Simon and schuster

PRINCIPLE 2 
Give honest and sincere appreciation. 
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3 
 
“HE WHO CAN DO THIS HAS THE WHOLE WORLD WITH 
HIM. HE WHO CANNOT WALKS A LONELY WAY.” 
I often went fishing up in Maine during the summer. Personally I am very fond of strawberries and 
cream, but I have found that for some strange reason, fish prefer worms. So when I went fishing, I didn’t think 
about what I wanted. I thought about what they wanted. I didn’t bait the hook with strawberries and cream. 
Rather, I dangled a worm or a grasshopper in front of the fish and said, “Wouldn’t you like to have that?” 
Why not use the same common sense when fishing for people? 
That is what Lloyd George, Great Britain’s Prime Minister during World War I, did. When someone 
asked him how he managed to stay in power after the other wartime leaders—Wilson, Orlando and 
Clemenceau—had been forgotten, he replied that if his staying on top might be attributed to any one thing, it 
would be to his having learned that it was necessary to bait the hook to suit the fish. 
Why talk about what we want? That is childish. Absurd. Of course, you are interested in what you 
want. You are eternally interested in it. But no one else is. The rest of us are just like you: we are interested in 
what we want. 
So the only way on earth to influence other people is to talk about what they want and show them how 
to get it. 
Remember that tomorrow when you are trying to get somebody to do something. If, for example, you 
don’t want your children to smoke, don’t preach at them, and don’t talk about what you want; but show them 
that cigarettes may keep them from making the basketball team or winning the hundred-yard dash. 
This is a good thing to remember regardless of whether you are dealing with children or calves or 
chimpanzees. For example: one day Ralph Waldo Emerson and his son tried to get a calf into the barn. But they 
made the common mistake of thinking only of what they wanted: Emerson pushed and his son pulled. But the 
calf was doing just what they were doing; he was thinking only of what he wanted, so he stiffened his legs and 
stubbornly refused to leave the pasture. The Irish housemaid saw their predicament. She couldn’t write essays 
and books; but, on this occasion at least, she had more horse sense, or calf sense, than Emerson had. She thought 
of what the calf wanted, so she put her maternal finger in the calf’s mouth and let the calf suck her finger as she 
gently led him into the barn. 
Every act you have ever performed since the day you were born was performed because you wanted 
something. How about the time you gave a large contribution to the Red Cross? Yes, that is no exception to the 
rule. You gave the Red Cross the donation because you wanted to lend a helping hand; you wanted to do a 
beautiful, unselfish, divine act. “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have 
done it unto me.” 
If you hadn’t wanted that feeling more than you wanted your money, you would not have made the 
contribution. Of course, you might have made the contribution because you were ashamed to refuse or because a 
customer asked you to do it. But one thing is certain. You made the contribution because you wanted something. 
Harry A. Overstreet in his illuminating book 
Influencing Human Behavior 
said, “Action springs out of 
what we fundamentally desire, and the best piece of advice which can be given to would-be persuaders, whether 
in business, in the home, in the school, in politics, is: First, arouse in the other person an eager want. He who 
can do this has the whole world with him. He who cannot walks a lonely way.” 
Andrew Carnegie, the poverty-stricken Scotch lad who started to work at two cents an hour and finally 
gave away $365 million, learned early in life that the only way to influence people is to talk in terms of what the 
other person wants. He attended school only four years; yet he learned how to handle people. 
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To illustrate: His sister-in-law was worried sick over her two boys. They were at Yale, and they were 
so busy with their own affairs that they neglected to write home and paid no attention whatever to their mother’s 
frantic letters. 
Then Carnegie offered to wager a hundred dollars that he could get an answer by return mail, without 
even asking for it. Someone called his bet, so he wrote his nephews a chatty letter, mentioning casually in a 
post-script that he was sending each one a five-dollar bill. 
He neglected, however, to enclose the money. 
Back came replies by return mail thanking “Dear Uncle Andrew” for his kind note and…you can finish 
the sentence yourself. 
Another example of persuading comes from Stan Novak of Cleveland, Ohio, a participant in our 
course. Stan came home from work one evening to find his youngest son, Tim, kicking and screaming on the 
living room floor. He was to start kindergarten the next day and was protesting that he would not go. Stan’s 
normal reaction would have been to banish the child to his room and tell him he’d just better make up his mind 
to go. He had no choice. But tonight, recognizing that this would not really help Tim start kindergarten in the 
best frame of mind, Stan sat down and thought, “If I were Tim, why would I be excited about going to 
kindergarten?” He and his wife made a list of all the fun things Tim would do such as finger painting, singing 
songs, making new friends. Then they put them into action. “We all started finger-painting on the kitchen 
table—my wife, Lil, my other son Bob, and myself, all having fun. Soon Tim was peeping around the corner. 
Next he was begging to participate. ‘Oh, no! You have to go to kindergarten first to learn how to finger-paint.’ 
With all the enthusiasm I could muster I went through the list talking in terms he could understand, telling him 
all the fun he would have in kindergarten. The next morning, I thought I was the first one up. I went downstairs 
and found Tim sitting sound asleep in the living room chair. ‘What are you doing here?’ I asked. ‘I’m waiting to 
go to kindergarten. I don’t want to be late.’ The enthusiasm of our entire family had aroused in Tim an eager 
want that no amount of discussion or threat could have possibly accomplished.” 
Tomorrow you may want to persuade somebody to do something. Before you speak, pause and ask 
yourself: “How can I make this person want to do it?” 
That question will stop us from rushing into a situation heedlessly, with futile chatter about our desires. 
At one time I rented the grand ballroom of a certain New York hotel for twenty nights in each season in 
order to hold a series of lectures. 
At the beginning of one season, I was suddenly informed that I should have to pay almost three times 
as much rent as formerly. This news reached me after the tickets had been printed and distributed and all 
announcements had been made. 
Naturally, I didn’t want to pay the increase, but what was the use of talking to the hotel about what I 
wanted? They were interested only in what they wanted. So a couple of days later I went to see the manager. 
“I was a bit shocked when I got your letter,” I said, “but I don’t blame you at all. If I had been in your 
position, I should probably have written a similar letter myself. Your duty as the manager of the hotel is to make 
all the profit possible. If you don’t do that, you will be fired and you ought to be fired. Now, let’s take a piece of 
paper and write down the advantages and the disadvantages that will accrue to you, if you insist on this increase 
in rent.” 
Then I took a letterhead and ran a line through the center and headed one column ‘Advantages’ and the 
other column ‘Disadvantages’. 
I wrote down under the head ‘Advantages’ these words: “Ballroom free”. Then I went on to say, “You 
will have the advantage of having the ballroom free to rent for dances and conventions. That is a big advantage, 
for affairs like that will pay you much more than you can get for a series of lectures. If I tie your ballroom up for 
twenty nights during the course of the season, it is sure to mean a loss of some very profitable business to you. 
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“Now, let’s consider the disadvantages. First, instead of increasing your income from me, you are 
going to decrease it. In fact, you are going to wipe it out because I cannot pay the rent you are asking. I shall be 
forced to hold these lectures at some other place. 
“There’s another disadvantage to you also. These lectures attract crowds of educated and cultured 
people to your hotel. That is good advertising for you, isn’t it? In fact, if you spent five thousand dollars 
advertising in the newspapers, you couldn’t bring as many people to look at your hotel as I can bring by these 
lectures. That is worth a lot to a hotel, isn’t it?”
As I talked, I wrote these two ‘disadvantages’ under the proper heading, and handed the sheet of paper 
to the manager, saying, “I wish you would carefully consider both the advantages and disadvantages that are 
going to accrue to you and then give me your final decision.” 
I received a letter the next day, informing me that my rent would be increased only 50 percent instead 
of 300 percent. 
Mind you, I got this reduction without saying a word about what I wanted. I talked all the time about 
what the other person wanted and how he could get it. 
Suppose I had done the human, natural thing; suppose I had stormed into his office and said, “What do 
you mean by raising my rent three hundred percent when you know the tickets have been printed and the 
announcements made? Three hundred percent! Ridiculous! Absurd! I won’t pay it!” 
What would have happened then? An argument would have begun to steam and boil and sputter, and 
you know how arguments end. Even if I had convinced him that he was wrong, his pride would have made it 
difficult for him to back down and give in. 
Here is one of the best bits of advice ever given about the fine art of human relationships. “If there is 
any one secret of success,” said Henry Ford, “it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see 
things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.” 
That is so good, I want to repeat it: