A cool head is wonderful capital for an employer or an employe.
Don't mistake coolness and poise for submissiveness and servility. Don't let people impose on you and take advantage of your good nature.
State your position in cool, well-weighed words, and carry conviction with them by your manner.
It takes two to make a quarrel. Whenever anger is present, do not be one of the two.
Precedent
Precedent has caused many failures. We refuse to make a bold move and inaugurate a new system because we hate to break away from the methods established by successful predecessors.
We say "Let well enough alone." We forget that times change, and that conditions which made our competitors successful, may not now exist.
If you have the precedent habit it is an admission that you have not the brains to originate, and you are trying to take advantage of another's brains.
You remember the old fable of the lion and the jackass. The jackass was browsing on thistles in the desert. It took all his time to gather enough of the scanty vegetation to keep him alive. One day the jackass noticed the lion comfortably eating a lamb, whereupon he said "That's the scheme for me. I will do the same trick as Mr. Lion," and forth-with the jackass found a dead lion and covered himself with the lion's skin, hoping that with the lion's skin he would appear as a lion and thus be able to catch game in large portions, and relieve himself of this slow monotonous, hard work he had been used to. The jackass sallied forth, but he could not catch a lamb. He had copied the lion so far as physical appearances were concerned, but he did not have the brains of the lion, and he failed.