Elements of a Winning Personality

“Tact in dealing with persons and situations and open mindedness are other cardinal virtues to insure an agreeable personality.”  — Professor I. S. Westerberg was in demand throughout the county as a speaker on problems of educational interest, and was the President of the Education Professors of the Colleges and Universities of Southern California.

 “Sarcasm may win us laughter, but not friends,” he stated. “Tact in dealing with persons and situations and open mindedness are other cardinal virtues to insure an agreeable personality.” Another important element is a sense of proportion, including a sense of humor, accessibility though not “gushiness,” confidence and self-reliance, attractiveness of manners, freedom from idiosyncrasies, which interfere with effectiveness, idealisms and ‘genuiness,’ “that translucency of character that attracts people and makes them trust implicitly.” The necessity of vitality was emphasized, Professor Westerberg quoting the late Charles Frohman who said that an artist’s life depended on vitality. Vitality means supreme ability and vibrant energy, although not necessarily beauty. — San Bernardino Sun, 1932

Etiquette Enthusiasts, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia©️ Etiquette Encyclopedia 

The Etiquette for Being Agreeable

It’s never too early for teaching an agreeable attitude, countenance and cordiality to young persons. The ability to converse with ease and fluency needs to be carefully trained and developed.

How to be Agreeable

Very rarely, if ever, young persons acquire the ability to converse with ease and fluency. This implies, first of all, good ideas, clearly and sensibly expressed. An empty mind never made a good talker; remember, “You cannot draw water out of an empty well.” Next in importance is self-possession.

“Self-possession is nine points of the law” — of good breeding. A good voice is as essential to self-possession as good ideas are essential to fluent language. The voice, from infancy, should be carefully trained and developed; a full, clear, flexible voice is one of the surest indications of good breeding; it falls like music on the ear, and while it pleases the listener, it adds to the confidence of its possessor, be he ever so timid.

One may be witty without being popular: voluble without being agreeable; a great talker and yet a great bore. It is wise, then, to note carefully the following suggestions:

• Be sincere, he who habitually sneers at everything, will not only render himself disagreeable to others, but will soon cease to find pleasure in life. 
• Be frank; a frank, open countenance and a clear, cheery laugh are worth far more, even socially, than “pedantry in a still cravat.” 
• Be amiable; you may hide a vindictive nature under a polite exterior for a time, as a cat masks its sharp claws in velvet fur, but the least provocation brings out one as quickly as the other; ill natured persons are always disliked. 
• Be sensible; society never lacks for fools. If you want elbow room, "go up higher."
• Be cheerful; if you have no great trouble on your mind, you have no right to render other people miserable by your long face and dolorous tones. It you do, you will be generally avoided. 
• But, above all, be cordial; true cordiality unites all the qualities we have enumerated.—American Agriculturist, 1888

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Etiquette in Conversation

Hospitality and good conversation at a California beach picnic, early 1900s

One Should Show a Gentle Hospitality to the Thoughts of Another

A distinguished conversationist of the past was wont to say that the secret of being agreeable in conversation was to be hospitable to the ideas of others. He affirmed that some people only half listened to you, because they were considering, even while you spoke, with what wealth of wit, with what words they should reply, and they began to speak almost before your sentence had died from your lips.

Those people, he said, might be brilliant, witty, dazzling, but they could never be agreeable. You do not love to talk to them. You feel that they are impatient for their turn to come, and that they have no hospitality toward your thoughts —none of that gentle friendliness that asks your idea in and makes much of it. –Los Angeles Herald, 1891

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia