Thought For The Day

~Brandon James Scott Scholl

I was thinking about what’s been going on lately and there were some things that I have noticed over the years that Capstone made me fully realize that I want to mention. There are so many people that use the emotional card when swaying someone. I”m not saying that it’s always a bad thing. If you want to persuade someone to follow you and choose what you’re selling or what not then that’s one of the best ways to go, especially if your target audience is female. However, it’ drives me nuts how often it’s just used period. Whether it’s getting someone to join a religion, group, whatever. A good example was at Capstone. When a bill came onto the floor that was going to help children’s health or had a little bit of potential to it people always used the claim, “it’s for the children.” This was fun to use in the instance and atmosphere of Capstone. However, There isn’t any real reason to use it much in modern life.

Things have become crazy in the world and the biggest way to sway someone one way or the other is to make them feel in complete control and that they’re necessary. If you get someone to feel like that and keep it that way you’re golden. If you’re in politics and need to sway someone you have to make whatever you’re selling sound good. It’s not just a great personality that makes things sound great and get people to go for something. Sometimes, it’s also being able to make whatever you’re selling look and smell amazing. We had a salesman for vacuums come to our house a few weeks back and gave us a full demonstration about a vacuum. He had a great personality and advertised well. he also came off humble and because he acted like this his customers made him feel like he personally felt inadequate. I know that he was doing this because I would have done the exact same thing. It’s a perfect move. You play on the person’s emotions. It would be even easier with selling something that would help you clean because the woman is usually who does all of the cleaning. Let’s face it, women are more emotional than men so it’s easier to play that card on them.

With going into politics now these are various things I ponder and think about every so often. Over the last few years I’ve learned how to read people. Things from personality profiling, tone of voice, facial expressions, and micro-expressions. This is definitely going to help me in the career choice that I have chosen. However, I also believe that everything is a gift and a curse. With having these skills I have trouble turning them off so that I don’t notice things. I have problems ignoring when someone’s voice or micro-expressions tell me that they’re lying or hiding something. I also have moments where I analyze everything and can’t turn it off. To the point where even simple things that aren’t needed to be broken down I break down into the simplest forms further and then get frustrated when I can’t understand. There are times that it would be nice to turn this off and be able to walk into a crowd of people or into a situation with people and not have to worry about any of it. However, there have been many times that not being able to turn it off have kept me out of bad decisions and events that could have been dangerous. One thing I will always believe for the rest of my life, everything is a gift and a curse. It’s just a matter of how much it is in the two. What do you think?