Yoritomo talks about being influenced in the moment and then later after we have had a chance to think about it, the idea doesn’t stick in our minds. Think about being swept up in a situation, and getting excited, only to later be left with little after you measure the idea against your existing beliefs. The Shogun blames that on the “authors of the influence” – they were missing something.
Here are five qualities to inspire confidence –
- Sincerity with ourselves.
- Hatred of injustice.
- Certainty in our decisions.
- Absolute truth in our predictions.
- Confidence in our own merits.
Sincerity with ourselves means that we believe in something so much and share in the good effect so deeply that we can’t help but share it with others, and to not do so would seem to us “a dereliction of our duties”.
“Like a refreshing stream, the words of him who “belives” spread into the minds of his hearers and quench their thirst of moral support and lofty convictions…like moths attracted by the light, they will all flock around hum who is for them the light and knows how to envelop them with its life-giving rays.”
People remember your words of confidence and faith.
Next is hatred of injustice. If you have lapses of judgment or justice, you lose your influence. “Strict justice alone should direct his words and preside over his acts.”
Here Yoritomo gives some great advice. If you are confused and don’t know which course is just, wait – do not act…until you know for sure. “It is more honorable to confess ignorance than to risk committing an injustice.” Don’t risk your reputation by an assertion that is not borne out by facts.
Here’s a wonderful statement that gets to the heart of confidence and influence-
“In order to implant confidence in others, it is necessary to possess it.”
(Hey salesman! Hey everybody! The first one you’ve got to convince is yourself!)
In these last two paragraphs for today, the Shogun talks about those who experience the confidence of the leader, the receivers of the confidence who lack resolution on the issue and respond to those with confidence about it.
“Then it is those to whom thinking for themselves is a labor, those whose power of resistance are fitful and ill-balanced, those whom moral idleness rises up against all individual initiative, will lift their heads and feel a new strength relying on the feeling of confidence which they will experience first in the master and afterward in themselves.”
“The healing balm of faith will by its good qualities impregnate them in the gentlest fashion and. despising the faint-heartedness which hitherto had marked their most trivial resolutions, they will advance fearlessly toward the goal which has become plainly visible to their sight.”
“It is a well-known fact that an imagined support serves as well as the support itself.”
I say, confidence is one of the most important qualities to have if we are to influence others.
What do you think?
Heat moves from more to less, and the greater the heat, the faster it moves.
Think about the key idea you are trying to put across to others. How confident are you?