HOW TO ARGUE AND WIN EVERY TIME

Winning a raise by asking: I will discuss how to argue with the boss in a later chapter. But how do you ask for a raise? I say, simply ask for it. "Mr. Jones, I've been wanting to talk to you. But I've been afraid to. This morning it finally came to me that you'd want to hear me out because you're a fair man."

Fear Is our ally. Fear confirms us. Fear Is energy that is convertible to power—our power. Fear is friend and foe alike, adversary and ally. Fear is painful. I hate its frequent companionship. Yet it challenges me. It energizes my senses. Like the sparrow, watching, watching, in the presence of fear I become alert.

Concession is a proper method both to establish credibility, as we have already seen, and to structure a successful argument successfully. I always concede at the outset whatever is true even if it is detrimental to my argument. Be up-front with the facts that confront you. A concession coming from your mouth is not nearly as hurtful as an exposure

When does one attack? Sun Tzu, in The Art of War, declares, "Invincibility lies in the defense; the possibility of victory in the attack. One defends when his strength is inadequate; he attacks when it is abundant.

Revealing our honest desires, asking for what we want, makes it difficult for the Other to refuse us.

The parent-child mirror: In the days of my early parenthood, I had not learned that a relationship is always a mirror—that children cannot respect us if we do not respect them—that if we use power against our children our children will use power, sometimes in perverted forms, in return. I had not yet learned that if we treat our children as friends

The art of arguing is the art of living. We argue because we must, because life demands it, because, at last, life itself is but an argument.

The selection of a theme aids us in understanding the nucleus of the argument and creates a mental image more moving than all the words we so carefully choose to describe it.

The problem is, of course, that there are sides. The problem is that there is argument. The cure is for the parent to get on the side of the child, to argue for the child, and to end, forever, the war. Otherwise the parents' argument is but the further presentation of power, and the child's argument is not argument, but rebellion against power. Pow