Zeratul - Dale Carnegie's happy and successful life and career

1. Remember that there is no one like you in this world.

A letter has reached me from Mrs. Edith Ord in North Carolina. The subject of the letter is as follows.

“I was very shy and emotional when I was young. I had chubby cheeks and a chubby body. My mother was a very conservative mother who thought it was crazy to wear beautiful clothes. She said that clothes should be loose and loose, and if they were too tight, they would easily tear. She also dressed me in loose clothes. I never went to parties or anything. I never had fun. I never went to any extracurricular activities after school. Sports were far away. I was shy and didn’t do anything. I felt like I was different from everyone else. I was always dissatisfied.”

When I grew up, I married a man much older than me. But I didn't change. My male family was very strong, confident people. I tried to be as equal as I could. But I couldn't. Every time they tried to make me fit in, I retreated further into my own little shell. I became more and more afraid and intolerant. I avoided all my friends and acquaintances.

It got so bad that I was even scared of the doorbell ringing. I was a loser. I knew it. And I was worried that my husband would find out. So when we had to go out in public, I had to

"I pretended to be happy. I pretended to be more and more. I knew that I was overdoing it and then I would be miserable and miserable. In the end, my life became meaningless. I even thought about killing myself."

What changed the life of this unhappy woman? Mrs. Orred continued. “One random word changed my whole life. One day my mother-in-law was telling me how she raised her children. She added, “I always tell them to be who they are.” That “who they are” thing changed me. I was really trying to fit myself into a mold that didn’t fit me.

I changed myself overnight. I started being me. I tried to learn my strengths. I tried to figure out who I was and what kind of person I was. I found my strengths. I learned as much as I could about colors and styles. I chose to wear clothes that suited me. I made friends. I joined a team. It was a small team. But when I was asked to speak at an event, I was shocked. After that, I gained a little more courage with each speech. Time passed. But now I have a happiness that I never imagined possible. When I teach my children, I always teach them a lesson from my own bitter experience. It is the lesson of “Be yourself no matter what.”

The unwillingness to accept oneself as one is is an unnatural behavior that results from a wrong attitude and a broken state of mind. Angelo Patri has written thirteen books and thousands of articles on the subject of naming children. “There is no more pitiful person in the world than a person who does not want to be himself, who wants to be like someone else, who wants to have qualities that he does not have,” he said.

William James said that a person can only develop ten percent of his or her latent potential. He said, “We are like a man half asleep compared to the extent to which we should be. We use only a small part of our own potential. We do not use all the potential that we have, and we do not think that we have it.”

You and I have these abilities. So we don't have to worry about being different. You are someone in this world. There is no one else like you. You are different from anyone who has ever lived or will ever live. You are you. According to science, you inherit 24 chromosomes from your father and 24 from your mother, a total of 48, which determine your genetic abilities. Each chromosome contains hundreds of genes, and it is known that just one gene can change a person's entire life. Our lives are unique and wonderful.

When it comes to being true to yourself, I can say this with conviction. I feel strongly about this. I know this well. I have had bitter experiences myself.

When I first came to New York from the Missouri wilderness, I enrolled at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. I had a burning desire to be a film actor. I had a great idea. It was an easy shortcut to success. I couldn't understand why people like me hadn't thought of such a simple idea. My idea was this. I would study the acting and dressing of the famous Hollywood actors of the day. Then I would copy the best features of each of them and make myself a successful film actor, combining the best of them all. What a stupid and useless idea. I had wasted my life trying to be like someone else until the idea that I could never be like anyone else, that I should be just the same, entered my thick head.

This disappointing experience should have been a life lesson for me. But it wasn’t. I was too stupid. I had to relearn this lesson from beginning to end. I wrote a book that was supposed to be the best book on public speaking for business people, and it turned out to be the worst. Not only that. When I first started writing it, I thought I would borrow ideas from other writers, like when I was trying to become a movie star, and put them all into one book. So I spent a year trying to incorporate ideas from all the books on public speaking into my manuscript. But in the end, I saw my own foolishness. It’s not interesting to write a book that is full of other people’s ideas. No business person would learn from it.

So I threw away all the work I had done for a year and started all over again. This time I said to myself, “You must be Dale Carnegie. Dale Carnegie will have his faults and his mistakes. But you can never be anyone else but Dale Carnegie.” I abandoned my shameful plan and began to do the first thing I had to do. I wrote a book on public speaking, which contained my own experiences, observations, and my own opinions. Sir Walter Raleigh, a professor of English literature, said this. “I cannot write a book that can compete with Shakespeare. I can only write a book that I have written.” The lesson I learned was exactly what Walter Raleigh said.

Stay true to yourself. When the world-famous comedian Charlie Chaplin was in the movie, the director had him imitate a famous German comedian at the time, but it didn't work out. Later, he only became famous by recreating his original style.

Mary Margaret McBride first started out on the radio as an Irish voice actress, but she was unsuccessful. Her authentic Missouri country girl appearance and voice acting made her one of the most successful radio stars in New York.

Gene Autry disguised his Texas accent, dressed like a city boy, and called himself a New Yorker, which made people laugh at his antics. However, when he played the banjo and sang cowboy songs, he made a living as the most famous cowboy in the world of film and radio.

You are unique in this world. Be happy with that. Accept it as it is. As far as I can tell, all art is just a superficial expression of the artist. You can only create art to the extent that you are talented. Your experiences, your environment, your genes make you who you are. Whether good or bad, you have to cultivate the garden of your own qualities. Whether good or bad, you have to play your own instrument in the orchestra of life.

In his essay “Self-Reliance,” Emerson wrote, “As the education of all men increases, they learn that envy and indifference are ignorance, and imitation is self-destruction. They learn that, good or bad, they must accept themselves as they are.”