Mental Yoga Week # 19: Improve Your Influencer Skills

Dale Carnegie
Image via Wikipedia

 

Dale Carnegie wrote these ideas in his 1936 book, “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” 

The ideas are just as valid today as they where then.  I first read them in grade school over 40 years ago and I still work on perfecting these concepts daily.

Now for the exercise.  Go through the list and give yourself a numeric grade from 100 to 0 depending on how well you think you are doing with each.  For example, I LOVE to argue, so I’d have to give myself about a 65 on that one.  But, I happen to have many friends who have very different opinions from my own, and I believe we can all co-exist amicably, so I’ll give myself a 90 on that one.

After you rate yourself, pick just one that you want to improve and spend the next week devising a method of improving it.  (Make sure you have a way to recognize improvement.)

Win people to your way of thinking

  1. The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.
  2. Show respect for the other person's opinions. Never say, "You're wrong."
  3. If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
  4. Begin in a friendly way.
  5. Get the other person saying "yes, yes" immediately.
  6. Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.
  7. Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.
  8. Try honestly to see things from the other person's point of view.
  9. Be sympathetic with the other person's ideas and desires.
  10. Appeal to the nobler motives.
  11. Dramatize your ideas.
  12. Throw down a challenge.


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