobody knows them well and really understands them! When researchers asked 148,045 adolescents from fifty-two countries how often they felt lonely, 10 percent said they felt this way most of the time or always during the past year. Confirm that when they worry about fitting in, they’re not outliers. As this sinks in, they can resolve the dilemma of belonging to a group while being able to be themselves.
One sure way to provide a sense of belonging is to connect with group members around points of commonality. Look for experiences from your past and those of your allies that might create an immediate sense of connection. Build rapport by asking questions about the past that generate intimacy such as: “What did you do with your close friends in childhood?”; “What were your personal interests and obsessions as a kid?”; “What are some of the memorable things you were praised and punished for as a kid?”; “If you could relive one moment, what would it be and why?” Present-day commonalities can also give rise to a shared sense of belonging. Ask questions such as: “What does friendship mean to you?”; “If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, what would you keep the same and what would you change about the way you are living?”; “What is your greatest failure that parlayed into something valuable?” And don’t forget questions about the future: “What would you do if you won the lottery?” and “What is something you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it?”
These questions spark conversations that introduce common ground and a sense of belonging. The goal here isn’t to take turns mesmerizing each other with intriguing stories. Rather, the aim is to provide clarity that you both belong to the same tribe (and in some small way, share meaningful commonalties). To up your game further, draw freely on the following belongingness cues. Eighteen Cues to Offer a Quick Sense of Belonging
1. Treat people better than they expect.
2. Be an exceptional listener by interrupting with curious comments, such as: And what else? Why do you think that happened? What would you have done differently?
3. After asking a question, actually listen to the answer.
4. Bring enthusiastic energy to a conversation.
5. Instead of asking how you can help, just do it.
6. Err toward smiling or laughing when someone tries to be funny.
7. Make a big deal of putting a phone away before locking into a conversation.
8. Ignore incoming texts and phone calls when with someone.
9. When talking, keep your head from swiveling when other people pass by.
