People bullshit a lot

One of the more unique WTF moment I had while in the US happened during my negotiation with John. John, is an eye opening experience and is the type of person who will tell you that he is going to stab you in your face and go ahead and do it while telling you that he is stabbing you… Yet there was nothing I could do to stop him from doing so. He is just that type of person who is cruelly honest and maneuvers in a way that you cannot avoid. Certain business maneuvers are unavoidable even if you can predict them.

During our afternoon meeting he said something that stayed in my mind and have been making me review the way I look at my competitor’s moves. “I understand that when you Asians say 1 it’s actually 2, same as when us Americans say 2, it is actually 1.”

I believe my competitor’s PR too easily and forgot that they often are just posturing. In a sense, I am projecting my own behavior onto them as a way of examining their motives when in reality, I should’ve framed their mindset into the prediction model. Sometimes, the PR causes me to change direction because I bought their bull, sometimes I stayed because I believed I should take action irregardless of how other people act and ignored the bull and that worked out well. In the end, I think the best way is to do everything is to ignore the PR and wait to observe the action they’d take if they actually are successful at what they say they’d do.

Which brings us back to a fundamental belief I’ve always had, but somehow never applied to this situation, or any situation at all: “Talk is cheap, action speaks volumes.”