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Step 60: The cherry story that shows that success is in the middle
The 88 rungs of happy people
In this chapter of «The 88 Steps of Happy People» I tell you a trick to find the middle ground between giving and receiving
When you go in your car in summer and you feel a bit hot, you don’t usually put a little cold air on, but you directly turn the air conditioning to maximum, since that is exactly what you want the most, but the problem is that that jet of cold air on your skin usually ends up having negative health consequences. As a result of this, there are people who decide to blast heat rather than turn it on. But does the fact that you do not have to put it to maximum mean that the right thing to do is not turn it on? Do not. Success is in the middle. And just as that middle point is applicable to the issue of air conditioning, it is also applicable to the previous Step: communicating our worth without going into any of the extremes, that is, neither keeping everything to the point of staying silent, nor selling ourselves so much that in place of worth, pride is perceived. However, that middle point is not easy to find, and in fact finding it becomes an art, the art of diplomacy. This Step will offer you a trick to start mastering it. It is based on the simile of cherries.
Tamara, the mother of Luis, an only eight-year-old son, has been thinking for months that she would like to find a way to teach him to share more with others and be less selfish. One day, Luis brings his friend Raúl home to spend the afternoon, and she offers them a plate of cherries, their favorite dessert, with the intention of using them as an exercise so that Luis does not eat them all. To do this, before serving it, call Luis aside and give him these instructions privately: «This is what you are going to do. Take a large empty plate and place a glass on it, also empty. The glass represents everything that you are going to eat. And the plate represents everything your friend Raúl is going to eat. And the rule is the following: for each cherry that you put inside the glass, that is, to be eaten by you, you will have to put another outside the glass, that is, to be eaten by it. You will not be able to put any inside that has not been compensated with another outside ».
And what happened to the rule? It worked? Of course. Luis thought it reasonable, so Luis was happy, his friend was happy, and his mother was happy too. Why? Because the world loves any formula in which you compensate each “cherry” that you distribute in your favor with another that you distribute against yourself. And how does the cherry theory apply to the art of humility? Very easy. Every time you want to throw a flower, make a concession. The cherry inside, the flower, will be everything you say in your favor, and the cherry outside, the concession, will be everything you say against you. Even a criticism will be seen as a cherry on the inside, while self-criticism will be seen as a concession, that is, a cherry on the outside (humility). As long as your interlocutor sees that each cherry inside is offset by one outside, it will be fine with him.
Examples:
There are a thousand things I’m terrible at (cherry out), but this is not one of them (cherry in).
It’s funny how much it costs my boss not to criticize or judge people (cherry inside), but the truth is that just as he has his areas of improvement, I have mine (cherry outside).
I admit that I didn’t think they were going to give it to me (cherry outside), but I burst into tears when I saw that I had gotten the lead role (cherry inside).
She has a lot of work to do in her Inner Success (cherry inside), but me too, like everyone else (cherry outside).
Any of the previous sentences would be without diplomatic art if you gave exactly the same information but without making any of the concessions, that is, “all the cherries for me.”
@Angel
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