Every businessman who has attained success has learned, usually the hard ways, all about the Fourteen Major Steps to Winning Personality. He has learned that honesty and integrity are still in style and are the-top essential qualities. He knows that enthusiasm, attitudes initiative, human relations, and all the other pertinent qualities are vital links in the chain of success. Here are the Fourteen Major Steps for winning:
1. Character - A man's character is what he is inwardly, for character is the combination of qualities, traits and virtues that distinguishes the individual. It has been said that every man is three different individuals--the man he thinks he is, what others think he is, and what he really is. In the words of Hames:
"A good character is, in all cases, the fruit of personal exertion. It is not inherited from parents, it is not created by external advantages, it is not necessary appendage of birth, wealth, talents or station; but it is the result of one's own endeavors." Each individual has his own distinctive qualities, and these qualities are what help to develop his reputation for honesty, integrity and fair dealing. Just as George Washington once said: "I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an 'honest man.'"
2. Enthusiasm - What is enthusiasm? The word is used so often that it has almost become interchangeable with excitement. And yet it also includes emotion, ardor, sincerity, eagerness, fervency, and intensity.
"Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm," said Bulwer Lytton;
"it moves stones, it charms brutes. Enthusiasm is the genius of sincerity, and truth accomplishes no victories without it." And to quote Bishop Doame:
"Enthusiasm is the element of success in everything. It is the light that leads and the strength that lifts men on and up in the great struggles of scientific pursuits and of professional labor. It robs endurance of difficulty, and makes a pleasure of duty."
Let us beware of losing our enthusiasms, for a man who is full of enthusiasm about his work and his company can overcome a multitude of sins of omission and commission. A spirit of sincere enthusiasm will help a man over many a rough spot, and will carry on from one job to another. A man who is known for his enthusiastic personality is always in demand.
3. Grooming - Good grooming is a distinct promoter of a winning personality. A man's appearance is extremely important in this modern world, because people generally judge more from appearances than from reality. Everyone regardless of his station, affects a particular look and exterior, for a while all men have eyes, very few have the gift of penetration. There are so many details involved in good grooming that it is both unnecessary and embarrassing to mention them. Johann Kaspar Lavater said,
"Dress is an index of your contents." To this we must add that famous line from Shakespeare's Hamlet:
"Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy. But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy; For the apparel oft proclaims the man." Those who think that in order to dress well it is necessary to dress extravagantly or grandly make a great mistake. Naturally, in contacting both your company associates and outsiders a good first impression is most important - you don't always get a second chance to correct a bad first impression.
