Hello, Adversity Weekly Roundup #23 - July 8, 2023

8 techniques for evaluating character, teenage friendships, why you should drink water before an important conversation, and letting little bad things happen

Photo credit: Jessica Ruscello on Unsplash

Happy Saturday everyone!

Welcome to the 23rd edition of the Hello, Adversity Weekly Roundup.

I just looked at the calendar and was shocked to see that next week is the 6-month anniversary of my introductory post on Hello, Adversity. Time flies! It’s hard to believe that I actually got this site off the ground. I don’t have a great track record of following through on my ideas.

Here’s to a fun next six months and beyond!

Without further ado, here are this week’s links:

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1. My 8 Best Techniques for Evaluating Character

This was a thought-provoking piece by Ted Gioia of The Honest Broker. Gioia has interacted with many high- and low-character individuals in his career. These experiences have enabled him to become a good judge of character, although he freely admits that this was not always the case:

I made mistakes early in my life by not accurately judging the character and reliability of other people. I was better at evaluating data than individuals.

I took far too much at face value. I believed what people told me. And I paid a price for this, sometimes a high price.

Gioia lists eight techniques to help evaluate someone’s character, from how they manage their finite resources to how they handle small inconveniences. Gioia also suggests that the list can be used on ourselves as a means of self-reflection.

The technique I resonate with the most is #2: “See how they treat service workers”. Says Gioia:

People reveal their true natures when they deal with others who have no power and can never return a favor.

This is so true. I have seen both good and bad examples of these interactions, and the bad examples still bother me today.

I was also happy to see “Can they listen?” on the list. I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had where I can tell that the person I’m talking to is distracted. It doesn’t guarantee that someone is low character, but it doesn’t feel great to be on the receiving end of someone’s multitasking or daydreaming.

Thankfully, it also goes the other way. If you are pouring your heart out to someone and it is clear they care and are listening intently to what you have to say, that means the world.

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2. Teen friendship has suffered a seismic shift over the past 20 years — with depressing results

Screens are ubiquitous in society today. They are instrumental to how we work, how we communicate, and increasingly, how we live our lives. Unfortunately, our in-person interactions pay the price. The more time we spend online instead of out in the real world, the more isolated we become. This is especially the case for teens.

Our teenage years are when we should be socializing and building meaningful friendships with our peers. Nowadays, most of this communication—if it happens at all—takes place on smartphones and laptops.

The decline in face-to-face socializing adds up:

“Adolescents and young adults in 2019 spent 25 minutes less a day socializing in person with others than those in 2012,” Twenge wrote. “That translates to three hours a week, 13 hours a month, and 152 hours a year less in the company of others.”

It doesn’t sound like a whole lot, but the consequences are stark:

Text conversations and video chats are generally less rich in terms of breadth, context, vocal tone, and important body-language cues. What’s more, the always-on nature of social media and smartphones means that the percentage of teens who get less than seven hours of sleep on most nights has risen from 34% in 2012 to 49% in 2020. These two trends make for a pernicious cocktail.

Although the article focuses on teens and young adults, this problem also applies to adults of all ages. We don’t socialize as much as we used to. We struggle to sleep. Many people don’t have any meaningful friendships, which makes it easier to go down nefarious rabbit holes on the internet.

I must admit that my life is spent mostly in front of a screen these days. I am trying to get better at seeing friends in person, which is a bit more difficult since I moved out of Boston seven years ago. However, a few of my friends have come to visit this year, which has been awesome. Even as an introvert, I have come to appreciate getting together face-to-face.

The screens can wait.

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3. The Surprising Reason Why You Should Drink Water Before an Important Conversation

We all dread difficult conversations. We run through the possible outcomes—good and bad—over and over in our minds. We want to be as prepared as possible because if we aren’t careful, these conversations can get emotional, quickly.

Yet, when you are going through your mental prep, do you ever consider whether or not you’re dehydrated?

No? Me neither.

This article has a simple premise—drink more water!—but it is interesting to learn about the effects of dehydration on our mental acuity. The more water we consume beforehand (although we don’t want to drink too much for obvious reasons), the better able we are to process emotions and contribute meaningfully to difficult conversations.

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4. A quote I’ve been thinking about recently

I saw this Tim Ferriss post on LinkedIn the other day:

If you don’t prioritize, everything seems urgent and important. If you define the single most important task for each day, almost nothing seems urgent or important. Oftentimes, it’s just a matter of letting little bad things happen (return a phone call late and apologize, pay a small late fee, lose an unreasonable customer, etc.) to get the big important things done.

The answer to overwhelm is not spinning more plates—or doing more—it’s defining the few things that can really fundamentally change your business and life.

The prioritization part makes sense—we want to be working on the important tasks that add the most value and move us closer to our goals. Do the most important thing is the essence of many productivity strategies.

But the part that stuck with me is to let little bad things happen. It’s not enough to just focus on the main thing, Ferriss is saying. We also shouldn’t be afraid to accept the negative results of our prioritization choices. If someone gets annoyed at our slow response, or if we incur a small financial penalty, that is the price we pay to live our priorities. It doesn’t mean we are reckless (although if you are late in calling back a friend, it might be a good idea to let them know what you’ve been up to).

We are so risk-averse nowadays, that we often try to eliminate any negative events in our lives. I am definitely this way—I hate any sort of awkwardness or confrontation. I like to be prompt. Although I don’t plan to start being tardy on answering emails or bringing back library books, it is helpful to reframe these minor missteps in a more positive light.

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If you have a story you’d like me to include in a future newsletter, please email me at HelloAdversity@substack.com or leave a comment below.

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