Donate the Win

Note: Deviating from agency-focused content for a spell. This felt like an important lesson for me, so I’m sharing. Stay tuned for more positioning content next week.

So, I’m driving my oldest daughter to school this morning. There’s this one stretch where the lane zippers down, and around here it’s usually pretty chill. Everybody waves. Everybody lets people in.

That’s what happens when you live in Maine.

Then this guy locks eyes with me and just... won’t. He’s not letting me in.

I feel my blood pressure climb. Start grumbling. He mouths something at me through his windshield. I grumble some more. Then I hear my daughter, sitting next to me in the truck, repeating every word coming out of my mouth.

Cool. Great parenting moment.

So I shut up and tried something different.

I don’t know this guy. No idea what his life looks like. So I started making up a story about him on the rest of the drive.

What if he hates his job? What if his wife left? What if he never sees his kids? What if his back hurts every morning, and there’s nothing in his day worth getting up for?

If even part of that’s true, then refusing to let me in was probably the best four seconds of his morning. For one moment he wasn’t powerless. He got to decide something.

Meanwhile I’m over here with my kid riding shotgun and a life I built on purpose. I’ve got plenty. He might have nothing.

So why was I fighting him for a merge?

I’m calling this Donating the Win.

Next time you feel yourself tightening up over something small, ask whether you can afford to let it go. Most of the time we can. The win usually matters way more to them than it does to you. So just give it to them.

And don’t do it to be the bigger person. That framing is its own kind of flex anyway. Do it because your tank’s full and theirs might be empty.

Tested it the rest of the drive. Few minutes later somebody needed to merge and I waved them in before they had to ask. Felt great.

My daughter saw that one too.

Have a great week.