Chapter - 01

You Can Magically Command Other People

Marilyn was a pretty woman. Sitting opposite her, you could easily see that. Maybe she was even prettier in a way with her cheeks moist with tears.

With closed eyes she slowly shook her head. "Why is it," she asked, "Why is it I get into trouble?"

We sat there for a few moments without saying anything. She finally touched her handkerchief to her eyes and breathed softly, "That silence was worth far more than words. You seem to understand. Thank you."

It was easy to observe in Marilyn a truly kindly woman. She didn't ask for much. Not really. Maybe just for someone to like her a little bit and maybe for someone whom she could like in return. Take care of those two things and everything else would take care of itself. Somehow you sensed that. Here was a genuinely gracious lady.

She smiled with a shy and sweet embarrassment. "I feel better now. Could we please talk?"

"We might start directly with the problem," I suggested. "Suppose you just go ahead and chat; well take things as they come.”

"I just don't understand," she said sincerely, "how a person can get into so much grief just by trying to be nice to people. I was brought up to believe in the Golden Rule, to treat others as I would want to be treated. But," she sighed, "something always seems to go wrong. Where is the fault? How have I failed?"

"Your problem, Marilyn, is typical to millions of sincere people. They fail to realize that kindness alone is not enough. Successful human relations have certain requirements: Kindness must be matched with wisdom. Love needs a measure of clear judgment. Courtesy must be joined by an understanding of the people to whom you are courteous. When you are generous you must also think clearly toward those people to whom you extend your courtesy. Otherwise you are going to get hurt."

"I don't want to complain too much," she said, "but I am tired of getting hurt. And I don't want to be afraid so much."

"Then you must understand people as they actually are, not as you wish to see them and especially as you need to see them. It's pointless to use kindness as a tool for persuading a person whose own personality makes him incapable of recognizing kindness. You have no business being tender to someone who cannot understand tenderness. You'll break your heart every time by using gentleness on a person whose immaturity prevents him from responding gently. This does not mean that we must be unkind to the unkind person; it means that we must handle him with firm wisdom."

Marilyn said she would think about these ideas until she understood them thoroughly. As soon as she does, she will open new and powerful worlds as far as her relations with other people are concerned.

Our discussion covered just one of the many basic principles which you can follow all the way to success and happiness in your dealings with other people.

Your Invisible Power

Do you remember the Invisible Man? No doubt you know of that classic story by H. G. Wells, seen in movies and on television. The Invisible Man had the entire world under his command because of his power to see without being seen. Because he had discovered an immense scientific secret, he exercised kingly authority. Wherever he walked among men and women he took what he wanted.

You also have an Invisible Power. It also is an immense scientific secret. It will enable you also to walk among people and obtain what you want and need for a rich and satisfying life.

Your Invisible Power is your ability to persuade and command people.

The purpose of this book is to show you how to find and how to use your Invisible Power. Once you learn the secret you will enrich every area of your life in a surprisingly delightful way.

Writes Professor Harry Overstreet:

We need, in short, to know how to interest our fellows; how to arouse their expectation; how to build up habits of favorable response; how to lead and adjust and control... To become skilled artists in the enterprise of life—there is hardly anything more basically needful than this.1
Your first step toward commanding power is to realize that everything you want is found in other people.

What do you want?

Money? That's a perfectly admirable ambition. But how do you get it? The only way possible. Through other people. They pay you money for your goods or your services or your labor. If you want more money you must have more influence over those who have it.

Maybe you want more love and friendship in your life. Those necessities also mean other people. Furthermore, it means that you must know how to induce affection and cordiality in others.

Do you desire feelings of acceptance and self-worth? All right. All of us do. Other people are more than willing to contribute these valuable items to you—providing you know how to charm them rightly into doing so.

The fact is, everything we want or yearn for is won through other people. No man on an island is happy; he is merely existing. The joyous life is the one filled with rich relationships. That is why it is essential that we learn the secrets of mastering and commanding other people. Quite obviously, success of any kind is impossible as long as a man's human relations are marred by conflict or inefficiency.

No man really wants to be a failure among his fellow human beings.

Then why do millions fail? The answer is really quite simple: They fail to discover their Invisible Power; they neglect to use the basic secrets for wooing and winning others.

Take the lonely individual who fails to attract and keep friends. What is his real problem? Lack of people with whom to share life? Not as long as there are millions on earth. A lack of physical attractiveness? This is not the problem at all (as I will prove for you in a later chapter). I am thinking of several men and women who don't quite represent the dashing Don Juan or the ideal Venus, but who nevertheless are kept on the run by people who write them gay notes inviting, "Come to our party."

1 Harry Overstreet, Influencing Human Behavior (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1925).

Both the lonely and those who worry about their physical appearance are allowing mistaken attitudes to rob them of personal power. In short, they think about the wrong things. If you want power to command other people you can have it in fantastic abundance—but you must direct your thoughts correctly. Correct thinking is that which focuses on personal power —where it is and how to get it and ways to use it. Do this and such things as loneliness and worry over physical appearance become as nothing. They really do. "Man thinks, and at once becomes the master of the beings who do not think." (Buffon)

You Can Become As Powerfully Persuasive As You Want

Recently I jokingly asked a young teen-ager, "Which of your many girl friends do you like best?"

He smiled, "Shirley."

"Why Shirley?"

"I think," he reflected with a shy grin, "it's because whenever I leave her home she keeps watching me from the front porch until I'm out of sight."

"That makes you feel good?"

"It makes me feel needed; I'm important enough to her that she wants to be with me until the last possible second. I guess you'd say that Shirley is someone special to me because she makes me feel like someone special to her."

Shirley, whoever she is, has made herself a persuasive person by the simple courtesy of filling that persistent human longing to feel needed.

Watch the exciting changes in your personal world as you practice your powers for persuading people.

Scientific studies in our universities prove clearly that those who get the most out of life are those who work accurately and smoothly with the people who surround them. That smoothly operating person can be you. The simple fact is, you can become just as powerful with other people as you make up your mind to be. So, decide right now to see yourself all the way through. Do this and nothing can prevent you from winning your magic power to command people—and getting what you want from them.

Whenever anyone asks me, "How can I learn to win my way with others?" I tell him, "Look in the right place for the power you want. Don't waste your time searching in the wrong area. Look where you should look and you will have the influence you should have."

The other day I stepped into the local library to pick up a favorite book of mine, a recreational volume telling of travel and adventure in South America. I went to the shelf where I had previously found it, only to find it missing. Thinking it had been checked out by another patron I was about to leave when I fell into conversation with the librarian. When I happened to mention the missing book she helpfully informed me, "I think you can find it after all. It has been changed to a new location." Thanks to her guidance I went to the new shelf area and immediately found the book I wanted.

Likewise, if we want personal power in our lives we can have it—providing we look in the right place.

You can learn to win your way in the world of people by looking to the proven principles and up-to-date techniques found in these pages. They are scientifically sound; they are also presented in a simple manner so that you will know just what to do.

Take, for instance, the time when you run into the shy and silent type of person. Such a man is like a cup without a handle; you can't seem to find a place to pick him up. Is there a way to handle him? There is. Just realize that his very shyness tells you what to do. He has a deep need for you to approach him, speak to him, enjoy him. Do this and you will instantly have made a loyal friend who willingly goes along with you.

That is a very brief example, but what we are saying is this: You can magically command other people because there are clear-cut ways to do it. The science of psychology has seen to that. Even if you are not presently aware of the techniques, they still exist and they always work. We will discover them together as we go through this book. Just as know-how enables an engineer to build a sturdy bridge for carrying traffic, your know-how in human relations enables you to carry loads of influence. The man who goes ahead with this fact foremost in mind is the one who gets places with people. He is the wise man, and, as Plato observed, "The wisest have the most authority.”

Six Exciting Reasons Why You Should Become A Commander-In-Chief of People

Charles A. Lindbergh had a powerful desire to become the first solo pilot to fly across the Atlantic Ocean to Paris. It was that motive that pushed him all the way to history-making achievement. Noah Webster had an intense urge to collect and study words so that he could teach better grammar to his students. That motive gave Webster and his dictionary worldwide fame.

The point is this: The stronger your motive for doing anything the quicker your success. Motivation can crash through all obstacles. Here is what the book Creative Thinking has to say about it: "Once a goal has been selected . . . the individual must be capable of mustering the necessary energy to carry him forward toward this goal . . . Motivation is essential for accomplishing results in any type of endeavor."2

So keep yourself both motivated and enthused by remembering the following six pointers:

1. You should sharpen your talents for persuading other people because it returns to you practical rewards in the form of prestige, position, and financial security. That last item alone is reason enough for you—if you are at all interested in money! Chapter 12 shows you how to persuade your way to financial increase.

2. The power to influence is a power for good, or as author George Eliot called it, the "blessed influence of one true loving soul on another." The parent who masters the art of tactfully persuading his children and the employer who guides his employees with skill and diplomacy are certainly worthy forces for making life easier and happier. The maturely influential person is valuable to himself and to his family and to his community.
 
3. Power with people keeps you out of trouble with people. Most problems a man has with other people are avoidable, providing you know what to avoid. Back in 1890, a bird-lover imported several pairs of starlings from England to New York City. They quickly multiplied until they became serious threats to farm crops. Had the United States Government realized the destructiveness of these birds they would have forbidden them entrance in the first place. Likewise do you need to recognize and handle people who could become a problem to you. (Chapters 3 and 8 go into detail about this.)

4. Personal power gives you a sense of accomplishment. It enables you to live fully and zestfully. It provides you with a mature reason for liking yourself better. To state it another way, it is the mark of a healthy and well-adjusted individual to seek self-advancement by mastering his human relations.

2 Charles S. Whiting, Creative Thinking (New York: Reinhold Publishing Corporation, 1958).

5. You should become a commander-in-chief of people because it keeps you relaxed and peaceful in your daily living. The other day while driving my car I came to a red light just as a police car sped toward me from the opposite direction. The police car was still heading my way as the signal turned green, so in requirement to law I remained in place. The man in the car behind me suddenly pounded his horn and annoyedly gestured for me to get going. Now there was a circumstance which might easily have bothered me, but I was able to think to myself, "He just doesn't understand. He doesn't see the police car." A moment later, when he did understand the situation, he grinned and threw me an apologetic wave of his hand.

That illustrates how an understanding of people not only saves wear and tear on the nervous system, but wins the other man over to your side. When you really understand the human processes at work in any given situation, you give yourself power for peace in that situation.

6. Finally, it's fun to win your way! (As if you didn't know!) There is every reason why you should make it an exciting challenge to see how skillfully you can handle people. It's a challenge that can return immense benefits.

Go After Clear-cut Goals

Make it absolutely clear to yourself what you want from other people. That is really half the secret for drawing your desire to you in the shortest possible time and with the least amount of effort. Dr. Rollo May writes in his book Mans Search for Himself:

The mark of the mature man is that his living is integrated around self-chosen goals: he knows what he wants, no longer simply as the child wants ice cream but as the grown person plans and works toward a creative love relationship or toward business achievement or what not.3

In other words, establish a definite purpose in your contacts with people, for it is a fact that "Purpose directs energy, and purpose makes energy." (C. H. Parkhurst)

Do it like this: Read carefully the goals and objectives listed below. While all of them are good for you it is best that you select just those five goals which are most important to you as of today. So select your five, then write the numbers, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 after them in order of their importance to you. You now have five clearly defined objectives. Keep yourself reminded (and enthused!) by reviewing them every time you have the opportunity to do so; better yet, make the opportunity to impress yourself with what you want. Just as a hunter needs to peer at his quarry before he can take proper aim, so do you need to look over your objectives before firing away at them with the techniques found in this book.

3 Rollo May, Ph.D., Mans Search for Himself (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1953).

Apply the various techniques to your first five goals, then when you have attained them, select and go to work on five more. Swiss author Henri Amiel once declared that "Order is power." Well, here is the orderly way to win the power you want.

My Present Five Goals Are to:

1. Win a certain person to my way of thinking.

2. Make myself interesting to people.

3. Make myself understood by others.

4. Win a career promotion.

5. Get others to recommend and promote me.

6. Handle everyone with maximum skill.

7. Stop being afraid of people.

8. Solve a definite problem with someone.

9. Be natural when with people.

10. Sell more of my goods or services.

11. Draw more friendliness and affection.

12. Banish loneliness.

13. Let others feel comfortable with me.

14. Attract favorable attention.

15. Be more attractive to the opposite sex.

16. Feel less frustrated.

17. Win cooperation from others.

18. Be more patient with difficult people.

19. Influence my family in a beneficial way.

20. Take instant charge of a human situation.

21. Persuade others quickly and effortlessly.

22. Influence others to seek me out.

23. Feel less threatened by people.

24. Be more relaxed on social occasions.

25. Talk my way into what I want.

26. Establish peaceful relations.

27. Attract more customers and clients.

28. Be firm and positive when with others.

29. Command others wisely and tactfully.

30. Get others to do things for me.

31. Stay out of trouble.

32. Regain the friendship of a particular person.

33. Be clever in going after what I want.

34. Earn more money.

35. Persuade another to obey my reasonable requests.

36. Really understand the ways of human nature.

37. Bounce back instantly when thwarted by someone.

38. Be more popular.

39. Allow my feelings to be hurt less often.

40. Induce a certain person to be kinder to me.

Maybe you have some special and personal areas where you wish to sharpen your effectiveness with people. Write them down below; add them to your program.

1. ______________________________________________           

2. ______________________________________________

3. ______________________________________________

4. ______________________________________________

5. ______________________________________________

6. ______________________________________________

7. ______________________________________________

8. ______________________________________________

9. ______________________________________________

10. ______________________________________________

Here is how one alert businessman selected and worked with a clear-cut objective. He chose goal 34, which reads, "Earn more money."

He made up his mind to increase the persuasiveness of his newspaper advertisements. After thinking things through he sat down and prepared the text of his new advertisement. It started off with large and bold words which asked: WANT A DIAMOND TO LAND IN YOUR FRONT YARD? IT COULD HAPPEN TODAY!

Talk about persuasiveness! Everyone who read those capti-vating words were compelled to read on. As they did so, they heard the exciting story about Dr. G. A. Koenig of the Museum of Natural History of New York.

Dr. Koenig was exploring a rugged canyon in Arizona when he ran across that most fabulous of all gems, a diamond. To find a natural diamond in the United States was sensational enough in itself, but it was still only a fraction of the fantastic story. The gem was imbedded in a meteorite! Here was a diamond from outer space!

The advertisement then went on to suggest that the reader himself just might be visited by sparkling fortune, for who knows when another diamond from another world might plunge into his front yard. The advertisement then went on to tell of the "diamond-like products" to be found at the merchant's store.

That businessman knew a few things about persuading people. His advertisement started off with a mystifying statement that caught immediate attention. It promised the reader personal gain. It told an exciting story that really happened.

By starting with his definite goal to earn more money, that businessman helped himself to follow through with a practical plan for influencing more people to buy his goods. And this they did!

One of the headline principles you should remember in all your dealings with people is:

Everyone Wants and Needs Persuasion

I am thinking of a psychologist whose accomplishments in both the world of business and in social affairs entitle him to the rank of expert.

As a classroom instructor he has his own special system for turning timid businessmen and shy homemakers into capable people-persuaders. One of his techniques is to take a student to the window of the classroom where he asks him to look outside. As the student does so, the conversation goes something like this:

"See that woman getting out of her car?" asks the instructor.

"Yes."

"How did she get that car?"

"Someone sold it to her."

"How come she's wearing a wristwatch?"

"She was persuaded that it was the right one for her."

"Where did she get that attractive pair of shoes?"

"From a salesman."

"Why do you suppose she wears that particular hair-style?"

"Someone guided her in selecting it."

"She's meeting that man on the corner. How come?"

"He invited her to meet him there."

The dialogue goes on until the point is thoroughly driven home. And what is the point? Just this: Everyone constantly needs and looks for persuasion and guidance from others. As a matter of fact, life would be impossible without the power of influence. The school teacher guides her pupils toward knowledge, the salesman persuades his customers to buy his goods, the clergyman exerts influence toward loftier living. All this is fairly obvious, but you may need to realize fully that the dependencies and needs of others are your opportunities for worthy leadership. Another way of saying this is that we all have hundreds of needs that require the influential services of another. In the pages of this book you will learn about hundreds of these basic needs which, when fulfilled in another by you, make you a welcome influence.

Dr. Sidney M. Jourard expresses the idea like this:

Thus the most effective means of inducing change in the other person is to behave toward him in ways which will satisfy his basic needs. Then, the wishes of the first person, within reason . . . will literally become the other person's willingly obeyed commands.4

We need to act toward the other person so that he or she wants to please us. That is the secret. This is excellently illustrated by the deeply-loved lady who asked her man, "Why are you so nice to me?"

4 Sidney M. Jourard, Personal Adjustment (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1958). Reprinted by permission of the publishers.

"Because, dear," he tenderly explained, "you make me want to be nice to you."

People appreciate and follow the person who can persuade them properly. Make that person you.

Review Your First Commanding Steps

1. Remember that your skill in human relations is an invisible and just about irresistible power. It wins astonishing success for you wherever you want.

2. It is a fact that all you want and need for the happy life is found with and through other people.

3. Remember that there are no real barriers to prevent you from attaining the magic power to persuade and command people; there are only negative attitudes. This book supplies the system for dissolving them.

4. Failure becomes an impossibility to the man who knows how to win people.

5. How powerful do you want to become? That, really, is how powerful you can be. All you need do is start, with or without self-confidence. Just start.

6. Remember that throughout these pages you are working with scientifically-proven principles. They work. Let them work for you.

7. There is a sure way to handle and win every type of person in your life. Employ the right system and you win every time.

8. Keep yourself excited about becoming a persuasive person. Remind yourself constantly of all the benefits.

9. Discover exactly what you want. Don't hesitate to tell yourself about it every day. This simple act releases extra energy for driving you toward your goal.

10. Realize the tremendous need that other people have for the strong and persuasive personality. Make yourself that kind of personality and you magically enrich your life.

Are You Ready To Move Onto The Next Lesson? Click Here...