Whether we are talking about business or about our professional and personal lives, by changing some of the things we say or adding certain words to our conversations, we can increase our success considerably.
Words are just words, or sounds, but from a neuroscientific point of view we can bring about big changes in other people’s brains. We can increase our power of influence and can even make people feel “obliged” to go along with what we want.
1. The word “because…”
People will be more willing to help us if we give them a “because”.
I don’t remember where I read about an experiment that showed the power of “because”. In it, a person who needed to make some photocopies approached strangers at their premises, using two kinds of request:
Request 1: Excuse me, I need to make 5 copies. Could I use your photocopier?
Result: 60% of the time, the answer was yes.
Request 2: Excuse me, I need to make 5 copies. Could I use your photocopier? Because I’m in a rush.
Result: 94% of the time, the answer was yes.
The word “because” gives a reason, and that makes people more willing to help us. That is what makes it magic.
Exactly the same thing happened in a test with emails.
After writing the email, one of the following lines was added at the end:
Email 1: Please reply as soon as you can.
Email 2: Please reply, because I need an answer as soon as possible.
Result: “Email 2” got twice as many replies.
So if you want to succeed at anything, be specific in what you say. Most people will go along with you simply because you asked and gave them a reason, even if the reason doesn’t make much sense.
Start putting your goals in this form: “I need… because…”
2. Dale Carnegie’s advice
The famous book How to Win Friends and Influence People may be almost 100 years old, but that doesn’t change the fact that what it says is still a fundamental basis of influence. As the title says, it will help you win friends and influence people, which in turn will help you succeed in business or in your profession.
Some of the lessons the book teaches include:
Give honest, sincere appreciation of people without falling into flattery.
It reminds us that a person’s name, said in conversation, is the sweetest sound that person can hear. Pair the name with an honest comment in which you show appreciation for one of that person’s qualities.
“Daniel, it’s been a long time since I talked to someone as cultured as you. I’ve really enjoyed this conversation, and I’d like to see you tomorrow to explain what our service involves, because I’m sure it will help you in your business.”
That paragraph is magic in terms of influence, because:
- We say his name.
- We praise one of his qualities (we show admiration for him).
- We make a request that comes straight with a “because”.
- And on top of that, in that “because” we include something of value for him (it will help you).
3. Words to avoid
Dale Carnegie himself, in How to Win Friends and Influence People, agrees with more recent studies on how people perceive certain comments. So we should avoid them at all costs.
Never criticise, judge or complain.
Criticism is the weapon of the weak and the unhappy, because someone who is happy with their own life doesn’t criticise other people’s lives or waste time doing so.
Complaining is an unnecessary waste of energy that leads you to poverty, and not only financial poverty but mental poverty too.
Judging is one of the worst enemies of the power of influence.
See also: This toxic behaviour is draining your mental energy
Never tell someone “You’re wrong”, especially when they are wrong. And spare yourself the phrases that reveal a “poverty of argument”, such as “it’s obvious you have no idea about…”
To be honest, every time I have written about a subject I think I know quite a lot about and received a comment along the lines of “it’s obvious you have no idea…”, I have found a person with very weak arguments who is firmly convinced of certain beliefs that many experts have shown to be wrong.
So if you are tempted to say “You’re wrong” or “You have no idea”, take a deep breath and change it to “That’s a very respectable way of looking at it, although in my opinion…”
And if the person really is talking nonsense, just say: “That’s one way of looking at it, Daniel, but have you considered that it might also be…”
Remember that a person convinced against their will is still of the same opinion, and one more enemy.
4. Be grateful
When we talk about being grateful for what we have, it can sound as if we were joining some kind of religion, but the truth is that, even from a neuroscientific point of view, gratitude has proved to be a powerful way of looking after our minds and achieving more in life.
Being grateful is a way of focusing on the positive rather than the negative. Positive thinking has real power from a scientific point of view.
Tony Robbins often recommends (though many people may think it’s nonsense) that as soon as you wake up in the morning, you spend the first few minutes of the day thinking about everything you are grateful for.
Everything you have is a gift. The first gift is waking up alive (not everyone wakes up again after going to sleep).
The road to success is to start building with what you have, and what you have is always enough to begin with. Only a grateful person knows that. You have to be happy with what you have, because if you believe that to be happy you need to achieve something you lack, you will discover, once you achieve that “something”, that the happiness didn’t last long.
Be grateful for what you have and grateful for the people around you. This will change your attitude and change other people’s attitude towards you, creating an immediate synergy.
See also: 11 things to be grateful for that make a good starting point
5. Love
And no, I haven’t gone soft. Love is the key to success, and I learned that after turning 30.
If you want to succeed at anything, if you want a fuller life, even if you want to be loved, you must…
Learn to love yourself before anything or anyone else. You are what is most valuable.
Learn to love the solutions to problems, because you will have plenty of problems throughout your life.
Learn to love what you do. It’s fine to look for your passion, but sometimes, if we can’t see a way to make a living from what we love, we have to learn to love what we are doing.
Learn to love life, with its problems and injustices. You only have one life, so you had better love it.
What is happiness, really? Happiness is what you have while you insist on searching for it. What you need to be happy, you already have. The rest is simply prospering so as not to fall into unhappiness.
See also: 9 simple yet extraordinary things to say to people every day
Featured image: Loughborough University Library, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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