Simon and schuster



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PRINCIPLE 1 
Become genuinely interested in other people. 
39 



 
“A SIMPLE WAY TO MAKE A GOOD IMPRESSION.”
 
At a dinner party in New York, one of the guests, a woman who had inherited money, was eager to 
make a pleasing impression on everyone. She had squandered a modest fortune on sables, diamonds and pearls. 
But she hadn’t done anything whatever about her face. It radiated sourness and selfishness. She didn’t realize 
what everyone knows: namely, that the expression one wears on one’s face is far more important than the 
clothes one wears on one’s back. 
Charles Schwab told me his smile had been worth a million dollars. And he was probably understating 
the truth. For Schwab’s personality, his charm, his ability to make people like him, were almost wholly 
responsible for his extraordinary success; and one of the most delightful factors in his personality was his 
captivating smile. 
Actions speak louder than words, and a smile says, “I like you. You make me happy. I am glad to see 
you.” That is why dogs make such a hit. They are so glad to see us that they almost jump out of their skins. So, 
naturally, we are glad to see them. 
A baby’s smile has the same effect. 
Have you ever been in a doctor’s waiting room and looked around at all the glum faces waiting 
impatiently to be seen? Dr, Stephen K. Sproul, a veterinarian in Raytown, Missouri, told of a typical spring day 
when his waiting room was full of clients waiting to have their pets inoculated. No one was talking to anyone 
else, and all were probably thinking of a dozen other things they would rather be doing than “wasting time” 
sitting in that office. He told one of our classes, “There were six or seven clients waiting when a young woman 
came in with a nine-month-old baby and a kitten. As luck would have it, she sat down next to a gentleman who 
was more than a little distraught about the long wait for service. The next thing he knew, the baby just looked up 
at him with that great big smile that is so characteristic of babies. What did that gentleman do? Just what you 
and I would do, of course: he smiled back at the baby. Soon he struck up a conversation with the woman about 
her baby and his grandchildren, and soon the entire reception room joined in, and the boredom and tension were 
converted into a pleasant and enjoyable experience.” 
An insincere grin? No. That doesn’t fool anybody. We know it is mechanical and we resent it. I am 
talking about a real smile, a heartwarming smile, a smile that comes from within, the kind of smile that will 
bring a good price in the marketplace. 
Professor James V. McConnell, a psychologist at the University of Michigan, expressed his feelings 
about a smile. “People who smile,” he said, “tend to manage teach and sell more effectively, and to raise happier 
children. There’s far more information in a smile than a frown. That’s why encouragement is a much more 
effective teaching device than punishment.” 
The employment manager of a large New York department store told me she would rather hire a sales 
clerk who hadn’t finished grade school, if he or she has a pleasant smile, than to hire a doctor of philosophy with 
a somber face. 
The effect of a smile is powerful, even when it is unseen. Telephone companies throughout the United 
States have a program called “phone power” which is offered to employees who use the telephone for selling 
their services or products. In this program they suggest that you smile when talking on the phone. Your ‘smile’ 
comes through in your voice. 
Robert Cryer, manager of a computer department for a Cincinnati, Ohio, company, told how he had 
successfully found the right applicant for a hard-to-fill position, “I was desperately trying to recruit a Ph.D. in 
computer science for my department. I finally located a young man with ideal qualifications who was about to 
be graduated from Purdue University. After several phone conversations I learned that he had several offers 
from other companies, many of them larger and better known than mine. I was delighted when he accepted my 
40 


offer. After he started on the job, I asked him why he had chosen us over the others. He paused for a moment 
and then he said, ‘I think it was because managers in the other companies spoke on the phone in a cold
business-like manner, which made me feel like just another business transaction. Your voice sounded as if you 
were glad to hear from me…that you really wanted me to be part of your organization.’ You can be assured, I 
am still answering my phone with a smile.” 
The chairman of the board of directors of one of the largest rubber companies ‘in the United States told 
me that, according to his observations, people rarely succeed at anything unless they have fun doing it. This 
industrial leader doesn’t put much faith in the old adage that hard work alone is the magic key that will unlock 
the door to our desires, “I have known people,” he said, “who succeeded because they had a rip-roaring good 
time conducting their business. Later, I saw those people change as the fun became work. The business had 
grown dull, they lost all joy in it, and they failed.” 
You must have a good time meeting people if you expect them to have a good time meeting you. 
I have asked thousands of business people to smile at someone every hour of the day for a week and 
then come to class and talk about the results. How did it work? Let’s see…Here is a letter from William B. 
Steinhardt, a New York stockbroker. His case isn’t isolated. In fact, it is typical of hundreds of cases. 
“1 have been married for over eighteen years,” wrote Mr. Steinhardt, “and in all that time I seldom 
smiled at my wife or spoke two dozen words to her from the time I got up until I was ready to leave for 
business. I was one of the worst grouches who ever walked down Broadway. 
“When you asked me to make a talk about my experience with smiles, I thought I would try it for a 
week. So the next morning, while combing my hair, I looked at my glum mug in the mirror and said to myself
‘Bill, you are going to wipe the scowl off that sour puss of yours today. You are going to smile. And you are 
going to begin right now.’ As I sat down to breakfast, I greeted my wife with a ‘Good morning, my dear,’ and 
smiled as I said it. 
“You warned me that she might be surprised. Well, you underestimated her reaction. She was 
bewildered. She was shocked. I told her that in the future she could expect this as a regular occurrence, and I 
kept it up every morning. 
“This changed attitude of mine brought more happiness into our home in the two months since I started 
than there was during the last year. 
“As I leave for my office, I greet the elevator operator in the apartment house with a ‘Good morning’ 
and a smile, I greet the doorman with a smile. I smile at the cashier in the subway booth when I ask for change. 
As I stand on the floor of the Stock Exchange, I smile at people who until recently never saw me smile. 
“I soon found that everybody was smiling back at me, I treat those who come to me with complaints or 
grievances in a cheerful manner, I smile as I listen to them and I find that adjustments are accomplished much 
easier. I find that smiles are bringing me dollars, many dollars every day. 
“I share my office with another broker. One of his clerks is a likable young chap, and I was so elated 
about the results I was getting that I told him recently about my new philosophy of human relations. He then 
confessed that when I first came to share my office with his firm he thought me a terrible grouch, and only 
recently changed his mind. He said I was really human when I smiled. 
“I have also eliminated criticism from my system. I give appreciation and praise now instead of 
condemnation. I have stopped talking about what I want. I am now trying to see the other person’s viewpoint. 
And these things have literally revolutionized my life. I am a totally different man, a happier man, a richer man, 
richer in friendships and happiness—the only things that matter much after all.” 
You don’t feel like smiling? Then what? Two things. First, force yourself to smile. If you are alone, 
force yourself to whistle or hum a tune or sing. Act as if you were already happy, and that will tend to make you 
happy. Here is the way the psychologist and philosopher William James put it: 
“Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, 
which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not. 
41 


“Thus the sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully 
and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there…” 
Everybody in the world is seeking happiness, and there is one sure way to find it. That is by controlling 
your thoughts. Happiness doesn’t depend on outward conditions. It depends on inner conditions. 
It isn’t what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or 
unhappy. It is what you think about it. For example, two people may be in the same place, doing the same thing; 
both may have about an equal amount of money and prestige, and yet one may be miserable and the other 
happy. 
Why? Because of a different mental attitude. I have seen just as many happy faces among the poor 
peasants toiling with their primitive tools in the devastating heat of the tropics as I have seen in air-conditioned 
offices in New York, Chicago or Los Angeles. 
“There is nothing either good or bad,” said Shakespeare, “but thinking makes it so.” 
Abe Lincoln once remarked that “most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” He 
was right. I saw a vivid illustration of that truth as I was walking up the stairs of the Long Island Railroad station 
in New York. Directly in front of me thirty or forty crippled boys on canes and crutches were struggling up the 
stairs. One boy had to be carried up. I was astonished at their laughter and gaiety. I spoke about it to one of.the 
men in charge of the boys. “Oh, yes,” he said, “when a boy realizes that he is going to be a cripple for life, he is 
shocked at first; but after he gets over the shock, he usually resigns himself to his fate and then becomes as 
happy as normal boys.” 
I felt like taking my hat off to those boys. They taught me a lesson I hope I shall never forget. 
Working all by oneself in a closed-off room in an office not only is lonely, but it denies one the 
opportunity of making friends with other employees in the company. Señora Maria Gonzalez of Guadalajara, 
Mexico, had such a job. She envied the shared comradeship of other people in the company as she heard their 
chatter and laughter. As she passed them in the hall during the first weeks of her employment, she shyly looked 
the other way. 
After a few weeks, she said to herself, “Maria, you can’t expect those women to come to you. You 
have to go out and meet them.” The next time she walked to the water cooler, she put on her brightest smile and 
said, “Hi, how are you today?” to each of the people she met. The effect was immediate. Smiles and hellos were 
returned, the hallway seemed brighter, the job friendlier. 
Acquaintanceships developed and some ripened into friendships. Her job and her life became more 
pleasant and interesting. 
Peruse this bit of sage advice from the essayist and publisher Elbert Hubbard, but remember, perusing 
it won’t do you any good unless you apply it: 
Whenever you go out-of-doors, draw the chin in, carry the crown of the head high, and fill the lungs to 
the utmost; drink in the sunshine; greet your friends with a smile, and put soul into every handclasp. Do not fear 
being misunderstood and do not waste a minute thinking about your enemies. Try to fix firmly in your mind 
what you would like to do; and then, without veering off direction, you will move straight to the goal. Keep your 
mind on the great and splendid things you would like to do, and then, as the days go gliding away, you will find 
yourself unconsciously seizing upon the opportunities that are required for the fulfillment of your desire, just as 
the coral insect takes from the running tide the element it needs. Picture in your mind the able, earnest, useful 
person you desire to be, and the thought you hold is hourly transforming you into that particular individual… 
Thought is supreme. Preserve a right mental attitude—the attitude of courage, frankness, and good 
cheer. To think rightly is to create. All things come through desire and every sincere prayer is answered. We 
become like that on which our hearts are fixed. Carry your chin in and the crown of your head high. We are 
gods in the chrysalis. 
42 


The ancient Chinese were a wise lot—wise in the ways of the world; and they had a proverb that you 
and I ought to cut out and paste inside our hats. It goes like this: “A man without a smiling face must not open a 
shop.” 
Your smile is a messenger of your goodwill. Your smile brightens the lives of all who see it. To 
someone who has seen a dozen people frown, scowl or turn their faces away, your smile is like the sun breaking 
through the clouds. Especially when that someone is under pressure from his bosses, his customers, his teachers 
or parents or children, a smile can help him realize that all is not hopeless—that there is joy in the world. 
Some years ago, a department store in New York City, in recognition of the pressures its sales clerks 
were under during the Christmas rush, presented the readers of its advertisements with the following homely 
philosophy: 
THE VALUE OF A SMILE AT CHRISTMAS 
It costs nothing, but creates much. 
It enriches those who receive, without impoverishing those who give. 
It happens in a flash and the memory of it sometimes lasts forever, 
None are so rich they can get along without it, and none so poor but are richer for its benefits. 
It creates happiness in the home, fosters goodwill in a business, and is the countersign of friends. 
It is rest to the weary, daylight to the discouraged, sunshine to the sad, and Nature’s best antidote fee trouble. 
Yet it cannot be bought, begged, borrowed, or stolen, for it is something that is no earthly good to anybody till it 
is given away. 
And if in the last-minute rush of Christmas buying some of our salespeople should be too tired to give you a 
smile, may we ask you to leave one of yours? 
For nobody needs a smile so much as those who have none left to give! 

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