Life Advice: What are some of the most important things that we should be informed about in life?

As ambiguous and ridiculous this question sounds, I hope you get the gist of what I mean. What main things should a person know about in life? Whether it be their government, types of awareness in any particular subject, anything would be great to hear!

Although there are endless facts, figures, information, and knowledge we should know about life, there is only ONE that I see that literally will make or break every aspect of your life, whether that’s happiness level, career success, and general wellbeing. It’s not covered in school, childhood education, or even conveyed to us as we’re adults. Many people have to figure this out ALONE and on your own. This is:

The crucial ability to understand how to work with, motivate, influence, and understand PEOPLE.

This is the root of all success no matter who or what you look at. To truly feel happy and fulfilled, we’re going to need to learn how to manage our emotions when it comes to people and their effects on us (unless you plan on living as a hermit tucked away in some random mountain).

Here are the top 3 Strategies to improve your life in this regard:

#1. You don’t need to win all the time. Competition is good but as you get older, it’s more important to work together, than to one-up each other. We’re taught in school to always beat the other guy or gal, the ability to win is virtuous and universally admired by peers and adults.

As we get older, it’s not a matter of proving who’s smarter or right; it’s actually more important to work together to reach an effective solution while making others feel good. This is what the best CEOs do extremely well. They don’t need to prove or assert their leadership; they bring the best out of you in their uncanny ability to cultivate and nurture talent.

#2. Tone it down sometimes; we don’t need to aggressively amplify our existing emotional flaws or throw tantrums until we get our way. Sure, many leaders could demand, order, and belittle their underlings (many of them do), however that’s an ineffective strategy to drive the best results from people around you. Let’s extrapolate this to us regular people as well. We need to be careful not to get carried away with our needs to assert our intelligence, athletic capability, aggressiveness, what-have-you, over others. This is something I’m actively working on every day because I’ve always been too competitive. Talk about being a blessing and a curse!

For example, I’ve challenged many a date to a game of pingpong. Not only do I usually win, I also smack-talk. That’s not the best way to build rapport, let’s put it that way!

Food for thought: what ways could you be potentially hurting your allies’ feelings? How could that negatively impact your career and life? Was one-upping that person truly worth it?

#3. Question people more and feel free to dig into their lives, opinions, and thoughts. Wait, isn’t it better to keep quiet than to be too nosy? Well, quite the contrary, I argue. Who doesn’t like a little bit of sincere attention? The core principle of one of the world’s best books on interpersonal relationships, How to Win Friends and Influence People, is to ask others sincere questions to allow others to speak and share their thoughts. Besides, in today’s day and age, those who can speak up get heard, whether we like it or not. Might as well play the game appropriately!

Too few people care to ask us our thoughts, feelings, and emotions, so when someone does that, it feels like heaven! Oh to be cherished, listened to, and taken seriously. Who wouldn’t like that? One of my mentees does this especially well. After one of my speeches, she initiated and diligently built rapport by asking me so many open questions.

Due to her effective questioning and sincere interest into my life and opinions, I found myself opening up to her. I then became a passionate advocate for her as she began figuring out her future. At just the age of 24, it is incredible how adept she is at making friends during such a short exchange. Fast forward a month, she’s now being hired by a contact of mine who needs successful headhunters, who I’m sure she’ll become!

I hope this helps you along your journey to increased fulfillment!

If you like what I have to say, Follow me on Quora!