"Be Easy to Influence"

There’s a question called: "the feather or the freight train?" It goes like this: if someone needs to get your attention, would you prefer to have him or her tap you with a feather? Or a freight train?

Would you notice a tap with a feather? Or does it take a freight train for you to notice?

Myself, I prefer the feather. I know that when my wife finds it easy to influence me (the feather), my life is a lot more peaceful than when she finds it very hard to influence me (the freight train).

How easy to influence do you want to be?

This is a really important question.

In a research project that followed 1,000 couples for 10 years, the husband’s "influenceability" was the single most significant predictor of marital unhappiness and divorce.

Of course, no one can give-in all the time. But when you can, maybe you should. Being easy-to-influence can be a virtue. And feathers are a heck of a lot less painful.