• Make the person feel twice the pain that they made you feel.
• Become a person of vengeance.
• Don’t come to a solution.
• Never to talk to the person again.

Think about it: Once it becomes a heated discussion, no one is going to listen. We are crouching in defence, ready to pounce on any flaws in the argument.

What if instead, of saying… you are irresponsible, we say the action you are taking is telling us a story that you are irresponsible? Or we say the action you are making is causing us to feel that you are lazy?

What difference would it make to an argument, or should I say, conversation?

Just yesterday, a Singapore lady was transferred to my hostel dorm. Upon learning that one of her roommates is from China, without saying 2 words, she jumped up and complained that the hostel is irresponsible. Is she racist or is she fearful for her safety?

It turns out that most small companies run by female founders have primarily female employees. Similarly, most companies are dominated by people of the same race. Could it be that the hiring manager only knows to evaluate their own ‘kind of talent’?

If you don’t know by now, we are all born racists. Not because we want to be divisive, in fact just the opposite. It is because it is the easy thing to do.

Sure, we have laws and quotas to help. And those are great for the short-term.

But in the long term, those are not magic pills because the real culprit is fear.

Curing racism begins with accepting that we are fearful. We resort to easy thinking when we are in un-safe territories.

The good news is, we can change it through the work of continual understanding and learning. Drip by drip, one generation to the other, one person at a time.

The question is when?

As the barriers of book publishing go down, the number of new books get published increase exponentially. For the first time in history, it’s impossible to finish all the books that out there. No, that is not inclusive of online courses, blog articles and e-books.

We are drowning in a sea of useful information, trapped in a never-ending cycle of new information.

A useful question: what are you doing to do with this knowledge?

It’s certainly possible. You might just like to learn for the sake of learning. And that’s okay.

There are big problems out there. Behind a pile of books (or browser tabs), that’s a good place to hide.

When we call someone racist, sexist, or a capitalist, what are we hoping for?

Here’s the thing: the best way to push someone away is by branding them with a pejorative label, obstruct a useful conversation, turning them into that other.

Much more useful: Hold them to a higher standard, identify the behaviour that’s counter-productive and talk about it.

And of course, there’s an art. The rule is to stop attacking the person and avoid the lizard brain, the Amygdala from acting up.

Instead of saying to someone, “Hey, that’s not cool man” causing all sorts of defence mechanism to fire up.

What if we say, “Hey, I know you’re not a racist.”

By assuming positive intent, it opens up a conversation with curiosity. And if there’s a change that needs to be made, we’ve crafted an opportunity.

The seven magic words. “Hey, I know you’re not a ______.”

That is a dangerous promise. You have put yourself together with the possibilities of failure. You are on the hook to uphold your promise.

Consider the opposite. Don’t tell anyone before you solved the problem.

You get all credit without the risk. All the upside without the downside.

Authors don’t announce their book until it’s 90% done. Apple doesn’t reveal its new products until all the patents are filed.

Create a tension within yourself that propels action.

The next time you find a problem (or a complaint), that might be your treasure map, keep that a secret and start chipping away. Once ready, delight others with your solution. Soon, you would indispensable and don’t blame me when you are invited to the next secret ‘save the world’ gathering.

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The photo was taken at the interview with the amazing Khailee Ng. We chatted about his visit to Necker island.