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6 Steps to Identify How You Feel Your Friends Should Treat You

We may have friends who don’t always treat us well, or might even hurt us, and we also have friends who treat us really well. We may instinctively know what we like or have an idea of how we feel friends should treat us, and yet most of us haven’t ever articulated it. Before we can ask people to treat us differently, we have to be really clear about how we want to be treated.

Here are six steps to help you identify how you feel your friends should treat you.

  1. Ask yourself who among your friends treat you well. I am fortunate I have a really long list of friends who have been amazingly supportive over the years.
  1. Write a list of examples of what these friends do for you. As I looked at the list of names, I thought about the specific things people did to support me. It could be text messaging me to check in, remembering my birthday, posting a photo of my book in an interesting place, etc.
  1. Analyze the list for themes and patterns and consolidate it to make the Iist shorter and more general. For example, you might have, “listens to me when I was feeling sad about losing my job” for one friend and for another friend, you wrote, “Listens to me when I was having health issues.” So the general theme here is someone who listens to you. For me, I have been really moved by all the acts of kindness from my friends. Every year, I design a different valentine card. This year, I decided to write out a list of all of these acts of kindness and highlight that particular ones people did. You can read my list here.
  1. Write a list of the friends who treat you badly. Oh, fortunately, this list is a lot shorter. People always listen. I’ve been in my life for a really long time and it’s more of legacy friendships out of habit. 
  1. Write a list of examples of what these friends do that hurt you. For me, they have unrealistic expectations of me.
  1. Analyze this list. Do you see something on the list that is the opposite of how you would like to be treated? Perhaps you should add that to your list of how you want to be treated. For example, you have a friend who constantly interrupts you. You can write, “Doesn’t  interrupt me when I’m talking.” For those of you who are familiar with the 7 Forms of Respect framework, you can even categorize how you want to be treated by the forms of respect. 

It’s so easy to say, “I want my friends to treat me better”, but “better” can mean different things to different people. We have to be specific about what we mean so there can be change. For example, one person might like it when other people buy them meals and another person might not like that because it feels condescending, as if their friends think they can’t afford to pay for their own meal. 

Also, let those friends who treat you well know you appreciate how they treat you and be specific with your examples. And next time you interact with the friends who hurt you, specify how you would like to be treated, referring to the list of examples from friends who treat you well. 

Watch the Explainer Video

If you need help specifying how you would like to be treated and respected, check out our free crash course, a 20-minute guide to asking for the respect you want.

Three Steps to Increase Your Empathy

“Can my empathy for others develop as my own life changes?” 

Empathy is about being able to share what others feel. Sympathy is understanding someone else is suffering. 

It’s easier to notice when other people lack empathy than to acknowledge that we may have less empathy than we think. Our ability to empathize can actually change as we get older. We can have less of it. 

Something that feels vulnerable to many people is asking for help. Unless we have to ask others for help, we usually won’t. The more power, wealth, and seniority we gain, the more we are shielded from having to ask. Over time, our ability to empathize with those who do have to ask for help fades. Instead of empathizing, we sympathize.

There are many people in this world who need help and who have to ask for it. When we ask others for help, we can deepen our ability to empathize with those who need help.

I often hear from friends wealthy friends who grew up poor that they worry about their children’s ability to empathize with those who don’t have as much. If you are in this predicament, you can teach your children how to ask for help. Teaching them how to help those who have less than them will teach them sympathy, not empathy.

Having empathy matters. Many studies show empathetic leaders are more effective at increasing trust, collaboration, and productivity. 

I share a three-step exercise I created to help people call forward experiences that will enable us to develop more empathy, at least around how vulnerable it can feel to ask for help out of need.

1) Think of what you’re going to ask for help.

The first step is to think of something you personally need. It could be something that would improve your life that you don’t have the resources for or that would be a financial hardship or great inconvenience. It could be asking for someone to take you to the doctor or lend you their vacation home or watch your pet.

This is not about asking for help on behalf of another individual or organization, like fundraising for a nonprofit. Also, this does not include sales transactions. Asking someone to compensate you for something that they will get value from is not the same as you asking for their help. 

You might be thinking “There’s nothing I want that I can’t get on my own” or “I don’t want anything that I can’t afford.” Then perhaps your ask is a “nice-to-have”, not a “must-have”.

Until you can think of something, you won’t be able to empathize with people who ask for help when they don’t want to.

2) Think of who you’re going to ask

  • Could fulfill your request directly, by  themselves
  • Might say no 
  • May change their opinion of you after you ask, whether good or bad
  • Is not in any way obligated or incentivized to say yes 

Don’t consider people who you think are likely to say “yes”. People who have said “yes” in the past or who offered to help you also don’t count. Don’t include people are financially incentivized or who might feel obligated to say yes to you. 

3) Make the ask 

The third step is to make the ask. Once you do that, you can draw from this experience as a source of empathy. 

I have to remind myself to practice this exercise too. I swallowed my pride recently when got invited to a VIP dinner. While I suspected it would be expensive, I still got sticker shock when I received the invoice. I was asked to make another contribution. I struggled over whether I should say something. Remembering this exercise, I decided to admit to the host, who I’ve never met, that I can’t afford the additional gift and asked her to waive the request. She did. 

It doesn’t matter what you’re asking for as long as you personally feel vulnerable. We all have different thresholds for what threatens to wound our pride. 

When we are able to acknowledge what help we need for ourselves, we’ll develop empathy and not just sympathize with others who ask for help.

Asking for help to build our empathy can’t be a theoretical exercise. You actually have to do it so that you can feel it.

Watch the Video Explainer


You might also be interested in reading my op-ed on “Learning to ask for help strengthens us as a community” in the Seattle Times.

How to Help People Get What They Need: Become a Resource Connector

Many people, including myself, want to be helpful, although oftentimes we cannot help others directly because we don’t have the exact resources they need. The second best thing is to help connect people to the resources they need with those who have the resources to give.

Years ago, I went to a conference where the keynote speaker talked about how Oprah doesn’t promote herself, she promotes other people. She’s constantly uplifting and recommending other people. And in that way, she is a connector. That lesson has stuck with me. I’ve been able to build an extensive network in Seattle. It’s because I’m always just trying to connect people to the resources they need and to the people they should get to know.

I realize that I don’t need to be the center and have all the answers and provide all the resources myself if I can just be someone who helps connect people. When I ran a cross-sector fellowship, we focused on helping people learn how to be resource connectors. We asked this question: “What is something that you want to give? What is something that you need?” What people shared was very powerful.

You can be a resource connector.

It requires seeing everyone as having resources and also having needs.

It doesn’t matter how little money or little time you think someone has. Everyone has something to offer. And everyone has needs. Sometimes what they need and what they have to offer are the same thing.

What you’re really doing is connecting the dots. It requires a lot of asking questions and listening to people.

Here are the 6 steps to becoming a resource connector:

  1. Ask people if they have any particular resource that they want to share with others. You can ask, “Is there anything you want me to spread the word about or any resource you have to share?” Oftentimes the thing they’re asking for help from is the same thing that they are offering. For example, they may need help spreading the word about a special program that they lead. They’re also offering the resource of their program. So you may not even need to ask them if they have something that they want to share because they may have answered it within their ask for help. Sometimes people don’t like to ask for help, so they will just frame it as something that they are offering. I remember talking to a coding school founder who wanted to help people with their career transitions into tech.
  1. Ask those same people, “Is there anything I can help you with? I might not be able to help you directly, though I might know someone who can.” Sometimes they only want to offer help and yet their offer of help is actually an ask. In this case, offering to teach coding is also an ask for help with recruiting students. 
  1. See if there’s anything that they need that is related to something someone else offered. As you talk to other people, look for opportunities to connect resources with the people who might be good candidates for them. For example, someone may say that they are looking for a way to learn how to code and you just met someone who runs a coding program and is looking for students.
  1. Before you make the connection, reaffirm with the person who is offering the resource that they are still offering it. So, I asked the coding school founder, “Are you still looking for students?” She was. 
  1. Make the connection. It can be as simple as an email. 
  1. Bonus: Follow-up and check on if a connection was made. Sometimes I find out that one party never replied and I might nudge the to reply. At the very least, I know who is good to follow through and who isn’t and who I should and shouldn’t make connections for in the future.

Your efforts will generate goodwill and perpetuate a spirit of generosity. When people are helped, they will want to help others. And even if it doesn’t turn out exactly as people hoped, they were further along than before. 

For example, I talked to a friend, “Alex”, who is looking for a job as a project manager at a biotech and then I asked another friend who founded biotech if he would be willing to chat with this friend. It turns out that he was looking for a project manager and he interviewed my friend for the role. Although it didn’t work out, my friend got a lot further than he would’ve before.

Watch the Video Explainer

17 Signs of Curious People (A Learn-It-All)

I haven’t met anyone who doesn’t want to think of themselves as a curious person and yet their know-it-all attitude suggests otherwise. Here are some signs of a learn-it-all, or those who practice curiosity regularly in their lives.

For three years, I ran a 6-month fellowship program. I noticed some people did really well and other people really struggled and it took me a while to figure out what differentiated the two. And then I landed on curiosity. By the third cohort, we started interviewing for that. Curiosity helps people persevere when times are difficult, it helps them be resourceful when facing a challenge, or to be empathetic to other people, because they want to know. 

There are some people who are so focused on getting to a particular outcome or result that they would be the naysayers and they didn’t wanna move forward. For the longest time, I thought curiosity was a trait. Now I think of it as a practice, because I realize that when you have more people on a team who are practicing curiosity, they can actually uplift the morale of everyone else. And when you have people who just care about the outcomes and not the process, then they can actually take down the morale. Here are some signs of someone who is a learn-it-all:

Here are the 17 signs of a learn-it-all:

  1. Is comfortable with not knowing all the answers, and admitting “I don’t know”
  2. Admits that they are not a perfectionist 
  3. Asks questions to clarify, not to show off how much they know
  4. Listens to understand, not respond
  5. Likes to try new things 
  6. Talks more about “learning” than about “knowing”
  7. Talks about what they want to learn, instead of what they want to accomplish or what the results are going to be
  8. When they talk about mistakes they’ve made, they talk about the lessons they learned, instead of talking about what they would’ve done to avoid those mistakes
  9. Has a diverse group of friends (However you can define “diversity”)
  10. Talks about the people that they learn from
  11. Reads books, listens to podcasts, or pursues hobbies that don’t have anything to do with their job or profession 
  12. Tries to learn things that they know there is a chance they might never excel at it
  13. Listens to different genres of music 
  14. Watches different genres of films 
  15. Reads both fiction and nonfiction 
  16. Looks up things to learn more, not to check if they were right or wrong
  17. Thinks more about the journey than the destination 

Now, you don’t have to have all these signs to be a learn-it-all. I certainly don’t. 

This is just the starter list. I’d love to hear your suggestions as well. I want to add to this list.

Watch the Video Explainer