Helloo0O Ladies and Gentlemen! Welcome back to Graceland Ontario where, per usual, we will be looking at the success lessons taught by the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll and see how we can use them to revitalize your life! Today, we will be talking about the benefits of sympathy when you give it and the anger it’ll bring you if you don’t.
If you’re a news bug, you may have read about the ongoing tuition riots taking place in Montreal, one of the biggest cities in my country of Canada. Since at least February, there’s been students protesting about the province’s idea to increase tuition 75% for Quebec (that’s a Canadian province, all you out of country-ers) students.
First off, I’m glad I don’t live near Montreal… it seems to have gotten pretty nasty. Secondly, I’m not going to support or condemn the riots… my opinion isn’t the point of this article (though, if you’d like to discuss it with me in the comments section below or by email at alexghilson@gmail.com, I’d be glad to).
What we are going to talk about is an event these riots spurred in a history class while I was present…
The teacher, one of those fellas (he’s a good chap) who likes tying past issues to present ones, asked the class what they thought about the riots. Some had heard, others hadn’t. He showed a news report discussing the event and one of the issues that came up (what condemners of the protest are using for fuel) is Quebec has one of the lowest tuition costs in Canada. In fact, my province (and the kids’s province) of Ontario presently has one of the highest tuition costs.
This was a Grade 12 class. In Canada, that’s your final year of high school, the one before university (if you’re heading there). So, the rise of Quebec’s tuition costs and the riots surrounding them didn’t make that class too understanding. It actually made some mad.
“Why are they complaining when we’ve got it so much worse!?”
“They just need to stop being lazy and get a job!!!”
“It’s just an excuse to wreck havoc… and it makes university students look bad!”
After the riot bashing, the teacher brought a question to the class−
“How would you like it if someone hiked your tuition and said those things to you?”
You can imagine the change of tune.
“But we’re different! We spend more already!”
“I’d get in even more debt.”
Now, as I said before, I’m not supporting or condemn anything. But what I am saying is a lot of people do condemn, often without thinking about the impact of their comments. Does that mean you should agree with the riots? Hell no. But every time you make a public opinion regarding a hot issue, like riots, rights or abortion, you have to expect you’re going to tick somebody off.
“But others condemn? Why shouldn’t I? I don’t care who I tick off!”
Well you should. You are your own advertiser, your best advertiser. Everything you say that’s good gets people wanting you and leading you to success, everything that’s bad will tick people off. And when you tick somebody off, they don’t want to be you customer.
Now, imagine that class had been a company producing university books. Imagine any one of the people in that class had been recorded, legally or not, publicly or not, making one of those condemning comments and those students in Quebec heard. That’s right − that company would be filing for bankruptcy before they could compose an apology.
Turning to our friend the king, Elvis was asked by a reporter in the pre-interview before his Madison Square Garden show in 1972, “You were in the Army and were drafted. What is your opinion of war protesters? And would you today refuse to be drafted?”
What did the king reply? − “Honey, I’d just soon to keep my own personal opinions about that to myself… Cause I’m just an entertainer and I’d rather not say.”
Whether it was because of his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, or simply his own discretion, Elvis took a really great opportunity to make a lot of people mad at him and shut it down. If he’d disagreed and condemned war protesters, he would have kept all his fans from the 50’s who were grown up and conservative at the time but he would have lost all his young fans. If he’d done the opposite, he would have lost his 50’s fan base (his customer base) and would have impressed the young kids.
It’s not that you shouldn’t have an opinion but you’ve got to watch it − the kids in that history class would have offended themselves if they’d later gone to a university with hiking tuition that they wanted to protest.
After all, as one of them said, “They just need to stop being lazy and get a job!!!”
Meanwhile, they’d have alienated everyone (customers included) who took the brunt of their harsh words. Remember: everyone’s a customer, and everyone’s a lead. You need to be comfortable with yourself and your opinions but if it’s not going to do any good spurting it out then don’t − you might save yourself a lot of grief.
Elvis’s Lessons:
It’s not wrong to have opinions and to feel strongly about certain things but you’ve got to watch what you say and, especially, who you condemn. Everyone’s a customer and everyone’s a lead and every time you take the bait to insult somebody, you may well be shooting your success in the foot. If you can hold onto it and scream it into a pillow, it might be an idea − that way you won’t be hurting somebody, and yourself, unintentionally. Remember the high school students: they were going to be university students possibly facing their own tuition hikes. If they stay true to what they said, they’d be insulting themselves and their own hope of change. If it hurt them, it would have hurt somebody else. The only thing to wonder is who would hurt the other more…
P.S. If you're interested in seeing Elvis talking at that pre-Madison Square Garden show press interview, here's a link to a Youtube video of him speaking.
P.P.S. Remember to leave a comment below this post or email me at alexghilson@gmail.com to discuss this post.
No comments:
Post a Comment