Rahul Singh

As I have interacted with more and more people, built teams at my startup, engaged with people in my personal capacity and so on, there is one realisation that has hit me consistently.

Which is, most people care about feelings, and not facts. They care about how you make them feel and not what the truth or facts are.

This may or may not be obvious to you but for me, it was a hard thing to internalise. I always felt that everyone will appreciate hard facts, truth or what the reality is.

But after coming across as arrogant to many people, pissing off friends, and burning many bridges, I have realised that to maintain the status quo with most people in your life and to get further with them, you will need to care about how they feel.

If you can make someone feel good about the situation and about themselves, you have a superpower.

It can help you with building teams that rally behind you, closing that sale or a client, ensuring you get necessary favours done from people who are in key positions, build friendships etc.

Might sound manipulative but this is not necessarily a bad thing. Most people including ourselves cannot accept facts. We are far more emotional and care about our self image to even accept facts when they are presented, especially when it has something to do with us.

While on the other hand, you can give factual advice to others and wonder why they are not getting it, or why are they getting offended or what not.

Does that mean you do not share facts with people or stop seeking the truth?

A BIG NO!

You only do with a very close set of folks who are constant truth seekers and want to continuously improve, who truly care about knowing things as they are for their self growth, vs any layering of feelings etc.

To build lost lasting companies, teams, friendships and relationships, you will need a healthy element of facts and truth in the equation. It just cannot be based on feelings.

But how do you know who are the truth seekers?

A simple proxy is to see how easy it is to offend someone. Easier to offend often means lesser the curiosity to seek the truth.

So you decide! Feelings for most people and facts for the few.