How do you influence others?
First, you stop arguing with them.
Social media, email, in the comments section of a blog.
Telling them how banal and ignorant they are.
Religion, politics, philosophy.
Nothing you say matters. It all falls on deaf ears.
All of it.
Because the truth is this:
Unless there is a mutually caring relationship between you and the person you are talking to, they do not care what you have to say.
Want someone to listen to your point of view?
Build a relationship first.
“Nobody will listen to you unless they sense that you like them. If a person senses that you do not like them, that you do not approve of their existence, then your religion and your political ideas will all seem wrong to them. If they sense that you like them, then they are open to what you have to say.”
–Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz
