Here are ten rules that will help you build positive relationships:
- Speak to people: There is nothing as nice as a cheerful word of greeting.
- Smile at people: It takes 72 muscles to frown, only 14 to smile.
- Call people by name: The sweetest music to anyone’s ears is the sound of their own name.
- Be friendly and helpful: To make a friend, you have to be a friend.
- Be cordial: Speak and act as if everything you do is a genuine pleasure.
- Be genuinely interested in people: You can like almost anybody if you try.
- Be generous with praise, cautious with criticism.
- Be considerate with the feelings of others. There are usually three sides to a controversy: yours, the other fellow’s, and the right side.
- Be alert to give service: What counts most in life is what we do for others.
- Add to this a good sense of humor, a big dose of patience, and a dash of humility, and you will be rewarded many-fold.
None of these are rocket science. Ask participants: on a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your present ability to carry out these 10 commandments daily?
Words are the building blocks of good communication. From infancy we are always learning new and better ways and words with which to enhance our communications with others.
Words are very important in our efforts to communicate with others. I will give you self-defeating, depressing words, and I want you to give me back uplifting, energizing words:
| Self-Defeating Talk | Uplifting Talk |
| There is nothing we can do. | Let’s look at the choices. |
| They won’t allow that. | We can try something new. |
| I can’t. | I will… |
| I must. | We can… |
| If only. | From here on… |
