Don't Sweat the Small Stuff

"Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff is almost a self-help book for people who are put off by self-help books. Out of these five, it’s the one you’d probably find in the downstairs loo. It’s very readable, all these nice 300-word bits. It’s brilliant for people with low self-esteem because he really does throw it at you, how you should just reconsider the world. One of the things that happens, if you’ve got low self-esteem, is that you don’t like yourself, so you end up not liking other people. That’s a very negative dynamic. What you should do is start the process of gaining self-esteem by liking other people, by forcing yourself to like other people and that will help you to like yourself. How do you do that? What Carlson says is that you should develop your compassion. That runs right the way through this book — the idea of developing your compassion. He’s saying people are complicated, people have problems just as bad as yours and you should develop compassion for them. If you make sure that’s in the forefront of your mind the whole time, it’ll make you like yourself more. You won’t be thinking “Oh that person is trying to do me over!” which undermines your self-esteem. Instead, you’re reinforcing your self-esteem by saying “The reason they’re behaving that way is because of this or that.” If all you can see is the impact something is having on you, you become ineffective. What I like about this idea of developing your compassion is that it’s something you can proactively adopt. Even after everything has gone wrong, even after you’ve had the wrong reactions, all that stuff that supports your low self-esteem or supports your insecurities, you can then go, “You know what? I’ve got that wrong.” You can mentally develop your compassion even after the event. It’s about both. One of the key problems is self-obsession. I can’t remember if he actually uses that word, but it becomes obvious that that’s what it’s about. You need to stop seeing the impact everyone has on you, and see the impact you have on them. One of the things he likes saying is “Be nice to receptionists.” You see people who are rude to receptionists and it’s an incredibly ineffective thing to do. If you’re nice to the receptionist the whole thing is going the right way, you’ve got compassion for them, you’re smiling, you’re making them feel good and everything is going the right way and nothing is a problem. But if you’re rude to receptionists because you don’t value them, or you just think they’re a barrier, then everything goes wrong. It actually reinforces your low self-esteem and your insecurities. Obviously we are who we are, we are frail humans that are triggered by our insecurities. Carlson is not saying you’re a perfect person. He’s saying we all have these gripes and negativities and grumbles and this is a new way of looking at them. You should catch yourself and then look at them differently. One of the things I keep saying in my own book is that it’s not about your first reaction, it’s about your second. Someone approaches you in the street with a copy of The Big Issue [the UK magazine sold by homeless people], and your instant reaction could be “Get away from me filthy man!” But your second reaction could correct this. “No, no,” we should think. “The right thing to do here is at least be polite and nice, even if you don’t want to buy a copy of The Big Issue .” The first reaction is going to happen, ignore it. It doesn’t matter. It’s the second reaction that’s the important, considered, one. Eventually, that becomes such a habit, that your second reaction is almost instant. You’ve had this flood of understanding and you’ve managed to catch yourself, you’ve managed to react in the right way, externally. However you’ve reacted internally, you’ve reacted the right way externally. That’s all Carlson is saying, and that’s why I liked the book. He’s saying: “Just think about this a bit. Take a moment. React better and that will help you.” Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . What Covey is trying to do in his book is to structure a positive route by which you can then, each day, take a step forward. He’s very keen on us keeping a diary, and planning our future, he’s very keen on us making small positive steps. Each day you slowly build towards a better future. He’s very structured, there’s even a timetable in Seven Habits that looks like your old school timetable. From 8am till 8pm you’re supposed to structure your day and fill it with positive actions. There’s also a brilliant matrix in the book, which is the time management matrix. It divides every activity you have into things that are not urgent and are urgent and things that are not important and are important. The activity box you must focus on in order to make progress is the not-urgent but important one. He says that’s the box you most neglect, because what happens is that you spend your time in the urgent box, either important and urgent, which is fine, or not important and urgent, which is basically someone’s interruptions, and then what happens is that you’re so tired after that that you end up in the box of not important and not urgent, which is basically watching tv or surfing the Internet. Once you realize that that’s how your time divides, it’s incredibly useful. You can begin that process of saying “OK the not urgent but important box is the key box,” and that’s where you start. That should then drive everything else. He’s basically reordering your life so things are structured in a different way. So in answer to your question, I would say yes. Covey has reordered your life, he’s made you start a diary, he’s made you set some plans, and he’s made you create a timetable. Sure you may lapse, but by that time you should be in the flow of things working better for you, you should have a plan… Oh yes, absolutely. I did a ten-year plan. What you do is you keep a diary (physical, not electronic), and as you swap diaries you should then rewrite your plan at the back. Write down your goals and principles, that’s key for Covey. He invokes the US constitution. He says, if you think about America, for hundreds of years it has lived by this constitution, by its founding principles. America often goes wrong, like Watergate or Guantanamo Bay, but it has a benchmark. Indeed, when people say something is un-American, what they mean is it goes against the constitution of the USA, because they’ve got principles enshrined in this constitution. That’s one powerful document. So we should develop our own constitution and have our own principles and you write them down and each year as you change diary you rewrite them, because they may change, as the US constitution has. Yes. Some of them more than others. For me, Emotional Intelligence really made the scales fall from eyes regarding what was going on in my head. Stephen Covey definitely made a big difference in terms of reorganizing how I thought about my future, and making me an effective person. Absolutely. Carlson is more of a pleasant book to read, it gives you a warm feeling. But also this idea of developing your compassion is so important. It’s not important because it’s the right thing to do, it’s important because it’s incredibly effective."