A brief instructional talk by Brian Tracy outlining seven practical principles for building and maintaining high-quality relationships: trust, respect, communication, courtesy, caring, praise/appreciation, and helpfulness. Tracy emphasizes investing time, keeping promises, expressing respect and gratitude, avoiding criticism, and prioritizing relationships as central to lasting happiness.
Fully 85% of your happiness or unhappiness in life will be determined by your relationships with other people. Now, relationships can be extremely complicated. But to build and maintain quality relationships requires only a few basic principles. Let me give you seven. The first is the principle of trust. All relationships are ultimately based on trust. To build trust, you always keep your word. You remain consistent and dependable in everything you say and do. You never do or say anything that can shake this foundation of trust upon which your relationships are built and maintained. The second principle for building good relationships is respect. Taking time to deliberately express your respect for the uniqueness of another individual makes him or her feel valuable and important. By demonstrating that kind of respect, you build and enhance the quality of your relationships. The third principle for success in relationships is communication. In communicating well with another person, time is the critical factor. The value of a relationship can increase for both you and the other person depending on the amount of time that you invest. When you take the time to focus on the important issues of a relationship, you open the channels of communication. And when you listen calmly, quietly and with total attention, you demonstrate the respect you have for the other person. And you deepen the level of trust between you. The fourth principle for relationship building is courtesy. When you say please and thank you on a regular basis to the people in your life, you make them feel better about themselves and about what they are doing. You raise their self esteem. The fifth principle is caring. The greatest gift that you can give to others is the gift of unconditional love and acceptance. The kindest thing you can do is to refrain from criticizing or condemning or complaining to them or concerning them. Think of yourself as a people builder rather than a people basher. Catch others doing something right. Always look for ways to make people feel more valuable, more respected and more loved. The sixth principle for success with people is a combination of praise and appreciation for everything that others do for you, both large and small. When you say thank you to another person for something they do for you, they feel better about themselves and they want to do more. When you praise someone for something they've accomplished, their self esteem goes up. They feel more valuable and more important, and there's a boomerang effect that causes your own self esteem to go up as well, exactly as if you yourself had been praised or appreciated. The seventh principle for success in relationships is is simply helpfulness. Especially with those people with whom you live. Your constant willingness to step in and do little things to alleviate the burdens felt by your spouses and children is always appreciated and respected. This willingness of yours to share, to contribute, to help each other, is an important facet of lasting relationships. Perhaps the most important thing you ever do in life is is to build and maintain long term, happy, healthy, fulfilling relationships with people you love and who love you. When you make everything else secondary to this central purpose, you'll find yourself enjoying happiness and rewards in exponential proportion to the efforts you put in in life. Relationships are.
