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Making Friends in High Places
‘Forget love. Try good manners.’ How a bit of etiquette can help you navigate a global world
Forget love. Try good manners. — Rebecca Wells, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
In 1979, I found myself transported from the ramshackle existence of life in an old farmhouse into a world of foreign Princes.
I joined the Royal Navy Academy that was also a training ground where many monarchical families around the world sent their young to get educated and matured.
I didn’t see eye-to-eye with very many of these dignitaries. Several have since built reputations as tyrants and dictators and it doesn’t surprise me.
It’s enough to say that we were never friends and do not exchange social media messages.
Initially, I was intimidated to meet these ‘hifalutin’ people.
They had confidence bordering on arrogance, and I was nothing to them.
Fortunately, military training has a knack of beating the ego of everyone down to a basic desire simply to survive and graduate.
And as their arrogance melted, so my confidence grew.
Six months later I was their leader… or acting leader.
