I have to confess, I’m really struggling to maintain an empty cup, beginner’s mind attitude with this whole thing. Chapter 2 is called “The Big Secret For Dealing With People”, and in order to dive in and pluck these lush fruits of wisdom from their branches, I have to count myself amongst those who need help knowing how to deal with people. For someone who as long considered “people skills” one of her strengths, this is very disheartening. If I were good with people, and 85% of success depends upon it, then wouldn’t I have a job by now? This equation is bringing me down, especially when pondered at the end of yet another day with no job interviews in sight. Alas, there’s nothing to do but hoist up my britches and get on with it. Even if I were Oprah frickin’ Winfrey, I’m sure I could learn a thing or two from a pioneer of self-help like Dale Carnegie. Onward.
On yet another grey, rainy day full of uncertainties, Carnegie is refreshingly unequivocal in his stance that “there is only one way to get anyone to do anything”, and that is by making the person want to do what you want. Hmm, for a moment I wonder if he’s going in the “Tom-Sawyer-getting-some-sucker-to-do-his-chores” direction, or taking a sordid detour into the machinations of Jim Jones and his killer Kool-Aid. My trepidation is put to rest when he declaims tactics like threats, coercion, and violence as having “sharply undesirable repercussions”. Um, is moral relativism more or less creepy than mass hypnosis?
Dale unveils the crux of the day’s lesson, which is that everyone wants to feel important, and people are much more likely to do what we want when they feel sincerely appreciated. Morbid thought forms successfully short-circuited, I feel like I’ve found a concept I can sink my teeth into. He tells us that we can identify the most meaningful sincere compliments by discovering those areas that are especially important to an individual, and praising them in some way. “Tell me how you get your feeling of importance” Carnegie declares, “and I’ll tell you who you are.” Okay, Dale, now you’re hitting a little close to the bone.
In the spirit of Pollyanna and Tony Robbins, I have been trying to frame this time of prolonged transition in my life as an opportunity to figure out who I really am, without any external identification (no job, no intimate relationship, not even a sense of personal style, as I spend most days in heavy rotation between pajama and sweat pant variations). Only I feel like now is the time in my life, my evolution, and my psychosocial development when I am supposed to be identifying with these things. Realizing that ultimately I can’t take it with me and need to cultivate a rich inner life shouldn’t come for at least another twenty years or so. In the absence of these thirtysomething hallmarks, I gain importance from making a story, a journey, and a lesson of this interminable time. I attempt to excavate meaning from the micro-happenings of each eternal day. So what does that make me? Hans Christian Anderson? Margaret Meade? A borderline schoziphrenic with invisible friends and delusions of grandeur? (Of course, Carnegie relates that George Washington wanted to be referred to as “His Mightiness, the President of the United States, so at least I’m in good company on that one.)
I try not to get sidetracked by brainstorming what a sincere compliment to a storytelling excavator with schizophrenia might sound like (“My, you’ve got the landing gear for your space ship working smoothly. The Chiron library is so lucky to have you for a story hour!”). Not too difficult, since Carnegie drops yet another chilling morsel in my lap. A bit more casually than the statement (and my preoccupation with my own mental health) warrants, he reveals that “some authorities declare that people may actually go insane in order to find, in the dreamland of insanity, the feeling of importance that has been denied them in the harsh world of reality.” It is too easy to make the connection here (“Look at me, I’m jobless and it’s making me nuts, see! Are you looking?!”), and it’s doing nothing for my morose mood. One minute I’m just a novice blogger with job stress, and the next minute I’m Mrs. Rochester, or one of the Edies from Grey Gardens. Carnegie urges us to build the self-esteem of others to realize success, but my own whimpering ego just took another punch to the crotch. Principle #2 (“Give honest and sincere appreciation”) is proving quite the pisser.
Carnegie warns against confusing appreciation, which “comes from the heart” with flattery, which comes “from the teeth out”. It’s all about sincerity. “Try leaving a friendly trail of little sparks of gratitude on your daily trips!”, he trills. I may be flirting with psychosis, and less sure of myself than I was when I started this chapter, I but I know I can do this. Why just today, I heartily assured my little brother that he has what it takes to pass his drug test for work. And I wasn’t even trying to get anything out of him! Could “motivational speaker” be my true destiny? My self-esteem pulls itself upright on wobbly knees, and juts its chin like a prize fighter. Principle #3, here I come.
No comments:
Post a Comment