Three ways to manage your input

Three ways to manage your input. 1)choose a new source of input. Be Conscious of what you consume 2) Reduce the input we receive from powerless or conditional people. prevent others from dragging down your mood or your state of being. 3) persuade the people around you to change their output the more you think or talk about their input the greater the effect it has on you.

— from The Heart in the Cockpit (Emotion/Awe/Anxiety/Regret/Empathy) · Unconditional Power by Steven Gaffney

In the book

And mood is mostly input. The most powerful input is the people around you; you become something close to the average of the five people you spend the most time with. So guard your inputs the way a pilot guards his fuel: choose your sources consciously, and quietly reduce the time you spend with people who drain you. Vulnerability. I will say something that took me decades to believe: vulnerability is not weakness. […] Practice empathy as a skill. Start every encounter by asking what the other person actually wants; stay out of judgment and take their perspective; and listen long enough and deep enough that they feel safe to open layer after layer down to where the real thing lies. Guard your inputs and forgive your debtors. You become the average of your five closest people, so choose them consciously. And forgive the wrongs done to you — not for the other person's sake but for your own, because carrying the fury only makes you the one who suffers. — The Heart in the Cockpit (Emotion/Awe/Anxiety/Regret/Empathy)

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