People Skills Are Having Within Themselves

Important People Skills
by Ann Landers


1. Keep skid chains on your tongue; always say less than you think.
Cultivate a low, persuasive voice.
How you say it counts more than what you say.

2. Make promises sparingly, and keep them faithfully, no matter what it costs.

3. Never let an opportunity pass to say a kind and encouraging word to or about somebody.
Praise good work, regardless of who did it.
If criticism is needed, criticize helpfully, never spitefully.

4. Be interested in others, their pursuits, their work, their homes and families.

Make merry with those who rejoice; with those who weep, mourn.
Let everyone you meet, however humble, feel that you regard him as a person of importance.

5. Be Cheerful.
Don't burden or depress those around you by dwelling on your minor aches and pains and small disappointments.
Remember, everyone is carrying some kind of a load.

6. Keep an open mind.
Discuss but don't argue.
It is a mark of a superior mind to be able to disagree without being disagreeable.

7. Let your virtues, if you have any, speak for themselves.
Refuse to talk of another's vices.
Discourage gossip.
It is a waste of valuable time and can be extremely destructive.

8. Be careful of another's feelings.
Wit and humor at the other person's expense are rarely worth it and may hurt when least expected.

9. Pay no attention to ill-natured remarks about you.
Remember, the person who carried the message may not be the most accurate reporter in the world.
Simply live so that nobody will believe them.
Disordered nerves and bad digestion are a common cause of backbiting.

10. Don't be too anxious about the credit due you.
Do your best, and be patient.
Forget about yourself, and let others "remember."
Success is much sweeter that way.

Learning to Get Back Up

Bringing a giraffe into the world is a tall order. A baby giraffe falls 10 feet from its mother's womb and usually lands on its back. Within seconds it rolls over and tucks its legs under its body. From this position it considers the world for the first time and shakes off the last vestiges of the birthing fluid from its eyes and ears. Then the mother giraffe rudely introduces its offspring to the reality of life.

The mother giraffe lowers her head long enough to take a quick look. Then she positions herself directly over her calf. She waits for about a minute, and then she does the most unreasonable thing. She swings her long, pendulous leg outward and kicks her baby, so that it is sent sprawling head over heels.

When it doesn't get up, the violent process is repeated over and over again. The struggle to rise is momentous. As the baby calf grows tired, the mother kicks it again to stimulate its efforts. Finally, the calf stands for the first time on its wobbly legs.

Then the mother giraffe does the most remarkable thing. She kicks it off its feet again. Why? She wants it to remember how it got up. In the wild, baby giraffes must be able to get up as quickly as possible to stay with the herd, where there is safety. Lions, hyenas, leopards, and wild hunting dogs all enjoy young giraffes, and they'd get it too, if the mother didn't teach her calf to get up quickly and get with it.

The next time you "fall", remember this lesson. All great & successfull people have fallen at one point or another. The secret is to get up & move forward.

Desire is the Key to All Success and Achievement

It's Time For You To..

"Achieve Your Goals"
"Become Super-Successful"
"Live Your Dreams"

Achieving anything is not that hard. All it takes is doing what needs to be done long enough to produce results.

Drive around any city and you will see many large, expensive, custom homes with expensive cars in attractive, well-maintained front yards. Just the kind of neighborhood you would like to live in, right? It's sometimes hard to believe that there are that many people making enough money to afford to live in these exclusive, private communities.

The people who live there are a very diverse group. They are young and old, represent every religious and ethnic background and come from poor and wealthy parents.

There is very little to separate these successful people from the people who live in much smaller track homes just down the street. If you did a very complete study of the differences between these very successful people and there not so successful neighbors you would see some obvious things.

Of course you would see they have bigger and better things: back accounts, education, careers or businesses, toys, etc. You would also see that they do more things: vacations, club memberships, charity, and so on.

Having and doing these things is not what allowed the luxury of living in the exclusive neighborhood. The having and doing is a result. The results illustrates the dramatic differences between the haves and the have-nots.

It is the cause of these awesome results that is important. Here is where you will find great differences between the custom and track home owners.

It's a pretty simple difference. Successful people start to do things, figure out how to get successful results from what they are doing and they continue doing those things that get the results they want.

There can be a lot involved making that simple formula to work for you. But it all boils down to one key difference between the achievers and those that miss out. In our study of two neighborhoods the biggest difference you would find in the people would be the level of desire in the people.

At the core it is desire that fuels your effort to achieve. If your desire is not enough to drive you to success don't despair. Desire is in all of us. It is the amount that is important. If you need more I can show you how to get it. To find out how request the Free Report in the upper left hand corner of this page. It's that easy. Fill out your name and email address and click on the submit button. You will receive the Free Report on how get all the desire you need to

Live Your Dreams.

Practice Uncommon Appreciation

If asked, could you name the five wealthiest people in the world, or five people who have one the Nobel Prize, or the last five Academy Award winners for best actor and actress? The point is, none of us remembers the headliners of yesterday. When the applause dies, the awards tarnish, and achievements are forgotten, no one cares about who won which award.

But if I asked you to list five teachers or mentors who believed in you and encouraged you, five friends who have helped you through a difficult time, five people who have taught you something worthwhile, or five people who have made you feel appreciated and special - that's much easier to do, isn't it?

That's because the people who make a difference in your life aren't the ones with the most credentials, the most money, or the most awards. They're the ones who care. If you want to be remembered for being important to someone else's life, make them feel appreciated.

Appreciation as a Secret of Success Another important reason for being in a state of appreciation as often as possible is that when you are in such a state, you are in one of the highest emotional states possible.

When you are in a state of appreciation and gratitude, you are in a state of abundance. You are appreciating what you do in stead of focusing on, and complaining about, what you don't have. Your focus is on what you have received... and you always get more of what you focus on. And because the law of attraction states that like attracts like, the more you are in a state of gratitude, the more you will attract to be grateful for. It becomes an upward-spiraling process of ever-increasing abundance that just keeps getting better and better.

Think about it. The more grateful people are for the gifts we give them, the more inclined we are to give them more gifts. Their gratitude and appreciation reinforces our giving. The same principle holds true on a universal and spiritual level as it does on an interpersonal level.

Keeping Score. When I first learned about the power of appreciation, it made total sense to me. However, it was still something that I forgot to do. I hadn't yet turned it into a habit. A valuable technique that I employed to help me lock in this new habit was to carry a 3" x 5" card in my pocket all day, and every time I acknowledged and appreciated someone, I would place a check mark on the card. I would not allow myself to go to bed until I had appreciated 10 people. If it was late in the evening and I didn't have 10 check marks, I would appreciate my wife and children, I would send an e-mail to several staff, or I would write a letter to my mother or stepfather. I did whatever it took until it became an unconscious habit.

And remember... take time to appreciate yourself, too!

- By Jack Canfield

Nothing Is Too Small or Insignificant To Effect Change

A panhandler shows me that nothing is too small or insignificant to effect change.
By Donna Wick

The day was Thankful Thursday, our "designated day" of service. It's a weekly tradition that my two little girls and I began years ago. Thursday has become our day to go out in the world and make a positive contribution. On this particular Thursday, we had no idea exactly what we were going to do, but we knew that something would present itself.

Driving along a busy Houston road, praying for guidance in our quest to fulfill our weekly Act of Kindness, the noon hour appropriately triggered hunger pangs in my two little ones. They wasted no time in letting me know, chanting, "McDonald's, McDonald's, McDonald's" as we drove along. I relented and began searching earnestly for the nearest McDonald's. Suddenly I realized that almost every intersection I passed through was occupied by a panhandler. And then it hit me! If my two little ones were hungry, then all these panhandlers must be hungry, too. Perfect! Our Act of Kindness had presented itself. We were going to buy lunch for the panhandlers.

After finding a McDonald's and ordering two Happy Meals for my girls, I ordered an additional 15 lunches and we set out to deliver them. It was exhilarating. We would pull alongside a panhandler, make a contribution, and tell him or her that we hoped things got better. Then we'd say, "Oh, by the way…here's lunch." And then we would varoom off to the next intersection.

It was the best way to give. There wasn't enough time for us to introduce ourselves or explain what we were going to do, nor was there time for them to say anything back to us. The Act of Kindness was anonymous and empowering for each of us, and we loved what we saw in the rear view mirror: a surprised and delighted person holding up his lunch bag and just looking at us as we drove off. It was wonderful!

We had come to the end of our "route" and there was a small woman standing there, asking for change. We handed her our final contribution and lunch bag, and then immediately made a U-turn to head back in the opposite direction for home. Unfortunately, the light caught us again and we were stopped at the same intersection where this little woman stood. I was embarrassed and didn't know quite how to behave. I didn't want her to feel obligated to say or do anything.

She made her way to our car, so I put the window down just as she started to speak. "No one has ever done anything like this for me before," she said with amazement. I replied, "Well, I'm glad that we were the first." Feeling uneasy, and wanting to move the conversation along, I asked, "So, when do you think you'll eat your lunch?"

She just looked at me with her huge, tired brown eyes and said, "Oh honey, I'm not going to eat this lunch." I was confused, but before I could say anything, she continued. "You see, I have a little girl of my own at home and she just loves McDonald's, but I can never buy it for her because I just don't have the money. But you know what…tonight she is going to have McDonald's!"

I don't know if the kids noticed the tears in my eyes. So many times I had questioned whether our Acts of Kindness were too small or insignificant to really effect change. Yet in that moment, I recognized the truth of Mother Teresa's words:

"We cannot do great things - only small things with great love."

The Power of Determination

Never Give Up! The Power of Determination
by Jack Canfield

One of the most important qualities you will need to develop in order to continue taking action is persistence.

You must be persistent in your disciplines and habits; perseverant in the face of adversity, hardship and challenge; and determined to achieve your dreams, no matter what.

There will be many times when you will want to quit, give up, and go back to doing something else, but the one quality that will guarantee your success is the willingness to stick with it, to see it through to the end -- to refuse to settle for anything less than your dream.

The longer you hang in there, the greater the chance that something will happen in your favor. No matter how hard it seems, the longer you persist, the more likely your success will be.

Adversity and Discouragement Is Inevitable No matter how well you plan and how well you execute your plan, you are bound to meet with disappointments, adversity and failure along the way to your ultimate triumph. Sometimes, you'll encounter what seem like overwhelming odds. And sometimes, the Universe will test your commitment to the goal you're pursuing.

The going may be hard, and may require you to refuse to give up while you learn new lessons, develop new parts of yourself, and make difficult decisions.

And, adversity is what gives you the opportunity to develop your inner resources of character and courage. Adversity is a great teacher. It will test you and make you stronger. But you have to hang in there and not give up!

More than 4000 years ago in China, Confucius wrote: "Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."

How to Deal with Obstacles Whenever you confront an obstacle or run into a roadblock, you need to stop and brainstorm three ways to get around it, over it, or through it. For every obstacle, come up with three different strategies for handling the potential obstacle. There are any number of ways that till work, but you will only find them if you spend time looking for them.

Always be solution-oriented in your thinking. Persevere until you find a way that works.

Mistakes Are an Opportunities For Learning Something New

This is a story about a famous research scientist who had made several very important medical breakthroughs. He was being interviewed by a newspaper reporter who asked him why he thought he was able to be so much more creative than the average person. What set him so far apart from others?

He responded that, in his opinion, it all came from an experience with his mother that occurred when he was about two years old. He had been trying to remove a bottle of milk from the refrigerator when he lost his grip on the slippery bottle and it fell, spilling its contents all over the kitchen floor-a veritable sea of milk!

When his mother came into the kitchen, instead of yelling at him, giving him a lecture, or punishing him, she said, "Robert, I have rarely seen such a huge puddle of milk. Well, the damage has already been done. Would you like to get down and play in the milk for a few minutes before we clean it up?"

Indeed, he did. After a few minutes, his mother said, "You know, Robert, whenever you make a mess like this, eventually you have to clean it up and restore everything to its proper order. So, how would you like to do that? We could use a sponge, a towel, or a mop. Which do you prefer?" He chose the sponge and together they cleaned up the spilled milk.

His mother then said, "You know, what we have here is a failed experiment in how to effectively carry a big milk bottle with two tiny hands. Let's go out in the back yard and fill the bottle with water and see if you can discover a way to carry it without dropping it." The little boy learned that if he grasped the bottle at the top near the lip with both hands, he could carry it without dropping it. What a wonderful lesson!

This renowned scientist then remarked that it was at that moment that he knew he didn't need to be afraid to make mistakes. Instead, he learned that mistakes were just opportunities for learning something new, which is, after all, what scientific experiments are all about. Even if the experiment "doesn't work," we usually learn something valuable from it.

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, you learn from them… however there is one thing to remember along with this great story …...try not to repeat them!