May 14, 2025 Meeting People Easily
“It is a good idea to be ambitious, to have goals, to want to be good at what you do, but it is a terrible mistake to let drive and ambition get in the way of treating people with kindness and decency. The point is not that they will then be nice to you. It is that you will feel better about yourself.
-Robert Solow
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The art of meeting people easily is certainly tied to how much interest we take in others. Beyond that, there is something else at play that is equally if not more important. How we see ourselves in relation to others is pretty critical to how solid is our self-esteem. If our self-esteem is not healthy, it will be difficult if not impossible to take much interest in others; we are too preoccupied with how others see us. Self-esteem. Self-esteem seems to be very pivotal in regards to what degree we are able to like ourselves and then by extension have the ability to like and appreciate others. What exactly is self-esteem? Not having taken the time to look up the official definition, I might posit that self-esteem has a lot to do with how we think and feel about ourselves. Do we see ourselves as competent, as strong, as valuable? Or do we see ourselves as not very strong? Not very smart? Undeserving of having good stuff in our lives? I think we could almost measure the strength of our self-esteem by how important it is to us what others think of us, when we’re in their presence. What others think of us when we are in their presence or perhaps even when we are not in their presence. Do they like us? Do they respect us? Do we care whether they like us or not? Self-esteem. Self-esteem. Building our self-esteem is probably one of the most important things we will ever do in this life. To understand that with all our faults, all our complications with all our exaggerations with all of our contradictions we are just fine; everybody else is pretty much in the same position. We have got to be OK in our own eyes. Whatever it takes to make that happen, we need to do it. Years ago, before I became an insurance salesman and sales manager, I was not very good at public speaking. That was a flaw that I had recognized years before, but had never done anything about. But one day while driving in the car, a commercial came on advertising the Dale Carnegie public speaking course and for whatever reason on that particular day, that particular time when I heard about the benefits of taking that course, something inside told me go to the free introductory meeting. I did go, and after finishing that 14 week course, I was not the same person and I would never be that person again. What is it that you think you need to improve upon? Whatever it is, do whatever you need to do to make it work. To intentionally get better, more skillful more proficient at something, is called personal growth. Each of us has a responsibility to our Creator to take what he has given us and use it to the best of our ability for the betterment of ourselves and mankind if possible. We need to be willing to fix whatever we think needs fixing. Self-esteem. Make a promise to yourself that you will strive to continue becoming a better and better person every year of your life. We should always be a WIP, what I call a Work In Progress. I’m 82 now but I’m still getting better because I am definitely a Work In Progress and always will be. How about you? How about you?
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