Apologize & Thank Profusely – Lesson I've learned in Japan
August 6th, 2009 § 2 Comments
In the book, “How to Win Friends & Influence People“, Dale Carnegie teaches a few concepts that we should keep in mind in order to have more fulfilling relationships. I loved reading this book because it spells out all the things we already know that people don’t like, but it also goes a step further to tell us exactly how to behave if we want to improve our relationships. If you read “The Snowball” about Warren Buffett you might have heard about the book as one of the most influential books in Buffett’s life as a young adult.
I learned two things from this book that I have seen the Japanese do naturally. It seems to me that in Japan it’s just part of their culture. These are:
- Quickly apologize for anything that has gone wrong, even if they were not directly involved.
- Thank profusely for anything good you receive, no matter how small.
The Japanese have a word, “sumimasen”, that means “thank you” and “I’m sorry” simultaneously! As one of the safest countries in the world, there is definitely something for us to learn from the Japanese behavior.
Thanking someone genuinely has a more lasting effect than most people would imagine. Try it out yourself, as you walk through your day make it a point to thank anyone you can find a reason to thank for. While thanking that person, make smile genuinely and really enjoy the process. Being grateful, and expressing it out loud, has great rewards you may now have realize at first!
Also, always apologize even when in doubt! I have never seen someone angry because they received an apology from someone they didn’t expect one. On the other hand, many people don’t think something was ‘bad enough’ to require an apology, while the other person is burning up inside withholding a lot of anger against you. If you apologize genuinely, chances are you will save a few key friendships/relationships throughout the years. Definitely worth a try.
Try it for a few days/weeks, see what you find out! Have you been doing this already? Have an opinion? Share what you think!
If you found this post useful and things others might enjoy it, I would appreciate it if you submit it to StumbleUpon, Digg, Retweet it, or share it in any way! ~
Avoiding unnecessary grudges – Activate your full brainpower to cool down.
August 5th, 2009 § 9 Comments
The German army won’t let a soldier tile a complaint and, make a criticism immediately after a thing has happened. He has to sleep on his grudge first and cool off. If he files his complaint immediately, he is punished. By the eternals, there ought to be a law like that in civil life too – a law for whining parents and nagging wives and scolding employers and the whole obnoxious parade of fault finders.
written by Dale Carnegie in his book How to Win Friends and Influence People
Now here is one piece of advice you may have heard before. In fact, you probably gave the same advice to dozens of friends as well, but still, when a discussion arises you find yourself in the heat of an argument before having had a chance to cool down your thoughts and be reasonable about the situation. When we disagree with someone else’s opinion, we want our point of view to recognized and often we want everyone to accept that we have the most reasonable point of view. You defend your argument with passion, and start getting roiled up when you find resistance. Typically at the end of the discussion one person finally gives up the argument and the other gets the bragging rights of having won the argument. An hour later everything goes back to normal and all you both got out of the argument was hurt feelings and a not-so-healthy relationship. Was it worth it?
If you, on the other hand, take the time to cool off after the initial emotional rush you are most like able to share your point of view without the need to deny the other person’s argument. It is easier in this state to learn from each other, and by this cooperative discussion you can forge new friendships instead of breaking current ones.
This is a difficult lesson to put in practice. Ideally, we want to be able to not have an emotionally charged take on an issue by the time we discuss it with someone else. When our emotions are present, the amygdala reacts without really giving you enough time and space to think clearly.
How can we avoid this innate reaction?
- Take time to cool off and wait until we have total control over your thoughts.
- If you need a quick way to cool off, challenge your brain to solve problems that require you to use your brain! This will force you to activate your entire brain and take power off the amygdala, which is reacting emotionally. Try it! Next time you’re focused on an emotional issue, take out that math or chem book and solve a problem, that’s doubly productive!
- Take a nap or a full night’s sleep before thinking about the issue again. Don’t stay up thinking about it. If you feel you can’t help it, occupy your thoughts by repeating a mantra or a phrase such as “I’m sleepy”. If you are in bed telling yourself over and over that you are sleepy, chances are you’ll fall asleep. If you focus on your problems, however, you will probably stay awake for many hours.
Next time you start feeling emotions while discussing a topic ask yourself, is it time to take a break and wait until the emotions dissipate? It’s an exercise of self-control to actually stop your impulses.
Agree? Disagree? Please leave a comment and let everyone know what you think! If possible, comment about your experiences, it definitely helps to hear from other people. Thanks for reading!
Image Attribution: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fofurasfelinas/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Donna Karan's words
March 26th, 2009 § Leave a Comment
I don’t think there’s anything more important than spirituality. I don’t think it’s about a religion. It’s about caring and sharing and realizing that it’s not about us independently but about what we can do to help in life and make a diference for other people.
Also -
Being romantic can be simple — it’s those quite times. When you can just shut it down and really come together as one — that’s romantic.
Let These Families Stay Together
February 20th, 2009 § Leave a Comment
Not Every MIT Student Wants to Save the World
December 13th, 2007 § Leave a Comment
Milena wrote a few days ago about how she felt that the only thing she needed right now to compliment her life is a hot boy. She has good grades, she parties, she eats well and even goes shopping. As an 18 years old girl she’s only missing that special person that will give her some love at the end of the day. I was happy to hear that she was doing so well, but a prospective MIT applicant wasn’t. He wrote her the following:
“Well, you applied and got into MIT…as a prospective student, it’s hard for me to see someone who has been accepted have that kind of mentality. If the epitome of success is good friends, good looks, good grades, a good guy and being very well off, living off of a comfortable income and indulging in luxuries, then what is being at MIT all about?”
Let’s call this prospective applicant Y (because X was part of my last blog entry). I just have one thing to say to Y, I think you’ve been overwhelmed by MIT promotion material. Seriously, close your eyes and shake it off for a little while. MIT has ~4000 undergrads, most of them between the ages ~18-22. Do you really think that all these people are constantly thinking about how to save the world? No.
MIT students party, drink, enjoy their lives in many ways. This is, of course, when taking a break from doing homework. What kind of homework? The one that consumes their lives during the days (and nights). The solutions to the problem sets that MIT undergrads work on may be good training, but they are not going to save the world or do anything amazing for society just yet.
The things that Milena, and most MIT undergrads, want right now, are just normal things. They do not want to throw away the ‘college experience’ so they can save the world… because even if they attempted, chances are against them in terms of being able to successfully complete their undergrad degree without burning out. In order to keep themselves sane, MIT students just don’t try to save the world and get good grades at the same time. It would just consume their lives.
I’m not saying that every MIT student wants what Milena wants. Some of them are just looking forward to Friday night so they can do something they call “LAN Parties” where they sit in a lounge and play starcraft all night. There’s also others that just want to watch a movie, or at least catch up on what has been happening in the world. MIT students barely talk about world issues, because they don’t know enough about what’s going on out there. Most of the people I talked to three days after the California fires began, didn’t even know that it was burning down there!
If you’re a prospective applicant, you can come get your high quality education, and afterwards use it for everyone’s good. But don’t think that after 50 hours of school work in a week you’ll be able to call home and say, I’m making the world a better place… cause you odds are you are not. Not just yet. There’s time for everything, and current undergrads are just expecting that graduates are making the world a better place. Some on campus may be involved in great projects, but that doesn’t take away from the very basic wants that they have of just.. comfort and a good relationship.
I hope my realistic point of view doesn’t go unappreciated.
-Omar
