Premeditate the difficult people
Each morning, expect to meet the ungrateful, the arrogant, and the dishonest — and pre-decide your response.
Key takeaways
- What it is: Each morning, expect to meet the ungrateful, the arrogant, and the dishonest — and pre-decide your response.
- Why it works: Marcus opens Book 2 by rehearsing the difficult people he’ll meet, so their behavior arrives as expected rather than as an ambush. Expectation blunts the emotional spike; pre-deciding your response means you act from principle instead of reacting from surprise. It’s an if-then plan aimed at the most reliable source of daily friction: other people.
- Evidence: Plausible mechanism, limited direct outcome data.
- Avoid: Letting it curdle into cynicism — going in braced for everyone to be awful. The aim is calm readiness and charity toward others’ motives, not pre-loaded contempt.
Why it works
Marcus opens Book 2 by rehearsing the difficult people he’ll meet, so their behavior arrives as expected rather than as an ambush. Expectation blunts the emotional spike; pre-deciding your response means you act from principle instead of reacting from surprise. It’s an if-then plan aimed at the most reliable source of daily friction: other people.
How to do it
- 1Each morning, name the kinds of behavior you’re likely to hit today (rudeness, flakiness, ego).
- 2Remind yourself they act from their own ignorance of good and bad, not to wrong you specifically.
- 3Pre-decide your response — what you’ll do, and what you’ll refuse to let it cost you.
What the evidence says
MechanisticCombines two studied mechanisms: implementation intentions (if-then plans reliably improve follow-through) and the reduced sting of expected versus unexpected aversive events. Both are real; their application to morning people-rehearsal is the Stoic packaging.
Honest caveat: The if-then plan literature is strong, but this specific morning-people rehearsal hasn’t been tested as a protocol. Treat it as a sound application, not a proven one.
Common mistake
Letting it curdle into cynicism — going in braced for everyone to be awful. The aim is calm readiness and charity toward others’ motives, not pre-loaded contempt.
IX Coach runs a brief morning rehearsal of the people and frictions on your actual calendar, and helps you set an if-then response before you walk into them.
Practice this with IX Coach →