During the Second World War, I met a housewife from Chicago who told me how she discovered for herself that “the cure for worry is to get completely occupied by doing something constructive.” I met this woman and her husband in the dining car while I was traveling from New York to my farm in Missouri.

This couple told me that their son had joined the armed forces the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The woman told me that she had almost ruined her health through worrying over that only son. Where was he? Was he safe? Would he be wounded? Killed?

When I asked her how she overcame her worry, she replied：“I got busy.” She told me that at first she had dismissed her maid and tried to keep busy by doing all her housework herself. But that didnˈt help much. “The trouble was，” she said, “that I could do my housework almost mechanically. So I kept on worrying. Then I realized I needed some new kind of work that would keep me busy both mentally and physically. So I took a job as a saleswoman in a store.”

“That did it，” she said. “I immediately found myself involved in a lot of activities：customers crowding around me, asking for prices, sizes, colors. Never a second to think of anything except my immediate duty. And when night came, I could think of nothing except getting off my aching feet. As soon as I ate dinner, I fell into bed and instantly became unconscious. I had neither the time nor the energy to worry.”

Recently I went to the Tsavo National Park in northern Kenya for a film. We set off early for a distant water hole. A huge elephant, covered with dry mud, drank calmly and deeply. He might have traveled 50 km to reach the water. He wasnˈt going to hurry now. Heˈd drink a while and then rest in the shade, and then drink again—or so we thought. What actually happened was that he drank deeply and stepped away. Then he suddenly fell down. Within minutes he was dead.

We called animal doctor Jeremiah Poghon immediately. He removed the head of a poisoned arrow from the elephantˈs body, and let out over 100 litters of pus(脓)—the result of the elephantˈs meeting with a poacher(偷猎者) months before.

Todayˈs poacher shoots from a blind. He fires an arrow, covered with poison, into the body of an elephant. If the poacher is lucky, the elephant might die in an hour or two; if not, he might have to follow the elephant for days before it dies. Often the arrow head fails to kill the elephant at once—it doesnˈt mean the poison wonˈt finally kill the elephant, but it will be a slow death. Living in Tsavo through these times, I could see the results of poaching from time to time.

When I think about the death of that elephant, what stays with me is the extraordinary silence after the shocking sound of his body hitting the ground. I took some comfort from the knowledge that as the dead body returned to the soil, some animals would benefit—but I couldnˈt escape the feeling that with the death of such a large animal, the world seemed a poorer and emptier place.

Persuasion is the art of convincing someone to agree with your point of view. According to the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, there are three basic tools of persuasion: ethos, pathos, and logos.

Ethos is a speaker’s way of convincing people that she is an honest source. For example, a speaker can develop ethos by explaining how much experience or education she has in the field. After all, you would be more likely to listen to advice about how to take care of your teeth from a dentist than a firefighter. A speaker can also create ethos by convincing people that she is a good person who has their best interests at heart.

Pathos is a speaker’s way of connecting with a listener’s emotions. For example, a speaker trying to convince people to vote for him might say that he alone can save the country from a terrible war. These words are intended to fill them with fear, thus making them want to vote for him. Similarly, a charity organization that helps animals might show pictures of injured dogs and cats, intended to fill the viewers with pity. If they feel bad for the animals, they will be more likely to donate money.

Logos is the use of facts, statistics, or other information to make your argument more convincing. An audience will be more likely to believe you if you have data to support your claims. For example, a commercial for soap might tell you that lab tests have shown that their soap kills all 7,000,000 of the bacteria living on your hands right now. It is more convincing than simply saying “our soap is the best!” Use of logos can also increase a speaker’s ethos.

Although ethos, pathos, and logos all have their strengths, they are often most effective when they are used together. The next time you listen to a speech, watch a commercial, or listen to a friend trying to convince you to lend him some money, be on the lookout for these ancient Greek tools of persuasion.

Much of my work as a coach includes helping people make an important decision, such as “If Iˈm at a crossroads in my career, which path should I follow？” “If Iˈm considering offers, which one should I accept？”

Difficult decisions like these remind me of a comment made by Scott McNealy, CEO of Sun Microsystems for years during a lecture while I was in a business school at Stanford. He was asked how he made decisions and responded, “Itˈs important to make good decisions. But I spend much less time and energy worrying about making the right decision and much more time and energy ensuring that any decision I make turns out right.”

In fact, before we make any decisions, particularly those difficult ones, weˈre anxious to focus on identifying the “best” option because of the risk of being “wrong”. But a side effect of that mindset(观念模式) is that we pay too much attention to the moment of choice and lose sight of everything that follows. Itˈs what happens next that finally determines whether a given decision was “right”．

Another aspect of this mindset is that our focus on making the “right” decision can easily lead to paralysis(麻痹), because the options weˈre choosing among are so difficult to rank in the first place. How can we definitively determine in advance what career path will be “the best”， or what job offer we should accept? Obviously, we canˈt.

Focusing on the effort after our decision not only helps us succeed, but also reminds us that we play a role in every outcome. Our control should be in our day-to-day activities rather than in our one-time decision.