1. Turn Their Mistakes into Your Profit

People are forever making mistakes in your favor. Get to know what they are. When a man becomes angry at you he is telling you that he fears your strength. When a person sullenly withdraws from you he is informing you how much you really mean to him.

Always go beyond the act to find the real motive (which is usually not the same motive he informs you of). Never take another's explanation of his behavior at face value; he may be trying to save face. Always use another's mistakes toward you as a tool for winning him over or for building your personal strength.

2. Encourage People to Express Their Secret Feelings

People are far more extreme in emotional make-up than appears on the surface. They are capable of far more affection than they dare to show and are also able to act with more hostility than they want others to know about. They behave with outward moderation because they want you to think they are in control of themselves.

Everyone wants desperately to express both their positive and negative urges. They hesitate to let themselves go because they think they may open themselves to criticism or because they fear it may be socially unacceptable or because they want to maintain a certain pose.

You become a persuasive personality as you permit others to release both their secret affections and their hostilities. They deeply appreciate someone who can hear of these secret emotions without being shocked by them.

3. "What A Power There Is In Innocence!" (Moore)

There is nothing like innocence and naturalness for persuading people to do what you want them to do. If you don't think so, just watch what happens when some wide-eyed and curly-topped little girl snuggles up to dad and asks him for something. Dad doesn't stand a chance.

A simple and direct request for whatever you want has a disarming charm all its own. People are so tired of guile and trickery that it comes as a cool breeze on a hot day when they meet someone whose persuasion comes from an innocent personality.

4. Be Realistic Rather Than Idealistic About People

Don't idealize people. Most of us do this to a wider extent than we may think. We lose the power to understand other people when we see them according to the way we need or want to see them. If a person has a deep need for people to be kindly toward him, he will tend to expect others to be kindly; that is what he will look for. But if the facts eventually contradict the ideal, then that person will become disappointed and perhaps bitter.

This does not mean that you have to go to the other extreme of suspecting others of unkind motives. It means that you do not draw your personal picture of another as you would like him to be, but rather you let him draw his own picture of himself in his own due time. Let other people be whatever they really are and you will not be disappointed in them. You are disappointed only when the real doesn't match the ideal.

5. Find Something Right in Everything That Seems Wrong

You can find something of value in everything that happens to you. This is one of those truisms that everyone likes to believe but has trouble with when it comes to putting it into practice.

The chief problem which most people have - it may be your problem also - is that they resist a negative event instead of trying to understand it.

Never fight a disappointment which people may bring into your life, rather, look out for something which you can use for your growth. The enrichment is always there. But you have to make up your mind that you will find it. Do so and you will.

Learn these principles and you will go a long way to winning over the people you meet.