Napoleon Hill includes a segment in Think and Grow Richcalled “The Major Attributes of Leadership”. I found those points to be consistent with my ideas about leadership as well as examples of what I consider to be good leadership, so I wanted to share them with you (the italics have been transferred from the book). Without further ado, here they are.
Unwavering courage based upon knowledge of self, and of one’s occupation. No follower wishes to be dominated by a leader who lacks self-confidence and courage. No intelligent follower will be dominated by such a leader very long.
Self-control. The man who cannot control himself can never control others. Self-control sets a mighty example for one’s followers, which the more intelligent will emulate.
A keen sense of justice. Without a sense of fairness and justice, no leader can command and retain the respect of his followers.
Definiteness of decision. The man who wavers in his decisions, shows that he is not sure of himself, cannot lead others successfully.
Definiteness of plans. The successful leader must plan his work , and work his plan. A leader who moves by guesswork, without practical, definite plans, is comparable to a ship without a rudder. Sooner or later he will land on the rocks.
The habit of doing more than paid for. One of the penalties of leadership is the necessity of willingness, upon the part of the leader, to do more than he requires of his followers.
A pleasing personality. No slovenly, careless person can become a successful leader. Leadership calls for respect. Followers will not respect a leader who does not grade high on all of the factors of a pleasing personality.
Sympathy and understanding. The successful leader must be in sympathy with his followers. Moreover, he must understand them and their problems.
Mastery of detail. Successful leadership calls for mastery of the details of the leader’s position.
Willingness to assume full responsibility. The successful leader must be willing to assume responsibility for the mistakes and the shortcomings of his followers. If he tries to shift this responsibility, he will not remain the leader. If one of his followers makes a mistake, and shows himself incompetent, the leader must consider that it is he who failed.
Cooperation. The successful leader must understand and apply the principle of cooperative effort and be able to induce his followers to do the same. Leadership calls for power, and power calls for cooperation.
Who do you think will become better at any given skill: someone who has a natural talent for that skill but hardly ever practices it or someone who has no natural talent for it but practices it every day? Except for a few exceedingly rare cases involving people with exceptional natural talent, the person who consistently works at a skill will eventually become better at it than the talented person who almost never works at it.
It’s better to spend a few minutes every day working on a skill than spend several hours on it every once in a while; it’s also easier to do this since consistent practice brings steady improvement, which acts as a great source of motivation to continue, and working daily on a skill rather than every so often means less time is needed to maintain it or improve it. Further, once practicing something each day becomes a habit, it requires less thought and willpower to work on it.
A different, though still important, aspect of consistency is behaving consistently in all areas of life. Now of course there will be times that behavior changes for understandable reasons (lack of sleep, sickness, emotional ups and downs, etc), but that’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about the people who act friendly some of the time but reveal their true face in other situations. These people are manipulative and adjust their behavior to the situation so they can get others to do what they want. What they should do instead is work on self-improvement so they can be the best possible versions of themselves and then act accordingly in whatever situation they find themselves. They don’t have to do exactly the same things and say exactly the same things wherever they go, but their behavior should be in line with some aspect of their best self.
Consistency is critical, whether it’s regularly practicing a skill or behaving similarly (in a good way) in every area of life. I’ve worked at both off and on over the years; my life is much better whenever I’m on the ball with them. As with everything else, I often don’t live up to my own expectations but I’m trying to be easier on myself and accept victories wherever I find them. I’ve seen progress, which is encouraging, and I’ll be satisfied as long as I keep doing my best and getting better as I go.
The 5 Love Languagesis a great little book by Gary Chapman. Chapman goes into a lot of detail about various aspects of relationships, with a special focus on communication and “love languages”. According to Chapman, a love language is a method of showing and receiving love. The love languages discussed in the book are words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch.
Everyone has one primary as well as one secondary love language. When someone regularly receives love via their primary love language, they will feel appreciated and their “love tank”, as Chapman calls it, will be overflowing. This is easy to do when couples share the same primary love language. In those cases, they will communicate and receive their love for each other just as easily as two people who share the same native language communicate.
However, if someone one goes for an extended period of time without receiving love via their primary love language, they will feel upset and unloved; their love tank is empty. This can happen unintentionally when couples have different primary love languages. Someone who primarily receives love through affirming words may not feel loved (or not feel nearly as much love) if their partner primarily shows love them love through acts of service. Figuring out which primary love languages you and your partner have and learning to “speak” to each other in those languages (which Chapman explains how to do in the book) is helpful for avoiding this situation and reviving dying relationships.
Although The 5 Love Languages is primarily about romantic relationships, the wisdom it contains can be applied to all types of relationships. Learning how to best show love to your family members, friends, and anyone else close to you can help make bad relationships good and good ones great. I’ve used a lot of information from the book to learn more about myself and improve my interactions with those close to me. My primary love language is words of affirmation and my secondary love language is physical touch. This makes perfect sense, considering I love warm hugs and saying uplifting things to others. Further, whenever I go for a while without receiving either of those, I begin to feel unappreciated. I never noticed those aspects of myself before I read this book, and those are just a couple of useful things I’ve learned from it. Everyone interacts with other people at some point and The 5 Love Languages offers a lot of great insight on how to make those interactions count. I highly recommend checking out this book. I think you’ll love it.
I’ve learned a lot over the past year, especially in the area of self-improvement. If I could sum it all up in one simple phrase, it would be this: mindset is everything. There are a lot of different life hacks I use every day and they all involve controlling my mindset. I’ve found that I can turn a situation around by simply looking at it differently. If I’m enjoying myself and start thinking of things to dislike about the situation, I’ll find a lot of them and begin to get down. Likewise, I can find good things in a situation that I dislike and I’ll begin to enjoy it. In both cases, I find what I expect to find.
This leads to a neat little life hack I use to stay positive when someone around me is being negative. I can find something good in any situation and use that to counter their negative points. My intention in doing this is to keep myself in a good mood, but sometimes it puts the other person in a good mood as well. If I’m in a situation I want to improve, I can do so more effectively by looking at it in a positive way than a negative way; looking at it positively makes it feel like making a good situation better, while looking at it negatively makes the situation feel hopeless and any potential changes seem pointless.
Would you rather stay stuck in a bad mood or switch over to a good mood? Personally, I’d much rather switch to a good mood. I still get stuck in negative mindsets sometimes, but now I can avoid most of them in the first place and usually succeed in getting out of them as long as I have the will to do so. The only exceptions are the rare cases in which I feel the need to fully experience a negative emotion before I can move on in a healthy way. In most of those cases, that need arises because I’ve been suppressing certain feelings rather than working through them as they arise.
Some resources that help me control my mindset are The Power of Now,The Power of Positive Thinking,The Four Agreements,The Magic of Thinking Big,andHow to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big. Each one of those contains several useful life hacks that I use to reframe situations and improve my mood. The right mindset makes it easy to accomplish what I set out to do, avoid doing things that are wrong or cause more problems than they solve, talk about nearly anything with just about anyone, and work through situations that may otherwise be stressful. I wish I’d learned and internalized this stuff years ago, but I’m glad to know it now and I hope it helps you as much as it’s helped me.
Are you truly yourself around other people or do you just act like “yourself”? Do you create a persona of how you want others to see you and wear that persona like a costume whenever you go out? Do you find yourself acting how you think you should based on how others see you instead of acting based on how you feel? If so, it’s perfectly understandable. To put yourself out there, to wear your true face, is to risk being rejected. Wearing the persona provides a degree of protection; it hurts less if others reject the persona instead of rejecting you.
Your persona may be largely based on you. Certain aspects of your personality, things you do whether you’re around other people or by yourself, subjects you’re interested in, etc. In this case, the persona is less of a disguise and more of a covering which reveals select parts of you while keeping others hidden. Most people probably have this kind of persona rather than one which is completely fabricated and contains no aspects of themselves.
However, even if your persona is not far off from you and you didn’t intend to create it or use it, how do you talk to anyone about this? If you’ve been unintentionally hiding behind a persona around other people, then the thought of revealing your true self feels strange, as if you’ve been dishonest without meaning to do so. This isn’t typically taught in schools, at home, or anywhere else in life, so there aren’t many resources out there about how to effectively have this conversation.
What do you do about revealing aspects of yourself that you normally keep hidden? If you are known for being funny and upbeat, do you keep acting that way even when you feel down or do you let your true feelings show? Maybe you’re always there for others when they need help; when you need help, do you ask for it, keep helping others even if you’re secretly hurting, or stay quiet and try to help yourself? It should be easy to open up to friends and be vulnerable around them, but actually doing so is difficult, especially if you haven’t done it before. I wish I had easy answers for these questions and issues but I don’t. I don’t have any kind of answers here. If you have some, I’d love to hear them.
There are several rules I do my best to follow. Some of them are in line with my concept of morality and others are simply useful in everyday life. I sometimes break them because I’m fallible, but I mostly abide by them. The self-improvement work I’ve done has made it easier to follow these rules and has even pointed me toward several of them. I’ve thought about how I live my life and figured out which rules I most often follow, so without further ado, here they are.
Do to others as you’d have them do to you. The Golden Rule, and for good reason. Nearly everything about interacting with other people fits within this rule, it’s easy to remember, and it requires me to see things from others’ perspectives instead of just my own. There are some cases in which it doesn’t work, but it works perfectly far more often than not. If someone made me keep one rule and abandon the rest, this would be the one I’d keep.
Seek first to understand, then to be understood. This one comes from Stephen Covey’s classic book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Listening to what others have to say and making sure I understand it teaches me much more than sharing my thoughts with them. Additionally, I’ve found that people are more willing to hear my take on something once I’ve heard them out. All of Covey’s habits are solid, and this is one of the best.
Improve every day. Even after factoring in time for sleeping, working, eating, and driving, I still have time each day to use for self-improvement. Just spending a few minutes a day bettering myself is better than doing nothing because I don’t have as much time as I’d like. I’ve found meditating, praying, and reading to be powerful tools for self-improvement. Learning new things and practicing them every day has brought me much closer to the place I want to be in life as well as the person I want to be.
Be honest. I believe honesty is morally right as well as useful in every area of life. Trust is essential in all relationships, whether they be familial, friendship, romantic, business, or anything else. Lying breaks that trust, sometimes irreparably, and drives people away. Telling the truth garners respect and strengthens trust, especially when it’s difficult or inconvenient to do so. There are ways to tell the truth that work better than others, but I’d rather clumsily tell the truth than smoothly tell a lie.
Look for ways to help. No matter where I go, there is always something I can do to make that area a little bit better. I could spend years writing out all the different ways of helping people. Here are some of them: being a shoulder to cry on, giving somebody a jump start, volunteering for a good organization, or simply holding the door for someone. I never know what a seemingly small gesture might mean to another person (unless they tell me later on) but I know how much I’ve appreciated the gestures that others have given to me, so I’m always on the lookout for ways to pay it forward.
Take chances. If I don’t pursue something, I’m almost surely not going to get it. Even if I don’t get exactly what I want, I usually end up getting something close to it, and sometimes I do get exactly what I want. I’ve had so many amazing experiences from simply saying “yes” even when I was scared or didn’t know what I was getting into. My experiences have taught me a lot of valuable lessons, and although I didn’t particularly enjoy some of them or even hated them at the time, I’m still grateful for the lessons I learned. I don’t always get what I want but at least I have the satisfaction of knowing I did my best to get it. Better to have tried and failed than to have never tried at all.
Dream big. If I try something small and fail, I’ll have almost nothing to show for it; if I fail while trying something big, I’ll have learned a lot of useful things in the process and may even succeed at accomplishing something else instead (such as a smaller version of what I had in mind or a certain part of it). Some of the best experiences in my life have come from dreaming big and believing things will work out against all odds and expectations from others. I’d much rather dream of doing something big and find out through experience that it won’t work than think it won’t work and never try it.
Don’t think too much. This is one of the hardest rules for me to follow. Until last year, I wouldn’t have believed it to be possible to stop thinking or have much control over my thoughts. Ever since I first listened to The Power of Now and started practicing presence, however, I’ve discovered the benefits of thinking less: less anxiety, greater comfort around other people, easier conversations, more creativity, and a much easier time sleeping, to name a few. It’s difficult to change a lifetime of overthinking, so I still think much more than I should, and a lot of my thoughts are still negative, but I’ve definitely made a lot of progress since I started and can only see things getting better moving forward.
Scott Adams, best known for creating the popular Dilbert comic strip, wrote a book several years ago called How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big. In the book, Adams goes through his life story and lays out the strategies that he believes have brought him success. He fits a lot of interesting stuff into the book, from overcoming a major voice problem to effectively managing energy to making healthy food taste delicious, and breaks down how he does each one of these (and more) as he goes.
While many people talk about the importance of having goals, Adams considers systems to be much more useful. One problem he has with goals is that they involve working at something for a long time and being dissatisfied until that thing is completed. Even then, the satisfaction from completing it is short-lived, and the search for a new goal begins. Another problem is that a particular goal may seem like a good idea at the start but, with so many changing variables in this fast-moving world, it may turn out to be more trouble than it’s worth. Instead, Adams suggests doing things and learning skills that increase your chances of ending up in a good place. This way, you’re constantly working on something at which you can succeed every step of the way (such as doing some form of activity each day, even if it’s as simple as walking the dog, rather than trying to follow a specific exercise regimen) while simultaneously increasing your usefulness. Adams reasons that having good systems and routines in place makes you more likely to run into good opportunities and be able to make good use of them when you find them than pursuing specific goals.
One of Adams’ most interesting ideas to me is the “talent stack”. The talent stack consists of useful skills that mesh well with each other and provide more value together than they do separately. For example, Adams uses several related skills in creating comics, including drawing, writing, and humor. He says that there are plenty of people who are more talented than he is at each of those things, but he’s good enough at each of them to make comics that people want to read, and his comics wouldn’t work if he were seriously lacking in one or more of those abilities. Some of the skills he thinks everyone should know and would make you much more likely to be successful wherever you go in life include public speaking, accounting, business writing, conversation, persuasion, and a second language. Someone who is decent at each of those skills stands a better chance of being successful than someone who is excellent at only one of them, much like in the phrase “Jack of all trades, master of none, but oftentimes better than master of one.”
Adams adds just enough humor and Dilbert comics in places where the material might otherwise drag a bit to keep things fun; this, along with Adams’ ability to tell a good story (a skill he explains how to do in the book, by the way) makes How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big a real page-turner. I normally read just one chapter of a book each day but I ended up reading a few chapters daily of this book, partly because they’re so enjoyable and partly because many of them are quite short. The sheer amount of useful life hacks in the book as well as its great humor make this one of the more enjoyable and useful self-improvement books I’ve read, and I highly recommend you check it out.
In The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz explores several different “agreements” that, when practiced, will bring us great personal freedom and peace. The first agreement is “Be Impeccable with Your Word”. This includes avoiding gossip, speaking the truth, being straightforward, and abstaining from negative self-talk. Ruiz spends much of the chapter about this agreement saying that this is the most powerful of the four in the book and how much better our lives will be if we master only this one. I’ll use this post to discuss my experiences when practicing, as well as failing to practice, this agreement.
I realized that a lot of the negativity I’ve experienced recently was caused by my failure to be impeccable with my word. Once the negativity built up to the point that it was dragging me down, I knew something needed to change. Shortly thereafter, I began noticing just how often I would think or say something against someone else, complain about my situation, or speak against myself. I’ve learned that trying to maintain a positive mindset is important for living my best possible life, but it doesn’t work if my words and actions are negative. I have to avoid embracing the negativity that others create as well as avoid creating negativity within myself.
Although I only recently started focusing once more on being impeccable with my word, I’ve felt a great sense of peace ever since I made that conscious decision. Now I can sense whenever my thoughts or words are starting to turn negative and stop them in their tracks. I find that changing subjects helps keep me in line. I also do this when talking to someone who is in a negative state of mind; I don’t to tell them to stop speaking negatively, but I can usually manage to either reframe the subject in a more positive light or subtly switch the focus to something else. This way I avoid engaging in and strengthening their negativity, which helps me stay positive and appears to help them become a bit more positive as well. I’m going to keep trying to be impeccable with my word, take things one moment at a time, and see how that affects my life. With what I’ve experienced thus far from practicing this agreement, I’m excited to see what else it has in store for me.
Here are 8 “success-building principles” from The Magic of Thinking Big. They’re very similar to things I’ve done this year that have made a major positive difference in my life, so I believe they are effective. I hope you find them useful if you decide to try them.
Get a clear fix on where you want to go. Create an image of yourself ten years from now.
Write out your ten-year plan. Your life is too important to be left to chance. Put down on paper what you want to accomplish in your work, your home, and your social departments.
Surrender yourself to your desires. Set goals to get more energy. Set goals to get things done. Set goals and discover the real enjoyment of living.
Let your major goal be your automatic pilot. When you let your goal absorb you, you’ll find yourself making the right decisions to reach your goal.
Achieve your goal one step at a time. Regard each task you perform, regardless of how small it may seem, as a step toward your goal.
Build thirty-day goals. Day-by-day effort pays off.
Take detours in stride. A detour simply means another route. It should never mean surrendering the goal.
Invest in yourself. Purchase those things that build mental power and efficiency. Invest in education. Invest in idea starters.
Fred Rogers on the set of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood
Have you ever heard of Fred Rogers? You probably have, although you might know him better by the title of “Mister Rogers”, which he used on the show he hosted for over thirty years. I look up to Mister Rogers and consider him a role model, so this is my tribute to him and the amazing work he did in life.
Rogers was born in 1928 in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. From a young age he went to church with his family and used music to express his feelings; both of these would later play major roles in his life’s work. Although he was loved by many later in life and spent much of his life in front of a camera or a live audience, he was bullied at a young age and was quite shy in high school. Once he felt accepted by his schoolmates, however, he started doing more extracurricular activities and making friends.
For college, Rogers attend Dartmouth for a few years before transferring to Rollins and studying music; he graduated in 1951 with a degree in music composition. Shortly after graduating, he became interested in television, particularly for the educational opportunities it offered. He began working at NBC in New York the same year he graduated and spent several years there before moving to WQED in Pennsylvania and working on a variety of programs for children.
Despite becoming an ordained minister in 1963, Rogers decided to continue working in television rather than work at a church (although he continued attending church). In 1968, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood premiered and eventually became his most iconic work. Through his show, Rogers taught children important life lessons while keeping them entertained through wholesome, family-friendly programming. He never shied away from talking about difficult issue such as divorce, crime, or the many fears kids have about the world. However, he also avoided dwelling on negativity and encouraged everyone to look for the helpers who show up whenever something goes wrong.
Both on television and in person, Rogers never passed up a chance to be a friend and mentor for kids or adults in need of someone who cared. He spent his life showing the power of kindness to a weary world and touched countless people with a message of love. Many people have wondered if he was being himself on his show and in public appearances or simply putting on an act. Those who knew him personally affirmed that he was always genuine and Rogers gave his answer that question in this article published near the end of his long career in television:
“One of the greatest gifts you can give anybody is the gift of your honest self. I also believe that kids can spot a phony a mile away.”
In that same article, I think Rogers also indicated his reason for dedicating his life to helping people and being a friend to kids who needed one: his own upbringing. He enjoyed spending time with his family and appreciated the love they showed him as well as everything else they did to give him a good start to life, so naturally he wanted to do the same for as many people as possible. Television provided him the perfect medium to pay it forward and be a good neighbor to everyone watching.
As a minister, Rogers no doubt would have been familiar with what Proverbs has to say about soft answers turning away wrath. He demonstrated the truth of this when he appeared before Congress in the hopes of getting money for his show. Senator John Pastore was in charge of that hearing and, despite acknowledging his reputation for being a “tough guy”, was so moved by Rogers’ testimony that he gave him the money he wanted. Additionally, despite his tremendous accomplishments and the worldwide recognition he gained over the course of his life, Rogers remained humble. Even when he received a Lifetime Achievement Award for his work in television, he kept the focus on the people in his life who loved him and helped him get to that point; he also asked those watching to think about the people in their lives who did the same for them. In both of these instances, his example of humility and gentleness spoke much more powerfully than any verbal instruction ever could. He did, however, make use of more focused lessons, such as this story about an interaction between himself and his grandson; this showed that while he made mistakes like everyone else, he also owned up to them and did his part to make things right again.
I’m so thankful that I got to be Mister Rogers’ television neighbor while I was growing up. Now that I’m much older and have learned more about the world, I appreciate his kindness, love, and gentle yet profound lessons even more than I did as a kid. Although he died from stomach cancer in 2003, he still inspires me with the legacy he left behind. Whenever I think of him, I’m motivated to do better and help others where I can. I’ll close by sharing the farewell message that he recorded for everyone who grew up watching his show. Rest in peace, Mister Rogers, and thank you for being my neighbor.
