Beautiful people,
Quick one this week. It came out of a few conversations I've had, and I haven't been able to shake it because it comes up so often.
Someone cuts you off in traffic. What's your first thought?
Idiot.
Now flip it. Last week you cut someone off. What was your reason? You were late. The kids were losing it in the back. You just didn't see them.
Same action. Two completely different stories.
That's not a character flaw. It's how we are wired. Psychologists call it the fundamental attribution error, and every one of us does it, every day. When someone else stuffs up, we blame who they are. When we stuff up, we blame what was going on around us. We give ourselves context. We give everyone else a label.
And it's everywhere once you start looking.
The teammate who's "lazy" is drowning at home.
The mate who "doesn't care" is running on empty.
The person who was short with you this morning had a rough one you never saw.
The member who "just isn't committed" has a sick parent, a new job, and a body or mind that's asking for a break.
I see this inside and outside Virty all the time, and I catch myself doing it too. Someone misses a week or two and the story writes itself. Then I actually talk to them and the real story is nothing like what I assumed.
The feedback loop that fixes it
There's another mental model called Hanlon's razor. Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity or ignorance.
Almost nobody who annoys you today is out to get you. They're tired. They're distracted. They're overwhelmed. They forgot. They didn't know. They're carrying something you can't see. Malice is rare. Bad days are everywhere.
So when the story starts, run it through the razor.
Is this person actually trying to hurt me? Or is this just a human having a human moment?
Nine times out of ten it's the second one. And the tenth time, you can yell at them for being an idiot.
How to hold yourself to a high standard
Marcus Aurelius put it better than I can. Be lenient with others and strict with yourself.
I love this because it splits the world cleanly into what you control and what you don't.
You don't control the driver, the teammate, or the mate who went quiet. You don't control their day, their stress, their workload, or their reasons. Spending your energy judging them is spending it on something that was never yours in the first place.
You do control you. Your effort. What you say. Whether you turned up when you said you would. Whether you owned the mistake or explained it away. That's where the strict part goes. That's the only place it works.
Most of us have it backwards. Strict with everyone else, lenient with ourselves. Flip it and watch what happens. Assume the best in the people around you. Hold the line on the one person you're actually responsible for.
What next...
I'm not telling you to excuse bad behaviour. Some people are genuinely doing the wrong thing and you're allowed to hold a boundary. I'm asking you to ask one question before the label lands.
What would have to be going on for a good human to do that?
Then take the standard you were about to hand them and put it on yourself instead. It's more difficult at first, but it will set you free.
This is what human first, athlete second looks like in practice. Not a slogan on a wall. A habit of giving the person in front of you the benefit of the doubt you give yourself without even noticing, and giving yourself the honesty you'd never hand a stranger.
So here's the ask for this week. Catch yourself once. Someone does something that annoys you. Run it through the razor. Ask the question. Then look at your own day and ask where you could have been better.
Most people aren't villains. They're just having a shitty day.
Give them the story you'd give yourself. Give yourself the standard you'd give them.
If all else fails, just be nice.
Big love.
Lachie