spring cleaning your attitude

here's some evergreen advice from the one and only dale carnegie. as "corporate" as some of these tips may sound, if you put them into the context that fits your individual scenarios i think you will find every one of these 30 "golden rules of success" extremely valuable. sometimes i think we all need a little reminder. so, get out your mental brooms and spring clean your attitude, freshen up your outlook on your work, relationships, and personal goals. enjoy!



dale carnegie's 30 golden rules of success:

Become a Friendlier Person
1. Don’t criticize, condemn or complain.
2. Give honest, sincere appreciation.
3. Arouse in the other person an eager want.
4. Become genuinely interested in other people.
5. Smile.
6. Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
7. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
8. Talk in terms of the other person’s interests.
9. Make the other person feel important – and do it sincerely.

Win People to Your Way of Thinking
10. The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.
11. Show respect for the other person’s opinion. Never say, “You’re wrong.”
12. If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
13. Begin in a friendly way.
14. Get the other person saying “yes, yes” immediately.
15. Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.
16. Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.
17. Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view.
18. Be sympathetic with the other person’s ideas and desires.
19. Appeal to the nobler motives.
20. Dramatize your ideas.
21. Throw down a challenge.

Be a Leader
22. Begin with praise and honest appreciation.
23. Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly.
24. Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.
25. Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.
26. Let the other person save face.
27. Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be “hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise.”
28. Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.
29. Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.
30. Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.

the perks of being a wallflower

i'm currently reading the perks of being a wallflower by stephen chbosky. right now i'm on page 56. the only time i really have to read for fun is at night before bed. it helps me wind down from a day spent online exposed to countless tweets, status updates, and blog posts. my day to day communication and storytelling typically fits into a 3 - 5 minute window. so it's quite refreshing to get wrapped up into a story that will take a few hours of reading over the course of several days, maybe even weeks to finish. so far i really like the style of this book, written in a series of letters from charlie to an anonymous reader. it makes me want to start writing my own book. anyway, i want to share one of my favorite passages from the book as of now:

"it's like he would take a photograph of sam, and the photograph would be beautiful. and he would think that the reason the photograph was beautiful was because of how he took it. if i took it, i would know that the only reason it's beautiful is because of sam.

i just think it's bad when a boy looks at a girl and thinks that the way he sees the girl is better than the girl actually is. and i think it's bad when the most honest way a boy can look at a girl is through a camera. it's very hard for me to see sam feel better about herself just because an older boy sees her that way." - p. 48 - 49

this passage really struck me personally. i have felt this way about myself before - that my value and self-esteem were based on how someone saw me through a camera lens. compositions or recordings that may or may not have reflected my true self. but it was the way i was portrayed to someone or some audience. cameras are not to be trusted, or i should say the person operating the camera is not to be trusted...actually, the person in front of the camera is not always to be trusted, either: a photographer, videographer, actor, host...OK, any person in general...decides how and what to show. the results can be brutally honest or a complete lie. ultimately we're all storytellers and try to have control over how others perceive us - including our own self-perception. convincing our own minds that people, experiences, places really were one particular way when maybe they weren't. we all know the saying "a picture is worth a thousand words". and that is true - but whose words? a photo can inspire a thousand different stories, but how do we know which one is true? we can get an impression of a person, of an event, of a place based on a single moment, a particular angle, one look out of hundreds, that may or may not truly represent that thing. but we will automatically invent a story around it and feel some kind of emotional reaction to it because of our own personal experiences and paradigms. i wonder how many impressions we have of someone, or some thing, that are true vs. false based on photographs/videos.

those are my ramblings for the night...what are your thoughts? share them here on the dealio.

just another manic monday

just another manic monday at rocketboom. today was mostly a day of organizing and emails. i also got a crash course on the panasonic hpx 170. feel much better about operating that thing. molly and i shot 4 episodes yesterday, which i call a 9/10 for productivity. we're getting ready for our trip out to LA april 8 - 12 for the streamy awards. our calendar is already filling up for our time out west, but if you have any suggestions please leave them in a comment below. rocketboom and know your meme were nominated (3 nominations total). ooh, i got to use snaps pro today for an upcoming casual friday. the man's voice always scares me a bit and the panic sets in after he calls action. at least i recorded in 30 frames this time and not 10. tried spicy hot chocolate today at jacques torres down the street. wicked chocolate is what they call it. it's delicious and i recommend trying some if you're in the area. i should probably go to bed now since i have to be back to work at 8:30 a.m. leave me something entertaining for the morning. i dare ya.

my life is an open facebook

i tried to keep facebook divided into private and public pages/content. for me, its nearly impossible to maintain. i don't like separating people off into lists or deciding "who makes the cut". so, tonight i decided to just make everything open. there's nothing i share on my personal page that i wouldn't share on my public page...so, come on over to facebook and say hello!

would love to hear your ideas on what you'd like to see on each page - one for LEAH and one for THE DEALIO ?