"If You Must Find Fault, This Is the Way to Begin"
Giving feedback is extremely important in making progress, but it is also a recipe for letting people down. Anytime you have to give negative feedback, Dale Carnegie says the best way is to lead with some positive feedback. You can butter the person up before they have to deal with the bad news. This allows you to let people know what they did wrong without them getting a negative opinion of you. Mr. Carnegie describes this phenomenon as a dentist giving Novocain to a patient before they get a surgery. "The patient still gets a drilling, but the Novocain is pain-killing" (196).
"Making People Glad to Do What You Want"
Dale Carnegie provides a list of what it takes to be a successful leader. You need to know what you want out of the person, and how that person will be able to benefit from doing what you want them to do. If you can figure this out and ask them in a sincere way that makes them see the benefit they will get out of doing what you want, they will happily do it. Obviously this won't work for ridiculous requests that have no benefit to the user, but in most work environments, there is always a way to convey benefits to who you are asking to do the task. When you ask people to do things in ways where they hear the benefits for themselves, they are much more likely to adhere to your requests.
"Eight Words That Can Transform Your Life" |
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"Our life is what our thoughts make it" - Marcus Aurelius
This is honestly one of my mottoes in life. I have made an entire Youtube video on a very similar idea. Life is what you make of it. Even if you are having hardships, they will only be true burdens to your life if you allow them to be. Last year, I heard a speaker at EA in Silicon Valley explain a concept. There are two parts to every happening in a day. The first is objectively what happened. It explains only observable and clear points. Maybe someone smiled at you or a car cut you off. The second part is how you perceive the situation. Someone could be smiling at you for a number of reasons, and you could react in many ways to a car cutting you off. This part of the interaction is completely your choice. You can choose to be accepting and positive, which will result in you enjoying life more, or you could be negative. The choice is yours.
This is honestly one of my mottoes in life. I have made an entire Youtube video on a very similar idea. Life is what you make of it. Even if you are having hardships, they will only be true burdens to your life if you allow them to be. Last year, I heard a speaker at EA in Silicon Valley explain a concept. There are two parts to every happening in a day. The first is objectively what happened. It explains only observable and clear points. Maybe someone smiled at you or a car cut you off. The second part is how you perceive the situation. Someone could be smiling at you for a number of reasons, and you could react in many ways to a car cutting you off. This part of the interaction is completely your choice. You can choose to be accepting and positive, which will result in you enjoying life more, or you could be negative. The choice is yours.
"One of the chief causes of fatigue is boredom" (478). People grow tired when they really don't want to work anymore due to boredom, not usually real fatigue. If you are doing something that truly engages you, you might stay up really late and lose track of time. I know in my personal life, on the days I play guitar, I will start playing around 7pm and look up at the clock and see 2am sometimes. I can stay up into the middle of the night without realizing it or getting tired because my mind is engaged with something I enjoy. Carnegie suggests one way to overcome this is to have a competition with yourself. He gives the example of someone with a deathly boring job that gained some sort of mental stimulant from working just by trying to beat her productivity from day to day. Another fun way is to just pretend you are happy while working. Pretend you like your work and you will soon live your dreams. The point is to try and find a way to cure your boredom, and you will become less fatigued at work.