© Elliot Essman 2005. All rights reserved.

These pages contain the complete 2005 revised text of Building Yourself, public speaking trainer Elliot Essman's guide to living the successful life.

Elliot Essman Public Speaking Training
Building Yourself Table of Contents
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• Better shun the bait than struggle in the snare. John Dryden (1631–1700)

No, not quite. Part of you making society is the concept of reality. You do want to expand the envelope and make sure the restrictions of society don't condition you to be average. But to do this you must appreciate reality. You must become diplomatic. You'll assume nothing society tells you, but you'll respect the fact that it has certain power. You'll never shy from asking, but you'll do the asking very politely.

Being diplomatic means you have nothing to prove to society. How can you prove something to an abstraction that really doesn't exist? If you order a computer by mail and it has a defective part, you want to get the new part in the mail as soon as possible. You do this by being firm but polite. You might have to speak to someone's immediate superior. Screaming and shouting doesn't prove anything. All the other mail order and Internet sellers who wronged you before cannot hear your shouts. You only make yourself tense.

Diplomacy means in essence that you remain calm and effective when the outside world displeases you. It means that if you want to get something done, you go out and get it done. If you become consumed by helpless anger or righteous indignation, you won't have the time or creativity to get your problems solved.

Let's go back to that defective computer you ordered. You tried to call the company's toll-free help line but it was so swamped you couldn't get a straight answer for three days. You're faced with a number of choices at this point. You could return the computer, get your money back, and write an angry letter to the consumer affairs commissioner. That might make you feel good, but it leaves you with no computer. And it really won't teach a big company a lesson. The real solution is to be positive, be creative. One of my cousins did just this. She called the computer company's sales staff instead of the service staff. Embarrassed at their customer's frustrating problem, the sales people cut red tape and sent my cousin her new part by next day air express.

Diplomacy is the key to dealing with society in a calm, mature way. There may be times when you really must explode at clerical incompetence, dishonesty and other negative human habits. But if this happens too often, you need to have a long talk with yourself and investigate what you're trying to prove. As we'll see in the next chapter on personal morality, your inner integrity is what ultimately carries you through.