It was the last day of my freshman year at Regis High School in New York City. I was gleefully tossing my books in the trash, exorcising academics from my soul, as I geared up for a summer by the ocean in Long Beach.
Standing a few lockers down was another student; a senior named Rich, who watched me with interest. When he saw me launch a copy of Warriner’s English Grammar and Composition into the bin, he walked over and plucked it out. He smiled at me and put it into his bag. “This is a really useful book,” he said.
Many of you will remember your Warriner’s, that small, dense, red book with sentence diagrams and detailed rules on compound modifiers, gerunds and infinitives. My first thought was to suddenly want the book back. Not because I valued it any more, but because someone had indicated it had value. Maybe I should keep it? In that moment, though, I had no legitimacy to recover the book. I had clearly shown my lack of interest; it was in the trash; and Rich was three years older and much bigger than me!
My second thought was, “Rich is going to Harvard. He’s obviously a smart guy. Maybe I should have thought about that book before I threw it away.”
The mistake I made was to act on an emotional impulse (“throw it all away!”) instead of reasoning. Had I paused and thought for a moment, I would have realized the potential value of the book. My aspiration was to be a writer, so keeping a copy of Warriner’s, basically the “bible” of proper grammar, would have been a good idea.
That moment has obviously stayed with me through the years as it taught me the importance of a valuable discipline: pause and reflect. My reflex has always been a quick response. Yelling begat yelling. But over time, I have improved my ability to wait before responding. I cannot say I have mastered it, and don’t know that I ever will, but I get better with every attempt.
In sales and negotiation, this is a critical discipline to develop in order to be more effective in deal making. Deals are done with people, not companies. Learning to be more agile in how you handle your own emotions will give you greater ability to influence the emotions of others. An emotional outburst from the other party does not warrant an equal or greater outburst. It warrants silence. And thought. What caused that? Did we say or do something? After a pause, ask. “That was not the reaction we were expecting. It sounds like you’re really frustrated with us right now. Can you help me understand why so we can solve that problem?”
The next time someone does something, like cutting you off in traffic, or you are about to do something impulsive, like throw away a grammar book, pause. What’s the right thing to do here? Often, it’s nothing. And by not acting, you may save yourself time, a relationship, or the cost of buying a new copy of Warriner’s.
