TIP 87
PUT YOURSELF FIRST
You have no idea how promising the world begins to look once you have decided to have it all for yourself. And how much healthier your decisions are once they become entirely selfish.
We have been raised to think that being selfish is bad and it is—if you hurt others in the process. In general, being selfish is a good thing—in the sense of honoring your highest self. In fact, if you want to attract success, you will have to put yourself first. You can’t take care of anyone else until you take care of yourself. That is why the airlines tell parents to put the oxygen mask on first and then to put it on their child.
It takes a willingness to be selfish to set up a sacred evening (Tip 40). It takes selfishness to say no when you are asked to help organize the PTA’s fundraiser and you really don’t want to, but feel that you should. When I organized “Neat Street” (Tip 56), my motives were purely selfish. I didn’t want my block to look trashy, and I felt uncomfortable every time I passed a homeless person on the street. Now when a homeless person asks for money, I offer him or her a job sweeping streets—there is no shortage of dirty streets in Manhattan. If everyone were truly selfish and took some small action to eliminate what bothers them, we wouldn’t have car alarms, pollution, homelessness, and hunger because nobody really likes this stuff. I realize this may sound like idealistic hogwash, but think about it. If you took an action to ensure that you and your family had clean air and water, it might mean getting the neighbors together to ban diesel buses or to carpool to work. Every little action is like a pebble tossed in the pond; it sets off a ripple effect. You’ll be amazed at how far those ripples go. Just take care of yourself, and the world will be taken care of in the process.
What can you do to be really selfish? If you were totally selfish, what changes would you make in your own life right now? One client, Carlotta, was so busy taking care of her 10- and 12-year-old daughters and working full time that she didn’t have a spare moment to herself. She had a gym membership, but spent so much time driving the girls to their extracurricular activities that she never had time for her own. I asked Carlotta to start putting herself first for a change. The first thing she realized was that she would have to find some other way to get the kids to their activities. She felt it was important that they participate in sports and school activities, but was no longer willing to do so at her own expense. Carlotta sat down and told the girls that she wanted time for herself and told them what she needed. The girls asked around and found friends whose parents were willing to drive them home after volleyball practice. In the course of the conversation, the girls realized that they too were overly involved and stressed-out by doing so many things. They each decided to drop one extracurricular activity so that they would have time for more family meals. What Carlotta thought was going to make the girls upset ended up making everyone happier in the end.
Mitch was recently married, and although he was thrilled with his new wife and eager to please her, he soon began to miss his weekly nights out playing basketball with the guys. For Mitch, being selfish meant reinstating his night out. He was worried that Kate wouldn’t be terribly happy about it, but he told her what he wanted, and, to his surprise, she didn’t mind at all. She was just as glad to have a night to herself to go out with her girlfriends, whom she hadn’t seen in ages.
Time and time again, I have found that when you truly take care of yourself, it works best for all parties concerned. One of my colleagues felt a bit under the weather one day and decided to cancel all his coaching calls so he could take it easy. He was being purely selfish, but when he made the calls to cancel, every one of his clients said that it actually worked out better for them to reschedule for one reason or another. He was being a great role model for his clients too. By taking such excellent care of himself, he gave them permission to do the same. Curiously enough, when you take care of yourself first, others will like you more and be attracted to you. Try it and see.
Don’t get me wrong; selfishness is not the same as stinginess. There is all the difference in the world. If you are stingy and don’t give up your seat to the handicapped or elderly, who really ends up feeling bad? You do! If you give up your seat, you will feel amazingly great. By the way, giving gifts and compliments is ultimately selfish—you get pleasure from the giving (Tip 49). So go right ahead and put yourself first.