Being disappointed, let down, or betrayed are among our most frustrating, maddening moments. Yet they also afford us rare moments to make a supreme impression.

Do you recall a time someone surprised you with undeserved grace or unconditional forgiveness? The occurrence might have taken place many years ago, even during your childhood. Yet the person is likely a permanent part of your memory, with the emotion you felt still tangible.

Ultimately, gaining influence is about setting yourself apart, stepping to a higher plane in the mind and heart of another.


Lest you make the mistake some do, a spirit of affirmation despite another’s fault is not a show of weakness or passivity. It is not a denial of justice, either, for mercy without justice is meaningless.


No worthwhile business relationship, whether with your own people or customers and partners, can endure without mutual respect. And as I’ve learned firsthand, showing adversaries that you regard them with admiration can resolve even violent conflicts.


From the political podium to the digital medium to the boardroom table, the one who speaks in a spirit of respectful, unhyperbolic affirmation will always win more friends and influence more people to positive progress than the one who communicates in criticism, condemnation, and condescension.


Don’t make the mistake of separating the scalability of a message from the individual significance of the message. They are inextricably linked. As big as a business gets, as large a following as one accumulates, messages are still given and received on an individual level.


We are all united by one single desire: to be valued by another.


What has habit been doing to me? The habit of finding fault, of reprimanding — this was my reward to you for being a boy. It was not that I did not love you; it was that I expected too much of youth. I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years.


Meanwhile, their housemaid noticed their predicament, and though she couldn’t write brilliant essays or books, she possessed an insight she thought might solve the problem. She walked over to the calf and put her finger in its mouth. While the calf suckled, she gently led it to the barn.


Emerson and his son merely thought about what they desired — the calf in the barn so they could eat their lunch.


Influence requires more intuition than intellect.


The public world tends to freely ascribe sway to those in lofty positions that require much education and aptitude — the CEO, department chair, physician, and billionaire. We assume such people can move majorities with a whisper and the snap of a finger. But if such a person does not have a deep relationship with people, she won’t have much influence with them.


Gently in manner, strong in deed.


Action springs from what we fundamentally desire. Arouse in the other person an eager want. He who can do this has the world with him. He who cannot walks a lonely way.


The mistake of arguing is staking your sales success on your ability to state your case in convincing fashion. It’s mastering a monologue and then expecting the jury of your prospects to be convinced to take your side. But establishing an initial level of trust takes more than flowery monologue. It takes dialogue. It takes actual conversation. There is no other way for you to know your product or service will meet a person’s needs.


He came to the sobering realization that while he stood on the bridge, turning the wheel, the wheel wasn’t connected to anything below. And since he had no authority to hire or fire from the civil service ranks, the only way he could influence positive progress in the department was by winning them over. The problem was, they’d seen politicians come and go. They’d grown tired and cynical. They’d given up on deriving inspiration from the top.

The secretary’s wife suggested the way to win them over was by reminding them he was passionate about education, and to do so not with new words but with new actions. “Go to schools, spend time with kids. Do Retail. Everyone will notice because these are the things they really care about.”


Whether we’ve stepped outside for 2 minutes or traveled for 2 weeks, dogs welcomed our return as if we were heroes. They never demean us or mock us or stand us up for dates. They exist to befriend us, to orbit around us as the center of their existence.


Dogs know by some divine instinct that you can make more friends in minutes by becoming genuinely interested in other people than you can in months of trying to get other people interested in you. The great irony of human relations is that our longing for significance in the lives of others should be so simple to meet, yet we complicate the matter; our biggest struggle is selfishness, the single greatest deterrent to amity.


The word most frequently used? The personal pronoun “I” was used 3.9K times in 500 telephone conversations.


It is the individual who is not interested in his fellow men who has the greatest difficulties in life and provides the greatest injury to others. It is from such individuals that all human failures spring.


Before I could get another word in, he started asking me questions. Where’d you grow up? What do you do for a living? What high school did you go to? What are your kids’ names? I left the encounter feeling 10 feet tall. In a subtle and unassuming way, he’d elevated himself in my mind.


“I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine” — this isn’t reciprocity, it’s bartering, an entirely different trajectory that removes the magic. And it’s unadulterated magic that makes interaction so memorable. It’s what draws us in. There is trust and a genuine sense of belonging and meaning.


The bottom line is that you must become genuinely interested in others before you can ever expect anyone to be interested in you. All things being equal, people do business with people they like. All things not being equal, they still do.


Getting people to agree about virtually anything is practically impossible. In the UK only 75% of people believe the moon landing actually happened. Only 94% of Americans believe it happened.


Your tone speaks so loudly I can hardly hear a word you are saying.


It changed the dining experience and imprinted that restaurant in my mind. I’d only dined there once before — 6 months earlier — and James not only knew my name, he took the time to discover I’d been there before. I was by no means a regular, but the small gesture made me feel like one. It was the old adage about “treating someone like a person you want him to become” come true.


One of the first lessons a politician learns is this: “To recall a voter’s name is statesmanship. To forget is oblivion.” It is one trait that unites most of history’s great leaders. “Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices.”


When we go online, we enter an environment that promotes cursory reading, hurried and distracted thinking, and superficial learning. Even as the Internet grants us easy access to vast amounts of information, it is turning us into shallower thinkers, literally changing the structure of our brain.


The power of listening is the power to change hearts and minds. More consequentially, it is the power of giving people what they most desire — to be heard and understood.


Listening’s power, like that of smiling, is strong. When you listen well you not only make an instant impression, you also build a solid bridge for lasting connection. Who can resist being around a person who suspends his thoughts in order to value yours?


It struck me so forcibly that I shall never forget him. He had qualities, which I had never seen in any other man. Never had I seen such concentrated attention. There was none of that piercing “soul penetrating gaze” business. His eyes were mild and genial. His voice was low and kind. His gestures were few. But the attention he gave me, his appreciation of what I said, even when I said it badly, was extraordinary. You’ve no idea what it meant to be listened to like that.


After suffering through a seemingly interminable monologue, Shaw cut in to observe that between the two of them, they knew everything there was to know in the world.


Most messages are primarily meant to educate others about our lives or our products, to reveal compelling portions of ourselves we think others would be attracted to. While this appears to be an assertive strategy, it is actually a passive strategy in that it requires others to connect with us. Like a banner ad on a website waiting to be clicked, we offer up digital ads of our best selves, hoping others will be compelled to engage.


In a recent interview she noted the biggest concern — a false sense of security. “There is a difference between a friend and a fan. Fans have a smaller sense of commitment, smaller levels of interest. There is a continuum of loyalty whereby fans stand at one and and friends at the other. Influence occurs across the continuum but it is more certain and lasting on the friend’s end.”

The easiest way to prove Li’s point is to go online and try to buy a Facebook friend. It can’t be done.


What all come to understand is that there is no such thing as a neutral exchange. You leave someone either a little better or a little worse. The best among us leave others a little better with every nod, every inflection, every interface.


You can make more friends in 2 months by becoming more interested in other people than you can in 2 years by trying to get people interested in you.


Communication is simply an outward manifestation of our thoughts, our intentions, and our conclusions about the people around us. “Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.”


The 2 highest levels of influence are achieved when (1) people follow you because of what you’ve done for them and (2) people follow you because of who you are. In other words, the highest levels of influence are reached when generosity and trustworthiness surround your behavior.


What makes so many well-meaning people get this wrong? Perhaps the ethereal nature of soft skills leads us astray. We can lean unilaterally on what is measurable.

Hard skills can be tested, taught, and transferred. Not so of soft skills. They can be difficult to reduce to steps. They are often messy and only crudely quantifiable through better responses and improved relationships.


We must first remember that today’s relational successes are not measured on the scale of media — which ones to use and how many friends, fans, or followers one can accumulate. They are measured on the scale of meaning. Become meaningful in your interactions and the path to success in any endeavor is simpler and far more sustainable. The reason? People notice. People remember. People are moved when their interactions with you always leave them a little better.


The entire universe, with one trifling exceptions, is composed of others.


Back then, if you don’t foster a friendship, influencing a person was nearly impossible. Social media didn’t exist. Digital connections were not available. In fact, you rarely did business with a person you did not know in a tangible way. The average person had only 3 ways to connect with another: face-to-face, by letter, or by telephone. Face-to-face was the expectation. Today it is the exception.


Lincoln was a master communicator, and humility was at the heart of all he said. He must have considered that if he sent the letter, it would have relieved some of his frustration but simultaneously ignited resentment in General Meade, further impairing the man’s usefulness as a commander.


Lincoln seemed to know, perhaps more than any other American president in history, when to hold his tongue and when silence was a graver mistake than speaking up. At the core of this skill was an understanding of one of the most fundamental truths of human nature. We are self-preserving creatures who are instinctively compelled to defend, deflect, and deny all threats to our well-being, not the least of which are threats to our pride.


Calm yourself before communicating to another. When you are put off, the first 5 minutes are usually the most volatile. If you can train yourself to stuff the knee-jerk response, you will save yourself hours of backpedaling, back-scratching, and brown-nosing down the road.


For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.


Finally, in a breakthrough moment as they prepare for his coronation, the soon-to-be king snaps and lets loose with all of his fears — that he will fail his nation and become a laughingstock for all of history.


Stay in college, get the education. If they can make penicillin out of moldy bread, they can make something out of you.


Affirmation, in contrast to flattery, requires seeing someone well enough to sense what to affirm, knowing someone well enough to be aware of what really matters. Flattery is usually an admittance of insensibility, a betrayal of trust. We say things we think we should say, but in reality we aren’t thinking at all. What message does flattery send? “You don’t matter enough for me to pay you much mind.”


Semantics isn’t simply about words; it’s about the context in which those words are used. It’s about understanding.

He once remarked that 99% of all conflicts are about the misunderstanding of words used in different contexts. His success, therefore, came from trying diligently to understand what someone meant.


Intimate friendships possess deep commitment and are based on great risk — first comes the risk of believing that we are people who matter enough, who are weighty enough, to influence others’ lives. An equally great risk is that having intimate friends opens us up to being deeply hurt by those friends. Some people protect themselves from relational pain by having no intimate friends. Others do it by having so many shallow friends that a hurt inflicted by one is diffused by the mass.

The bottom line is that relationship involves risk, and if we want to influence other people’s lives, we have to be comfortable accepting that risk.


We (as a public) seem to believe that the influence comes from the sheer volume of impressions and connections that we have in the marketplace. It doesn’t. True influence comes from connecting to the individuals, nurturing those relationships, adding real value to the other people’s lives and doing anything and everything to serve them, so that when the time comes for you to make an ask, there is someone there to lend a hand. Worry less about how many people you are connected to and worry a whole lot more about who you are connected to, who they are and what you are doing to value and honor them.


Many people make the mistake of equating inspiration with implementation. They are like art teacher who sets his students down in an alpine meadow and asks them to reproduce the glorious landscape. The big picture is inspiring but merely seeing the picture does not equip the students to skillfully depict one blade of grass on the canvas. To become great artists who can replicate the big picture, the students must learn to focus on the small particulars. Nowhere in life is this truer than in human relations.


What you must always remember is that what motivates you to win friends is rarely what motivates others to grant you friendship.

You are motivated by what can be achieved with others’ loyalty or support or collaborative effort. You are motivated by the big picture of connection and collaboration — by how things can be.

In contrast, those with whom you want to connect and collaborate see only the small pictures of their own experience with you. They see the true measure of your motives in bytes and feats. They are motivated by how things are.


Others are constantly asking of you: “How valuable is my relationship with this person?”

“What have you done fro me lately?” still guides the mind of the masses, perhaps more so today amid the backdrop of millions of messages and messengers vying for attention.


Jordan was assessing his divorce a decade after it occurred, on the ever of his second wedding. A friend asked why his first one failed. It was, he said, because he neglected the scale. Every single interaction with his spouse sent her one of two messages — that she was the most important person in the world to him or that she wasn’t. He’d sent the latter message far too often.


While Graham could have employed a front of passive aggression by ignoring the cheeky jabs, or fought the jabs with press-worthy indignation, he chose a higher road, a far more effective path. He avoided the argument altogether and won his critic over with grace and goodwill.

Arguing with another person will rarely get you anywhere; they usually end with each person more firmly convinced of his rightness. You may be right, dead right, but arguing is just as futile as if you were dead wrong.


I argue very well. Ask any of my remaining friends. I can win argument on any topic, against any opponent. People know this, and steer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don’t even invite me.


When, 2 days after dodging question and ditching blame before US lawmakers, he was found in a yacht race: whether or not he was right, Hayward had lost both his credibility and his case in the court of public opinion. When influence and impact are at stake, it is often the only court that matters.

After his line of argument, few could trust the man. He seemed to care about 2 things only: himself and his empire. Under his argumentative approach, BP quickly went from suspect to reject, regardless of what story the facts would turn out to tell.


Tension and conflict occur when you discard the notion that others also have inner wisdom that ought to be heard.


Nuance, or subtle difference, is a critical concept to remember in the midst of disagreement. In most disputes, our differences with others are far more subtler than we allow ourselves to see. We so easily treat dissonance like a chasm that cannot be crossed — the only resolution being one party taking a dive (or being shoved) off the cliff, so that only one party remains. The truth is that disagreement is more often a small crack in the sidewalk that can easily be negotiated if we come to the discussion table with a more open mind.


All effective problem solving, collaboration, and dispute resolution begins with an emptying of the mind — of what we know or what we think we should know.


At the heart of the assertion that others are wrong is actually an unspoken admittance that we don’t want to be rejected. It is in the spirit of not wanting to be wrong ourselves that we project that role on others.


Telling people they are wrong will only earn you enemies. Few people respond logically when they are told they are wrong; most respond emotionally and defensively because you are questioning their judgment. You shouldn’t just avoid the words “You’re wrong.” You can tell people they are wrong by a look or an intonation or a gesture, so you must guard against showing judgment in all of the ways that you communicate. And if you are going to prove anything, don’t let anybody know it.


Ronald Reagan was known as the “Great Communicator” because, to the joy of his supporters and the consternation of his critics, he could move from a place of defensive weakness to undeniable strength with a simple quip.

One of his tried-and-true methods? An easy familiarity with the apology. During one particularly rocky patch of his presidency, he poked fun at his own WH, conceding, “Our right hand doesn’t know what our far right hand is doing.”

Reagan knew it was easier to bear self-condemnation than condemnation from others. If we know we are going to be rebuked anyhow, isn’t it better to beat the other person to the punch?

When we recognize and admit our errors, the response from others is typically forgiveness and generosity. Quickly the error is diminished in their eyes. It is only when we shirk responsibility or refuse to admit our errors immediately that we raise the ire of those around us and the original misjudgment seems to grow in importance and negative effect.


Engagement occurs on a deeper level when a person’s core values are tapped. Common to all core values is the notion of being considered worthy of relationship. When you engage another in a friendly manner, you convey to him he is someone worthy of friendship, someone whom you’d like to call friend. It is for this reason “he who sows courtesy reaps friendship.”


Engagement has to be heartfelt or it won’t work. You cannot underestimate people’s ability to spot a soulless, bureaucratic tactic a million miles away. It’s a big reason why so many companies that have dipped a toe in social media waters have failed miserably.


Believe it or not, who you get is not determined by what you want. It’s determined by who you are.


When a person says no and really means it, a physiological cascade of reactions is taking place that is putting the person in a defensive position, ready to withdraw. But when this same person says yes and really means it, he is in a position of acceptance, of openness, of moving forward. So the more yeses you can get at the outset of an interaction, even if they have little to do with the ultimate proposal, the more likely you are to put the person in a mood to agree with you along the way.


While it’s easy to see why we want credit for successes for which we labored, claiming the credit will never win you friends. It will also diminish your influence quicker than just about any other action.

What is the worst quality in a leader? Ask the followers and they would tell you it is the quality of taking credit when things go well and dishing out blame when things go wrong. Few postures send a clearer “It’s all about me” message.


Giving away credit is a magical multiplier.

It works equally well in business and in our personal vies. But harnessing this magic requires an attitude of gratitude. Without a sincere sense of gratitude, sharing credit is just another manipulative trick bound to backfire. None of this is rocket science. It’s common sense. So why is credit stolen far more often than shared? The usual suspect is fear.

But fear, in this case, should be reserved for the possibility of becoming a person who is afraid to share the spoils of success.


It’s often said that to be successful you must surround yourself with successful people. While there is truth to the statement, few see that there are 2 ways to approach this positioning. Either you can seek friendships with those who are already successful, or you can seek success for those who are already friends. Whichever way you choose, one thing is certain: your success is always commensurate with the number of people who want to see you successful. But one way provides better numbers.


In the long run, no one but the originator remember things such as whose idea it was, who spoke first, or who took the first risk. What people remember is magnanimity. It is an interesting paradox that the more you surrender the credit for something you’ve done, the more memorable you become, and the more you actually end up receiving credit.

Ronald Reagan was once quoted as saying, “What I would really like to do is to go down in history as the president who made Americans believe in themselves again.” From this quote alone we can establish a fairly accurate character analysis of the man. He was in the game so that others could win. His political goals centered on the uplifting and success of those he served in the office of the president.

Perhaps what best typifies Reagan is the quote on the plaque that sat above his Oval Office desk. It read: “There is no limit to what a man can do, or where he can go, if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit.”


We frequently hear critiques of the world’s leaders. It is easy, as the saying goes, to sit in the stands and solve everyone else’s problems. What we rarely witness are people who say, “I can’t imagine the pressure you must be under to have the weight of an entire country on your shoulders. I can’t imagine how much you must lie awake at night thinking through whether you made the right decision or said the right thing on national television.”


We all crave transcendence — to be part of something bigger than ourselves, to be meaningful to the world and the people within it, to have it said of us that we rose above, took a stand, reached beyond, and did what was right and honorable and true.


He didn’t say, “Please do not publish that picture of me anymore; I don’t like it.” He appealed to a nobler motive: the respect and love that all of us have for motherhood. He asked that the picture not be published simply because his mother did not like it.


People don’t want to be treated as commodities, but more than that, they don’t want to see their lives as ordinary. People want to know that they matter, and the best way to show them that they do is by allowing them to connect with a larger story.


Why is it that we have to “face reality,” deliver “a dose of reality” that is reluctantly swallowed like foul medicine, bringing someone “back to reality” from idyllic dreamland that doesn’t jibe with the hard-nosed facts? This is the mindset from which we often approach crucial conversations.


We care more about the threat of bad things than we do about the prospect of good things. Our negative brain tripwires far more sensitive than our positive triggers. We even remember negative events better, or at least our memories are skewed toward them.


The item found to be most linked to career advancement? Freely admitting to making mistakes.

Admitting you have made a mistake is like the first step in a 12-step program: it is both the hardest and the most important. Until we accept accountability, how can we learn from our mistakes, use them to propel us forward, and encourage others to trust us?


Dyson produced more than 5K prototypes before bringing his first product to market.


Most of my young sailors came from hardscrabble backgrounds and had struggled to make it into the Navy. I put myself in their parents’ shoes and imagined how they would feel if they got letters from their kids’ commanding officer, and I imagined how the kids would feel when their parents told them. I began writing letters to the parents, especially when their sons or daughters did something I could honestly praise.


Just as humility seems to be at the epicenter of leadership effectiveness, arrogance is commonly at the root of a leader’s undoing. Arrogance takes many forms. The most rudimentary is the self-centered focus that fosters a belief that I am central to the viability of the organization, the department or the team. When arrogance blossoms into hubris, a sense of entitlement results. “This place can’t function without me, and I deserve special perks.” Arrogant leaders also seem to eschew feedback so beneficial to any leader. They become truth-starved.