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Showing content with the highest reputation on 06/04/2021 in all areas

  1. It's kind of an anachronism now but lest I forget Corps training (by and around the 4th Corps) included a sales course and a public speaking course, both taught by Bill Maize. Bill was a certified Dale Carnegie instructor, a PFAL grad and taught the Carnegie material with a specific eye on what we were doing which included teaching, witnessing and of course, signing people up for PFAL. Over time I think Bill's teaching and overall approach were excellent and have held up. I've continued my education in general business and some specific technical fields, completed 100's of hours of CE - continuing education - to increase and refresh my skills and knowledge, facilitated 100's more in my career work and specialized at times in training others in topics like Workflows & Analysis and UXP testing (user experience) related to client-side application development. Plus I've got 1000's of hours of public speaking under my belt teaching on the Bible, Christianity, "sermonizing" and otherwise pontificating on any number of related topics and as a musician taught music and performed all my life (less so these last 30 years or so). For my time and money, Bill Maize taught material that I've used over and over throughout the years and been able to build on. At one time I did fairly well in sales related fields and jobs and the Carnegie concepts served me as did many of the specific methods when they were reapplied and tailored to other settings. For me the combination of Sales and Public Speaking gave me something I think others might have ignored - an approach to communicating with others that helped me learn about others and understand them. The "sales" part for me was defined immediately by the statement we learned - "a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still".....so I took the idea of "selling something" through manipulation off the table....I could see that even the most needy person would only go along with something they didn't really want for so long and by continuing expose themselves to possible damage....anything close to full valid acceptance requires more than just accommodating a weakness or need with promises.... And for many the promise of a group of people who suddenly liked you or at the least put up with you, wanted you to hang with them and who were interested in you and what you did and what you needed was pretty heady stuff. And that alone can be a healing balm, to be accepted for who you are - and in Christian thinking for who God wants you to be, but without the the emotional and physical debt of guilt, judgment and condemnation. Free - "free at last!" to be ourselves in God's creation. The Carnegie material is still represented and offered in varying formats by many training and trade groups and the content is refreshed of course. For me years ago, was it really necessary? No, not really. Any caring person willing to take the time to meet others and get to know them with the intent to help them with their friendship and what they know will do most of the important stuff - invest their time, listen, be patient, try to understand, etc. etc. BUT it did something very important for me personally, gave me time and methods to help me learn to communicate and express myself better with others, and start that lifelong journey of doing so. Where all this went south IMO was taking any of it and pushing it into some pre-fab format of quotas and measurements to "get people in the Class".....even if it's vacuums there's always going to be a report of "how many did you sell" but from the human side the report will really say "how many people were helped with the products"?..... Even writing this it sickens me to remember sitting with some of the fk-tard "leaders" sitting on someone else's couch in their home drinking their coffee and yelling at them for not "getting enough signups to start a CLASS!!!!" Sad. But it's all blue skies and berry pies today! PTL! Free!!! Free at last!!!!
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