The HOW

“I shall pass this way but once.?Any good, therefore, I can do or kindness I can show to any human being, let me do it now.” - Dale Carnegie.

In creating this newsletter, the best thing for me to do is to rewind back to my beliefs and share them. This is the HOW in your shortcut to success. I learned through my dealings with many clients—it’s not who or what you know but HOW you are that is a more solid path toward being a more effective leader.

The recent craze like Simon Sinek’s book Start with Why, which focuses on the why, seems okay except without the map of HOW, we can drift like a stranded sailboat on Caribbean waters going nowhere, waiting for the HOW winds to randomly blow by and set us on the right course.

Here’s what happened to me. I left college early eager to strike it rich, but the company I was working for went out of business. I found myself back at Mom and Dad’s house, without a college degree, and no job. I had to do something. But HOW? I decided to work on myself and my behaviors and enrolled in a Dale Carnegie course.

The first rule is: Don’t Criticize, Condemn, or Complain. What a great environment to work in if you avoid these things. The second rule is: Give honest and sincere appreciation. When people feel good, they do good. YES.

I learned HOW to be a better version of myself by becoming genuinely interested in other people and what they want, being a good listener, encouraging others to talk about what was important to them, see things from another’s perspective…. It was my version of a college degree and became my foundation and HOW to conduct business. I see Dale Carnegie as a way of life.

As an executive coach, I work with successful people. They have the skills, knowledge, and experience and have already created some level of success for themselves. They also have ambition to be even more successful. It’s changing their behavior, HOW they are, that is most impactful.

One of my favorite client success stories was working with a smart, incredibly kind, and highly creative individual. The best in their field. The problem? A tendency toward certain behaviors blocked their skills, knowledge, and experience and consequently success slowed down. Their good fortune was in reverse. During our time together they were able to reflect and see how behavior negatively affected their career. We created a plan and worked on executive presence by actively listening to what others had to say, letting others take credit for ideas, seeing things from another’s perspective and enforced other positive attributes. This person changed right in front of their peers’ eyes. They contributed like never before, went from people avoiding them towards people lining up outside their door. In the end, this person was promoted several times over.

Business people are all just human beings. If you strip business interactions down to improving the basics of human emotions and behaviors, that’s HOW we succeed.

Start this today. Go out there and give honest and sincere appreciation. Give others a fine reputation to live up to. Give. You’ll be surprised at the results and the HOW will appear.

Enjoy!

Robert Paulson