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May 15th, 2012
One day I heard the oddest advertisement on Toronto`s 680 News:
Promoting a financial software exposition and tradeshow, the radio spot mentioned the many products and services that will be highlighted and who should plan on attending (accountants, bookkeepers, and tax preparers, mostly). It caught my attention; I was interested partly because I’d never heard of a “Financial Software Expo” before and thought it might be interesting to check out.
However the ad ended with this confusing statement: “If what you’re looking for can’t be found at this show, it probably doesn’t exist!” the announcer bubbled enthusiastically.
Huh? Can’t be found, might not exist – but for sure I won’t find it at this show? Then why would I go? How will I know if it exists or is there without going there? Scratch THAT show from my list of things to do! I was unsold as quickly as I was sold.
“I often went fishing in up inMaineduring the summer,” Dale Carnegie wrote in Win Friends. “I am very fond of strawberries and cream, but I have found that for some strange reason, fish prefer worms. So when I went fishing, I didn’t think about what I wanted. I thought about what they wanted. I didn’t bait the hook with strawberries and cream. Rather I dangled a worm or a grasshopper in front of the fish and said, ‘Wouldn’t you like to have that?’”
The only way on earth to influence other people, Carnegie says, is to talk about what they want and show them how to get it – you’ve got to “bait the hook to suit the fish.”
Even in face-to-face conversation, it makes sense to talk about what people what and show them how to get it. Going to all the trouble of purchasing radio time, recording a commercial and then leaving people with the idea that it’s possible you might not have what they want seems to fly in the face of all logic, not to mention advertising sense.
Had the ad ended, instead, with a promise or guarantee that I would definitely find something new, interesting and helpful to my business, I might have headed straight to the show. Instead, the final line of the ad killed my desire to invest the time because it planted the idea that I might not find what I was looking for.
“Remember,” Carnegie noted as Principle #3, “first, arouse in the other person an eager want. He who can do this has the whole world with him. He who cannot, walks a lonely way.”
Tags: by Rita Smith, Fishing for customers? Use the right bait!, Fishing for customers? Use the right bait! by Rita Smith
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May 14th, 2012
 - Kevin D. Crone – Monday Morning Mentor
There is not a company in existence that fully maximizes the potential inherent in its customer base. In fact, even though many feel they do, in reality, they don’t. Even in tougher times they stubbornly refuse to change their methods when marketing/selling to their existing clients.
In the early nineties recession, my associate (now our President), Kathie Mather, told me to quit fretting over our overhead and declining sales and get out of my office and meet with some of our clients to see if we could help them survive. Well I said, “Okay, if you’ll do it too. And off we went!”
After visiting many clients and listening to a lot of sad stories, we started to put together a way to support them. After all, we had a lot of competent people not as active as usual, who could help. We created 3 new services that helped our clients and our company survive. (Today those business services are continually used in 70 countries throughout the world of Dale Carnegie – from China to Brazil.)
Our Point: Your best prospects are your existing customers.
Before you invest money in finding new customers, stop and divert some of your resources to reselling, up-selling and cross-selling to your existing customers.
In every way possible:
Get in touch – whether by phone, mail, email or in person – all customers want to feel that they are special and you take a special interest in seeing to their needs.
Provide post-purchase reassurance each time a customer places an order with you. Call him/her a week after to see how it’s going. This puts aside any post-purchase dissonance.
Give your customers the best possible deals and guarantees. Don’t be afraid to be compelling in Canada and stand out.
Listen for the situations they are in and the impact your products/services can help solve. Come up with some creative ways to market and/or deliver. Sometimes it’s the littlest things we miss that, if we really listened, we could turn into a new offering. (Now we can’t keep being a product peddler here.) We need to hear the impact our products/services could have and then package and sell it. Creativity is mainly about listening.
Build rapport and trust. After all, that’s all that’s stopping most new customers from buying. It’s the same for existing customers in tough times. Be as honest as you can with your customers. People do business with people they can trust. Here is our 1990, not too slick, but honest offer after listening to our customers. “We have people sitting around and you are struggling so why don’t we get our people to put their heads together and see if we can help you grow?”
Keep an accurate and timely customer list. Work this list. As boring as this principle sounds, I’m always amazed at how few times companies don’t even have such a list. They have transactional buyers and they don’t get the DNA for each customer. Often they don’t even know their target’s names. Set up a preferred, valuable customer campaign for this list now.
Begin perpetual communication with these customers. You must become a trusted friend and advisor and your messaging must reflect that. Offer advice to help them during tough times.
Upsell or resell right at, or immediately after the initial sale and you can dramatically improve your profits. Offer a package of related items or services for a 20 to 30% discount if they buy now. For example, upgrade the sale by offering a $200 discount for a superior version of what they are buying, if they upgrade now.
Customers are silently begging to be acknowledged, informed, given advanced opportunities and led to action.
Read it again. Did it sink in yet?
If you insert employees instead of customers, you will realize an even greater importance of this principle.
Regardless of what business you are in, this concept works anywhere.
Think of how you could use these eight Existing Customers Principles to stimulate your economy. Then get engaged with a team to help you execute!
Think of how you could use these eight Existing Customers Principles to stimulate your economy. Then get engaged with a team to help you execute!
You and I don’t need market research or read Harvard Business Report before we make contact with an old friend and customer. The only place we generate income is from our customers. If you don’t have external clients, I recommend you get more connected with your internal clients, especially with your manager and, if possible, the CEO. Remember the concept…”Customers are silently begging to be acknowledged, informed, given advanced opportunities and led to action.”
Have a great week.
P S: Please see below for a list of upcoming events by your Monday Morning Mentor.
Keep reading the Monday morning mentor. Ask for a one hour coaching call from Kevin. (Please email me your phone number).
May 23: How to put more innovation into your organization’s DNA
3:00 to 4:30 pm
Attend a live face to face small group dialogue with Dave Mather and myself. We will discuss the methods used by the best, what it takes, examples that cause new ways to compete or reduce costs or to improve efficiencies. Ask for more Information here.
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May 11th, 2012
“If you never did anything,” my mother used to point out logically, “you’d never make any mistakes.”
My mother JohannahHedemark, who raised ten kids including two sets of twins in a row (four children under the age of two, in diapers, at one time!!!!!!) was a virtual fountain of practical wisdom. In fact, the year before her death, I collected from each of our family members their favourite lesson learned from our Mom. The assembled list, titled “Mom Remembered” rivals Carnegie’s 30 Human Relations Principles for short, sweet, useful words to live by.
Just a few examples of the JohannahHedemarkPrinciples:
1) Do not waste.
2) A job worth doing is worth doing well.
3) If you never did anything, you’d never make any mistakes.
4) You can paint a wall or clean a carpet, but you can’t re-do those kids.
5) Remember the Three Cs: Caring, Consideration and Courtesy.
6) Go ahead and laugh at me, I always have a twenty when you need one.
7) Once it’s in your head, no one can take it away from you.
8) Hate the sin, not the sinner.
9) Be careful, you may be the only Bible someone ever reads.
10) When you’re finished a job, turn around and look behind you: double check that you have done everything.
It is not coincidence that many of Mom’s favourite “words to live by” parallel Carnegie principles. In fact, Mom was a big Carnegie fan – I grew up hearing her talk of Dale Carnegie’s books, Dale Carnegie’s newspaper columns, and Dale Carnegie’s radio shows.
I heard her say “Any fool can criticize, condemn or complain and most of them do,” for years before I realized she was not the author of that statement – she was quoting Dale Carnegie.
(Her own version of the 3 Cs was phrased in the positive: “Remember Caring, Consideration and Courtesy.”)
“If you never did anything, you’d never make any mistakes” still stands out as probably the largest lesson she taught all of her children. So as I flipped through “Stop Worrying” today I smiled at the chapter, “Remember That No One Ever Kicks a Dead Dog.”
Not only does no one ever kick a dead dog, Carnegie points out, but “the more important a dog is, the more satisfaction people get in kicking him.”
“So when you are kicked and criticized, remember that it is often done because it gives the kicker a feeling of importance. It often means that you are accomplishing something and are worthy of attention…remember that unjust criticism is often a disguised compliment. Remember that no one ever kicks a dead dog.”
And the only people being criticized, my mother might add, are the people who are out there DOING something.
Tags: by Rita Smith, Mother’s Day advice from a true expert, Mother’s Day advice from a true expert by Rita Smith
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May 7th, 2012
Kevin D. Crone - Monday Morning Mentor Today’s business world demands that we reflect on answering tough questions about our business; implement the most practical answers through an engaged team; monitor and reward progress; and keep building a team to get us where we need to go.
If I could pick one area that we could all focus on that would almost guarantee a return of repeat sales and more profits, I would choose… ‘Adding more value for our high value customers.”
It is important to constantly ask and answer the right questions and ensure we implement our action steps. Begin by reflecting on:
1. Who are our best customers? (Define what is your best – usually 20%)
2. What does our business mean to them? (How do we impact their lives?)
3. What are they planning and how do we become part of their plans?
4. What products, services and activities make us the most money?
5. What are the activities that are high-value, high return?
6. What extra actions keep customers feeling special?
The answers to questions one through five focus on helping customers and you, get what you want and allow you to stay in a winning position in the game. Number six can make you just a little better than your competition. If you are saying you are not worried about competition, listen to Mark Twain when he said “Let us be thankful for the fools. If not for them, the rest of us could not succeed.”
Why is it important to add a little extra, personalized touch to every key customer interaction? Any customer can go anywhere for a better price but can’t go just anywhere to be happy. If you listen and watch, you will know what the little extras are and provide them. If you keep asking and answering questions one through five forever, you will always be adjusting your value to customers. Your value proposition will stay linked to the quality of your delivery and how it matches your customers’ wants … beyond the price you charge. The quality of your reputation and how you keep your brand’s promises, not how you generate dollars and cents, will get you through the ups and downs.
It is important to think through every interaction with your best customers and determine how to add that extra, personalized value.
The opportunity is there for any organization or any person. We have all the time required and the costs are minimal to connect with customers with sincere interest, or provide moments of added generosity. It doesn’t always have to be a technology tool we use, although making a connection is often faster using some of these tools. It could be as simple as tracking your customers’ buying routines using a CRM system, calling and reminding them of it and telling them that you have a special gift for them if they move now. This isn’t difficult, but above all, ask for the order.
Offer value by actually valuing your customers. In small or medium sized companies, customers are people, not just a number, and that is your advantage over bigger companies. Today customers expect that you know their wants, and where they are going. Here are examples of the little memorable things that can make a business stand out:
• Arriving at your favorite restaurant and by the time you sit down, your usual beverage of choice is waiting for you.
• A brief hand written note from the CEO/Owner with every large order.
• A genuine after the sale service call.
• A genuine service call while the service or product is being delivered. Ask them, “How would you like to be serviced?” Find out what little things are important to them and if taken care of, could be memorable to them.
All of us can figure out what will work, what won’t. We can add that extra valued touch without adding excessive costs. Remember the bigger the personal connection, the more they will remember you and you gain access to repeat business and bigger sales.
Make your own list of extra value touches to give your clients that sincerely makes them feel special. Implement them immediately. Better yet, get a group together to create a list of your best customers. Create standardized routine actions and/or go over each account and determine what they would value that is unique to them and implement your specific actions. This meeting could be the most profitable use of your time this month. Your brand loyalty, profits and sales depend on it.
Have a great week.
P S: Please see below for a list of upcoming events by your Monday Morning Mentor.
Keep reading the Monday morning mentor.
Ask for a one hour coaching call from Kevin. (Please email me your phone number).
· May 23: How to put more innovation into your organization’s DNA
3:00 to 4:30 pm
Attend a live face to face small group dialogue with Dave Mather and myself. We will discuss the methods used by the best, what it takes, examples that cause new ways to compete or reduce costs or to improve efficiencies. Ask for more Information here.
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May 4th, 2012
I had a sad, strange, thought-provoking experience one evening.
I delivered a free workshop to a group of people who seemed to be almost the mirror image of the kinds of go-getters I am used to working with.
Many in this group seemed stressed to the point of defeat. I delivered the same workshop exercises I do in other forums, but with this group conversation consistently veered back to blaming, negativity and helplessness. A couple of brave individuals rose to the challenge of assuming responsibility for their own decisions and behaviours, but most seemed utterly incapable of grasping the idea that the only person they could change in a given situation was themselves.
They fully enjoyed the discussion sessions, however, although I was a bit dismayed that rather than actually follow the guideline questions I was posing, most of them just seemed pleased to have a captive audience for their whining. It was exhausting to listen to.
About halfway through the night, I noticed something striking: almost 100 per cent of the people in the room had very bad teeth. Not just discoloured or uneven but damaged, missing, dark, unhealthy teeth. Only two people in the entire room had healthy smiles.
It was far too striking an anomaly to be pure coincidence. I was intrigued. As I looked from face to face, I wondered: which was the cause, and which was the effect?
Did their negative defeatist attitudes cause them to be too poor to look after their teeth? Or did their poor teeth – and lack of a sparkling smile – help cause them to be poor?
“Smile,” Dale Carnegie wrote in Win Friends. “Actions speak louder than words, and a smile says ‘I like you. You make me happy. I am glad to see you.’
“Charles Schwab told me his smile had been worth a million dollars. And he was probably understating the truth. For Schwab’s personality, his charm, his ability to make people like him, were almost wholly responsible for his extraordinary success; and one of the most delightful factors in his personality was his captivating smile.”
Would Charles Schwab have had a harder time of it with a brown, broken smile? Or would he have just spit on his hands and gotten busy earning the money to pay a dentist?
“Action seems to follow feeling,” Carnegie quotes William James, “but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not. Thus, the sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully and act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there.”
How sad to see a person choose the opposite of cheefulness – and to clearly signal that decision every time he opens his mouth, before a word has been spoken.
Tags: by Rita Smith, The path to cheerfulness, The path to cheerfulness by Rita Smith
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May 1st, 2012
I was once on the receiving end of a phone call so loud, blunt and painful that I still cringe thinking about it now, even though it happened a decade ago.
The group I was working with had made a large decision and begun operationalizing before getting the opinion of the highly-paid communications strategist hired to advise us. When he found out at the eleventh hour what we’d decided and what we were doing, he went ballistic. He wanted an immediate, complete turnaround.
Four of us were standing in the corner office listening to our esteemed advisor over speakerphone.
“You’ve made the wrong decision!” his voice bellowed through the speakerphone. “Stop this immediately! You’ve made the WRONG decision! YOU HAVE MADE THE WRONG DECISION!!!!”
I could have sworn I saw the plants in the office begin to wither and wilt as his booming voice reverberated throughout the room. We had to turn down the volume on the speakerphone as staff outside the room began to crowd around the office door, wondering what all the commotion was. It wasn’t my proudest hour, to be sure.
However, his exact words echo in my ears to this day because I noticed at the time, and have recalled for ever after, that he never did say to one individual person “You are wrong.”
Rather, he addressed the entire group and said, “You’ve made the wrong decision.”
The tact he took cleverly allowed for two important things: it didn’t single out any one person for criticism, and therefore didn’t create any lasting hostility or resentment from an individual suddenly faced with justifying their actions. As I was the senior communications person on the team, he might logically have directed his remarks straight at me – and knowing myself at the time, I am sure I would have felt compelled to defend myself with equal vociferousness.
But he didn’t do that. He allowed me, and other key people, to save face by addressing the decision made by the group, not the judgment of individuals in the group. And having made the point that it was the decision that was wrong, not the people, it seemed a fairly simple solution to change the decision – not the people.
“Letting one save face! How important, how vitally important that is! And how few of us ever stop to think of it! We ride roughshod over the feelings of others, getting our own way, finding fault, issuing threats, criticizing a child or an employee in front of others, without even considering the hurt to the other person’s pride,” Carnegie wrote as Principle #26 in Win Friends.
“Even if we are right and the other person is definitely wrong, we only destroy ego by causing someone to lose face.”
Had this man hurt the feelings or destroyed the ego of individual group members, the outcome might have been far different. As it was we simply buckled back down to work, made a better decision (with input from the experts) and redeployed smoothly.
I keep this incident in mind whenever I want to re-direct someone – sometimes very quickly – without destroying hurting their feelings: find a way to let the other person save face.
Tags: by Rita Smith, “Saving face” can help everyone, “Saving face” can help everyone and the project by Rita Smith
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April 27th, 2012
One of my all-time favourite cartoons was from Scott Adam’s “Dilbert.” Dogbert has gone to work as a consultant and opened a business, “Dogbert’s School for the Socially Oblivious.” In this strip, he is teaching the class “How to Recognize When You’re Boring.”
“This is a yawn,” he advises his student, Social Defect #1, gesturing to a large picture of a yawning person. “When you see one, stop talking about yourself.”
Class moves to the Breakout Session, at which Social Defect #1 is ranting on, “And then I chipped it right onto the green…” as Social Defect #2 yawns widely in his face.
“Look, LOOK!!” Dogbert implores, gesturing to the enormous yawn. There will obviously be some major coaching for performance improvement required with this group…
“Most people trying to win others to their way of thinking do too much talking themselves,” Dale Carnegie wrote in Win Friends. “Let the other person talk themselves out. They know more about their business and problems than you do. So ask them questions. Let them tell you a few things.”
Beyond simply focusing on our commitment to do much more listening and much less talking, however, Carnegie makes a very astute point about sharing successes – whether it be “chipping it right onto the green,” or catching a two-foot trout, or closing a record number of sales, “even our friends would much rather talk to us about their achievements than listen to us boast about ours.”
He quotes French philosopher La Rochefoucauld, who said, “If you want enemies, excel your friends; but if you want friends, let your friends excel you.”
Over a lifetime, I have probably violated Principle #15, “Let the other person do a great deal of the talking,” more than any other Principle and maybe even more than any other person (here I go, talking about myself again!)
This point was brought home to some years ago when I had lunch with two friends I had not seen in months. At the end of the two hour lunch, I realized they had heard every small detail of my adventures that year but I had not heard a single piece of news about them!! I was mortified at my social obliviousness. We had to schedule another whole lunch just so I could shut up and hear their news, too.
Ideally, conversations are balanced – everyone gets to share their accomplishments and hear about the accomplishments of others. But my now my rule of thumb is to let others have the first word, the first many words. That way if we run out of time before we get to any news about me, I will have lived up to Dale Carnegie’s Principle #15:
“Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.”
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Tags: Are you boring your listeners? Would you even know if you were?, Are you boring your listeners? Would you even know if you were? by Rita Smith, by Rita Smith
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April 25th, 2012
 Just a few days after I delivered our first “Dale Carnegie for the Digital Age” workshop, I had to laugh when I saw the following article in the Financial Post. The Post reported that Aviva, a UK insurance company, accidentally fired 1300 people when an email intended for one person was s copied to its entire staff:
http://business.financialpost.com/2012/04/20/u-k-insurer-mistakenly-fires-1300-employees-with-mass-email/
Their spokesperson noted that the email was quickly retracted; however, I have to wonder how receipt of that email affected morale – and humiliated was the person for whom it was ACTUALLY intended when the entire firm read the supposedly-private message?
Hands up, everybody that’s ever lost a customer, an account, or a personal relationship over an ill-conceived, over-blown email exchange…?
Just as I thought! Practically everybody I know can give me one or more email horror stories at the drop of a hat.
One of my favourites is one I heard from a brilliant young writer who was pursued aggressively by a communications agency which was delighted to make the announcement when he joined their staff.
Unfortunately, not many months later one of his superiors responded to an email query calling him “an f—— a——“ and copying the entire office. My brilliant writer friend quit his new job immediately.
“Some people,” he commented wryly shortly after, “should not be given access to blast email.”
His calm understatement rings in my ears when I hear participants stand up and talk about the negative email exchanges they either provoke or endure in their jobs. Which is why I tell every Dale Carnegie class I teach:
The absolute worst way to handle contentious communications is by email. Email is great for short, perfunctory messages or circulating weightier documents for discussion. As long as everyone is positive, email is great.
But the second any element of negativity, criticism or contentiousness enters into the exchange, GET OFF THE COMPUTER, PICK UP THE PHONE, AND CALL THE PERSON.
Or better yet, if at all possible, WALK DOWN THE HALL AND TALK TO THE PERSON.
Email lacks tone, subtext, expression, body language, and eye contact, all of the things we need to be using and watching for carefully when involved in a contentious dialogue.
And it encourages what my writer friend calls “The CYA Culture” – everybody documenting every little thing with an email trail just on the off chance they might ever be called to account someday. They imagine they will hold up the brief email sent weeks earlier and say, “I emailed you, don’t you read your email?”
In my experience, the last think any busy, results-oriented executive is going to put up with is a stupid rationalization like that. “And besides,” I note, “any workplace in which people are more worried about CYA than real results is in big trouble anyway.”
“But writing out my thoughts give me a chance to clarify my thinking,” one woman told me.
“Yes, but is also takes up a tremendous amount of time, more time than the discussion warrants and because you’ve now invested that time, you will be more committed than ever to the position you’ve taken, whether it’s the right one or the wrong one,” I pointed out.
“You get more attached to your own words when you bother to write them carefully than when they are part of the flow of a conversation. You are less open to suggestion, not more, and the same is true for the other person. You both ‘dig in,’” I replied, knowing this to be true from a bitter personal experience which cost me a lucrative account.
“I like to write out exactly what I think,” one man offered, “but then I delete it without sending it.”
I was horrified at the thought. “God help you,” I gasped, “if you ever accidentally hit ‘Reply all’ instead of ‘delete’!”
His face went white. I don’t think he’d ever considered the possibility.
Email. You can’t live without it – but be careful how you use it! When in doubt, PICK UP THE PHONE.
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Tags: by Rita Smith, Email when things are positive; talk when they are negative, Email when things are positive; talk when they are negative by Rita Smith
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April 20th, 2012
“Credibility” and “conflict of interest” are directly opposing poles, like the positive and negative ends of a magnet.
When an audience, or a client, finds you credible, anything is possible: you can attract the resources, support, financing, and enthusiasm needed to deliver even the most challenging projects quickly and successfully.
Should an audience or client not find you credible, or even worse – that you have a direct conflict of interest – your ability to persuade anyone to do anything approaches zero. (Actually it can be lower than zero; you can motivate people to oppose you and work directly against you and your ideas.)
When I started out in advertising and promotion 27 years ago, the standard mode of operations for all advertising agencies was to add a 15 per cent surcharge to every production (print, radio or TV) as their fee. As you might imagine, this encouraged ad agencies to advise clients to spend as much money as possible, because this meant the ad agency would get 15 per cent of a larger amount.
I found this idea ludicrous: so much money was wasted on projects of questionable benefit to the client. I used a completely different approach. I would tell clients, “You have to pay me a fee for my services. I will give you advice on how to spend your ad budget, and I am going to get you the biggest bang for your buck. But even if you never run a single ad, you still have to pay my fee.”
Clients LOVED this approach (they still do) and it gives me enormous credibility. Recently I told a client he had to run an ad in a specific trade newspaper; it wasn’t a maybe, it was a must. He was reluctant at first; however, knowing I was giving him my best professional advice and that I had no financial stake in his decision was the key to persuading him to take action. I had complete credibility in the situation. I am pretty sure that if he thought I stood to gain financially on the ad purchase, he would have refused.
A speaker who possesses unassailable credibility has a giant advantage over a speaker whose audience is skeptical of his credentials or the motivation for his talk.
In a perfect world, your audience would know you by reputation before you stood to speak and there would be no need to establish your credibility – you could just move right on to compelling them to action.
However in the real world where we live, speakers are often required to speak on short notice about new projects to rooms full of complete strangers. Therefore, the ability to establish credibility by presenting facts supported by evidence which is meaningful to the audience within the talk itself is essential if you hope to gain their support.
One business which I believe has unassailable credibility is Beck Taxi, the largest taxicab brokerage in Toronto. Toronto’s cab industry is subject to almost endless regulation and red tape by city politicians, who seem to believe anyone making money in the taxi business has to be greedy, evil, and is taking advantage of customers.
Recently Beck president Gail Beck Souter took dead aim at this idea: “Last year, we received 6 million calls from customers and this year our goal is 7 million. NO ONE is more interested in serving the riding public than we are. No one answers more calls.”
With that single statistic, Gail established her credibility as paramount in the industry, and in the debate. Had Gail instead used statistics on Beck’s revenues or profitability, she would not only have lost credibility but perhaps even left folks wondering if she was in a conflict position.
With credibility, anything is possible. Without it, you can accomplish little to nothing or even worse, turn people against you.
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April 17th, 2012
 In my opinion, one of the best books ever written is Dale Carnegie’s “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living.”
As important as “Stop Worrying” was in 1950 or 1960 or 1980, it is far, far more important today. Human beings are coping with unprecedented rates of change, unending blasts of information coming at them at breakneck speed, and a sad lack of community supports and structures to help them cope. Young people in particular are stressed to the max trying to deal with these realities.
The principles in “Stop Worrying” are more important now than they ever were – and the magical part is, they still WORK like magic.
You can buy the book at any large bookstore or over the Internet for $7.99, about the price of a beer in a bar, or one-half the price of a movie ticket. For your eight bucks, you’ll get permanent access to some of the wisest words ever written on dealing with stress and worry – and because so many of Carnegie’s observations are laugh-out-loud funny, you’ll get instant relief from boredom and negativity, too.
Here are some of my favourite principles and comments from “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living.”
Putting Criticism in Perspective
“I realize now that people are not thinking about you and me or caring what is said about us. They are thinking about themselves – before breakfast, after breakfast, and right on until ten minutes past midnight. They would be a thousand times more concerned about a slight headache of their own than they would be about the news of your death or mine.”
The High Cost of Getting Even
“As a farm boy, I trapped four-legged skunks along the hedgerows inMissouri; and as a man, I encountered a few two-legged skunks on the sidewalks ofNew York. I have found from sad experience that it doesn’t pay to stir up either variety.
Co-operate with the Inevitable:
“I spent twelve years working with cattle; yet I never saw aJerseycow running a temperature because the pasture was burning up from a lack of rain or because of sleet and cold or because her boyfriend was paying too much attention to another heifer.”
How to Face Trouble
a) Ask yourself, “What is the worse that can possibly happen?”
b) Prepare to accept the worst.
c) Try to improve upon the worst.
Accepting the worst, Carnegie points out, results in a “new release of energy. When we have accepted the worst, we have nothing more to lose. And that automatically means – we have everything to gain!”
Get all the facts
Write out and answer the following questions:
a) What is the problem?
b) What are the causes of the problem?
c) What are the possible solutions?
d) What is the best possible solution?
“Without the facts, all we can do is stew around in confusion…half of the worry in the world is caused by people trying to make decisions before they have sufficient knowledge on which to base a decision.”
Expect Ingratitude:
“Christ helped ten lepers in one afternoon – but how many of those lepers stopped to thank Him? Only one. Look it up in Saint Luke. When Christ turned around to His disciples and asked, “Where are the other nine?” they had all run away. Disappeared without thanks! Let me ask you a question: Why should you and I expect more thanks for our small favours than was given Jesus Christ?
“That’s how it goes. Human nature has always been human nature – and it probably won’t change in your lifetime…If you and I go around grumbling about ingratitude, who is to blame? Is it human nature – or is it our ignorance of human nature? Let’s not expect gratitude. Then, if we get some occasionally, it will come as a delightful surprise. If we don’t get it, we won’t be disturbed.”
Parents, Carnegie adds, “have been pulling out their hair over the ingratitude of their children for 10,000 years.”
Count your blessings – not your troubles!
“About ninety percent of the things in our lives are right and about ten percent are wrong. If we want to be happy, all we have to do is concentrate on the ninety percent that are right and ignore the ten percent that are wrong. If we want to be worried and bitter and have stomach ulcers, all we have to do is concentrate on the ten percent that are wrong and ignore the ninety percent that are glorious.”
“I once asked Eddie Rickenbacker what was the biggest lesson he had learned from drifting about with his companions in life rafts for twenty-one days, hopelessly lost in the Pacific. ‘The biggest lesson I learned from that experience,’ he said, ‘was that if you have all the fresh water you want to drink and all the food you want to eat, you ought never to complain about anything.
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