What if you just assumed people were going to like you? Not because everyone will. They won’t. But because so much of the way we move through the world is already organized around the opposite assumption. We brace for rejection. We second-guess the thing before we launch it. We dilute the idea before anyone has even had the chance to respond to it. We walk into rooms wondering whether we belong there. And then we wonder why everything feels so damn hard. One of my favorite “anti-rules” from my book, Gilt Free, is to assume people like you. Assume the room is happy you’re there. Assume the thing you created is worth sharing. Assume the person on the other side of the table wants the conversation to go well too. It isn’t delusion. It’s a deliberate counterweight to the fear of rejection most of us are already carrying. Christy Nault and I went DEEP on this, perfectionism, overachievement, manifestation, the endless pursuit of self-improvement, and the cages we accidentally build w...