Who, not how.

What problem is persistent that you are trying to figure out?  Stop trying to figure it out and think of who knows how to do this already and get them to do it.

Who is great at what you are not?  Who loves to do what you hate?

You are team-builder-in-chief. 

Who?, not how.

What is most important now?

What is the number one most valuable thing you can be working on this week based on what is happening now?

Get in it and stay on it until it is done (solved, built).  Forget the rest.

Influence – Conclusion

Well, it’s been a great ride through this book I found in a forgotten stack in a crowded aisle in a Birmingham Alabama bookstore.  Here, we finish the last chapter on the Acquisition of Dominating Power.

The Shogun leaves us with advice on who you hang out with due to their influence on you.  He says not to hang out with commonplace minds because as we can influence them, they can also influence us by repetition of their inferior thoughts and weaken the quality of our power.

“A forceful man who wants to gain influence will not hang around small caliber minds.  He will know how to listen to them, then talk to them, perhaps convince them, but not for a moment will he submit himself to their commonplace thoughts…for having come among them in the spirit of an apostle…he will not allow himself to be affected by things beneath him.”

“So it is with all those who possess power: they maintain themselves only because they create disciples whose devotion serves to consolidate their work.”

“Dominating power is developed by creating a mental current between the master and those whom he is teaching, that wards off opposing currents.”

“Do not rub shoulders with a commonplace mind except with the intention of raising him to your own level, but do not think of entering into mental communion with such…”  

Master yourself.  Then seek to bring others up without letting them bring you down.

From the editor, “…every line of Yoritmo’s writing is an appeal to energy; an invitation to the practice of the cult of moral beauty, an encouragement to advance toward the better.”

Truth, Courage, Cheerfulness.

-Yoritomo Tashi, Japanese Shogun, 1186 A.D.

 

Influence – Last Chapter

The last chapter of this ancient writing about “Influence – How to Exert It” is “Acquisition of Dominating Power”.

(I feel the need to downplay the title of this chapter.  I don’t want to dominate anybody – at least not in the way we use the word domination today.  I want to lead, and I want to bring out the best in other people while accomplishing the noble goals of my organizations.  But after you read the notes, I think you will see I do not need to soften the word.  Judge for yourself.)

In this chapter, Yoritomo Tashi talks about winning people over slowly at first, with sympathetic thoughts – going to their level – getting small agreements first – not trying to overwhelm people with big ideas at first – getting their agreement – building rapport and trust – find out his likes and dislikes.  

Sympathy begets confidence and paves the way for beneficent suggestion.  Attract slowly, but retain surely…an attraction at first vague and ill-defined, later justified by a thousand reasons…

“…it is better for this power to assert itself less roughly to have more chances of permanency.”

He says that if you try to influence people significantly they are more likely to reject your idea later when they get away from you.

Get on the other person’s level at first and make a connection.  Give up any condescension.

“He who can master himself is already qualified to master others.”

Yoritomo explains that people with ambition and confidence in their own worth often have a weakness – they think they are self-sufficient and don’t need anyone else, and it comes off as arrogance – and arrogance hurts your chances of influencing others.  Ego is the enemy.

Arrogant people with big egos can’t influence others well.  Neither can victims, negative people, or people who are indifferent and apathetic.  They can hardly lead themselves.

“Cheerfulness is one of the requisite conditions for controlling others.  Not boisterous cheerfulness…but that inward peace which we define as cheerfulness and which is the mark of highly developed minds.”

“The art of happiness lies especially in the great wish to live. ” 

“We have unquestionable influence on our own destiny. Most men are, for the most part, the cause of their own problems and refuse to fix it – but curse and complain of their condition instead.”

We cannot repeat it enough –

“Real influence over others is only acquired at the price of complete mastery over himself.”

“This mastery should be the aim of the efforts of the man who wishes to possess this faculty and to make use of it for his own happiness and that of those who he comes in contact.”

 

 

Confidence – the mind/body connection

To close out this chapter on confidence, I love that the Shogun talks about the confidence you have with your own opinions regarding your health.  I read a statistic somewhere that people with positive attitudes who expect to be healthy for a long time live an average of seven years longer than average (if I can recall that properly).

He says, “There is a solidarity between mind and body which allows of the latter becoming an easy prey to affective conditions brought about by suffering…It would be idle to deny the connection between our physical ills and our mental suffering.”

(Earlier in the book, he talked about hypochondria.)

Now when he says suffering, let’s unpack that.  External conditions are there.  Stuff happens in the world – around us and to us.  We may experience physical or mental pain for a short time.  But suffering – that’s different.  Suffering is to dwell on the pain, to relive it, to make it part of our identity and think of it over and over – to become a victim.  That’s suffering.  It’s internal.  A choice.

“It is wiser sometimes to cure the mind before considering how to care for the body, for cure both at the same time.”

So there you go.  From 838 years ago – before modern medicine.

“Now it is that influence makes itself felt, triumphant, radiant; it stamps on the nerve centers an impression which reverberates through one’s whole being.  Considering that our troubles are due to pain, to anxiety, to hypochondria, we should cultivate confidence and cheerfulness.”

“If the sick are told with confidence they are getting better…then do…miracles have no other basis than this.”

Yoritomo says that some people who feel sick just need a purpose – then they’ll make themselves better to carry it out.  We know this.  When people retire and have no purpose, they leave us pretty quickly.  If they have a purpose, a someone or something, they live for it.  If that purpose goes away, they do too.

Let’s close this chapter on confidence.

“Let him who feels himself to be in the right and has confidence in himself rise up and proclaim this faith, so that the weak, the vacillating, and all those who suffer from doubt may flock around him to warm themselves at the genial blaze that issues from the fire of contentment of which his mind is full.”