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110 - How to Deal with People

Hello there, Kevin here. With another episode of the Feel Good English podcast.

The only podcast that’s teaching you how to deal with learning English, and teaching you how to deal with life.

And in today’s episode, I am going to teach you how to deal with people, well how to deal with people better. I’m going to pull lessons from the very popular and classic book, “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie.

Since “How to Win Friends & Influence People” was published in 1936, it has sold millions and millions of copies.

The advice contained in the book is deceptively simple, but remains as effective as ever. Just adhering to simple guidelines like smiling when meeting someone and remembering their first name can help anyone become more likable and influential.

I am going to mainly talk about the first two parts of the book, how to deal with people and also how to communicate better with people. Both of these parts, and the lessons contained within them, can help you become better liked by your peers, or even more liked if your peers already think you’re a superstar, and they can also help you deal with difficult people, difficult people at work, school, maybe at home, wherever.

So listen to the lesson a few times, pay attention to new English words you hear, and also, really think about what is being taught. If you need

to pause the audio to think about something, and apply what I talk about to your life, do that!

It’s important stuff!

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So the first part here is about how to deal with, how to handle people.

We all have to handle people on a daily basis. People we work with, go to school with, our families. And the purpose of this book, and with the lessons I am sharing here is to help you learn skills that will make it easier for you to deal with people in your life, make it easier for you to get along with people, and make it easier for them to get along with you.

And it’s good to have people on your side.

The first principle from the book is this: don’t criticize, condemn, or complain about others.

So criticize means to point out the faults of someone. Call attention to their problems. Condemn means to express your disapproval of someone in public; in front of other people. And to complain means to express your annoyance of things. You let everyone know what you’re annoyed about.

So don’t do those three things. And there is a reason for this, other than you just sounding like a mean person.

The famous psychologist B.F. Skinner proved that an animal rewarded for good behavior will learn much faster and retain what it learns far more effectively than an animal punished for bad behavior. Animals respond to being rewarded, not punished.

Since then, further studies have shown that this same principle applies to humans as well: Criticizing others doesn’t yield anything positive.

Positive change does not come from criticizing others.

The problem is that we aren’t able to make real changes by criticizing people, and we’re instead often met with resentment. It’s important to remember that when dealing with people, we’re dealing not with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion, who are motivated by pride and ego.

When someone criticizes you, what usually happens? You get pissed off, and defensive, right?

So what should you do instead? Let other people do whatever they want, even if their behavior negatively impacts us? No, but you can try this…

When you find yourself getting caught up in other people’s annoying habits or behaviors, think of a few reasons they might be acting the way they are. Why are they acting that way? Are they trying to make the best of a bad situation?

Say to yourself, “I should forgive them for this because …” and conclude this sentence with an open mind, with a justification for their behavior. You’ll be in a much better position to keep from criticizing.

Here’s an example. Let’s say you work with someone who never stops talking. They are constantly being loud around you, bothering you. Have you ever dealt with someone like this? Instead of blowing up on them,

blowing up, meaning yelling at them, losing your patience, say that sentence “I should forgive them for this because…” say that sentence in your head. Why should you forgive them? Maybe they talk all the time because they’re nervous. Or maybe they talk too much because they aren’t nervous at all.

So the day when someone else visits your office, let’s say they come to check out your office, you don’t have to worry about talking to this visitor because your chatty colleague will take care of all the talking. He’ll take care of the visitor by chatting with them. You can just put on some headphones and ignore them and do your own work.

So always look for the positive response.

How do we get people to do something we want? By simply telling them what to do? Well if you are a boss, a supervisor, you can tell people what to do, but you also might cause them to resent you if you simply order them around.

According to Dale Carnegie, the only way we can get a person to do anything is by giving them what they want. What do most people want?

Health, food, sleep, money, sex. And most of these wants are usually gratified, but there is one longing, almost as deep and ingrained as the desire for food or sleep, that is seldom gratified: the desire to be important.

We tend to take the people in our lives for granted so often that we neglect to let them know that we appreciate them. And when we feel appreciated by someone we want to help that person, correct? Think of the last time someone made you feel appreciated. Didn’t you want to give back to that person? And what it all comes down to is simply telling the person what you like about them, or what they are good at. Telling

people what they’re good at makes them feel great by the way. Try it out!

But we also want to avoid flattery. We must be careful to keep in mind the difference between appreciation and flattery; flattery seldom works with smart people, as it is shallow, selfish and insincere.

What is flattery? Flattery is giving other people praise, or positive feedback, with your own selfish intentions in mind. You say nice things about other people just so they will give you something in return. You could say that flattery comes from the tongue; appreciation comes from the heart.

You ever heard someone say this in a movie or show or something?

“Oh, don’t flatter me. Stop flattering me”

Day in and day out, we spend most of our time thinking about ourselves. But if we stop thinking about ourselves for a bit and start thinking about other people’s strengths, we wouldn’t have to resort to cheap flattery and we could offer honest, sincere appreciation.

With words of true appreciation, we have the power to completely change another person’s perception of themselves, improve their motivation, and be a driving force behind their success.

When you think about it like that, when we have nothing to lose and only positive outcomes to gain, why wouldn’t we offer genuine appreciation more often?

So try to show your appreciation for others. Don’t get crazy with it, and go around telling everyone how great they are, but if you genuinely feel like someone is good at something, and want to point that out to them, go for it.

Now the next part here is about how to influence others. We already talked about how to “win friends” and in the next part in the book, we learn techniques on how to influence people.

So when we do this morally we aren’t manipulating people.

Manipulating is trying to control someone or influence them cleverly or unfairly. We’re not doing that. We are influencing. Even when we have something good to bring to someone, positive intentions, we often have to influence them in order for them to accept what we’re trying to bring them.

Like me. I’m constantly trying to influence you and the way that you learn English. I believe learning a language can be more natural, more “smartly” integrated into your already busy life, but I also have to convince you of this. And I have to convince you through the lessons I teach. Or else it’s just wasted words.

So this next principle is absolutely key in influencing others.

To convince someone to do something, we have to frame it in terms of what motivates them. And in order to do that, we have to be able to see things from their point of view as well as our own.

If we can put aside our own thoughts, opinions, and wants, and truly see things from another person’s perspective, we will be able to convince them that it is in their best interest to do whatever it is we’re after.

How do we do this? Well try this…

Next time you want to persuade someone to do something, before you speak, pause and ask yourself, “How can I make this person want to do

what I want them to do? How can I frame this in terms of his or her wants? What are their intentions here, and how can I connect their intentions with what I am suggesting?”

To be honest, it’s not that easy, and it’s a skill. You have to know how to speak in terms of someone else’s intentions. And that’s why we have to be a great listener. And I’ll talk more about being a good listener in just a sec.

So in order to influence others we have to adapt their viewpoint. We have to know what they want in a situation and ask them to do something based on that.

For example, let’s say you’re trying to get someone to… I don’t know, to do the dishes. To wash the dishes. Maybe instead of just saying, “hey, I’m tired of doing the dishes. You do them!” You could come up with something like, “Hey, let’s get this apartment looking cleaner. Wouldn’t it be nice if it was cleaner? I’m going to vacuum, and clean the bathroom.

You want to help by doing the dishes?”

That could work. I’m sure we all want a clean apartment, right? I’ve actually used that trick before. It worked for me. It can be quite persuasive.

The next principle, this is a great one, is to stop arguing. Arguing sucks.

We see it all the time on Facebook these days, at least in the US.

Everyone wants to prove their point on Facebook, with zero interest in understanding the other person’s viewpoint.

We are often tempted to argue with others, especially when we are absolutely convinced that we’re right about something. But even if you are right, what does arguing do for you?

Why prove someone else wrong? Is that going to make the person like us? Why not just let him save face if we have nothing to gain from it but “feeling” superior?

Not to mention, nine times out of 10, arguing just results in the other person even more firmly convinced that he or she is right.

And this point from the author is great…according to Carnegie, it’s impossible to win an argument. I’ll say that again; it’s impossible to win an argument. If we lose the argument, well in theory lose; and if we win the argument, we have made the other person feel inferior, hurt his pride, and made him resent us. In other words, we still lose.

So what if we were able to avoid arguments all together?

Well, here are some ways to avoid an argument.

• First off, welcome the disagreement. If the other person is raising a point we haven’t considered, we can be thankful it’s brought to our attention. It may save us from making a mistake.

• Next our natural reaction to a disagreeable situation is to become defensive. We should keep calm and watch out for how we first react. Keep your emotions in check!

• Another tactic. Listen first. We can give our opponents a chance to talk without interrupting, and let them finish without resisting, defending, or debating. Easier said than done, but just keep your mouth shut.

• Another tip, look for areas of agreement. Surface those first, talk about what you could agree on first.

• Also, be honest. Look for areas where we can admit error and apologize for our mistakes. This helps reduce defensiveness.

• And lastly, postpone action to give both sides time to think through the problem. In the meantime, ask ourselves honestly if our opponents might be right, or even partly right.

A very practical strategy you might use; next time you find yourself in a disagreement with someone through email, don’t respond right away.

Instead, sleep on it. Reply the next day. Or wait at least an hour or two before you respond. You’d be surprised how much perspective you can gain by giving yourself a bit of time to think the situation over.

This has happened to me several times. Sometimes I have regretted responding to someone’s rude email instantly, letting my emotions dictate my response. And others times, after waiting an hour for my emotions to calm down, I have gained a totally different perspective. A smarter perspective.

Be patient. Also, know that we can really misinterpret how people are feeling by reading their text. Emails and text messages can be very deceiving. Don’t let your emotions dictate your response.

And the last principle I’m going to talk about here is this: if you want to be a great conversationalist, what does it take? And you, learning

English to fluency, what does it take to be great with conversations, even in English?

Is it speaking without any grammar mistakes? Is it using cool expressions and idioms, phrasal verbs all the time?

No, it’s the same in your own language. Being a good conversationalist requires being a good listener. Most of us aren’t good listeners.

Most of us are so concerned with what we are going to say next that we don’t truly listen when someone else is speaking. Yet, most people would prefer a good listener to a good talker, right?

Remember that the people we are talking to are a hundred times more interested in themselves and their own problems than they are in us and our problems.

So next time you have a conversation, pay attention to how much of the conversation is you talking vs. the other person talking. How much listening are you doing?

Aim to do 75% listening and 25% talking. That’s a good ratio.

As you practice this, pay attention to what causes you to jump in with more talking. Are you filling awkward silences? Do you tend to get carried away when you tell stories or share ideas? I tend to do this, get excited when I’m telling a story. I have even caught myself getting all worked up about something, and had to tell myself, “whoa, Kevin. Slow down. This person is looking at me like I’m on drugs!” So think of some ways you can encourage the other person to do more of the sharing, more of the talking.

So that’s it for today. These were some of the principles that stuck out to me the most. Now the rest of the book goes on about how to influence people. If you’re a leader, manager, or need to make people do what you want them to, like your employees, you’d find this part of the book very interesting.

It’s the “Influence People” part. You can find links to this book on my website. Go to feelgoodenglish.com/friends to see the show notes and find the links to the resources I used in the episode.

I hope the message you took from today is that people want to feel important, and if we make them feel important our relationships will expand. Work relationships and social relationships too.

Quick question for you. Do you really like this podcast? Well you could simplify your life by making Feel Good English your main English learning resource. With the Feel Good English Membership you get two complete lessons per month to help you reach that next level of English fluency. In each lesson, I take the podcast episode you’re hearing now and transform it into a powerful English learning tool. Become a more effective speaker, and a more confident speaker by becoming a Feel Good Premium Member. Go check out how the premium program works, for free, at www.feelgoodenglish.com/go

And that will do it for today. I’ll be back in a couple weeks with a new lesson. A new lesson on life, and English.

Until then, you have two weeks to really learn from this lesson deeply!

Deep like the ocean.

Talk soon, bye bye.