Part 3, Chapter 10: An appeal that everybody likes

Principle: Appeal to the noble motives

This chapter starts with an example of Jesse James. James was an American outlaw, who robbed trains and banks, but then gave the money to neighboring farmers so they could pay their mortgage. Basically Robin Hood.

He was clearly a criminal, but probably regarded himself as an idealist.

All of us, being idealists at heart, like to think of motives that sound good.

If we want to change people, we need to appeal to their nobler motives.

Similar to past chapters, a reminder to come at people calmly and from their point of view.

An example would be of a customer service person who needs to collect bill payments over the phone.
We need to remember that they’re just the person on the phone, working for someone else. They have no personal vendetta against you. They don’t want to be yelled at. They are just trying to do their job.

Think of the times you probably call Comcast/Xfinity after they raised your monthly payment. If you calmly say, ‘Hey I have another offer from xyz at $__ and I’m going to switch.” In our experience, they rather keep you as a customer and they’ll lower or match your rate.
Try doing that by yelling at them and tell me how it goes.

Anger=nothing
Coming calmly/listening = usually works out

–Angela