"How can
anyone with the brain
of a cockroach make such a
stupid statement?"
So
rang out the scorn of a killer talk show host on a television
station in Cleveland. When I was on tour in his city, John Kelly
quoted Leo Derocher who said just the opposite --
"Nice guys finish last."
Kelly also quoted from books like
Winning Through Intimidation,
Looking Out For Number
ONE
and possibly, Succeeding
With A Swift Kick To the Groin.
Read a New Introduction by the Author....for pastors and
teachers, for managers and parents, for attorneys and salespersons
who seek to get things done by persuading others.
John Kelly had done
everything except put a
dunce-cap on my head as he seated me on a stool before the cameras and, despite his complete ignorance of what I was teaching,
proceeded to ridicule my leadership seminar for managers, pastors,
teachers and other professionals. He held my book up for the
audience of some three hundred people -- with tens of thousands
more watching from their homes, and asked;
Who can believe
this drivel? Everyone on earth knows that a nice guy or gal hasn’t
a choice in this lousy, rotten world. You gotta be tough and mean
to be successful. Everywhere! How many agree with me that this
stuff is nonsense? Raise your hands.
VIEW CONTENTS of Nice Guys Finish First
That was
premature since no one there had any idea what I was teaching in
the seminar, but they voted as Kelly asked them to. Many had
preconceived notions and about two hundred people in the studio
agreed with John. He then asked,
How many agree with --
he didn’t actually say it --
this dunce on the stool,
but his non-verbal communication made his meaning quite clear.
John was all geared up to take me apart for writing something he
didn’t understand. He pointed to the overwhelming number of hands
in the air and said; Take
it from there, Doc. Let’s see how you handle this rejection. He sat down in
the audience, as all three cameras zoomed in close -- to watch me
sweat, I suppose. Because I knew what my program was all about and
he didn’t -- I countered by agreeing with the host. I said;
If you consider
a nice guy or gal a doormat, a wimp, a marshmallow -- I agree with
you completely. Such a person doesn’t have a chance to succeed in
a tough, competitive world in which many other persons are
striving for the same things we want for ourselves. The
tough-minded guys and gals will run over the wimps in a very short
time. I, however don’t think of the doormats of the world as truly
nice guys and gals. I see nice persons as competent and
intelligent persons who understand the nature of influence,
cooperation and persuasion power -- as those who;
And
that,
I said to the group, is my definition of a nice
guy or gal, of
an authentic, emotionally honest parent, teacher, manager, pastor,
military officer or what have you!
VIEW CONTENTS of Nice Guys Finish First
I folded my arms and sat back
on the stool -- waiting, for I had said all I intended to in
defense of
NICE GUYS AND GALS.
So, I waited and waited -- for John to rouse up from his
confusion. I could almost hear the gears whirring in his head as
first one camera and then another zoomed in on me and then on to
John and panned the audience before coming back to me and John
-- for almost a minute. And that, is an eternity of dead time on
television. The camera operators were getting frantic when John
finally stood, shook his head to clear his thoughts and muttered
right on the air;
Well, I’ll be damned! I
never thought of nice guys that way.
Most people don’t but we then had a great time on his show. I
convinced him my approach is by far the best way to succeeding
throughout life, rather than by clawing and screaming, trying to
defeat everyone else, destroying the relationships that create
friend- ship and love, clogging your arteries and corroding the
plumbing that keeps you alive -- with bile and acids boiling
through your vascular and digestive systems.
John had the people vote again and this time all but two men of
the three hundred or so in the audience voted that nice guys and
gals did indeed have a greater chance at success if they followed
my view of sound relationships. They immediately saw the wisdom in
my approach and I trust that you also shall understand it that
way! The next Sunday, after I’d returned to Minneapolis, I drew my
pastor aside, told him my tale and joked;
If you had my
percentage of conversions, we’d have the largest congregation in
the country!
IN THIS COURSE YOU WILL
LEARN HOW TO:
-
Identify the personality
patterns that motivate yourself and other women and men.
-
Consistently get inside the
thought processes of the people you want to influence.
-
Persuade other persons to tell you
everything you want to know about anything.
-
Identify the step by step
progression of a successful interpersonal relationship.
-
Master several powerful conflict
avoidance and conflict control techniques.
-
Use a refusal to cooperate as a
request for additional information.
-
Climb the cooperation ladder
to consistent interpersonal success.
-
Finalize agreements so there are
fewer brush fires for you to fight.
MAKING YOUR
LIFE COUNT
This course is about people and about
succeeding or failing in life, since some degree of success and
failure are the
only real options that are open to
us. It is written with the knowledge that neither power nor
pleasure exists in a vacuum. Virtually everything good we do in
life requires the cooperation of people in different ways. And
every one of them has his or her own agenda that is personally
important.
Therefore, you
will have to overpower, out-skill, deceive, or persuade others
before society will consistently allow you to share in the
marbles, money, passionate lovers, prestige or promotions you
want. Only in this way can you make your life count for something
worthwhile.
Of
course, few of the people who are succeeding are willing to share
their hard-earned knowledge with you. Mentors are hard to find and
they always want much in return for any help they offer.
The purpose of this course is to teach you how to predict the
attitudes and activities of the men and women you must influence
every day in order to keep your life successful. It also shows you
how to influence their choices in ways they approve by using sound
methods of personal effectiveness. You can do these things by
learning and using powerful techniques developed by some very good
psychiatrists and psychologists. These methods are unknown to most
people, although professional therapists, consultants and social
workers have been using them for decades with much success.
Most people struggle through life the
best way they can, succeeding once in a while, but
more often failing because
they never learned how to consistently make good things happen
when and where they are needed. They simply blunder along --
accepting whatever the luck of the draw offers them daily, never
really taking charge of their relationships in a mutually
rewarding manner that keeps people cooperating with them.
Many
persons try to succeed by using the values, attitudes,
expectations, and skills they chanced on in childhood.
Unfortunately, in this age of relentless change, when power and
authority are shared by more and more people, to depend on what
you picked up as a youngster is a poor way to shape your life into
a successful affair. In our conventional behavioral patterns many
mistakes have been handed down from generation to generation. At
home you were probably socialized not to ask embarrassing
questions of your elders. At school you were expected to memorize
the correct answers. And if you are like most people, you are still
waiting for someone to ask the right questions so you can show
what a good student you were. Unfortunately for your welfare, no
one is ever going to ask them, since most of the answers you
learned in school are no longer appropriate. Yet -- millions of
men and women who would never imagine crossing the country by
covered wagon instead of jet aircraft, who would never take some
medicine man's snake-oil cure, try to succeed in life by using
methods that were outdated a century ago. And then can’t
understand why they aren't among the successful achievers.
VIEW CONTENTS of Nice Guys Finish First
Today, men and women
are having to cope with complex events that are affecting
their lives in many crucial ways. Medicine, personal behavior,
education, entertainment, sexual customs, engineering and business
methods are all changing more rapidly than at any time in history.
We no sooner get comfortable than life rolls over once again,
forcing us to learn an entirely new set of attitudes, activities
and relationships!
And yet, not
one of the changes sweeping over us like Pacific waves crashing
onto a reef, has such critical implications when making one’s life
count for something satisfying as the attitudes that people now
hold toward power and control.
The John
Wayne or John Rambo mystique (Tell the jerks what to do!) doesn't
motivate competent persons any more. If it ever did! For example,
since the disasters caused by fighting the wrong people, in the
wrong place, at the wrong time -- during America’s shameful wars
against poor, dark-skinned Third World nations such as Vietnam,
Libya, Panama, Granada, Lebanon, Somalia and others, many
perceptive women and men have lost faith in our institutions. We
see Congress and state Legislatures consistently selling out to
the highest bidder, business organizations disposing of the
faithful employees who do their best work at the drop of a point
on Wall Street, the criminal justice system with trigger-happy
cops and politically ambitious district attorneys regularly
convicting and legally murdering unfortunate, mostly poor,
minority men who couldn’t possibly have committed the crimes for
which they are being executed. The very flexible morality of
primitive politicians, greedy business executives, powerful
governmental officials and existentially enraged citizens who feel
the execution of any minority man whether guilty or not is a good
day’s work -- is a weak reed upon which to lean.
Every person with a smattering of
intelligence realizes he or she is out there on the bubble --
pretty much alone -- on his or her own, much of the time. Few of
us without the support of government or great wealth have the
power needed to demand cooperation from others. Not long ago a
middle-aged local realtor told me of an experience he had with his
youthful secretary. Dan said that Dianne was a hardworking,
high-spirited employee who was competent and loyal enough to
become his administrative assistant. He said, she reminded him of
the flippant young secretary in the T V series THE PRACTICE. But
he began to notice, to his middle age displeasure, that she was
dressing more and more casually, as if she were going to a picnic
rather than to a business operation. So, he called her into his
office and tactfully asked her to dress according to his code --
the long accepted business code set by such giants as I B M,
General Motors and Honeywell. The young woman sat silently as he
spoke, but when he finished, she stood up and said quite
pointedly;
Who needs this crap in an
informal business such as this?
Then she walked out of his office,
returned to her desk, and continued to work harder and smarter for
his small company than any assistant he had ever employed. As he
related the story, Dan sighed deeply and said there was little he
could do about her impertinence, unless he wanted to cut off his
nose to spite his face. He could protect his ego against an
outspoken girl -- could fire her of course, and really teach her a
lesson, forcing her to take unemployment pay, a month or two of
subsidized vacation, and get a job with a company that would not
be so stuffy about the way she dressed. But, he would be the real
loser. He would spend a month trying to find a suitable
replacement, another three or four months trying to help the
newcomer learn the job, and another six months blaming himself for
letting his ego cost him a year's efficiency in his office. He
kept his mouth shut and retained a great assistant -- for he
lacked the power to make her comply with his requirements. Indeed
life does go on and we must adapt, must cope with reality in order
to succeed, even if doing so makes us suspect that the world is
going to hell in a handcart, because humans hate change
inordinately and yearn to freeze life as it was when we were
learning it. Even when doing so costs us a bundle. Many people do
just that because personal prestige is more important to
themselves than performance or profits, but it quickly leads to
dysfunctional families, schools, companies, churches and
communities.
Click the
PAYPAL
button
to get your copy of the NICE GUYS FINISH FIRST
ebook
course today,
and begin using I win -- you win powerful persuasion and reinforcement techniques.
The Fulfillment Forum
3414 wt 46th Street
Minneapolis, MN 55410
The DeVille Institute of Logotheraphy
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