Freedom is - (period.)  

Lesson 01 - Dale Carnegie - Certainty is Key

Transcript:

We take up Carnegie first.

Why? Because he tells a few basics which endure through time. Both deal with certainty - some call it self-esteem. Those basics were found when he was teaching public speaking, a craft he studied and taught his entire life.

It was his laboratory, as he called it. Through this, he was able to find and resolve questions of the human condition. Because he dealt with so many, many people and their varied life conditions.

He critiqued speeches for years and years, And that was his library, his study hall. His homework was in helping people resolve their own problems through the only real tool he had - teaching public speaking.

This was their journey to the soul of their existence. For some reason, this brings up all fears and also their personal certainty - the one tool every one has that banishes all opposition.

Carnegie wrote two classics, among the many books he authored, "How to Win Friends and Influence People", and "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living." And while I recommend you get his books and study them for yourself, this is completely your option. But the lesson today and the book chapter doesn't even appraoch being even a decent digest. We are simply skimming off the key points.

Certainty is the theme to his books. A tool you have to have in your arsenal - in order to release the native Freedom you already have, but still seek.

Carnegie had three basic principles which explained all of human behavior. And these, where fully understood, give you complete certainty on how people act, why, and what you can do about any situation you run into. Humankind is no mystery when you understand the basics, as you know what motivates them and how to help them get what they want. Incidentally, you also start understanding your own basic wants much better - and so can get your own goals accomplished more easily.

Your route to freedom involves knowing for certain why people do what they do and how to get them the help they need so that they can help you.

Carnegie listed these very doable and illustrated principles:

"FUNDAMENTAL TECHNIQUES IN HANDLING PEOPLE:

"PRINCIPLE 1 -- Don't criticize, condemn or complain.

"PRINCIPLE 2 -- Give honest and sincere appreciation.

"PRINCIPLE 3 -- Arouse in the other person an eager want."

My book goes into quite a few ideas about how these can be applied to your life to help you find your own Freedom. I tie the use of these principles into the Golden Rule over and over. And you can also say that this just proves the Law of Attraction, or the even older Hermetic principle of Correspondance.

What all these say is that one of the key principles we are running into - and Carnegie covers this well in his books - is that your own self-esteem and self-confidence is dependent on your attitude toward others. And you can change that attitude at will.

This, then, is your first step toward freedom - to know that your own personal attitudes can be changed any time you want.

So I give you a series of assignments in the work book which you can follow to help you with that. Of course, Carnegie gives you many, many more in his book.

And one interesting side-effect is that as you apply these simple suggestions to your life, you'll find other people around you responding. In short - you are helping them find their own Freedom as you find yours.

Cheers!

Assignment:

1. Carnegie had three overall principles in his “How to Make Friends and Influence People. Find five examples of how you have seen these used successfully around you:

a. Don't criticize, condemn, or complain:

This week:

1. Listen to this video every day. If you can, get the recording of the entire chapter and the book – as far more details are covered there.

2. Set up daily time-periods for review.

• First thing in the morning, right after waking up is a time many people find useful. Good for setting the day's activities.

• Over lunch, take some time to yourself to review that morning's activities and see how it went.

• In the evening, preferably just before bed, you can review the events of the day and see how you could improve how you dealt with people.

3.  Each day, make an effort to treat people as you'd like to be treated: honestly appreciative, constructive talk (not critical), and enthusing people around you to do their best at every task.

4. Review how you did that morning, and again in the evening.

5. And don't be critical of yourself if your performance isn't up to what you wanted. Just see how well you did do with the circumstances that day, and resolve to improve your habits in this area.

6. Keep daily notes of your progress and any realizations which came to mind.

Good Luck!

Stand by for Lesson 02...

Where we find how a poor farmboy from the Virginia backwoods was able to interview one of the richest people of his time - and distill the secrets from this man and his friends just in order to give us all a practical philosophy which can restore to us anything and everything we really want.