Drifting Away

Monday, May 19, 2008

“A kind approach, a humble attitude and careful attention to the good among your opponent’s positions will always carry you further in argument than the foolish assumption that you represent the right and your opponent the wrong.”

Seek common ground when you make an argument – tell your opponents, “This is not the taunt of enemies but the warning of friends”. Kind, unassuming persuasion should ever be adopted – never seek to prove yourself superior but always seek to learn from your opponent even as you defeat his argument.

When you know you are right, resist the temptation to stand up and declare the truth flat out to the fools who don’t yet see it – find the opportunity to influence others by inching them away from their illusions instead.

If you know a colleague makes a big mistake while you know the better path. So what do you do? Most of us want to rush in and say, WAIT! You are doing it wrong! The message is not “Let me help”. Its more like “I know better”. The fact that you do know better is not the point. That’s first level thinking – its about how you feel about yourself (“I am right!”).

At the second level, you might ask how will they see and hear me as I try to change their mind. That’s a better question to ask but still won’t do the job. The third level is where the potential for success really lies – the questions at that level are, What do these people think of themselves? What do they want and how can I help them?

Real power comes from genuine emotion and thoughtful understanding, not rehearsed speeches or faked feelings. If we don’t know what to say, we need to check our hearts and our minds to reflect on our true feelings and our ideas, not borrow other people’s.

Long term satisfaction comes from passion and commitment, not from the short tern virtue like beauty and youth.

The external, like the specific words you use, can never make up for poor understanding or lack of belief in what you are doing or selling.

How flexible you can be in expressing your ideas reveals how deeply you understand them.

There is a difference between rehearsal and understanding. Understanding is the key to meeting your goals; rehearsal is a distraction, all about the surface but in the end a false source of confidence.

So how do you make that leap from rehearsal into ideas? The first step is to learn to listen deeply and to ask honest questions, figuring out how other people view themselves and their own needs is an express train to the world of ideas.

kAkA.hUnTeR

Helping others is a powerful experience but at times the best help we can give others is to let them help us.

spoke at : 5/19/2008 09:53:00 PM

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