HOW TO GET PEOPLE TO LIKE YOU

HOW TO GET PEOPLE TO LIKE YOU



WE MIGHT AS well admit it, we want people to like us. You may hear someone say, "I don’t care whether people like me or not." But whenever you hear anyone say that, just put it down as a fact that he is not really telling the truth.


The psychologist, William James, said, "One of the deepest drives of human nature is the desire to be appreciated." The longing to be liked, to be held in esteem, to be a sought-after person, is fundamental in us.


A poll was taken among some high-school students on the question, "What do you most desire?" By overwhelming majority the students voted that they wanted to be popular. The same urge is in older people as well. Indeed it is doubtful if anybody ever outlives the desire to be well thought of, to be highly regarded, or to have the affection of his associates.


To be master of the art of popularity, be artless. Strive deliberately after popularity and the chances are you will never attain it. But become one of those rare personalities about whom people say, "He certainly has something," and you can be certain you are on the way to having people like you.


I must warn you, however, that despite your attainments in popularity you will never get everybody to like you. There is a curious quirk in human nature whereby some people just naturally won’t like you. A quatrain inscribed on a wall at Oxford says:


"I do not love thee. Dr. Fell,

The reason why I cannot tell;"

"But this alone I know full well,

I do not love thee, Dr. Fell."


That verse is very subtle. The author did not like Dr. Fell. He didn’t know why but he just knew he didn’t like him. It was most likely an unreasonable dislike, for undoubtedly Dr. Fell was a very nice person. Perhaps if the author had known him better he would have liked him, but poor Dr. Fell never did become popular with the author of those lines. It may have been due simply to a lack of rapprochement, that baffling mechanism by which we either do or do not "click" with certain people.


Even the Bible recognizes this unhappy fact about human nature, for it says, "If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men." (Ro 12:18) The Bible is a very realistic book and it knows people, their infinite possibilities as well as their imperfections. The Bible advised the disciples that if they went into a village and after trying their best to get along with people still couldn’t do so, they were to shake off the very dust of the village from their feet—"And whosoever will not receive you, when ye go out of that city, shake off the very dust from your
feet for a testimony against them." (Lu 9:5) This is all by way of saying that you will be wise if you do not let it too seriously affect you if you do not achieve perfect popularity with everyone.


However, there are certain formulas and procedures which, if followed faithfully, can make you a person whom other people like. You can enjoy satisfactory personal relationships even if you are a "difficult" person or by nature shy and retiring, even unsocial. You can make of yourself one who enjoys easy, normal, natural, and pleasing relationships with others.


I cannot urge you too strongly to consider the importance of this subject and to give time and attention to its mastery, for you will never be fully happy or successful until you do. Failure in this capacity will adversely affect you psychologically. To be liked is of profounder importance than mere ego satisfaction. As necessary as that is to your success in life, normal and satisfactory personal relations are even more important.


The feeling of not being wanted or needed is one of the most devastating of all human reactions. To the degree to which you are sought after or needed by other people will you become a fully-released person. The "lone wolf," the isolated personality, the retiring individual, these people suffer a misery which is difficult to describe. In self-defense they retire ever further within themselves.


Their ingrowing, introverted nature is denied the normal development which the outgoing, self-giving person experiences. Unless the personality is drawn out of itself and can be of value to someone, it may sicken and die. The feeling of not being wanted or needed produces frustration, aging, illness. If you have a feeling of uselessness, if nobody needs or wants you, you really ought to do something about it. It is not only a pathetic way to live but is serious psychologically. Those who deal with the problems of human nature constantly encounter this problem and its unfortunate results.


For example, at a Rotary Club luncheon in a certain city two physicians were at my table: one an elderly man who had been retired for several years, the other the most popular young doctor in town. The young doctor, looking frazzled, dashed in late and slumped down with a weary sigh. "If only the telephone would stop ringing," he complained. "I can’t get anywhere because people call me all the time. I wish I could put a silencer on that telephone."


The old doctor spoke up quietly, "I know how you feel, Jim," he said. "I used to feel that way myself, but be thankful the telephone does ring. Be glad people want and need you." Then he added pathetically, "Nobody ever calls me any more. I would like to hear the telephone ring again. Nobody wants me and nobody needs me. I’m a has-been."


All of us at the table who sometimes feel a bit worn by numerous activities did a lot of thinking as we listened to the old doctor.


A middle-aged woman complained to me that she didn’t feel well. She was dissatisfied and unhappy. "My husband is dead, the children are grown, and there is no place for me any more. People treat me kindly, but they are indifferent. Everyone has his own interest and nobody needs me—nobody wants me. I wonder, could that be a reason I do not feel well?" she asked. Indeed that could very likely be an important reason. In a business office the founder, of the firm just past seventy was walking restlessly and aimlessly around. He talked with me while his son, present head of the business, whom I had come to see, was on the telephone. The older man said
gloomily, "Why don’t you write a book on how to retire? That is what I need to know. I thought it was going to be wonderful to give up the burdens of the job," he continued, "but now I find that nobody is interested in anything I say. I used to think I was a popular fellow, but now when I come down here and sit around the office everyone says hello, then they forget me. I might as well stay away altogether for all they care. My son is running the business and he is doing a good
job of it, but," he concluded pathetically, "I’d like to think they needed me a little bit."


These people are suffering one of the most pathetic and unhappy experienc’es in this life. Their basic desire is to be sought after and this desire is not being satisfied. They want people to appreciate them. The personality longs for esteem. But it isn’t only in retirement that this situation develops.


A girl of twenty-one told me that she had been unwanted ever since birth. Someone had given her the notion she was an unwanted child. This serious idea had sunk into her subconscious, giving her a profound sense of inferiority and self-depreciation. It made her shy and backward, causing her to retreat into herself. She became lonely and unhappy and was, in fact, an underdeveloped personality. The cure for her condition was to revamp her life spiritually, especially her thinking, which process in time made her a well-liked person by setting her personality free of herself. Countless other people, not particularly victims of deep, unconscious psychological conflicts, have never mastered the knack of being popular. They try hard enough.
They even go to extremes, often acting in a manner they do not really enjoy, but which they employ only because of their intense desire to have people like them. Everywhere today we see people putting on an act because of their inordinate desire for popularity in the superficial sense in which the word is often used in modern society.


The fact is that popularity can be attained by a few simple, natural, normal, and easily mastered techniques. Practice them diligently and you can become a well-liked person.


First, become a comfortable person, that is, one with whom people can associate without a sense of strain. Of some persons it is said, "You can never quite get next to him." There is always a barrier that you can’t get over. A comfortable person is easy-going and natural. He has a pleasant, kindly, genial way about him. Being with him is not unlike wearing an old hat or an old pair of shoes, or an easy old coat. A stiff, reserved, unresponsive individual never meshes into the group. He is always just a bit out of it. You never quite know how to take him or how he will react. You just aren’t easy-like with him.


Some young people were talking about a seventeen-year-old boy whom they liked very much. Of him they said, "He is good company. He is a good sport. He is easy to be with." It is very important to cultivate the quality of being natural. Usually that sort of individual is large-souled. Little people who are much concerned about how you treat them, who are jealous of their place or position, who meticulously stand on their prerogatives, are stiff and easily offended.


A man who is an outstanding example of these truths is James A. Parley, former Postmaster General of the United States.

I met Mr. Parley for the first time a number of years ago. Months later I met him in a large crowd of people and he called me by name. Being human, I never forgot that, and it is one reason I have always liked Mr. Parley.


An interesting incident illustrates the secret of this man, who is an expert in how to get people to like him. I was to speak in Philadelphia at a book-and-author luncheon along with Mr. parley and two other authors. I did not actually witness the scene I am about to describe, as I was late in arriving, but my publisher did. The speakers at this luncheon were walking along the hotel corridor together when they passed a colored maid standing by a cart loaded with sheets, towels, and other equipment with which she was servicing the rooms. She was paying no attention to
this group of people as they turned aside to avoid her cart. Mr. Parley walked up to her, put out his hand, and said, "Hello, there. How are you? I’m Jim Parley. What’s your name? Glad to see you."


My publisher looked back at her as the group passed down the hall. The girl’s mouth was wide with astonishment and her face broke into a beautiful smile. It was an excellent example of how an unegotistical, comfortable, outgoing person is successful in personal relationships.


A university psychology department conducted an analysis of the personality traits by which people are liked or disliked. One hundred traits were scientifically analyzed and it was reported that one must have forty-six favorable traits in order to be liked. It is rather discouraging to realize that you must have so large a number of characteristics to be popular.


Christianity, however, teaches that one basic trait will go far toward getting people to like you. That trait is a sincere and forthright interest in and love for people. Perhaps if you cultivate this basic trait, other traits will naturally develop.


If you are not the comfortable type of person, I suggest that you make a study of your personality with a view toward eliminating conscious and unconscious elements of strain which may exist. Do not assume that the reason other people do not like you is because of something wrong with them. Assume, instead, that the trouble is within yourself and determine to find and eliminate it. This will require scrupulous honesty and it may also involve the assistance of personality experts. The so-called "scratchy" elements in your personality may be qualities which you have taken on through the years. Perhaps they have been assumed defensively, or they may be the
result of attitudes developed in your younger days. Regardless of origin they can be eliminated by a scientific study of yourself and by your recognition of the necessity for change followed by a process of personality rehabilitation.


A man came to our clinic at the church seeking help in the problem of personal relationships. About thirty-five years of age, he was the type of person whom you would certainly look at twice if not three times. He was splendidly proportioned and impressive. Superficially regarding him it was surprising that people should not like him. But he proceeded to outline an unhappy and continuous set of circumstances and instances to illustrate his dismal failure in human relations.


"I do my best," he explained. "I have tried to put into practice the rules I have been taught about getting along with people, but get nowhere with the effort. People just don’t like me and what is more I am aware of it."


After talking with him it was not difficult to understand the trouble. There was in his manner of speech a persistently critical attitude thinly veiled but nonetheless apparent. He had an unattractive manner of pursing his lips which indicated a kind of primness or reproof for everybody, as if he felt just a bit superior and disdainful toward other people. In fact there was about him a noticeable attitude of superiority. He was very rigid, with no flexibility of personality.


"Isn’t there some way to change myself so that people will like me?" he demanded.


"Isn’t there some way I can stop unconsciously rubbing people the wrong way?"


The young man was decidedly self-centered and egotistical. The person he really liked was himself. Every statement, every attitude was unconsciously measured in terms of how it reacted on himself. We had to teach him to love other people and to forget himself, which was of course a complete reversal of his development. It was vital, however, to the solution of his problem. I found that this young man was irritable with people and he picked on them in his own mind, though no outward conflicts with other persons developed. Inwardly he was trying to make everybody over to suit himself. Unconsciously people realized this, though perhaps they did
not define the trouble. Barriers were erected in their minds toward him.


Since he was being unpleasant to people in his thoughts, it followed that he was less than warm in his personal attitudes. He was polite enough and managed not to be boorish and unpleasant, but people unconsciously felt coolness in him, so gave him the "brush-off" of which he complained. The reason they did so was because in his mind he had "brushed them off." He liked himself too well, and to build up his self-esteem he disliked others. He was suffering from self-love, a chief cure for which is the practice of love for others.


He was bewildered and baffled when we outlined his difficulty. But he was sincere and meant business. He practiced the suggested techniques for developing love of others in place of self-love. It required some fundamental changes to accomplish this, but he succeeded in doing so.


One method suggested was that at night before retiring he make a list of persons he had met during the day, as, for example, the bus driver or the newsboy. He was to picture mentally each person whose name appeared on the list, and as he brought each face up before him he was to think a kindly thought about that person, Then he was to pray for each one. He was to pray around his little world. Each of us has his own world, people with whom we do business or are associated in one way or another. For example, the first person outside the family whom this young man saw in the morning was the elevator man in his apartment house. He had not been in the habit of saying anything to him beyond a perfunctory and growled good morning. Now he took the time to have a little chat with the elevator man. He asked him about his family and about his interests. He found that the elevator operator had an interesting point of view and some experiences which were quite fascinating. He began to see new values in a person who to him previously had been a mechanical robot, who ran the elevator up and down to his floor. He actually began to like the elevator operator and in turn the elevator man, who had formed a pretty accurate opinion of the young man, began to revise his views. They established a friendly relationship. So the process went from person to person.


One day the young man said to me, "I have found that the world is filled with interesting people and I never realized it before."


When he made that observation he proved that he was losing himself, and when he did that, as the Bible so wisely tells us, he found himself. In losing himself he found himself and lots of new friends besides. People learned to like him.


Learning to pray for people was important in his rehabilitation, for when you pray for anyone you tend to modify your personal attitude toward him. You lift the relationship thereby to a higher level. The best in the other person begins to flow out toward you as your best flows toward him. In the meeting of the best in each a higher unity of understanding is established.


Essentially, getting people to like you is merely the other side of liking them. One of the most popular men who lived in the United States within the lifetime of most of us was the late Will Rogers. One of the most ‘characteristic statements he ever made was, "I never met a man I didn’t like." That may have been a slight exaggeration, but I am sure Will Rogers did not regard it as such. That is the way he felt about people, and as a result people opened up to him like flowers to the sun.


Sometimes the weak objection is offered that it is difficult to like some people. Granted, some people are by nature more likable than others, nevertheless a serious attempt to know any individual will reveal qualities within him that are admirable, even lovable.


A man had the problem of conquering feelings of irritation toward persons with whom he was associated. For some people he had a very profound dislike. They irritated him intensely, but he conquered these feelings simply by making an exhaustive list of everything he could possibly admire about eacli person who annoyed him. Daily he attempted to add to this list. He was surprised to discover that people whom he thought he did not like at all proved to have many pleasing qualities. In fact, he was at a loss to understand how he ever disliked them after becoming conscious of their attractive qualities. Of course, while he was making these discoveries about them, they, in turn, were finding new and likable qualities in him.


If you have gone through life up to this point without having established satisfactory human relationships, do not assume that you cannot change, but it will be necessary to take very definite steps toward solving the problem. You can change and become a popular person, well liked and esteemed, if you are willing to make the effort. May I remind you as I remind myself that one of the greatest tragedies of the average person is the tendency to spend our whole lives perfecting our faults? We develop a fault and we nurse it and cultivate it, and never change it. Like a
needle caught in the groove of a defective record on a victrola, it plays the same old tune over and over again. You must lift the needle out of the groove, then you will have disharmony no longer, but harmony. Don’t spend more of your life perfecting faults in human relations. Spend the rest of your life perfecting your great capacities for friendliness, for personal relations are vitally important to successful living.


Still another important factor in getting people to like you is to practice building up the ego of other persons. The ego, being the essence of our personalities, is sacred to us. There is in every person a normal desire for a feeling of self-importance. If I deflate your ego and therefore your self-importance, though you may laugh it off, I have deeply wounded you. In fact, I have shown disrespect for you, and while you may exercise charity toward me, even so, unless you are finely developed spiritually, you are not going to like me very well. On the other hand, if I elevate your self-respect and contribute to your feeling of personal worth, I am showing high esteem for your ego. I have helped you to be your best self and therefore you appreciate what I have done. You are grateful to me. You like me for it.


The deflation of another person’s ego may be mildly done perhaps, but one can never evaluate how deep the depreciation goes from even a remark or an attitude that is not meant to be unkind. Here is the way in which ego is often deflated. The next time you are in a group and someone tells a joke and everybody laughs with appreciation and pleasure except yourself, when the laughter has died down say patronizingly, "Well, that is a pretty good joke all right. I saw it in a magazine last month."


Of course it will make you feel quite important to let others know of your superior knowledge, but how does it make the man feel who told the joke? You have robbed him of the satisfaction of having told a good story. You have crowded him out of his brief moment in the lime-light and usurped attention to yourself. In fact you have taken the wind out of his sails and left him flat and deflated. He enjoyed his momentary little prominence, but you took it away from him. Nobody in that group is going to like you for what you did, and certainly not the man whose story you
spoiled. Whether you like the joke or not, let the storyteller and the others enjoy it. Remember he may be a little bit embarrassed and shy. It would have done him good to have received a response. Don’t deflate people. Build them up and they will love you for it.


While writing this chapter I enjoyed a visit with an old and dear friend. Dr. John W. Hoffman, one-time president of Ohio Wesleyan University. As I sat with him in Pasadena, I realized once again how much this great personality has always meant to me. Many years ago, on the night before my graduation from college, we had a banquet at our fraternity house at which he was present and made a talk. After dinner he asked me to walk with him to the president’s house.


It was a beautiful moonlight night in June. All the way up the hill he talked to me about life and its opportunities and told me what a thrill awaited me as I entered the outside world. As we stood in front of his house he put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Norman, I have always liked you. I believe in you. You have great possibilities. I shall always be proud of you. You have got it in you." Of course he overestimated me, but that is infinitely better than to depreciate a person.
It being June and the night before graduation and excitement being in my heart, my sentiments were pretty close to the surface, and I said good night to him through a mist of tears which I tried to conceal. It has been many years since then, but I never forgot what he said nor how he said it on that June night long ago. I have loved him all across the years.


I discovered that he made similar statements to many other boys and girls long since become men and women and they, too, love him because he respected their personalities and was constantly building them up. Through the years he would write to me and to others congratulating us on some little thing that we had done, and a word of approval from him meant much. Little wonder this honored guide of youth has the affection and devotion of thousands of people whose lives he touched.


Whomever you help to build up and become a better, stronger, finer person will give you his undying devotion. Build up as many people as you can. Do it unselfishly. Do it because you like them and because you see possibilities in them. Do this and you will never lack for friends. You will always be well thought of. Build people up and love them genuinely. Do them good and their esteem and affection will flow back toward you.


The basic principles of getting people to like you need no prolonged and labored emphasis, for they are very simple and easily illustrate their own truth. However, I list ten practical rules for getting the esteem of others. The soundness of these principles has been demonstrated innumerable times. Practice them until you become expert at them and people will like you.


1. Learn to remember names. Inefficiency at this point may indicate that your interest is not sufficiently outgoing. A man’s name is very important to him.


2. Be a comfortable person so there is no strain in being with you—be an old-shoe, old-hat kind of individual. Be homey.


3. Acquire the quality of relaxed easy-goingness so that things do not ruffle you.


4. Don’t be egotistical. Guard against giving the impression that you know it all. Be natural and normally humble.


5. Cultivate the quality of being interesting so that people will want to be with you and get something of stimulating value from their association with you.


6. Study to get the "scratchy" elements out of your personality, even those of which you may be unconscious.


7. Sincerely attempt to heal, on an honest Christian basis, every misunderstanding you have had or now have. Drain off your grievances.


8. Practice liking people until you learn to do so genuinely. Remember what Will Rogers said, "I never met a man I didn’t like." Try to be that way.


9. Never miss an opportunity to say a word of congratulation upon anyone’s achievement, or express sympathy in sorrow or disappointment.


10. Get a deep spiritual experience so that you have something to give people that will help them to be stronger and meet life more effectively. Give strength to people and they will give affection to you.



(Source: Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale)