Arjun Khemani

People may forget what you say and people may forget what you do. But no one will ever forget how you made them feel

Maya Angelou

Read the above quote once again, if you please, and this time try noticing how your thoughts shoot up when you understand the words of Maya Angelou better.

So, how did you observe that quote? Okay, let me be a little more specific … What were your thoughts on the thought?

I’m guessing there must be two ways you could have perceived it:

1. The bad feeling: You may have comprehended the words as —> if you make someone feel bad, they will never forget it. (even though there’s an overused maxim “forgive and forget“)
2. The good feeling: Or you may have thought of the quote in another way —> if you make someone feel good, they will never forget it.

Now that sort of works like a double-edged sword, doesn’t it? There’s really no “right” way to look at it, and there was no good reason to ask you how you looked at the quote at first (don’t worry it doesn’t indicate what kind of a person you are, although it may). Anyway, it’s just that those words hold so much power and truth burning intensely under them.

There isn’t any thing as—what today’s population would call—”success” without people. You need people …
– to build fancy cars for you to drive
– to be employees in your business
– to help buy (and sell) what you have on the table
– to make you things
– to show you love
– to have life
You basically need people for survival. The human race would not even have started if there were only one man or woman at the beginning of evolution. We need people. It just boils down to common sense.

Since people give us so much; a meaning and will to live and most importantly- life itself, it may be just apt, I believe, to exponentially return that favor to everyone in the world. Since everyone is a being. Return that universal favor of life by building people.

Everyone; including you and me- hate it when we hate it, isn’t it? When people are down, just build them up. Now of course that sounds easier said than done, but it mustn’t be that way.

Like Martin Kohe said,

“Make people like you for who you are, rather than what you do for them”

You don’t have to take up a “burden” and help everyone in need just for the sake of doing a good thing. In fact taking a burden like that, I suppose would not be categorized as doing something good.
Countless incredible books and courses have been created on leadership and building people. And although they all mostly mention clearly to stay true to your own self and ideals while leading people, “being authentic” and whatnot; we still tend to get the wrong idea. We think we’ll have to change ourselves to become a “better” person, or to show more emotion to and care for others. We’ll need to change into a calmer person, and be positive and uplifting, we assume. All this “change” can sound overwhelming. But again it doesn’t have to be. The thing is, no one is a bad leader. It’s just that years of being in a close relationship with our egocentric beliefs, have covered the integral values part of the mind like the atmosphere of Earth acts as a blanket and shields the planet from harmful rays from space. Just like that, a blanket is put on your ethics, although shielding you from a little bit of uncomfortableness, it makes you weak and vulnerable to many foreign things and people.

We need to uncover that blanket. The “good” person is stored within it. Just a long time spent underneath that “fake-safe” blanket makes us accustomed to being self-centered, hence having a “bad knack” at leadership. Our desires have shaped us into someone we’d rather not be. Therefore, it’s important to evaluate ones desires and see where they’re taking us.

Building people up with yourself would be an empty path. The most traversed would be the self-seeking low road. Not such a good choice if you wish to aim for mastery (i.e. to stand out). So build, not break people. Care, not neglect people. Win, not lose people.