Part 3, Chapter 1: How to win people to your way of thinking

Principle 1: You can’t win an argument

The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.

9 out or of 10 times, an argument ends with each person more firmly convinced that he or she is right. Arguments always lose. They are a lose-lose situation.

How?

• If you win the argument, you lose because the other person feels like garbage
• If you lose, well then you lose

Overall this seems a little wack – so you’re never supposed to argue? But what the author means, is it’s more about realizing who you’re talking to. If someone is so firm in their belief, you probably can’t change their mind, so why bother?

This comes back to the feeling of people wanting to feel important or have a sense of authority. If you come at someone telling them they’re wrong, they will defend themselves and their thoughts, no matter what. Nobody likes admitting their wrong, especially when someone points it out first.

Especially in today’s times, it seems that everyone just wants to yell or be an angry instagram keyboard warrior. Everyone is talking but no one is listening.

The author ends the chapter with some advice on how to keep a disagreement from becoming an argument:

• Welcome the disagreement
• Distrust your first instinctive impression
• Control your temper
• Listen first
• Look for areas of agreement
• Be honest
• Promise to think over the other persons ideas
• Thank them for their interest
• Postpone action to give both sides time to think
• Think, could my opponents be right?

– Angela