Right Shoulder Rule SOP: Stop Giving Your Happiness Away When the Day Goes Sideways
This is a Small Business SOP: a free, do-this-today standard operating procedure pulled from a guest on the Unscripted Small Business podcast. This one comes from Anil Gupta, The Love Doctor, a love and relationship coach whose site says he has nearly three decades in love coaching. He says he doesn’t even think of his work as a business: “it’s really a calling.”
Anil has a rule you already follow for your right shoulder: you’d never hand it over just because someone asked. He wants you to apply it to your happiness. If you run a business, you get plenty of chances to give it away before lunch. This SOP is the reset for the moment a customer, a teammate or the day itself goes sideways. Run it this week, the next time something does.
The Play: One Line
Decide ahead of time that you won’t hand your happiness to whatever goes wrong today. When something does, respond instead of reacting, see the facts, drop the label, check the intent, let it go, and repair out loud if you caused it.
Why your head is the property worth protecting
Anil explains it with a house. You own your dream home, you invite someone in, and they start wrecking the place. “Would you let them stay? Of course not.” Then he makes the point that gives this SOP its quote card: “The most expensive real estate in the world is between your ears.”
Holding on to what someone did, in his telling, costs you, not them. He’s careful about what letting go means: “by you forgiving, it doesn’t mean you forget”. For an owner, every bad interaction you carry into the next one costs you twice. The steps below are how you stop paying the second time.
Read this first: Anil is a love and relationship coach, and these are his coaching views as he gave them on the show. This SOP is for the everyday knocks of running a business. It is not therapy or medical advice. If what happened is bigger than a bad day, talk to a licensed professional. If you’re struggling, call or text 988 (US) to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
The 8-step right shoulder reset
1
The rule
Make the rule before anything happens
Anil starts with a question nobody gets wrong: “if I said to you, rip off your right shoulder and give it to me, you would never do it, correct?” Then he moves the rule: “It’s a rule that you have, it’s a good rule, keep it. What if you had the same rule for your happiness? Under no circumstances will I give my happiness away.” Write that last sentence where you will see it before the doors open, then list your own give-away moments next to it. His list: “Someone cuts you up, you miss the bus, you missed the train, you didn’t get that promotion, someone said something to you, we give it up because we’re so good at it, because we practice it.” An owner’s list might be the angry customer, the no-show shift and the invoice that comes back unpaid.
2
The moment
When it happens, don’t react
This is the moment the rule is for. Anil’s version: “Something happens, I’m not gonna react. I’m gonna be this nonstick frying pan spray. Nothing’s gonna stick.” Not reacting isn’t the same as saying nothing. Later in the episode he puts it in four words: “Instead of reacting, respond.” Give yourself the pause before you answer the email, the call or the person standing at the counter.
3
The facts
See it as it is, not what it means
“Look at things as they are, not what they mean. As human beings, we’re meaning making machines. Something happens, we make it mean something.” His example is his wife not calling back, which he could make mean she doesn’t care, when “All that happened was she ran out of battery on a phone.” His diagnosis: “we’re very good at catastrophizing.” Write down the plain facts of what happened in one line before you write down what you think it means.
4
The words
Swap the label for a plain description
Anil’s coaching rule is “languaging is everything.” His swap is to trade a heavy label for a plain sentence: “So change it to I had an experience. I was peeved, that was a bit miffed.” And more simply: “Keep away from labels.” At work, that means you stop calling someone a nightmare client and say you had a hard call with a client this morning. Then, as he says, “ask better quality questions, and you’ll start to notice you’ll feel better.”
5
The intent
Check the intent, theirs and yours
Anil tells a story about throwing his wife to the ground in the street, which looks terrible until you learn he was getting her out of the way of a poisonous snake. His point: “it’s all about intent. If your intent is to serve, your intent is to help people. That’s all that matters because people are gonna get upset.” Ask what the other person was trying to do before you decide what they did to you. Then ask the same of yourself: “Is your intent pure?” If it was, remember that “You can’t please all of the people all of the time.”
6
The decision
Decide to let it go, no conversation needed
You don’t have to wait for an apology. “you never need to have that conversation with the other person.”“You just make a decision. I’m not gonna give my power away to X.” Letting it go is not letting it slide: “it doesn’t mean that you’re letting them get away with it, it’s just that you’re not giving them your power.” If a refund, a write-up or a policy change is still the right call, make it. Just make it without carrying the grudge into the next customer. In Anil’s words: “Today’s freedom day.”
7
The repair
If you caused the hurt, say it plainly
Sometimes you’re the one who caused it. Anil gave these as the words for a partner, and the shape works with anyone you’ve let down: “I know I hurt you. It wasn’t my intent to do so. Please forgive me.” And when you need to explain: “Look, that wasn’t my intention. My intention was this, but I messed up. Please forgive me.” Then run the rule on yourself as well. As he puts it: “Am I gonna give my happiness away? The right shoulder rule. You decide not to.”
8
The light
Hand out something good on purpose
The last step points outward. “I have a three-foot rule. Anyone who comes within three feet of me, I’m gonna say something to them, compliment them, make a joke.” His reason: “we never know what other people are going through.” At work that means the delivery driver, the new hire and the customer in line. Anil also suggests acknowledging people before they ask for it, and keeping your attention on who they are: “focus on the person, not their behavior.”
Four lines to keep by the register
All four are Anil’s words from the episode. Print them, tape them up, read them before you answer the hard email.
The rule
“Under no circumstances will I give my happiness away.”
The moment
“Instead of reacting, respond.”
The facts
“Look at things as they are, not what they mean.”
The repair
“I know I hurt you. It wasn’t my intent to do so. Please forgive me.”
Take the whole SOP with you
One printable page: the play, the 8 steps, a fill-in list of your give-away moments and a checklist. No email required.
Anil’s repair script is one hard conversation. If the one you’re avoiding is with a business partner, the Founder’s Prenup SOP covers how to have it before you sign.
