When you resent someone for having what you want, you’re emotionally rejecting the very thing you crave. Admiration flips this: it gives you permission to have it and makes it more likely to come to you. Resentment is rejection; admiration is invitation.
Joe offers a practical test: take something you resent someone for having, and instead experience admiration for it. Feel the admiration fully. Watch what happens to the resentment—it fades.
“When you admire something, it’s an invitation. Whereas if you resent it, it is a rejection of the thing itself emotionally.”
In marriages, this pattern is especially common: one partner resents the other’s career power, the other resents the first’s freedom at home. Instead of the resentment loop, admire what the other has: “I admire how you go out and make things happen.” “I admire how you nurture everything at home.” Both partners get to own the quality they admire rather than reject it through resentment.
Joe shares discovering this at a conference where the organizer was “so generous with his admiration” that everyone opened up and shared their gifts. When Joe tried being generous with his own admiration, people started handing him their knowledge freely. Generosity of admiration creates reciprocity.
Related Concepts
- We deflect what we crave
- What triggers you in others exists in you
- Being interested rather than interesting creates connection