Building relationships comes down to two words: trust and abundance. When you trust others you are willing to put yourself out there – to give with no expectation of return, to act in a non quid pro quo manner.  Recently, I did a blog post in which I ... [Continue Reading]

A while back in a post I did on optimism and self-confidence, I mentioned a quote in which a guy by the name of Ambrose Bierce bashed optimism – and I am an incurable optimist.  I advocate optimism as a way to create self-confidence and career ... [Continue Reading]

When my book, Straight Talk for Success, first came out I did a big launch campaign that resulted in it becoming an Amazon.com bestseller.  A few months before the launch, I settled on April 22 as my launch date; mostly because the timing was right.  When I ... [Continue Reading]

I was in Phoenix for some business a couple of years ago.  On that trip, I did something that I do too seldom.  I put on my bathing suit, took my iPod and did nothing but sit by the pool listening to music for an hour. I have several Eagles songs on my ... [Continue Reading]

“Give with no expectation of return” is one of the suggestions I make to my career success coach clients when it comes to building strong relationships.  “Pay it forward” is the main advice in Success Tweet 127.  I follow both of these pieces of career advice ... [Continue Reading]

This tweet reminds me of an inspirational movie I sent to my subscribers a while back.  It’s called the 100-0 principle.  The principle is simple.  The best way to build solid relationships is to take 100% responsibility for them.  You can see this movie by ... [Continue Reading]

You need to be interpersonally competent to build strong relationships.  In 1988, researchers at the Department of Psychology at UCLA suggested that there are five dimensions of interpersonal competence… Initiating ... [Continue Reading]

Interpersonally competent people know themselves, have the ability to build and maintain strong mutually beneficial relationships with others, and are able to resolve conflict in a positive manner. Today, I’d like to focus on the first point – knowing ... [Continue Reading]

Successful people have a deep respect for the dignity of each individual.  It doesn’t matter if the person in front of you is the President of the United States, your boss, a co-worker, a taxi driver, a security guard or the housekeeper at your ... [Continue Reading]