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| Chapter - 03 |
| Clearing Your Path Toward Commanding Power |
In high school we used to have a teacher who customarily greeted a new class by printing the following on the blackboard:
PRO-SPE-RI-TYShe would then ask us to pronounce the well-known word spelled by those letters. After letting the mystery build up for a moment she solved it by removing the hyphens. On second look the letters come out:
PROSPERITYShe then went into her opening lesson which might be summed up like this:
At the start of any new program, be sure that you search out all blocks and obstacles. Work at removing them. Everything else will then fall into place quite easily. That is the logical and intelligent way to find your personal prosperity.
I have found one fact to be outstandingly clear about people who consult me about their problems: They have certain blocks which separate them from prosperous human relations. So the purpose of this chapter is to search out and remove some of the barriers which might stand in the way. It is delightfully surprising how the correction of a single false viewpoint can instantly make right dozens of things that may now hamper your progress. Take the following commonly held idea about human motivation: Most people think they guide themselves with practical and unemotional thinking. But do they?
One builder of private swimming pools thought so. That's why his advertising stressed low-cost construction and economical maintenance. When his salesman continued to come back with only a handful of contracts he wondered what was wrong with his advertising. He consulted an expert in the field who informed him: "People are persuaded largely by their emotions, not by their logic." That builder's advertising now succeeds, for it appeals to a man's pride of ownership and to his imagination which allows him to see himself lazily floating in a luxurious pool of water.
Are You Taking Enough?Winning your way with other people is just as much an art as painting a landscape or playing a musical composition. And like these creative processes, it is a highly appreciated art. The strong leader never has to look far for loyal followers.
Leadership is a creative art which you can develop with increasing skill as you go along.
However, there is a certain mental barrier which can block this creative process unless you hurdle it at the very start. What is it? Just this:
You must freely and cheerfully admit that you want and need things from other people.
All of us do want various items from others, yet some people feel subconsciously that there is something wrong about it. Such an attitude is based on mistaken notions concerning relations with other people. Let's clarify things:
Life exists on a give-and-take basis. Our parents and teachers encouraged us to give of ourselves—which is as it should be—but at the same time it is equally vital to our health and welfare that we learn how to take. You need to receive just as much as you need to give. It has long been known by psychologists and therapists that people who have the ability to receive love are the happiest kind of people, and, of course, they are the only ones who can give love in return. To the degree that you can take freely, to that same degree can you give freely—and vice versa. This is an enormously important idea to grasp, for it means everything in your quest for personal power.
Take Arnold L. who admitted to a serious problem. He not only had difficulty in getting others to cooperate with him but frequently found himself lacking the ability to work harmoniously with others. He told me, "I try to be a giver and all that, but somehow I always end up unhappy about it. I give up"
"Good," I congratulated him. "Now that you see the futility of the wrong approach, you can go ahead with the right one."
He tilted his head to ask curiously, "What's the right approach?"
"Go at it from the opposite end. Don't give for a while. Deliberately set out to get as much as you can from people. You should do this cheerfully and without the slightest feeling of guilt about it. This is really what you want to do anyway; don't try to hide your desires under some cloak of sentimental nonsense having no relation to realistic living. We are trying to free you from yourself. Simply receive as much as you can. This isn't greediness or anything like that. Giving and getting is neither good nor bad, it is simply a neutral law of life. Cooperate with both parts and you'll have the wholeness you want. Lay yourself wide open to everything you can receive from people."
"Like what?"
"Like whatever you really want. Like taking the initiative in establishing a profitable relationship. Like permitting yourself to enjoy fully another's company without being afraid of him. Like letting others do things for you without you feeling there is something wrong about being served."
"Funny," Arnold said, "but it's a relief to hear you say that. I feel a kind of freedom I've never sensed before."
"You are in conflict with other people because you are first of all in conflict with yourself. For instance, at some time or other in your life you were told that it is right and proper to be a generous person. But not quite knowing what was meant by being a generous person you adopted a non-realistic ideal about generosity. Consequently, every time you acted with that false kind of generosity, you secretly resented it—especially when it wasn't returned by the other person."
He nodded. "I've often wondered where my bitterness came from."
"To repeat, use the opposite approach. Start taking. Deliberately and cheerfully. Without thinking too much about it. Pretty soon you will be surprisingly free from your false notions as to what life is really all about. Then you will find yourself a truly spontaneous giver. Then you will get along with people as you really want to get along."
"This may be the answer I've been searching for."
"It is."
Summary and review: All of the foregoing ideas are so vital to your progress that I want to review them with you before we go on.
You must fully and freely acknowledge that you want and need what other people have. Then, you must have the courage to step up and take whatever you want. It might be their friendship or their assistance or anything else. By doing so you are only being honest with your own desires, and that is both commendable and healthy. You must not hesitate to give and take. It is a universal law that you can take only as you give, so in your very taking you are giving to another. Therefore the fulfillment of your desires is not only essential to your own success and happiness but it contributes to the welfare of others.
Listen to what Dr. Ernest Dichter has to say:
Creativity can be engendered and developed if we train ourselves not to be afraid of our own thoughts. Utter honesty and understanding of one's real motivations as far as this is possible are requirements for such an achievement ... To associate freely, therefore, and permit almost all your thoughts to come out into the open either for yourself or in discussions is one of the prime prerequisites for the development of creativity.1
By frankly conceding "I want something," you set in motion a powerful drive that gets that something for you. So do it now. You are now ready for the next step in clearing your path toward commanding power.
How to Avoid Problems With People in the First PlaceSome months ago when I was being escorted through a cookie factory I saw an excellent example of an artist in human relations. My guide and I passed within a short distance of a pair of employees who were nearing a minor conflict with each other. Their disagreement was apparently based on a division of duties in loading a truck, for one of them complained to the other, "It's not my job to help you load; you'll have to do it by yourself."
The other man nodded pleasantly and replied casually, "As you wish." He then started to work alone. But a moment later the other man stepped over, handed him a box, grinned and said, "111 give you a hand for a few minutes at least. Okay?"
Actually, both those men deserve credit. The man who calmly proceeded with the task on hand was wise in refusing to create a problem in the first place. He had the good sense to place his peace of mind above his urge to fling back a curt remark. By using the principle of non-aggression he won first of all a personal victory within himself, then proceeded to attract the cooperation of the other man. He was skillful enough to know that nothing calms down an uncooperative person more than quiet agreement.
1 Ernest Dichter, The Strategy of Desire (New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1960). Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
As for the other man, he had at least the goodness to bounce back from his irritability. Whether it was or was not his duty to load the truck was beside the point; the point was his responsibility for handling the situation with smoothness and tact. Failing in this at first, he made the correction which made friends.
Nothing proves your intelligence more than the ability to avoid problems with people in the first place. Furthermore, the fewer your problems the brighter your personality. As Dr. Karen Horney writes, "... a conflict that starts with our relation to others in time affects the whole personality. Human relationships are so crucial that they are bound to mold the qualities we develop, the goals we set for ourselves, the values we believe in." 2
That is why the following check list is of daily value. The questions are short but none is slight. Every one of them has significance. Write yes after as many as you honestly can. Answer no to all the rest, then make up your mind that you are so tired of having trouble with people that you will work to turn every no into a yes.
1. Do I try to understand a difficult situation? ________
2. Am I freeing myself of defensive attitudes? ________
3. Do I permit others to be comfortable with me? ________
4. Do I look for solutions instead of scapegoats? ________
5. Am I actually willing to improve myself? ________
6. Do I permit myself to have fun with people? ________
7. Am I avoiding self-righteousness? ________
8. Do I experiment constantly in winning my way? ________
9. Do I strive to win by non-offensive means? ________
10. Do I refuse to be easily offended? ________
11. Am I making it easy for others to like me? ________
12. Do I maintain inviting attitudes? ________
13. Do I realize how sensitive people really are? ________
14. Do I permit others to be imperfect? ________
15. Do I take my right to exercise command? ________
16. Am I using every experience as a lesson? ________
17. Do I let other people talk things out with me? ________
18. Do I remember that people want me to like them? ________
19. Am I avoiding critical attitudes? ________
20. Am I working to overcome any shyness I may have? ________
21. Do I make it easy for another come my way? ________
22. Do I avoid impulsive judgments of people? ________
23. Am I shedding false pride daily? ________
2Karen Horney, M.D., Our Inner Conflicts (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1945).
24. Do I laugh enough? ________
25. Am I discarding unworkable ideas for winning others? ________
26. Am I filling the other person's need for kindness? ________
27. Do I clearly plan for avoiding unnecessary troubles? ________
28. Am I flexible in handling people? ________
29. Am I taking my responsibility for my own progress? ________
30. Do I really realize how many problems are avoidable? ________
Let's look at point 15 as a good example of how you can avoid problems with people. It reads, "Do I take my right to exercise command?"
A man whom we will call Carl was one of those individuals who was continually getting into one unhappy mess after another. He made the mistake of pointing to other people as the cause of his grief. What was the real reason for his failure? Largely, a lack of self-confidence. He was really afraid of people, and therefore powerless with them and therefore in grief of one sort or another. He did not realize that he had a perfect right to command other people.
Carl's confusion expressed itself one day when he told me somewhat indignantly, "I don't think it's right to go around trying to persuade other people. Let them make their own decisions. Live and let live."
"In that case," I told him, "never again listen to a persuasive sermon or political speech. Don't let philosophers such as Emerson and Thoreau talk you into being a better person. Never try to persuade a woman to marry you or a boss to give you a raise. If persuasion is wrong, you have been wrong all your life; you've been trying to win people to your way of thinking since you were one day old. Besides, the real reason you talk so self-righteously is because you are afraid that someone else will try to talk you into doing something you don't want to do. You are speaking from fear and weakness, not from wisdom. Now that we have that out of the way, let's see if we can restore you to the command which you want but don't know how to get."
Carl said he would like that.
A Simple System for Understanding PeopleMost of us have expressed thoughts like these at one time or another:
"People are funny"
"It takes all kinds."
"Women? I cant figure them out."
"Why do men act like that?”
"I don't understand them at all."
Is it really possible for you to understand people and to use that understanding as an influential tool? Here is what one authority has to say in his book The Art of Human Relations:
One of the chief contributions which psychology, psychiatry, and the study of personality have made to human understanding is the discovery that human behavior can be understood, explained, analyzed, and even predicted.3
You can clear your path toward commanding power by understanding people better. Not only that but the more we understand a person the more we can like him—and the more he can like us. Haven't you noticed how your insight into another person tends to dislodge your criticism of him when he acts imperfectly? Understanding is the power that enables a parent to love a troublesome child and the virtue that maintains the affection of one spouse for another when domestic difficulties arise.
How do we gain genuine insight into people? That is the vital question we want to answer. Your ability to influence your way in the world depends upon a right answer.
To illustrate, if you drop and lose a small object on the floor, the best way to find it is to set your cheek against the rug and scan its surface. Because the lost object rises above the level of the floor it can be seen quite clearly. Similarly, we can find people to our liking by seeing them from a fresh viewpoint. Here is that new viewpoint that supplies you with powerful insight:
Never pass moral judgment on another. Do not label him as being "cruel" or "immoral" or "conceited." Such labels prevent you from seeing the man himself as he really is. It is so easy to attach a label on someone and let it go at that, but this is not the way to understand him. If we are to become astute persuaders we must look beyond the outer effects (such as when someone acts cruelly or with conceit) and find out why a man acts as he does.
3 Reprinted from The Art of Human Relations, copyright 1953, by Henry Clay Lindgren, Thomas Nelson & Sons, Publishers.
Take an extremely cruel and hostile person. All cruelty is based on fear. A man is cruel because he is afraid of something —perhaps he fears a loss of prestige or maybe he is worried lest he fail to succeed in life or maybe he believes that people don't like him. Now then, if you evaluate him as being a "cruel" man you are judging him, and you will have difficultly in persuading him. But if you see him as a frightened person, this is quite another thing, for this is not your moral judgment but rather your observation of an actual fact about the man. Notice how much easier you find it to handle a person whom you know to be frightened than a man whom you label as "cruel."
The thing we must do is to replace our moral condemnations with psychological observations—and this is something we must work at constantly. Supposing in your business you run into a customer who is almost persuaded but not quite sold on buying your goods or services. If your mind starts condemning him as being "stubborn," you are going to arouse a certain amount of your own antagonism to him—and if your customer notices it you may lose his good will and possibly the sale.
But let's see what happens when you look beyond his outer show of "stubbornness" to search out the basic motive for his hesitation. You may find perhaps a doubt that he can afford your product or maybe a confusion as to whether it will serve him as he wishes. By applying the non-judgmental terms of doubt and confusion you have cleared your own thinking tremendously, for you have detached your own emotions from the situation and can hence persuade your man with maximum mental power. Your simple switch in identification places you in charge of both yourself and your customer.
When your car breaks down you do not identify it as being "bad" or "stupid" or "obstinate." If you were to do so you would not know what to do to fix it. Rather, you try to understand what is behind the breakdown. Then, as you adjust the carburetor or clear the block from the gas line you regain power over your car. People are not machines, but this does illustrate the kind of non-judgmental attitude that makes you a wise and influential person.
"Judge not that ye be not judged" is not only a religious precept but a 100 percent effective law of life that serves you up with success in your business programs and in your personal affairs.
Here are three more examples for making the big switch:
When another acts unkindly, do not judge him, but rather se him as someone needing to release his painful psychological pressures.
If the other man acts selfishly, do not identify him as being selfish, instead, know that he is too frightened and insecure to be generous.
When someone shows off, do not condemn him, but intelligently see him as a person who needs your attention and approval.
Constantly ask yourself, "Am I judging this person or am I understanding him?" If you want the magic power to master and command people, you will want to understand him.
Be Resourceful and You Won't Be DiscouragedPlease turn back to chapter 1 and review the six exciting reasons (page 19) why you should develop your powers of command. There is good reason for doing this. It will spark a fresh flow of enthusiasm; it renews your eagerness to conquer. It makes you want to win, and "Nothing makes men sharper than want." (Joseph Addison) Additionally, "Want awakens the intellect. The keener the want the lustier the growth." (Wendell Phillips)
This self-promoted enthusiasm is but one example of ways in which your resourcefulness can prevent discouragement from slipping into your mind. Discouragement is a condition which we must look into, for it is startling to realize how easily some people throw up their hands in despair after running into a difficulty or two.
Any newly tackled program is bound to include a certain amount of trial and error. You should expect to meet various challenges to your progress, for any other attitude is unrealistic. If you can accept your setbacks as all part of the game, if you do not give in to panic or dismay, you will eventually find yourself on the other side of your problem.
Let me tell you a story about President Lincoln and his resourcefulness.
In July of 1861, the Northern army suffered a serious defeat in the Battle of Bull Run. The battleground was named after a small stream in northeast Virginia, located only about 30 miles southwest of Washington, D. C. The loss of the battle was doubly shocking to the Union government, for Bull Run was the first major engagement of the Civil War. Confused officers and soldiers straggled in retreat through the capital, passing in the streets some equally shocked government officials and civilians.
The population of the North was alarmed and distressed at the dreadful news coming from the lips of the beaten soldiers. It was a major disaster, no doubt about that.
President Lincoln? With characteristic calm he listened to the first reports, then walked to his desk and sat down. Taking pen and paper he paused for a moment to think things through. Then he methodically set down on paper nine clear-cut steps which he believed would relieve the situation. The first of these steps was his recommendation that the United States naval forces immediately set up a blockade of the Southern ports. He urged that the blockade be pushed forward with all possible speed.
Historians agree that the blockade of the Confederate ports was perhaps the greatest single contribution that the Union made toward the winning of the war. And it was Lincoln's resourceful-ness-under-stress that turned the nation from temporary defeat to permanent victory and peace.
Victory and peace in your human relations? That is perfectly possible too. So never give in to gloom whenever you say the wrong thing to someone or when you fail to make a wished-for impression. Instead, turn the whole thing over to your resourceful mind—which is far more clever than you may think. Take your experiences apart and try to find out what caused them to happen as they did. You can always find some clue for doing much better the next time. If necessary, place your progress before your pride and you will eventually achieve goals of which you can be justly proud. The secret of success in attracting and winning people is really much easier than it appears to be. "The secret of success is constancy to purpose." Those words were spoken by one of the most powerful men who ever influenced world history. His name is Benjamin Disraeli, noted British statesman and favorite of Queen Victoria.
Here is something to remember every minute: People who do not respond to your persuasions are not necessarily disinterested; it may mean that you have not as yet struck the chord that makes them vibrate.
The advertising manager of a Detroit company often uses the following humorous story to illustrate the power of persistence and resourcefulness:
The waitress of a popular snack shop was determined to persuade a customer to order a dish of ice cream to go with his sandwich. She sensed he was half sold on the idea but needed an extra nudge. She decided to tempt him by suggesting various flavors. The dialogue went like this:
"How about chocolate?"
"No."
"Why not try strawberry?"
"Not interested."
"Like vanilla?"
"No vanilla."
"How about macaroni and cheese?"
"What flavor was that?"
"I said, macaroni and cheese."
"That's just the suggestion I've been waiting to hear!" enthused the customer. "Bring it on!"
How resourceful are you? How many appeals are you willing to try in order to hit the right one? (It may be the last one you expect.) Be sure to keep on playing until you strike the note that produces a harmonizing echo.
Clear Your Way for Rapid Progress1. Continually look for obstacles which may be blocking your path toward winning people. Remove them and watch your speed.
2. Freely and cheerfully admit that other people are important to you and that you need and want things from them.
3. Remember that the wise way to handle problems is to avoid them in the first place.
4. Use the, check list in this chapter for preventing difficulties from arising in your interpersonal relations.
5. Permit yourself to improve yourself.
6. Constantly look for ways to make it easy for people to come your way. Sometimes all they need is your invitation.
7. Remember that your employment of the principles governing human behavior can prevent problems from arising.
8. Never pass moral judgment on another, for this prevents you from understanding him. Instead, find out why he speaks and behaves as he does. Your knowledge is your power for persuading him.
9. You presently possess all the resources you need for mastering and commanding people, yet you may need to develop them to full capacity.
10. "Those who have finished by making all others think with them have usually been those who began by daring to think for themselves." (Colton)
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