JudithShermanConsultingBusiness.Network Marketing.Life.Family

“Perhaps you will forget tomorrow the kind words you say today, but the recipient may cherish them over a lifetime.”

- Dale Carnegie

The following success principles are what I learned at Dale Carnegie Training. I have applied these principles myself and learned to make them a part of my everyday life.

Good relationships are key to business success. Here are some tips on strengthening your relationships:

- Don’t criticize, condemn, or complain
- Give honest, sincere appreciation
- Become genuinely interested in other people
- Smile when you speak on the phone or when you talk to people
- Be a good listener
- Encourage others to talk about themselves
- Make the other person understand that you consider them important

I want to speak to you for a moment about the last tip, “Making the other person feel important”.

One of our first assignments at Dale Carnegie Training was to apply the first nine Dale Carnegie Golden Rules to our work or home environments. My assignment was to take one of the principles you see above and apply it to my life and then report on the result in a few weeks. Let me tell you the miracle that happened when I applied the concept ”Making the other person feel important” in my relationship with my husband.

My husband had been a real bear at home for the past several months. I didn’t realize the reason for his attitude until I did my homework assignment: letting my husband know that he is important to me. I didn’t recognize that I had been so involved in my work, building websites and writing blogs, that I was not paying much attention to my husband.

It  seemed my husband  did not care about what I was doing because he was always watching his TV programs, and so I had not noticed that he wanted me around more. I was either working all the time in the office or on my laptop. It should have been a clue that I was overly involved in my work when my husband made the comment that he wanted to throw my laptop out the window.  I guess I was clueless until I took the training course.

When I made a sincere effort to pay attention to my husband and to make him feel like he was an important part of my life, he suddenly became sweet and attentive toward me.  He started waiting up for me to come home from my class and then take the time to listen and to talk to me about things. He didn’t do that before, in fact, he hadn’t done that in a very long time.  He also started acting more caring towards me, which made me feel a lot more caring towards him. . . amazing how that works.

Our relationship improved dramatically, all because I started to do the things I used to do but had forgotten about because I was too busy. It really wasn’t that hard to do, and what I did had a huge reward attached to it.

I suggest that you try just one of the principles listed above like I did, and then tell me what you learned are after doing it.  Also, tell me how applying that principle on a regular basis has changed your life. I am sure others would like to hear your story as well.