Winning Friends and Influencing People

Most people at some point or other muse about how to win friends and keep them, and how to influence people effectively. Here is one secret in the right acquisition of people.

“Search others for their virtues, thyself for thy vices.”

-Benjamin Franklin.

I have to admit to getting this maxim the wrong way around most of the time. And this is the default isn’t it? We tend to over compensate for our vices, and cling to the shreds of our virtue, whilst others are hardly ever praised (in our minds and hearts) for their virtues. But, their vices get double attention.

This is the lesson of humility.

When we go Benjamin Franklin’s way we emphasise that life for us is really about other people and not ourselves.

It’s a question of focus: on ourselves for what we can offer, and on others for what they positively offer.

For us, it’s seeking to be of value to others.

The focus on others should be in being thankful for them, negating the critical thinking.

The irony of this schema is when we reject the self in favour of another, we get more for ourselves back in return. Others are suddenly free to notice the favours we extend (without strings) to them instead of picking on our faults as a return for our niggling of them in the same way.

Changing our ways is generally not easy. Like so many things, old habits die hard. It takes time and effort and focus to get it right. Like the well-known shampoo advertisement, ‘It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen’ [some day].

Winning friends and influencing people is easier than we think when we have their best interests inside our hearts. Sure, we won’t have converts all the time, but our averages will undoubtedly rise as we seek to place others consistently first--or at least equally with us.

And of course, it is almost needless to say, there are a myriad of biblical commands to back this advice up. There is Matthew 7:12, Philippians 2:3 and James 2:8 to name just a few.

Copyright © 2008, S. J. Wickham. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.