Some people are naturally blessed with the powers of persuasion. Maybe you’ve seen them in action. They ask and they receive, and they make it look effortless, painless—even fun. For the rest of us, trying to persuade someone can be a maddening experience, and one that is definitely not fun. Maybe we’re trying to make a sale, recruit a partner or get the support we need to pursue a new idea—whatever our goal, and no matter our tactics, the other person stays resolute in “no.” We can push, beg and even manipulate, but he won’t budge. It soon becomes clear that if we keep pushing we might make things worse.
In those moments, if we can step back and stop pushing, the situation is more likely to work out in our favor—perhaps with a result perhaps better than the one we sought. It seems counterintuitive, but something happens when we stop trying to force an outcome. And if we understand why this happens, we can use it to get the results we want.
This is not a new idea. In the 14th century Japan it was shibui, while in 16th century Italy, it was called sprezzatura. Chinese Daoists call it wu-wei, and Hindu philosophers know it as ahamkara.
In the North America, we think of it simply as cool. And if we remember anything we learned in junior high, it was that life was infinitely better for the people who were cool.
It’s All About Attachment
In New Age circles, people sometimes speak of a concept called attachment—which means when we’re caught up in something, we get attached to it. That’s when we lose sight of the big picture. We get tunnel vision on the outcome we want, so we don’t notice all that’s happening
around us. We are blind to what’s really going on, and we are equally incapable of seeing the situation from another person’s perspective.
This is when the Law of Attraction kicks in, according to New Age Thought. When we’re attached to the outcome, we’re afraid that the thing we want won’t happen. We become attached to that negative thought pattern and then, under the Law of Attraction, we begin attracting more of that negativity. In other words, we begin to imagine the person saying no to us, and eventually he really does say “no.”
In the Western paradigm—inherited from the thinking of Dr. Sigmund Freud—we end up clinging to our egos. This ego-centered way of related to the world (and to ourselves) traps us in behaviour patterns that don’t meet our needs but which, maddeningly, are hard to see in the moment.
Effortlessness + Effectiveness = Success
All of this happens because we’re merely repeating old patterns. We’re like a car that’s stuck in the mud. The harder we try, the more we spin our wheels and make our situation worse.
Over years of repetition, we have unintentionally trained ourselves to react this way. Just like an athlete who uses repetition to instill muscle memory, we’ve trained our mind to immediately apply that approach. When we become frustrated or desperate, we instinctively revert to these ways. It’s an unconscious, knee-jerk response. If we want to avoid it, we have to consciously change how we react.
Early Chinese philosophers believed the ideal state of being was when a person was not actively thinking and was not exerting effort. They believed that this is the state in which the person is most able to achieve his goals.
But retraining yourself so that you can get to that state most definitely requires conscious effort.
The first step is simply to be aware of your patterns. Catch yourself in that moment; try to talk yourself out of pushing harder. And it’s a paradox, but trying too hard to stop trying too hard is not going to help you break the habit. Mencius, a Chinese philosopher in the fourth century B.C., advocated an approach similar to gardening: Do the planting and monitor the progress, but mostly just sit back and let the plants grow.
Mencius’ approach isn’t much different from what New Age thought leaders call “the mindset of the witness.” They argue that, when we find ourselves caught up in these frustrating ineffective patterns, we should try to think like a witness. Because a witness is watching the event, not participating and not invested in the outcome.
Consider the detective shows you’ve watched on TV: A witness comes in and impassively tells the detective what she saw. She wasn’t harmed by the crime and wasn’t involved in the action. She simply watched it all go down. Taking on the mindset of the witness means not getting emotionally engaged in what is taking place.
As the witness, we notice what is happening but have no expectations about what will happen. We may intend a certain result, but we are not attached to it.
Still not convinced? Think about insomnia. The harder you try to fall asleep, the less likely it is to happen. Stop trying and…zzz.
Non-attachment feels unnatural to us in the West. It’s a hard practice to follow. From birth, we’re trained to desire, act and expect positive results, and we’re taught that the harder we work, the greater our reward. It feels strange to let go of an outcome in order to succeed. It’s especially difficult to practice in the moment, when we are trying to persuade someone and our stress levels begin to rise.
But, by consciously practicing a more passive approach, we can establish new patterns and get our cars unstuck from the mud. We can train ourselves to let go. Whether we call it sprezzatura, shibui, wu-wei, ahamkara or just cool, we’ll be able to remove the tension from the interaction, tension that is keeping the other person from saying “yes.” With that tension gone, we may find ourselves getting a bigger “yes” than the one we imagined.
AUTHOR: Beverly Benwick
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