The 1 in 10 Rule…
While reading “The Courage to be Disliked” almost a decade ago, I discovered an old proverb that has stuck with me since:
In any group of ten people, you’ll get on really well with two.
You’ll be indifferent about seven of them.
And at least one person in the group will not like you.
Due to the negativity bias, the majority of our mental energy goes towards the one person who doesn’t like us — trying to change their opinion or wondering if there’s something fundamentally wrong with us.
But simply knowing this fact – that about one person in every ten won’t like us, and more importantly, that they don’t have to like us, frees us from needing their approval.
It also enables us to focus on connecting deeply with the people we have natural chemistry with.
