The title of this post is taken from Dale Carnegie’s book “How to Win Friends and Influence People”. In the book, Dale provides details on ideas which he believes are conducive to making a success of our social interactions. To give you an idea, here are the four headings, from which are broken down into subheadings:
- Fundamental techniques in handling people
- Six ways to make people like you
- How to win people to your way of thinking
- How to change people without giving offence or arousing resentment
Whilst Dale’s reasoning on these subjects has resonated with me; just like me, he is just a man, with opinions and perspectives as unique as his genealogy and experience has allowed him. With that being said, I’ve chosen to reference this partly because the points made in the book aren’t anything new; they’re likely actions you’ve taken yourself. For example, how might you act if you wanted to make a good first impression towards your girlfriends parents? As they’re not your close friends, you’d likely be conscientious to put yourself across in an appropriate way, to be respectable, and to take a genuine interest in them. It’s not to say that we change the person we are to appease them; we merely adapt to the situation slightly, in the same way we would adapt to any social scenario according to who we’re speaking to. I’d imagine you wouldn’t speak to your cool uncle in the same way you would speak to your Grandma for example.
The idea I’m eluding to is that we don’t always take the time to stop and think about why we do the things we do. On a deeper level you might ask, why do we work to maintain our relationships? Why do we take steps to advance our careers? Why do we seek to help others, or ourselves? Because of it’s direct nature, Dale Carnegie’s book brought these values to the forefront of my mind, allowing me the opportunity to truly reason and meditate on the ideas, as opposed to following my thoughts blindly, without proper due care that they’re enacted with true intention.
Intention being the key word here, because when applied in a meaningful way, I find it to be incredibly powerful. Having true Intention towards something suggests that considerable prior thought has gone into making a decision, or to act a certain way. Intention inspires confidence in yourself, and those around you.
Today, I found myself in conversation with two people on a very particular subject. I won’t describe the topic at hand in detail, as I don’t think it will add much value to this post, rather I imagine it would detract from it’s point, because my aim here is to focus on the following questions:
- What was the intention behind starting the conversation?
- Did the conversation live up to it’s original intention?
- What outcome did the conversation have?
The intention from my point of view was to discuss the bible. The scenario we were placed in allowed us the opportunity to express what each of us thought in regard to topics in the bible. Like anyone who’s passionate about something, I hoped to instil a thought that might allow the other person in conversation to ponder on what I’ve referenced, whilst at the same time, being carefully considerate and open-minded towards the other persons views and what led them to their personal conclusions. It’s a fine balancing act, but when it’s executed properly I find it has the potential to make brilliant conversation.
As this was a three way conversation, to keep it fair, I only had up to 33.3% control as to how the discussion was steered. That 1/3 didn’t work in my favour. Some useful points were mentioned, but it felt overshadowed by the passion shared between the other two. What could have been an opportunity for an open discussion, resulted in a standoff of some sorts, with both parties fighting over what they believed to be right, by not allowing the other person to finish their statements, and through not allowing an opposing point.
What was the result? It seemed that both parties didn’t convince each other of anything. On the contrary, they appeared more sure than ever that their initial position was right, despite being open to the conversation originally. I referenced Dale Carnegie in this posts title because it’s something that crossed my mind whilst this scenario unfolded, “You Can’t Win an Argument”. The gist of the following quote has stuck in my mind since reading it last year:
“Nine times out of ten, an argument ends with each of the contestants more firmly convinced than ever that he is absolutely right.”
Dale Carnegie | How to Win Friends and Influence People
I’m not attempting to claim moral superiority over this, as in some ways, I was awe-inspired by the passion they both shared. Despite having differing views, the truth on these matters seemed very real to them, and that was demonstrated by rigorously defending their position. I can understand and appreciate that; it’s just not the route I would have chosen.
James chapter 3 in the bible speaks about the “tongue”, and contains numerous analogies on the impact it can have. For example, verse 4 speaks about the rudder of a ship being small, yet it has the ability to steer a great ship, and counteract strong winds. Verse 5 mentions that it only takes a small fire to set a great forest ablaze. Likewise, our tongue is such a small part of our body, yet it can have a great impact on others, whether that be for the better, or for worse. The conclusion of the chapter begins by saying:
“But the wisdom from above is first of all pure, then peaceable, reasonable, ready to obey, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial, not hypocritical.“
James 3:17
We’re certainly not perfect; we all make mistakes and don’t always come across in the way we intend to. Passion, emotion or life’s circumstances can influence our thoughts in the moment and cause us to say something we don’t mean. However, earlier today, I thought about what’s meant from the words in James chapter 3 referenced above, and I would think it stands to reason that by carefully choosing to demonstrate qualities such as “Peace”, “Reason” and “Impartiality”, then we’ll be walking with the “Wisdom from above”.
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