I have often wondered if you could solve your personal differences with people by honestly complimenting them, and by making their day better.
Think of a time when you were unable to get a person or worse yet a group of people the stop being defensive or angry towards you for a perception that they have of you based on your job title, or affiliation. These type of situations I find very difficult to deal with because the people who you are trying to talk to have formed an opinion of me before having even talked to me.
If I approach the situation with a smile and with an honest compliment, will that soften the mood? I would like to think that it would. Hatred and anger are such awful emotions to deal with. I usually feel a personal attack when confronted with this type of emotion, and I would rather ignore them and run for the hills than find something to compliment them on. It could be that by ignoring and running I could be perceived by the other person in a way that is counter-productive. The scene that I would like to learn from, is when the man is confronted by the company he works for and they informed him that they were unhappy with the way he was performing his duties. For myself, if I were in that situation my first thought would be to feel personally attacked. I want to learn the skill required to react the way the protagonist does and see if it could truly make that much of a difference.
Has anyone ever tried this, or perhaps you have learned to apply this skill in your personal life? Let me know how it works for you.
p.s. this movie is worth every second of the 17 minutes!
