Any two people can have wildly different attitudestoward the same set of experiences. However, whentwo people react to the same experience with the sameattitude, they share a powerful natural bond. Attitudeshave the tendency to be infectious, and because theyare rooted in emotional interpretation of experiences,they can be distorted and shaped; they can be woundup or wound down.
What happens when people lose control and becomeangry? They look belligerent (body language), theirvoice tone is harsh and they use menacing words. Theycan be very scary to be around. From the point of viewof making people like you, or even getting willing cooperation,we call this a Really Useless Attitude. How oftenhave you seen infuriated parents berating their childrenfor knocking over the bananas at the supermarket? Orbored, uninterested shop assistants? Or cranky, impatientdoctors? They are all putting out useless attitudes.
37how to make people like youI'm not saying whether this is right or wrong; I'm justpointing out that from a communications standpoint itdoesn't deliver the message very well. Assuming theyhave a message. And that's often the point. Useless attitudestend to come from people who don't know whatthey really want from their communication.
Remember, the "K" in "KFC" stands for "Knowwhat you want." If you don't know what youwant, there's no message to deliver and no basisfor connecting with other people.
Most people think in terms of what they don't wantas opposed to what they do want, and their attitudesreflect this. "I don't want my boss yelling at me anymore"comes with a whole different attitude than "1 wantmy boss's job" or "I want to be promoted." Similarly, "I'msick of selling neckties all day long" sends a completelydifferent attitude and set of signals to your imaginationthan does "I want to run a charter fishing boat in HoneyHarbor."Your imagination is the strongest force that youpossess—stronger than willpower. Think about it. Yourimagination projects sensory experiences in your mindthrough the language of pictures, sounds, feelings,smells and tastes. Your imagination distorts reality. Itcan work for you or against you. It can make you feel38terrific or miserable. So the better the information youcan feed into your imagination, the better it can organizeyour thinking and your attitudes and ultimately your life.