How People Treat You Depends on You
You can make people like you or hate you; respect you or criticize you; support you or chop you down.
You can also get people to trust you, support you and help you succeed.
The way you do this is outlined by L. Ron Hubbard in The Way to Happiness.
“Try to Treat Others as You Would Want Them to Treat You”
“Just figure out how you would want people to treat you.
“You would possibly, first of all, want to be treated justly: you wouldn’t want people lying about you or falsely or harshly condemning you. Right?
“You would probably want your friends and companions to be loyal: you would not want them to betray you.”
“You would want people to be fair in their dealings with you.
“You would want them to be honest with you and not cheat you. Correct?
“You might want to be treated kindly and without cruelty.”
“You would probably prefer to be given respect, not insulted.
“Possibly you would want others to be polite to you and also treat you with dignity. Right?
“You might like people to admire you.
“When you did something for them you would possibly like people to appreciate you. Correct?
“You would probably like others to be friendly toward you.
“From some you might want love.
“And above all, you wouldn’t want these people just pretending these things, you would want them to be quite real in their attitudes and to be acting with integrity*.”
“It requires no great stretch of imagination for one to recognize that if he were to be treated that way regularly by others around him, his life would exist on a pleasant level.” — L. Ron Hubbard from The Way to Happiness (*integrity: honesty, truthfulness)
Three Examples
1. Clyde is a young hot-shot programmer who can improve any high-tech system. He makes websites run faster, business systems more secure and innovates brilliant apps. He has a huge ego and feels very important. Unfortunately, he hates his boss.
Sheila was an original hot-shot programmer and was creating apps before Clyde was out of diapers. She has seen incredible transformations in all programming languages and applications. Even though she is in her 60’s she still loves high-tech work and is very good at it.
When Clyde first started working for her, he was a great addition to her team. But then he decided he should be the star. He needed to be praised for his brilliance. He demanded higher pay, fewer hours and a fancy title. Sheila put up with Clyde for a while, but then got sick of his attitude and she fired him.
Clyde was a bit annoyed, but expected the world would greet him with loving arms. He soon found a great job. Yet after a few months, he was fired again because of his ego. He tried a few more positions until he decided he was too good for everyone and he hit the bottle and watched TV all day. His pay went to $0.00 and his girlfriend dumped him.
Clyde decided to change his ways and learned about this power to control people. He realized to get the respect he wanted, he needed to start respecting others. He sent a respectful apology note to Sheila and others he had treated so poorly. Sheila was hopeful and offered him a lower-paying job as a trial which he immediately accepted.
He then disciplined himself to make everyone else important and not be disrespectful in anyway. He did nothing to promote himself or his accomplishments, but focused on praising others. It worked! Within three months, Sheila recommended Clyde to replace her and ensured he received a huge salary.
2. Roxanne was so obsessed with money she would do anything to get it and keep it. She felt it was proper to lie and cheat, when needed, as long as her savings increased. She was secretive about her money, even with her husbands.
She found it easy to get strangers buy things for her despite being married. As soon as she found a new wealthy candidate to marry, she would divorce her current husband. She loved money more than being honest with her husbands.
Her third husband turned out to be more dishonest than her. He lied to her, stole all her money and vanished.
Roxanne was now broke, unhappy, mean and alone. Most people, especially men, distrusted her immediately. Her life was in ruins. She read The Way to Happiness.
She had a blinding realization that she was the source of her problems. How she could only be happy if she became honest. Over the next year, she apologized to her ex-husbands and others she had cheated.
She realized being an open book of honesty not only made her much happier, it helped her financial condition. She worked hard to always keep her agreements and people soon trusted her.
3. You decide that life sucks as most people are mean to you. They seem to constantly make small critical comments or ignore you or give you disapproving glances. You just want them to treat you with kindness.
So, you go out of your way to be kind yourself. “Can I get you some coffee?” “I can drive you to the store if you like.” “Nice shoes!”
Next thing you know, nearly everyone is treating you with kindness. Even people you do not know are nicer to you. You decide life is pretty good.
Three Steps to Get People to Treat You the Way You Want to Be Treated
1. Make a list of each person you wish to influence: spouse, children, parents, employees, bosses, co-workers, colleagues and so on.
2. Next to each name, write how you want him or her to treat you.
3. Then write how you should treat that person, in that same way.
In some cases, you might be amazed at how quickly this works. In other cases, you may need to persist for a long time, so don’t give up!