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“My success,” he continued, “is based on one thing. I like, really like the guy I’m selling. Let me say again, I really like him. Some of my fellow salesmen try to pretend they like the other fellow, but this won’t work. You can’t even fool a dog. Your mannerisms, eyes, facial expressions, all spell p-h-o-n-y when you pretend.
The person who does the most talking and the person who is the most successful are rarely the same person. Almost without exception, the more successful the person, the more he practices conversation generosity, that is, he encourages the other person to talk about himself, his views, his accomplishments, his family, his job, his problems. Conversation generosity paves the way to greater success in two important ways: 1. Conversation generosity wins friends. 2. Conversation generosity helps you learn more about people.
how you think when you lose determines how long it will be until you win.
You can be too careful, too cautious, not only in planning a marriage but in planning anything in the world where things get done.
The test of a successful person is not an ability to eliminate all problems before they arise, but to meet and work out difficulties when they do arise. We must be willing to make an intelligent compromise with perfection lest we wait forever before taking action. It’s still good advice to cross bridges as we come to them.
Expect future obstacles and difficulties. Every venture presents risks, problems, and uncertainties. Let’s suppose you wanted to drive your car from Chicago to Los Angeles, but you insisted on waiting until you had absolute assurance that there would be no detours, no motor trouble, no bad weather, no drunken drivers, no risk of any kind. When would you start? Never!
In business, marriage, or in any activity, cross bridges when you come to them.
the most difficult problem in life was getting out of a warm bed into a cold room.
Now is the magic word of success. Tomorrow, next week, later, sometime, someday often as not are synonyms for the failure word, never.
it’s easier to spend what’s left over after savings than it is to save what’s left over after spending.
Want to write a note to a friend? Do it now. Got an idea you think would help your business? Present it now. Live the advice of Benjamin Franklin: “Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today.” Remember, thinking in terms of now gets things accomplished. But thinking in terms of someday or sometime usually means failure.
When a setback hits us personally, our first impulse is often to become so emotionally upset that we fail to learn the lesson.
After that remark I paused for about forty-five seconds. (I’ve learned that when you’ve been sniped at, one fine way to prevent a war of words is to take a long pause before answering.)
Marriage counselors report no success in saving marriages until one and preferably both partners see that it is possible to win back happiness.
The important thing is not where you were or where you are but where you want to get.
visualize your future in terms of three departments: work, home, and social. Dividing your life this way keeps you from becoming confused, prevents conflicts, helps you look at the whole picture.
Switching from what you don’t like to do to what you do like to do is like putting a five-hundred-horsepower motor in a ten-year-old car.
Goals cure boredom. Goals even cure many chronic ailments.
Use goals to live longer. No medicine in the world—and your physician will bear this out—is as powerful in bringing about long life as is the desire to do something.
An hour is easy; forever is difficult.
prepare to take detours in stride. If you are driving down a road and you come to a “road closed” situation, you wouldn’t camp there, nor would you go back home. The road closed simply means you can’t go where you want to go on this road. You’d simply find another road to take you where you want to go.
Whoever is under a man’s power is under his protection, too.
If employees are doing something wrong or are making a mistake, I am doubly careful not to hurt their feelings and make them feel small or embarrassed. I just use four simple steps: “First, I talk to them privately. “Second, I praise them for what they are doing well. “Third, I point out the one thing at the moment that they could do better and I help them find the way. “Fourth, I praise them again on their good points.
formula for helping others correct their mistakes. Avoid sarcasm. Avoid being cynical. Avoid taking people down a peg or two. Avoid putting others in their place. Ask, “What is the human way to deal with people?”
Study a group of employees closely. Observe their habits, mannerisms, attitudes toward the company, ethics, self-control. Then compare what you find with the behavior of their superior, and you discover amazing similarities.
The point is this: the successful person in any field takes time out to confer with himself or herself. Leaders use solitude to put the pieces of a problem together, to work out solutions, to plan, and, in one phrase, to do their superthinking.
