It was pretty self-evident stuff. Smile, give compliments, be genuinely interested in folk - all the stuff I don't do.
Flattery works. Sad but true.
Yeah, this was my feeling about it, too, to some degree. I can see NJG's point, also, in asking
My first issue with the book is that one of the principles is "Become genuinely interested in other people." Is this even possible? If you have to "become" interested in someone, that's not genuine.
This both true and yet ( in another way ) not true.
I keep forgetting, in my life, about the "not true" part; which is, that if one acts as though they feel something, with such seeming conviction and superb skill that the performance might even fool one's friends, or ( if watching in a mirror and pretending you don't know )
oneself, then a strange phenomena often takes place. One gradually actualizes the role into reality, so that one is no longer acting.
There are many more things I like about the material. It just so happens that it is much easier to pick out something I didn't like. Ironically, this very same human tendency is mentioned in the book and discouraged.
This is the stumbling block that I continue to trip over again and again. I naively
believe all of the people who say they want honest constructive criticism ( not that I limit it to just them, or
always make it constructive, but y'know....) from me. The book makes it clear that they really do NOT want this, at least most of the time, even if they ask for it. I keep telling myself, that, by saying what I really think about faults, my eventual praise on successfully accomplished points will be that much more meaningful to them. What I've found instead is that many people will think you're coddling them if/when you finally give them praise, especially if they're used to criticism from you. Now it may be that the book "was not written re: strong 'T's", but some of that may apply to them as well, because I can't tell you how many times that "Give it to me straight, I can take it" has come back to blow up in my face with people from all walks.
But I
still haven't adopted the book's recommendations, even now, after all these proofs over the years that the book was right ! Because somehow this part seems "phoney" to me in another sense. So my compromise is to limit things more to what I sincerely
did like about something or someone, then to give the whole treatment....that is..... when I remember to engage in this.
You can also use the same techniques on your own self ! They say the subconscious takes everything literally, and so if you curse yourself after every fairly serious mistake you make ( "You dumb shit!" ) for even a moment, then you should also be sure to speak ( present tense only ) about your strengths, or current "success" during other moments, in order to remove such negative "programming" that gets in there in this manner. Hard to believe, but the subconscious is a funny thing.
I can tell you that the part it says about coming to people for advice (help ) is a great way to not only get the advice, but to also get them to like you, because if they gave advice to someone that they "didn't like" there would be cognitive dissonance, and so therefore.....
Now you couldn't go up to someone who already hated you and expect to turn them around all the time with such techniques, but it may work at least partially even on
them sometimes, and it is best used prior to things degenerating to such a point.
When I was a corporate headhunter, I had to use social engineering to get past all the phone screeners and into the IT department with names. People who were new to my company were surprised to hear me talking to gatekeepers on the phone about how it was my first day on the job at this company and "could they help?" etc. Some of these techniques need a new spin nowadays to continue working, as people have been warned about stuff like this, but it can certainly work in your life, too, if you can only remember to do it, as for some of us it appears to be "counter-intuitive".
( At least for a lot of us guys; I'm not sure how women might feel on the subject. )
INTJmom said:
I've since noticed, though, in the re-runs of the Andy Griffith Show, Andy is phenomenal at those things. I admire him for his skill in that, especially "Let the other person save face." I think he must do that to Barney in almost every episode!
