Tag: self-discipline

It Pays to Understand People

                                                

Understanding people pay great dividends. This is true in many contexts, from interpersonal relationships to business dealings. No matter the context, understanding another person’s thoughts, feelings, motivations, and experiences is an invaluable asset.

People want to be listened to, respected, and understood. One of the most critical aspects of understanding people is empathy. Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and seeing the world through their eyes can help you gain valuable insights into how they perceive their environment. This knowledge can be used to improve communication and strengthen relationships. The University of Pennsylvania’s Dr. David Burns noted, “The biggest mistake you can make in trying to talk convincingly is to put your highest priority on expressing your ideas and feelings.”

Research supports the idea that understanding people benefits us in many ways. This includes fostering empathy, improving communication and relationships, expanding one’s perspectives, learning to appreciate diversity, and forming meaningful connections. Dr. David Burns noted the importance of prioritizing understanding and overexpressing one’s own ideas, which is essential for effective dialogue. In order to understand people, effort, patience, and humility are essential. Doing so will lead to numerous rewards, both in personal and professional contexts.

One research study that supports the benefits of understanding people is titled “The Role of Empathy in Interpersonal Relationships” by Souza and Shulman (2018). The study found a positive correlation between empathy and positive relationships, indicating that understanding another person’s thoughts, feelings, and motivations can help strengthen interpersonal connections. Another study, titled “Appreciating Differences: Cultivating an Understanding of Diversity” by Gomez and Pollack (2012), found that taking time to understand different perspectives can foster a sense of appreciation for diversity in society.

So, by striving to understand people, you can open yourself up to new possibilities and ideas. Hearing a different perspective can help expand your horizons, challenge existing assumptions, and encourage you to think more critically. By embracing this open-mindedness, you can learn to appreciate the value of diversity and foster a sense of mutual respect for those around you.

Understanding people is an ongoing journey that requires effort, patience, and humility. Whether a simple conversation or a complex business negotiation, taking time to listen and learn from others can pay dividends in the long run. By fostering an understanding of people and their experiences, we can create meaningful connections, open up new opportunities, and build a more equitable and inclusive society.

Here are a few tips that can help.

Understanding people is a skill that can be improved with practice. Here are some tips to help you understand people more effectively:

1. Be Present—Take time to listen to what others say, and don’t simply wait for your turn to speak.

2. Ask Questions—Show genuine interest in the other person’s perspective and ask questions to help clarify points of confusion.

3. Avoid Judgments—Stay away from making assumptions or judgments about someone else’s beliefs or experiences.

4. Connect—Try to find common ground or shared experiences that can help foster connection.

5. Summarize—Summarize the conversation and ask if you still need to include anything to ensure everyone has had an opportunity to be heard.

By taking the time to understand people, we can create more meaningful relationships and build a better future for us all. So, make understanding people your top priority today.

Dr. D

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Success is the sum total of efforts repeated day in and day out (Success Affirmation)

Dear Friend,

This year (2023), I want your life to experience the success you always wanted by creating a daily habit of reciting and internalizing weekly affirmations. Affirmations have been a big part of my life for over 35yrs. And my life was transformed, and now success and happiness are experienced consistently. If you want to be successful, you have to master these affirmations weekly. Do this, and you will experience abundance, satisfaction, and goal attainment. Affirmation: I am efficiently improving my life-moving with ease from where I am now to where I want to be.

Affirmation: I am confidently creating better circumstances and expanding opportunities for myself, responding with intelligence to events as they occur.

Dr. D

The Carolyle Destiny Group https://linktr.ee/TheCarolyleDestinyGroup

Add Value to Others

What’s your attitude towards others? “You can’t make the other fella feel important in your presence if you secretly feel that he is a nobody.” This is a quote from Les Giblin. What a revelation! I always said people do and respond to what they see others do in response. People know when you are sincere and when you are hypocritical. Worst of all, you know your true feelings, which are evident in your actions and deeds. If you want the best from others, give them your best. Make them feel valuable. Biblically, it is the golden rule; doing unto others as you want them to do to you. The law of reciprocity applies here.

Maya Angelou famously said, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” People don’t care about your prestige, knowledge base, or high position. They want to know that you demonstrate and care about them. And show them that you stand by them. This is the yardstick upon which a person’s sense of responsibility is measured.

If you genuinely don’t want to help others but want them to help you reach an advantage, then you have problems and conflicts. When this happens, we must rely on manipulation to get people to move toward our benefit. Stop the manipulation; motivate instead! Like in any relationship, you must put something in it to get something out. 

To influence people is to show them how important they are and the value they bring to the relationship, the organization, or the community. Respond kindly to people and be humane in your interactions with others. Instead of manipulating people into obedience for your advantage, admit their importance through appreciative acts.

Don’t criticize or condemn; instead, compliment.

Give honest and sincere appreciation.

Become genuinely interested in others.

Make others feel important and do it sincerely.

Give others a reason to be proud of their good deeds.

Do not, by your attitude, make people feel less important.

In the words of Sydney J Harris, “People want to be appreciated, not impressed. They want to be regarded as human beings, not as sounding boards for other people’s Egos. They want to be treated as an End in themselves, not as a means towards the gratifications of another’s vanity.” What’s your attitude towards others? I hope in 2023 you will add value to them rather than devalue them.

Dr. D

Happy Holidays !!!

How do you lead the toughest person in the room?

At every leadership webinar, I ask this one question: Who is the toughest person in the room to lead? Then, after everyone points to everyone else, I spring the correct answer on them and say, “You.”  

You are the toughest person to lead in this room! Friends, the person I have the most difficult time leading is myself. This is a full-time job. I have to motivate myself. I have to discipline myself. I must protect my integrity. The list is endless.

Why is it this way? According to John Maxwell, there are two reasons:

(1) We don’t see ourselves as we see others.

(2) We are harder on others than we are on ourselves.

Human nature equips us with the ability to size up everyone in the world except ourselves. It is remarkable how most people lack self-awareness. When talking with managers, supervisors, or even team leaders, they willfully share details about their subordinates, behaviors, experienced conflicts, and sometimes plain gossip. They always have the magic bullet for how to fix them and what they need help with; however, they lack a realistic perspective of who they are. They lacked basic self-awareness of their own limiting beliefs and self-induced idiosyncrasies. To quote Psychology Today, “People judge others to avoid reckoning with potential feelings of inferiority and shame.”

John Maxwell says, “We tend to judge others according to their actions. It’s very cut and dried.”

However, we judge ourselves by our intentions. Therefore, even when we visibly fall short of our team or organizational goals and/or mission, and it was clearly a lack of leadership or judgment, we tend to let ourselves off the hook because our motives were good.

So how do you lead yourself well? A great question. Here are a few action steps. 

(1) Develop self-discipline.

One day, Frederick the Great of Prussia was walking on the outskirts of Berlin when he encountered a very old man walking ramrod straight in the opposite direction. “Who are you?” Frederick asked his subject. “I am a king,” replied the old man.

“A king!” laughed Frederick. “Over what kingdom do you reign?”

“Over myself,” was the proud old man’s reply.

Discipline is simply giving ourselves a command and following it through. Self-discipline is the highest form of leadership. You are the captain of your ship, the master of your own soul. Leading yourself is a challenge, and one of the places where your character shows up is how you lead yourself. Honestly, there are days when I just want to take a break from keeping myself under control. The problem is it is not wise to take any day off.

This leads me to the second action you can take to lead yourself well.

(2) Seek accountability. Personal and professional accountability is imperative because we all have a human nature that will lead us astray.

It was once said, “People who lead themselves well know a secret: they can’t trust themselves.” The problem comes when you selfishly think you are untouchable and learn how quickly poor choices can touch you. Unfortunately, we see this behavior now in our society; people just don’t want to take responsibility or accountability.

As a young leader in the military, from time to time, my peers and I would get emails sent out by our commander for mandatory training “immediately.”  Well, your whole day is interrupted. I would say, “What happened now?” Later, as all my peers would learn, another one of the men or women we worked with had to be removed from their leadership duties because they failed to lead themselves and others. They resulted in hurting others as well as themselves. 

(3) Do you have an accountability partner or peer group? Empowering others to keep you accountable keeps you in line.  

I know for myself that just being aware of an upcoming session with my group allowed me to avoid acting upon poor decisions. At each session, we had a list of agreed-upon questions that gave others permission to ask. Only you know if those answers to the questions were true or not. Taking responsibility for our own actions was paramount to our success.

We are responsible for others’ actions as well as our own. Leading people is earned, not a given right!

(4) Lastly, Be Patient—with yourself.

Thomas Watson said it so aptly: “Nothing so conclusively proves a man’s ability to lead others as what he does from day to day to lead himself.” People who cut corners are often categorized as impatient and lacking in self-discipline. However, if you follow through, you can achieve a breakthrough.

If you want to gain influence with people, solve problems. How you act or fail to act in those moments reveals to others just what our leadership competencies are.

Facing a personal failure. Taking a stand on an issue. Experiencing suffering or making an unpleasant choice—all these and more, when handled rightly, will either catapult us forward or eliminate our effectiveness. 

So, when asked, “How do you lead the toughest person in the room?”  You will have no problem answering that question.

Dr. D

(The Carolyle Destiny Group)

Self-Discipline (A different perspective)

What’s at the core of achieving the good life? To start exploring this question, let’s look at what’s not at the core. The major key is not learning how to set goals, or managing your time. And it’s not mastering the fine art of leadership. Day by day, we try to find ways to improve ourselves by learning how to do new things. We spend a lifetime gathering knowledge in classrooms through textbooks and experiences. But if knowledge is power, then why do those who seek it sometimes fall short of their objective? Why, despite our quests for knowledge and experience, do we find ourselves aimlessly wandering, settling for mere existence rather than a life of substance?

Everyone has their own opinion, but, in my view, the answer is lack of discipline.

We need to put ourselves in front of that word discipline and call it self-discipline. Self-discipline is basically one’s ability to focus or act consistently to complete a task or attain a goal. It doesn’t matter how intelligent you are, or if you got the highest honors in school, or attended all the conferences and seminars of the great orators. Unless you apply what you’ve learned, you won’t get results. If you do apply your knowledge, eventually you will realize success. To quote Earl Nightingale: “Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal or goal.”  The key word is here is “progressive”, which means you’re moving towards an objective.

So, self-discipline is better than knowledge. When you’re disciplined, it means you’re applying knowledge. Not only did you study to get results, but you’re also applying what you learned. I like to say that knowledge is like paint: you don’t see the difference unless you apply it.  

So, the key to having a good life and success is consistent self-discipline. Whether you want to be a good parent, have better relationships, or be an influential leader, if you lack consistent discipline, your results will be haphazard. You’ll be all over the place. Zig Ziglar said it best: “Don’t be a wandering generality, be an aiming specific.” Knowing what you want and bringing that to pass requires a change, either physically and/or mentally. Setting goals is not a catch-all, and time management technique is not the hallmark of mastery. Studying the Art of Leadership doesn’t bestow any honors upon you. 

However, if you act on the things you want to achieve day by day, your actions become habitual. That’s when you’ll see results.

Self-Discipline and leadership

Self-discipline is the highest form of leadership. You are the captain of your ship, the master of your own soul. Leading yourself is a challenge, and how well you do it is one way your character shows up. Honestly, there are days when I just want to take a break from keeping myself under control. The problem is, it’s unwise to take a day off.  

The bottom line: if you want to live the good life, follow Jim Rohn’s formula: “Success = Just a few acts of SELF-DISCIPLINE, practiced daily, over a reasonable period. 

The Carolyle Destiny Group

https://TheCarolyLedestinyGroup.now.site

https://thecarolyledestinygroup.one/my_new_book