The big secret of dealing with people

As we promised we will continue our journey with “How to win friends and influence people”, today we are summarizing chapter 2, titled “The big secret of dealing with people” enjoy:

Those who master the art of dealing with people, becomes able to get anyone to want to do anything for them. You can punish your kids if they didn’t cleanup their room, threat your employees to fire them if they didn’t cooperate, threat anyone with weapon to make them want to give you their wallets...etc, this might work on the short term or when you are only around them but these methods have tough consequences; always remember “what goes around always comes around”.

The only way to get you to do something for me is by giving you something special, something you really want more than anything, and this lead to another question what do we as humans want most??
Think about it you want a lot of things: Food, health, money …etc, but most of these wants are gratified and not longing all except one, this one is the desire to be important

Sigmund Freud said “everything you and I do springs from two motives: the sex urge and the desire to be great.” John Dewey said “The deepest urge in human nature is the desire to be important.” And William James said “The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.”

The desire to be great is the key; it’s the want that if a person can honestly satisfy it for others he will get them to die for him, and as the author put it “even the undertaker will be sorry when he dies”

The deep desire to be important and appreciated by others is what differentiates between humans and animals; take those who enter their pets into competitions for cute pets as example, their pets don’t really care about the winning, it mean nothing to them, but for their owners winning is everything, it give them the feeling of important, the feeling of having the best pet ever and you will find them talking about it everywhere.

The desire to be important is what makes you care about fashion, buy latest car, talk about your smart kids…….etc.
The desire to be important is what inspired grocery clerk to study law from books he found in the bottom of barrel, this grocery clerk is Lincoln. Feeling of important is what inspired Charles Dickens to write his immortal novels.

The question now is how do we get our feeling of important? Well it’s different from one person to another; some people get their feeling of important by helping others, giving money to charity, being effective member in the community…. etc on the other hand some get their feeling out of stealing, killing, being bandit, if you can tell how someone gets their feeling of important, this will be your gate to understand and determine this person’s character.

Charles Schwab was one of the first American business men who get paid more than one million dollar a year; Schwab was hired by Andrew Carnegie as president of united state steel company. Schwab wasn’t genius nor he knew more about the steel industry more than any other people, he himself told the author that he has a lot of men working for him know about the industry more than he does, then what is his secret?? The author asked him the same question and the below was his answer:

“I consider my ability to arouse enthusiasm among my people, said Schwab, the greatest asset I possess, and the way to develop the best that is in a person is by appreciation and encouragement.There is nothing else that so kills the ambitions of a person as criticisms from superiors. I never criticize anyone. I believe in giving a person incentive to work. So I am anxious to praise but loath to find fault. If I like anything, I am hearty in my approbation and lavish in my praise. "

Andrew Carnegie the one who picked Schwab to work for him always praised his employees even after his death; Carnegie wrote an epitaph for himself said
“Here lies one who knew how to get around him men who were cleverer than himself.”
A study has been made to discover the reason behind running away wives and guess what the reason was lack of appreciation and the author think that if a similar study made about running away husbands the results will be the same.

People are hungry for appreciation almost as much as their hunger for food, some people would think that they committed a crime if they left their family without food for six days, but its ok for them to leave their family for six days, weeks or maybe years without honest appreciation.

Appreciation is important but don’t mix between appreciation and flatter, appreciation is sincere comes out of heart, but flatter is about selfishness people use it to manipulate each other.
General Alvaro Obregon said about flatter “Don’t be afraid of enemies who attack you. Be afraid of friends who flatter you.”

Most of the time if we don’t have any definite problems to think about we spend 95% of our times thinking about ourselves but if we can spend some time to think about other people’s good point we will not need flatter anymore.

Appreciation is something we neglect in our daily life, we forget to give sincere appreciation to our kids, employees, friends...etc, people are thirsty for appreciation, so, try to figure out other people’s good points and give them sincere appreciation and you will be amazed with the results, they will remember your words and repeat it over and over even after you have forgotten them.

Principle 2: Give honest and sincere appreciation.