You meet up with someone you want to establish a good relationship with for business reasons.  As you all are talking, politics somehow comes up in the conversation.  He says something you clearly don’t agree with and so you contradict him, making your point clear.  He in turns doesn’t agree with your comment, and continues by telling you how your view is wrong.  After you disagree again, he gets aggravated and after giving you a quick handshake with a forced “it was nice meeting you”, walks away.

You’re at home on a Friday evening and as you’re having a conversation with your spouse you mention you all should take out the trash because the new trash pick-up service comes by around 8am on Saturdays.  He says that it doesn’t come that early and that he’d rather take out the trash in the morning as he doesn’t like it sitting by the street for too long.  You clearly remember seeing the trash get picked up around 8am last Saturday and so you insist that the trash should be taken out this evening or you all might miss it in the morning since you all usually get up late on Saturdays.  He continues to insist that it doesn’t come that early and it turns into a fight, ruining the evening.

The question you should ask yourself in both of these examples is, “Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?”  As you know, many times you can’t have both and if you think “being right makes me happy” is the right approach, then you’re clearly missing the big picture.  Let’s take the first example, unless your business dealings are regarding politics, what real harm would there have been if you would have just agreed with the gentleman on his political view, or simply just not disagreed with him and casually changed the subject.  On the contrary, this would have allowed you to build the relationship you had already considered important for your business.

And on the second example, the worst thing that would have happened if you would have agreed for the trash to be taken out in the morning was that you all would have missed the pick-up.  By then he would have learned for himself that it does come early and so it should be taken out the evening before.

One of my favorite stories that I’ve ran across that proves this point is from legendary Producer and Director Irwin Winkler, who you might not be familiar with as a man behind the scenes but he’s produced films such as all the Rocky and now Creed films, Goodfellas, and 50+ more films.  Starting as a mail boy at a talent agency, he worked his way up and got an opportunity to meet with the head of MGM Studios at the time, Robert O’Brien.  Winkler impressed Mr. O’Brien and so Mr. O’Brien told him that if he would bring him a good movie script he would let him produce it.  Winkler was later approached about a script where they said actress Julie Christie would be perfect for and he sent it to Mr. O’Brien, hoping he would like it and let him direct it.  He later got a call from Mr. O’Brien which went something like this: Mr. O’Brien – “Irwin, I read the script and I like it but not with Julie Christie.  I think it should be Elvis Presley instead.  Winkler with a puzzled response – “You think it should be Elvis Presley instead of Julie Christie?”  Mr. O’Brien – “Yes, what do you think?”  Winkler – “That’s the best idea I’ve ever heard!  Mr. O’Brien – “Good, how soon can you get to Hollywood?”  The script was for the movie Double Trouble starring, of course, Elvis Presley, and this kicked off Irwin Winkler’s career as a Movie Producer.  Winkler of course didn’t think it was a great idea to cast Elvis instead of Julie Christie, but should he have disagreed with the head of MGM on his suggestion, chances are Winkler would not have gotten this opportunity.

Do not confuse this with having to accept everything or not challenging anything.  Take a practical approach, hence the saying, “choose your battles wisely”.  If you’re not sure which battles to take on, ask yourself what’s the worst that could happen if you let this one pass.  If it’s really not that bad, then put your ego aside and choose to be happy!