Of course it sounds more palatable to other people, but actually it’s a completely different attitude from the one you’re actually taking! You’re just viewing other people’s success as a means to what is eventually your own success after all. This is not at all the bizarre universal love and self-abnegation that the initial post suggested to me.
I also suspect you might be in a relatively atypical life situation if you manage to leverage this business-like perspective into universal social skills because you can just apply it to practically everyone you meet. But then it might be my own situation that’s more atypical. (It’s also not clear how “spending time helping you” translates into felicitous interaction—most people I meet don’t need and couldn’t use my help; but I’m not asking you to explain because I don’t think I can use your approach anyway.)
There’s a pretty noticeable difference between someone doing something for their own sake and someone doing something for the sake of another. Compare two pretty universal experiences: “Talking to someone who is only interacting with you because they want something” and “Being the recipient of a no-strings-attached favor”.
This attitude is universal; it’s not specific to business. Everyone has wants and goals, not just business people. What you imagine my life situation to be isn’t really very relevant. Unless you live in a solitary confinement, this is applicable to you.
Of course it sounds more palatable to other people, but actually it’s a completely different attitude from the one you’re actually taking! You’re just viewing other people’s success as a means to what is eventually your own success after all. This is not at all the bizarre universal love and self-abnegation that the initial post suggested to me.
I also suspect you might be in a relatively atypical life situation if you manage to leverage this business-like perspective into universal social skills because you can just apply it to practically everyone you meet. But then it might be my own situation that’s more atypical. (It’s also not clear how “spending time helping you” translates into felicitous interaction—most people I meet don’t need and couldn’t use my help; but I’m not asking you to explain because I don’t think I can use your approach anyway.)
There’s a pretty noticeable difference between someone doing something for their own sake and someone doing something for the sake of another. Compare two pretty universal experiences: “Talking to someone who is only interacting with you because they want something” and “Being the recipient of a no-strings-attached favor”.
This attitude is universal; it’s not specific to business. Everyone has wants and goals, not just business people. What you imagine my life situation to be isn’t really very relevant. Unless you live in a solitary confinement, this is applicable to you.