A step by step tool for top achievers

CHAPTER 5
INTERPERSONAL
SKILLS
Building a pleasing personality

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Page 99 of 175
I will pay more for the ability to deal with people than for any other ability under the sun.
--John Rockefeller
We do not have business problems. We have people problems. When we solve our
people problems, our business problems are substantially resolved. People knowledge is
more important than product knowledge. Successful people build pleasing and magnetic
personalities, which is what makes them charismatic. This helps in getting friendly
cooperation from others. A pleasing personality is easy to recognize but hard to define. It
is apparent in the way a person walks and talks, his tone of voice, the warmth in his
behavior and his definitive level of confidence. Some people never lose their
attractiveness regardless of age because it flows both from the face and the heart. A
pleasing personality is a combination of a person's attitude, behavior, and expressions.
Wearing a pleasant expression is more important than anything else you wear. It takes a
lot more than a shoeshine and a manicure to give a person polish. Charming manners
used to disguise a poor character may work in the short run, but reveal themselves rather
quickly. Relationships based on talent and personality alone, without character, make life
miserable. Charisma without character is like good looks without goodness. The bottom
line is, a lasting winning combination requires both character and charisma.
Be courteous to all, but intimate with a few, arid let those few be well tried before you
give them your confidence.
True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of
adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.
George Washington, January 15,1783
LIFE IS AN ECHO
A little boy got angry with his mother and shouted at her, "I hate you, I hate you."
Because of fear of reprimand, he ran out of the house. He went up to the valley and
shouted, "I hate you, I hate you," and back came the echo, "I hate you, I hate you." This
was the first time in his life he had heard an echo. He got scared, went to his mother for
protection and said there was a bad boy in the valley who shouted "I hate you, I hate
you." The mother understood and she asked her son to go back and shout, "I love you, I
love you." The little boy went and shouted, "I love you, I love you," and back came the
echo. That taught the little boy a lesson that our life is like an echo: We get back what we
give.
Benjamin Franklin said, "When you are good to others, you are best to yourself."