Principle #2 - Dale Carnegie
Are all leaders readers? The successful ones are.
As you may have read, over the next few months, I will be diving in to MY TOP TEN leadership books.
I have begun with #1, Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People". If you have missed anything, Please see the cornerstone content HERE.
So, I am John Boggs. I am the founder of the Business and Leadership Division of the Life Mastery Institute. And we're talking about principles to live by, principles out of the book "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie.
I let you know 2 weeks ago that I would be sharing 5 principles over the next few months. We are on week two of that process. Day one, the first principle in the book How to Win Friends and Influence People that we shared was no complaining, no condemning, and no criticizing. People that are highly successful understand that when we complain, we condemn and we criticize, we automatically put ourselves on the wrong side of success. And so we want to stay away from those ideas, concepts and stay in a positive mindset. Were you able to use that principle over the last week?
"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader."
-John Quincy Adams
Today, principle number two is share genuine appreciation. So that's the challenge today.
Today's challenge out of "How to Win Friends and Influence People", is to find someone to share genuine appreciation with. So who do you know, who do you have in your life right now, if you just take a second think about it, that you could share some genuine appreciation with today? Someone that you care about.
Let me share a quick story with you. This morning my wife and I were getting ready for the day. She made a nice breakfast for us. I am very appreciative of that and I was getting ready and the satellite radio was going and some music was playing. There was a song that was playing that was kind of a love song.
It reminded me of a video that I saw a few years ago. In fact, I'll comment below the name of video because it's a proposal video. It's a man proposing to his fiance' or his girlfriend actually to become engaged, become his fiance. It's a great song and in that video, he's got all of his friends and family and she's sitting in the back of the car driving slowly down the road and all of these people are coming up and they're dancing and singing. It's an awesome engagement.
So I said to my wife how much I appreciated her making some healthy food for us this morning and would she be willing to sit and because of that, I said, "there's this video that this song that's playing on the radio was reminding me of. Would you sit and watch this with me this morning?"
So we watched that video together. I got a chance to tell her how much I love her, how much I appreciate her, all that she's done to make me happy over the last 24 years. I immediately started my day with today's lesson in practice.
So I'll share that YouTube video it's been seen over, I think it was 33 million views, the proposal. It's kind of a feel good video, but let me ask you to go ahead and take a moment if you would, and comment below after you share some appreciation with someone that you care about. Share an appreciation, that's the principle today, the more that we share genuine appreciation for others, the more we win friends and influence people in a positive way.
People love to feel valued. They absolutely love that.
"Leaders instill in their people a hope for success and a belief in themselves. Positive leaders empower people to accomplish their goals."
-Unknown
So show others how much they mean to you through genuine appreciation. As a result, you will have increasing success in your life. Do this consciously over the next 7 days!
Next week, I will share number three, that's number two out of 30 in the book. We will be sharing 5 of them here. Make it a great day. We'll see you next time. Keep the challenge going everybody. Take care.
ABOUT JOHN BOGGS
John Boggs is an international award-winning executive with a passion for helping businesses develop tangible strategies for greater clarity, increased revenues and real success. Thousands of business professionals have benefited from his training and motivation. He has personally coached and consulted for executives with the World Bank, Johnson & Johnson, Toyota Motors, The Marriott Corporation, CitiGroup, and Century 21. Known by many as the ‘Action Man’, John helps us do what we know we need to do, no matter what challenges stand in our way.