32 - Pleasant things make you luckier
Attracting luck by having a pleasant attitude
I am currently on a much needed and well deserved impromptu break and this letter is coming to you from Kenya, where I am visiting my best friend Yu.
Yu and I have been friends since 2008, when I moved to St Kitts for medical school. She was a few semesters ahead of me but we did pretty much everything together. To be honest, I think she was the only person who was brave enough to be friends with my then miserable self.
Yu was the polar opposite of me at the time. She was the super social, super friendly one, with a big bubbly personality, where I was the anti-social, not so friendly one.
Now to be honest, my dear friend was more sociable than studious. She didn’t have too many qualms about skipping studying in favour of more exciting activities. She had the most active social life of all of us students and this was even more special because most of her friends were island locals.
For context, we were foreign students in a small, unfamiliar country and most of us only socialised with other Nigerian students. My friend on the other hand did not limit herself to socialising with students alone. She was generous with her attention and effusive with her compliments and just had a special way of drawing people in. As a result, she collected friends everywhere she went.
A few years after we graduated medical school, Yu decided that clinical medicine was no longer for her and with a lot of hard work and perseverance, sprinkled with all the luck and goodwill she has amassed over the years, my friend has executed what I describe as a wildly successful career pivot.
Her ability to charm the literal socks off everyone she comes in contact with, has led to all kinds of opportunities, from internships to mentoring to job offers and many things in between.
Having a front row seat to her life has definitely taught me many lessons, one of which is that having/building good interpersonal skills will take you far. Because even if you’ve amassed all the fancy degrees, or you’re the hardest worker or best service provider, people are more likely to remember and patronise and recommend people they like.
As someone who used to be very anti social and not so friendly, I can personally attest to how being pleasant and having a good attitude can go a long way in improving your luck.
There’s something about smiling at people that makes them want to smile back. Something about having an open , kind face that makes people more likely to offer you help. Something about making a memorable impression on someone that makes them more likely to remember you when they need a service you provide.
There is a general tendency for us to focus on educational achievements and qualifications, and pay little attention to building the skills that help to improve our daily interactions. This sometimes produces brilliant well educated people who make terrible colleagues/employers because they don’t know how to handle interpersonal conflicts that are part of day to day interactions, and as such no one likes to work with them.
While it is unrealistic to expect everyone to have a naturally bubbly personality, I believe that with some effort, we can all improve the ways in which we interact with people daily.
Small things like greeting people with a smile or asking someone for their name and making a point to address them by it can go a long way in leaving the right type of impression.
As much as some of us like to go on about how we don’t need to be liked, the truth is that certain things just come more easily when people like you.
We can’t all be friendly, but we can at least practice the habits of friendly people and improve our chances of living softer lives by being the type of people that other people like to be around.
I shall leave you with the James Clear quote that inspired this weeks letter.
“Being pleasant and having a good attitude is a simple way to become luckier.
Opportunities come through people, and people are more likely to bring opportunities to people they like.
It’s hard to win if your attitude adds friction to every interpersonal experience.”
This week I am reading
Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself by Nedra Glover Tawwab. This book is written by a licensed counsellor and therapist and was recommended by my therapist so the author has also become one of my Instagram therapists. Insightful and relatable read so far. It’s one of those where I need to buy a few physical copies to give away.
I have only a few days of holiday left and I’m glad to say that I feel so much better. Spending time in nature always does wonders for my soul so I am truly happy.
Also, thankful for friendships that restore and affirm.
Go where you are loved my friends.
Chioma.