The Art of Being Ruthless

by Michael Sloan

  Confrontation strategy seven: have perspective.

  If you’re going to be able to defeat your opponent in a confrontation, then you need to be able to understand their own perspective. You need to be putting yourself in their shoes and thinking about your words through their ears. In doing so, you are giving yourself a valuable tool in the discussion. This tool is known as empathy. Empathy gives you the ability to experience what your opponent is experiencing. This allows you to more effectively argue your points without going past the breaking point in the discussion.

  The ruthless individual thinks clearly about what his opponent perceives in his words. All that matters in a confrontation is perception. Perception is reality. It doesn’t matter if you have the nicest sounding words, if your opponent perceives you as being hostile, then you will not win the argument. This is why you must make a continual practice thinking about how your words will be heard by those you oppose. Consider their way of life, consider their actions, their values, their belief structures and their emotional temperament. When you consider all of this as you are speaking to someone, it can improve your effectiveness tenfold. Just because you are trying to get your own way doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be empathetic. The empathetic individual is the one who’s able to more expertly navigate through a confrontation as opposed to someone who just tries to do things his own way.

  Confrontation tactic eight: always go high.

  When you are in a negotiation, you should always make a point ask for more than you actually want. The reason for this is because when you give them a higher ceiling, and they counter with a lower offer, you can lead them to believe they have gotten a good deal. For example, let’s say that you wanted a 20% raise. When you go into a discussion with your boss, you ask for a 30% raise. You get immediately shut down, and they offer you 20% raise instead. Guess what? You just got what you wanted. By over inflating your demands, you are actually improving your chances of getting what you actually want. Just be careful with this tactic. If you go too high it might be seen as an insult. The subtle art of negotiation is to pick a price point that they will not like, but will cause them to lower to the range that you are actually looking for. The best-case scenario is that they accept your unrealistic demand. The worst-case scenario is that they go lower, but not lower from where your original demand was. This is better than just asking for what you want immediately. For example, if you had demanded a 20% raise, they might offer you a 10% raise. There is no room for negotiation in that. Instead, you are creating the illusion that the other party is getting a good deal, while in reality it was your plan to lower to that rate to begin with. This is a shrewd business tactic, but it can be quickly recognized if your demands are wildly unrealistic. Don’t go too high or else they might suspect you’re trying to pull something over on them.

  Confrontation tactic nine: control your words.

  Don’t hang yourself with your own rope. What I mean by that is that the more you speak in a negotiation, the better chances of you failing during it. Chatty people tend to be quick to expose themselves. But the slow, calm speaker who does not rush to counter, who does not rush to argue back, is the one who will win in the long run. There might be a temptation to act as quickly as possible in the conversation, but the fastest person at the table doesn’t win. Instead the person who has the greatest degree of control is the one who wins. A quick word can quickly spiral out of control. By speaking before you have a chance to think, you are setting yourself up for disaster. Instead, you should focus entirely on speaking as slowly and as thoroughly as possible, that way you are able to get your message out with a cool and collected manner.

  Confrontation tactic 10: ignore the sob story.

  If you are in a confrontation and you are currently winning, you run the risk of running into the sob story. Depending on what you were trying to achieve, the sob story can sound like all sorts of different things. For example, the boss might tell you that the company just isn’t generating enough money to pay you more, or your spouse might tell you that nobody loves her and that your confrontation of her spending habits is just proof that no one really cares. Your alcoholic brother-in-law might try to tell you that he is just trying to get back up on his feet and will quit drinking as soon as he gets a good job. All of the sob stories are meant to convince you to back down from your original position. Once you start to reach the sob story, you are in the victory zone. Don’t back off! Instead, acknowledge that you feel bad for their position, but don’t give in to their demands. They will act wounded as a means to defend themselves from the loss. Refuse to accept that and instead continue pressing forward until you get your way. Ignore the sob story and win the war.

  Remember the greatest enemy that you can have in your life is fear, because fear controls our actions. If you want to overcome your fear of confrontation then you are going to have to get involved in as many confrontations as you can. They could be small ones; they could be disagreements with a coworker about a movie or they could be big ones like asking your boss for a raise after all these years. The point is when you learn to confront other people, you are strengthening yourself each and every day. With that in mind were going to go ahead and move on to the last chapter before we close out the book. We’re going to discuss how to be ruthless with your own goals.

  Chapter 8: Always About Goals

  Single-mindedness is one of the most valuable weapons that you can have on the ruthlessness front. What does it mean to be single-minded? It means that you need to be in a position of always thinking constantly about your goals and desires. Single-minded individual makes decisions to cut out things that don’t fit with their goals. So, that is what we’re going to talk about in this chapter, how to be ruthless when it comes to achieving your own goals. Believe it or not, you don’t need to be as ruthless with other people as you need to be ruthless with your own self when it comes to goal setting and goal achieving. Are you confused? Well let’s look at it like this: if you have a goal, there are many enemies to your goal. But those enemies aren’t always very obvious, sometimes there are just good things that look very attractive in the moment.

  It has often been said that good is the enemy of great. This is especially true when it comes to achieving your own goals. What can happen is that as you are working to get your own stuff done, you might begin to find that there are certain things that seem like good ideas but they don’t fit in with your goals. The ruthless individual is only interested in what works. The ruthless individual isn’t thinking about all of the ideas that are good, they only think about the ideas that make sense for what they are trying to do.

  Consider how the businessman works. He has a lot of different things that could take his time and energy, for example if he was in the business of creating light bulbs, he might be enticed to also start manufacturing lamps. It might seem like a good idea on paper and it might seem like it would be very financially attractive. But the problem is how does selling lamps advance the agenda of selling light bulbs? It doesn’t! So, all of sudden this businessman has to make a choice, he can take something good, making lamps, or he can focus on achieving greatness which is only selling light bulbs. Many times, in our lives we do not have to choose between good and evil, we actually have to choose between good or best. But in our lives, we don’t really know how to tell the difference between good and best.

  That is why the ruthless individual gets ahead so quickly because they have the ability to not just simply see what is good and what is best, they have the discipline and strength of character to go for what is best only. Good will usually try to seduce you on some level, good often shows up in many different ways. For example, if you’re an entrepreneur and you’re trying to start your own business, you might have a bevy of good ideas, worse you might have friends around you who all have good ideas too. If you start to take all of these good ideas and lose the focus of what your business is about, you’ll end up too bloated to get anything done. The ruthless man focuses only on one
thing at a time in order to achieve his goals, because he knows that the bulkier a project gets, the more he will be slowed down. I will repeat myself when I say that good is the enemy of great. The temptation to do just good enough and not be exceptional is very powerful.

  Imagine the difference between a man who climbs Mount Everest all way of the top and the man who climbs Mount Everest halfway. The man who climbs halfway will still have an amazing view. He will see still see the world around him and he will still have some level of accomplishment. He might even feel like it’s good enough and in his infinite wisdom will choose to go back home having achieved something that most people will never be able to achieve. But it is not enough, it is not in line with his actual goals, it does not advance his agenda. All that work and energy in preparation wasn’t to reach half of Mount Everest it was to reach the top of Mount Everest. Consequently, the man who reaches the top of Mount Everest gets to plant a flag, see the world and receives all the accolades of climbing Mount Everest. It’s harder to reach the top than it is the climb it halfway through. The decision to climb Mount Everest requires all of his single-minded energy and effort to achieve his goal.

  There are a lot of people in this world who have some level of drive, they have some level of single-mindedness but what they don’t have is a deep, intense desire to push themselves all the way through to the very end. And as a result, they accept the good. The ruthless man is only satisfied with great because greatness is not easy to achieve. Complacency can be common place in the world of success.

  The ruthless man is not complacent when it comes to his goals, instead he makes a constant decision to force himself forward, even if he doesn’t feel like it. He knows what he wants and then he goes for it with all of his energy. He fights to achieve his goals relentlessly and without giving up. The question is: do you know what you want yet? Finding and achieving your goal isn’t easy, it requires a certain level of introspection and realization. But once you have those goals figured out, you have to ask yourself: are you wanting to achieve exceptional goals or are you happy with second place? First place will require a serious, ruthless mind to achieve.

  The question is what do you really want? Do you want to be exceptional? Or do you just simply want to be run-of-the-mill? There are no shortages of regular people in this world and there are no shortages of regular goals in this world. We live in a world where good and mediocrity are the standard. If you want to be exceptional, if you want to be great, it’s going to require a greater sense of push, a greater drive, and above all a greater sense of ruthlessness. So, let’s break down how to essentially cultivate a ruthless mentality when it comes to goal setting.

  Ruthless goal one: sorting.

  One of most effective ways to set goals is to learn to tell the difference between good ideas, bad ideas, and great ideas. A great idea is something that will require a lot of discipline and energy to take off. A great idea requires an effective strategy to get done, and most of all it’s something that can feel somewhat scary. Good ideas usually don’t have the same emotional punch. Believe it or not, but fear is an excellent indicator of how important your goal is. The scarier an idea is, the more worthwhile it can be to achieve. It’s really easy to get off track when it comes to setting goals that is why you need an effective sorting process. You must be willing to make sure that each idea that you have works with your original plan. You need to be certain that every action and step that you take supports your original goals entirely. Any idea that doesn’t work for the benefit of your original goals should be thrown out. Don’t allow for these lesser ideas to stealthily pile up on your goals, bogging you down over time.

  You need to be ruthless with yourself, however, because the temptation to grab any idea that seems like it fits is quite high. In fact, most entrepreneurs struggle desperately with the desire to include a bunch of good ideas. Remember, one exceptional idea is worth 10 good ideas.

  Ruthless goals two: Being Specific

  If you want to implement and achieve your goals, then you’re going to need to be specific as to what those goals are. Vagueness is the enemy when it comes to goal setting. Vagueness allows room for laziness, lack of discipline and fantasy. The ruthless individual cannot be vague about their goals because they know that vagueness will weaken them. Vague goals produce unreasonable and uncertain results. Concrete specific goals on the other hand enable you to get a sense of accomplishment. The more specific your goals are, the easier it is to come up with plans to get them done.

  So, if you are someone who is prone to coming up with vague ideas and hoping it’ll work, you’re in trouble. It is far better for you to have a specific plan and goal setting than to fall prey to the idea of making it up as you go along. It takes discipline to have specific goals and the ruthless individual must have that discipline.

  Ruthless goal three: action must come after goals setting.

  The ruthless man knows that action is necessary in order to achieve his goals. He does not wait and dally and a hope for things to happen, he does not give his time to some imagined tomorrow where things are better. He doesn’t delay and he realizes that if he doesn’t do it it’ll never get done. Tomorrow is a lie. Tomorrow never comes, the more we will give our time, days, hours and energy to tomorrow, the less chance of us actually getting anything done today. Don’t fall into this trap of focusing only on tomorrow. Don’t fall for this lie that tomorrow is somehow magically better than today. The ruthless man must have the discipline to know that today is the only day for him. This is the day that he refuses to give into the temptation to be lazy and wait for tomorrow and instead works to get his goals done today.

  Think about it like this: every single day that passes by is a day you get further away from your goals. Yet if you look at it, every day you spend working even if it’s a small amount towards reaching your goal, it is an advancement of your greatest purpose and goal. These productive days are important because they allow you to move the ball forward, no matter how minuscule it might feel in the moment. Large walls are made up of thousands of small bricks. The ruthless man is strong; the ruthless man is a taskmaster of his own self; he chooses to push himself. He chooses to overcome his own laziness and desire for self-gratification and instead focuses on achieving all of his goals in the now. What he does not do is wait. Each day that passes by never comes back. Each hour that slips past you will vanish forever. You will never see that hour again. So, what you do with your time is of infinite value because unlike money, you can do nothing to get more time in your life. The ruthless man knows this to be true and lives accordingly.

  Ruthless goal four: stick to the plan, no matter what.

  There are a lot of things that can threaten you in your desire to implement your goals. Other people might try to discourage you with hurtful messages. You might find yourself frustrated or agitated. You might be afraid, or worse you might encounter setbacks that feel like your goals will not be achieved. This is where the rubber hits the road, this is what separates the regular individual from ruthless individual. Regular individuals reach trouble, encounters struggles or obstacles and then give up. They might lament the situation and surrender. Worse they might end their goals and say that their goals were wrong and change them.

  The temptation to change your goals, to change what your dreams are in response to some kind of failure is powerful. These temptations are ever present, and will continuously plague you until the end of time. You can never give into the temptation to give up. You cannot allow setbacks to hold you back. The desire to quit will always be present, regardless of what you’re trying to do. You certainly cannot abandon your plans just because you are afraid. Nothing worthwhile will ever be easy. Yet we live in a world where we might be tempted to believe that success should be handed to us on a silver platter. Such fantasies serve only to harm us in the long run. Do you want to indulge in these fantasies or do you want to live in reality and fight for what you want?

  Remember how the pragmatist thi
nks. The pragmatist’s job is to consider reality and to resist thinking about fantasy. And this means that when you hit the rocks, when you begin to experience frustration and pain, you stand up and hold yourself resolute. You refuse to back down from your convictions and you don’t allow circumstances, people, or emotions to stop you from doing what you need to do. This is what makes the difference between a ruthless individual and a weak individual. The strong one, the one who is not afraid, will hold themselves firm. The weak individual on the other hand will buckle and break. If you really want to achieve your goals, if you want to achieve great things, then you’re going to have to make the decision to hold fast and firm.

  It can be extremely hard to set goals in this world especially when the urge to be compliant is deep-seated within us. We often need permission from other people to do the things we actually truly want to do. We can sometimes suppress our desires and bury them in caution and wariness. We can even try to convince ourselves that we don’t really want to strike out on our own. Achieving our hopes and dreams isn’t easy. In our compliance-based society we are told to not follow our dreams and instead be productive. We are told to work as hard as we can to earn, to turn a profit, to help the business or assist the boss in getting somewhere in life, but we ourselves are told time and time again that we do not deserve success. What happens as a result of this is that very few people actually end up where they want to be in life. The good news is that you don’t have to be one of those people. You can be the maverick; you can be the one to walk away from the system and get your own way! You can be the one to get in front of everyone else and get ahead in life. It’s going to take intense focus on setting goals and sorting through them appropriately in order to get there.