Archive for December 3rd, 2007
Winning With People #10 – The Number 10 Principle
Targeted Audience: Entrepreneurs, Students, Recent Graduates.
Background:
Renowned leadership expert and author John C. Maxwell describes how
anyone can improve his or her relationship skills with 25 principles in
his book Winning With People.
I plan to cover each of his principle in this series. Please read more principles here: Winning With People
John Maxwell’s The Number 10 Principle
All people have potential. Everyone you meet can be a 10. Believing in people usually brings out the best in them. If people believe in themselves, they can reach their potential and become the individuals they were created to be. If you’ve been hurt or disappointed in the past, don’t let that negatively color your attitude in the future. Philosopher and poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said, “Treat a man as he appears to be and you make him worse. But treat a man as if he already were what he potentially could be, and you make him what he should be.”
Two lessons to take away from this principle –
1. Believe in yourself. The obvious and the must one.
What the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve. — Napoleon Hill
2. Believe in others. The uncommon and the tricky one. The uncommon because, believing in yourself is still comparatively easier than believing in others. Don’t we think that we are the smartest one on this earth? ;-)
And the tricky because, it’s hard to believe someone just based on his promises of what he could be in the future. I think even while believing someone for his potential abilities, we do consider his past track record, and judge our belief.
But the point is, if we believe in people, and make them realize that we believe in what potentially they can achieve, then there are high possibilities that they will achieve it. Few words of inspiration can mean a lot to many people.
To read more principles from this series, please visit: Winning With People.
