Transcript

Arguing #1175 · From Chad

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You never win an argument. There's a story behind that.
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This is your daily message from Chamber 1175 to upgrade your
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mental game today by telling yourself a better story.
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Because the most important story you hear is the story you tell
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yourself. This message is dedicated to
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Ethel Caterham. Here's the upgrade.
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You may think holding your ground means arguing for it, but
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upgraded thinking knows you can decline the argument and hold
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your ground. Here's the story.
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Ethel Caterham was born in Hampshire village, England, on
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August 21st, 19 O 9. Edward the Seventh was on the
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throne, the great, great grandfather of the current king.
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She was the 7th of eight children.
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At 18, she took a job as a nanny for a British family living in
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India. She spent three years on the
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subcontinent. That's where she met Norman, an
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officer in the British Army. She buried him in 1976.
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Fifty years ago. That was the year I was born.
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She's buried both of her daughters.
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She has three grandchildren and five great grandchildren.
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And last Friday, she turned 117. She is the oldest living person
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on earth and the first person from Britain ever to reach that
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number. Reporters ask her the same
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question. They ask everybody who gets that
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far. What's the secret?
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Here's what she said. She's non confrontational.
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She never argues with anyone. She listens and then she does
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what she likes. Most people only hear the first
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half. Never argue.
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Sounds like being agreeable, like you're a doormat.
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Sounds like folding. It sounds like a woman who spent
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117 years going along to get along.
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That's not what she said. She said she never argues.
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She did not say she gives in. She listens to you all the way
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to the end. And then she does exactly what
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she was going to do. She didn't avoid the conflict,
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but she stopped needing to win. Dale Carnegie said it a
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different way. Quote, you can't win an
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argument. You can't because if you lose
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it, you'll lose it. And if you win it, you'll lose
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it. In quote, Rob Gilbert says it in
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one line. If you win an argument, you'll
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lose. A friend, Ethel Kaderum, worked
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that out sometime before the Second World War, and she's been
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running the experiment ever since.
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Here's what an argument cost you Your afternoon, your sleep, your
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blood pressure. Sometimes the relationship.
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And at the end of it, the other person believes exactly what
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they believed when you started. And here's what it cost you to
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listen all the way through and then go and do the right thing
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anyway. Nothing.
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It cost you nothing. There are two kinds of people in
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a disagreement, the one who needs to be agreed with and the
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one who just goes and does the right thing.
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I'm working on being the second one.
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Which of the two are you? The better story to tell
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yourself is I don't have to win the argument to hold my ground.
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You've been telling yourself that if you don't argue, you
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lose. You have that backwards.
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The argument is the loss. The quiet decision is the win.
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Somebody in your life is going to hold out the bait today.
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Don't take it. Listen all the way to the end
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and then go do what you know is right.
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Tell me a story of an argument you walked away from to from
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chadsmith@gmail.com. Since when a text and asked
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them, Have you ever won an argument and lost a friend?
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You can get a free copy of my book, The Most Powerful Story in
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the World by going to from chad.gumroad.com.
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The transcript of this message and hundreds of others are
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always available at www.fromchad.com.