your all good folks out there, mostly.

Today Zach and I went for a walk. We have done this for several Saturdays but I think I will be able to do it a lot with him this week and hopefully next since I am going to be working out of my home office for a while. The time with Zach is good. Short walks of course don't fill the day but it is fun. I often ask him on these walks what he has read and I ask him to tell me something about it. Today I mentioned to him a book I had read for the first time when I was about 18 or so. It was one of many many positive thinking books I read 'back then". I was just obsessed by self improvement books until I was in my early 30's. I sort of lost interest in the books. I didn't lose the belief in the message but just felt that I had a lot of other areas that I wanted to focus on. Why English literature and books of the 1800's found a place of strong interest I can't really say except for the desire to just understand more and find out more about "thought" itself.

Carnegie in his book "How to win friends and influence people" presented a subject that seemed to be a worthwhile. Looking back over the years when I have been out running with someone, any subject that could cover a few miles was a worth while subject. I have spent a while on some odd subjects on these runs I will admit but then today we talked about Carnegie and remembering and using others names, understanding their interests, and some overall approaches. Seems to me that "salesmanship" is a good thing. Guess I am just labeling it all under this general heading, salesmanship. At it's core it is just service. Just finding out what is important to the other person and then understanding why it is important.

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In the introduction of Louis Lamour's book, Education of a Wandering Man, is some interesting insight. I figure this author would have been a unlikely one to have been one I would quote years later after the time of "positive thinking focus", after many books on literature and thought, but in spite of the fact that I don't really like to read westerns I liked this book. His autobiography really. A self made man. A fighter. A educated man. In the summary of this book it tells us that rather than claim that we are what we eat that we ought to claim in today's world that we are what we read. Then that how each of us digests what we read is really a mystery and sometimes as puzzling as figuring out what they really think.

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Well I think Dale C. had some good ideas back then and still now.

Fundamental Techniques in Handling People:
"Don't criticize, condemn or complain."
"Give people a feeling of importance; praise the good parts of them."
"Get the other person to do what you want them to by arousing their desires."

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Six Ways to Make People Like You:
"Become genuinely interested in other people."
"Smile."
"Remember that a man's name is to him the sweetest and most important sound in any language."
"Be a good listener.

Encourage others to talk about themselves."
"Talk in the terms of the other man's interest."
"Make the other person feel important and do it sincerely."