3 Principles that can Change Your Life, Starting Now

It was suggested by my friend Eve Earley that I write about my experience of ‘Dale Carnegie Training’ and how the training effectively changed my life.

3 Key Business Principles – Where to start!

I was working for a company who treated their employees’ customers and suppliers with contempt; their motto was make a buck by fair means or foul.

Yet, this was the company that first sent me on a ‘Dale Carnegie Effective Speaking and Human Relations’ management course, which changed my life.

I was in my mid to late twenties and as a result of participating on this program, I discovered a better way to lead and manage people.

My first realization was that a leader did not need to be a bully, managing by fear, while helping to make people feel small.

Looking back now with the advantage of time it would appear to me that that’s all I knew, be it schoolteachers or employers whose leadership style was bullying, with rare exceptions.

Shine a Light:

Dale Carnegie training shone a light on a different and much more effective method of influencing, leading and managing people which has stayed with me to this very day.

What was the big deal? Why was his approach different to my previous experiences?

Dale Carnegie:

It just occurred to me that you may not be aware of being influenced by Carnegie’s leadership methods!

Who was he?

He was the author of the world-famous book ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’, first published in 1934 (the height of the depression in the USA) remaining a best seller for over 10 years and can still be found on good book shop shelves all over the world.

It was probably the world’s first self-help book!

The Fundamental Principles:

In this book he has over 30 principles advising on how to influence people, supported by engaging and interesting stories, which illuminate and inform your understanding of the principles. (Some of the stories are now a little dated, but you can overlook this to get to the principle, which never dates).

Have no concern, I am not going to go through the whole book principle by principle.

What I am going to do is tell you about his three fundamental principles which are reflected in all the others.

• Don’t criticize, condemn or complain.
• Give honest, sincere appreciation.
• Arouse in the other person an eager want.

The only way you can get someone to do something (willingly) is if they want to do it.

These three principles have influenced me in how I raised my children, worked with colleagues and in particular how I coached thousands of people over the last 30 years.

If you aspire to be a leader, I would strongly suggest you adopt these three principles into your life.

You will experience a more successful, sustainable and satisfying life as a result.

P.S. I had the pleasure of graduating as an Avocational Coach for the Dale Carnegie Corporation and spent many happy hours leading programmes during the 1990s.

There are thousands of Dale Carnegie Graduates in Ireland (some 8 million worldwide) with great stories to tell. If you’re one of them I would love to hear from you.

• Are you a former graduate and still using the principles?
• Which principles resonated with you?
• Please say hello if you were on a programme that I delivered.

By Executive Coach Andrew Keogh of Aristo.ie