Look Clean. Act Clean.
How to instantly earn respect from strangers and attract unexpected opportunities.
When I was young, my uncle used to sweep the street in front of his shop.
Complete waste of time, I thought. Why bother cleaning a place that doesn’t belong to you and is doomed to get dirty?
For him, it was “Because people are less likely to dirty a place that is already clean.”
I held onto her answer for years, until recently, when I realized it was more profound than I had thought.
The Psychology Behind Dirty Places
The first trash is tougher to throw than the second.
Why?
Because we feel less remorse.
We linked the value we place on things to their condition. A fool considers an oxidized gold ring to be less valuable than a shiny replica made of a random metal.
What’s not clean repels him to the point he enjoys destroying it a little more.
The Psychology Behind Dirty Humans
Having a clean street in front of his shop was a commercial argument. Clients would give it more value, and so, were more willing to enter.
