10/12/26
STORY
Early on in my personal development journey, I attended a leadership seminar.
The facilitator was energetic, fun, and a fantastic storyteller.
He told us a story that I’ll never forget.
He said that a few months back, he was the keynote speaker at a major company event.
His talk was about mindset, motivation, and how to create the best life for yourself.
In the audience, there was a young man who was grilling him the whole time.
The young man was staring at him in a way that made him feel uncomfortable.
The young man looked angry, like he would get up from his seat and charge him at any moment.
For the entire talk, it was difficult for him to ignore this young man’s glare.
After the keynote, the young man approached him with the same facial expression he had held for the entire keynote.
He was prepared for the worst, thinking the young man was upset by something he said.
The young man said…
“You inspired me to realize that I haven’t been living a good life, and that changes now. I’m going to quit my job and change careers. I’m going to fix my relationships. My new life starts today, and that’s thanks to you.”
The point he was trying to make is that so often, we are totally wrong about how people are receiving us.
We make assumptions about people.
We see a reaction, or a lack of reaction, and assume that we can accurately assess what other people are thinking.
And we very often get that wrong!
So rather than make those assumptions…
Realize that you can never really know what someone is thinking or feeling.
Rather than try to read reactions to assess whether you’re doing a good job…
Just do your very best.
If you simply focus on doing a great job while letting go of how it gets received…
You may positively change someone’s life without even realizing it.
OBSERVATION
(The following observation was written with the help of AI)
Psychologists Tal Eyal, Mary Steffel, and Nicholas Epley ran 25 experiments to test a common belief: that if you put yourself in someone else’s shoes, you’ll understand what they’re thinking. It didn’t work. Trying to imagine another person’s perspective didn’t make people any more accurate at reading them, and in some cases, it only made them more confident that they were right. The one thing that did improve accuracy was simply asking the person what they thought.
(Eyal, Steffel, & Epley, Perspective Mistaking: Accurately Understanding the Mind of Another Requires Getting Perspective, Not Taking Perspective, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2018)
STRATEGY
Take notice of how often you’re letting other people’s reactions affect you.
Observe how frequently you are attempting to “read someone’s mind”.
Recognize when you’re trying to assess someone’s perception of you, and take inventory of how it’s impacting you.
In those moments, ask yourself…
“How can I truly know what they’re thinking?”
“What if I’m totally wrong about this?”
“If I let go of their judgments, what is the best thing to do in this moment?”
Rooting for you,
Jay (inviting you to remember how you can never truly know what people are thinking)
International Keynote Speaker
Host of the “Unstuck” podcast
Father to a future anesthesiologist (or journalist, or something else; it changes every week lol)
