Sizing People Up summary

Most of us want to be successful. But do those around you also want you to be a success? You probably know some people who champion you and have your best interests at heart. But you almost definitely also know people who couldn’t care less whether or not you succeed. When it comes to deciding whom to trust, knowing how to tell the difference is vital. 

It's important to identify those precious individuals who believe that your success is their success, too. These are the people who will go to great lengths to help you achieve things. They will shield you from negative outcomes and identify ways to further your interests. Do these personal champions sound like something out of an unlikely fairy tale? Well, they're not. They just believe that it's in their own best interest to help you.

Human relationships often boil down to one simple question. Whether you’re dealing with a potential coworker or an exciting love interest, the question is the same: Can I trust this person? But if you want an accurate answer, then you’re going to have to ask yourself something else, too: How much do they trust you? 

It might sound counterintuitive, but if you’re in search of more trusting relationships, the best place to start looking is in the mirror. If you give off signals that you can be trusted, then the people around you will mimic your behavior. They’ll start behaving in a more trustworthy way, too. 

Knowing who you can rely on is essential. For most of human history, jobs revolved around agriculture and manufacturing. This made it easy to determine who was reliable and who wasn’t. People either came up with the food and the goods, or they didn’t. But in our complex modern world, it is harder to know who is truly reliable in the workplace. 

Not only do people tend to exaggerate how reliable they are, both on their résumés and during interviews, but previous employers often give deceptively positive references, too. This can happen because they want to get rid of an unreliable employee themselves. Or maybe they just don’t want to upset outgoing employees by giving them a bad reference. Either way, reliability is very difficult to measure.

How can you identify someone’s core values, such as loyalty, integrity, or self-assurance? You could ask him, of course, but he might lie to you. Or he may not have the self-awareness to give you an accurate answer. With this in mind, it’s safer to look for patterns in someone’s behavior because, more often than not, patterns don’t lie. 

The key message here is: One of the best indications of future behavior is past behavior. 

Listening carefully to what people have to say is the cornerstone of good communication. But when you’re sizing people up, it’s also important to pay close attention to how they say it. This makes sense; we use language to tell each other things. So the way we use language – our words, our delivery, our phrasing – is telling as well.

The key message here is: Trustworthy people use simple language and aren’t afraid to apologize. 

When you’re considering placing your faith in someone, you’ll need to consider how emotionally stable he is. What’s his default mindset? Is he calm and secure in his own abilities, or is he full of fear? When someone untrustworthy tries to gain our trust, he might appear confident. But if you know what to look for, you can identify the negative mindset that lies underneath. 

The key message here is: Emotionally unstable people have certain traits that you should look out for.