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Don Miguel Ruiz packed all of human relationships into four agreements. They hold up. I came up with my own short version first:

My rules: don’t lie, don’t deal with assholes, and don’t be one yourself.

That’s most of it. The four agreements just fill in the details.

Be impeccable with your word. Words build reality. Say what you mean, keep what you say.

We speak, we don’t chatter. And our straight talk is the straightest there is.

Don’t take anything personally. What others do is about them, not you. Nobody can actually offend you — the offense is something you pick up and carry yourself.

You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can’t control. — Marcus Aurelius

Don’t make assumptions. Don’t fill the gaps with stories. Ask. Be clear. Most conflict is two people fighting over something neither of them said.

Don’t anticipate life; meet it.

Always do your best. That’s the one that covers the other three — and it’s the last word of this whole book.

Don’t be the irritation

Most of being good with people is just that: don’t be the irritation. Don’t add friction. Don’t make someone’s day heavier because you walked into it. A therapist once boiled it down to five habits worth dropping:

• Don’t make every conversation about yourself. When every story somehow circles back to you, people stop feeling heard and start feeling dismissed — even if you’re only trying to relate.
• Don’t get defensive. If every piece of feedback turns into an excuse or an argument, people stop being honest with you. Criticism isn’t always an attack; sometimes it’s someone trying to fix the relationship.
• Stop drilling people after they apologize. If a sincere apology never actually ends the conflict, people learn that owning a mistake buys them nothing — so they stop owning them.
• Stop constantly complaining. Venting is fine. But if every interaction runs on negativity, people start associating you with exhaustion. Nobody wants to leave a conversation drained.
• Stop one-upping someone’s pain. When a person opens up and you jump to how you had it worse, they feel erased. They didn’t want a comparison — they wanted to feel heard.

You don’t have to win the room. You just have to not be the thing it’s trying to recover from.

Trust first

My default is open. You have my trust — it’s up to you to earn distrust.

It’s the opposite of how most people run it: guard everything, make people prove themselves, then maybe lower the shield. That’s exhausting and it keeps the good ones out too.

Drop the armor. Trust first. The few who abuse it sort themselves out fast — and everyone else gets to meet the real you.

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