Where you set your personal ‘edges’ says a lot about the relationships you are capable of building.
Where you set your personal ‘edges’ says a lot about the relationships you are capable of building.
Beginning a relationship is easy.
Exploration is predominantly on the surface – nothing too deep, nothing too wide, nothing too revealing. In the beginning, all is well. Friendships blossom. Feelings emerge. And life is good.
If you feel good about the relationship, and a bit of trust emerges, you may permit a transaction to take place – a meeting, a dinner, a sale, or, in a social setting, even a kiss.
As the relationship matures facts and truths begin to reveal themselves, causing decisions to be made about the future of the relationship, including things like its length.
And one day you begin to see things you’ve never seen before, because life and business life take over and reality sets in based on daily transactions and interactions, coupled with patience, emotions, feelings, and responses.
Measuring value, worth, and trust of the relationship in business.
I’ll refer to these elements as edges. You have edges or levels, past which you will not go – tolerance levels, social levels, service levels, philosophical levels, and business levels. If someone tries to go past your edge, your tolerance level, in some manner you rebuff or deny them or even dismiss them.
Your compatibility for and with the other person’s edges, combined with your acceptance of the other person’s edges, will determine how the relationship grows or dies.
For example, I’m not a smoker. Nor am I much of a drinker. If I’m around a drinking smoker, it’s past my edges, and I don’t want to be around them much. I didn’t say ever. I just said much.
I may have a business relationship with a smoking drinker, but I’d never have a social relationship with him or her.
There are ethical edges, both personal and business. If someone goes past your ethical edges, you have a reaction, often acute, that says ‘danger’. It can be as ‘innocent’ as cheating on your golf score, of as serious as cheating on your taxes or not paying your bills. It can be an erroneous invoice or an unmet crucial (promised) delivery date, but whatever it is, it’s a relationship breaker.
And then there are the emotional edges. How someone reacts when something goes wrong, or how someone responds to a point of argument. And how you feel about or judge their reaction. Are they whiny? Are they quick tempered?
Are they abrasive? Are they abusive? Are they somewhat of a wildcard? In other words, are they inside (safe) or outside (unsafe) your emotional edge?
Edges have a counterpoint – tolerance. You can tolerate almost anything for a short space of time. But each time someone goes over your edge, you become less and less tolerant, either verbally or silently.
What are your edges? Where do you draw the line? What are you wiling to accept in others in order to continue a relationship?
Many spousal relationships become petty before they end. Leaving the cap off the toothpaste, dirty laundry lying around, dirty dishes in the sink … silly little things that erode love because after a hundred abrasive times, it’s over someone else’s edge.
Of course, there are worse edges in personal relationships. For the purposes of this column, I’d prefer not get into them.
Rather, I’m challenging you to widen your field of acceptable edges. Extend your patience. Figure out how you can help first rather than complain, nag, bicker, nitpick, or whine. Figure out how you can compromise just a bit more.
Figure how you can have a bit more understanding and empathy for the other guy’s position or situation. And figure out how you can be more of a resource than a resister – more of a ‘yes’ than a ‘no’.
Your personal edges determine your business and career edges.
Your personal edges therefore determine your happiness.
Jeffrey Gitomer is an American author, professional speaker and business trainer, who writes and lectures internationally on sales, customer loyalty and personal development. © 2016 All rights reserved. Don’t reproduce this document without written permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.
