Steps To Building A Positive Personality

Credibility:

We all know the story of the shepherd boy who cried wolf. The boy decided to have some fun at the expense of the villagers. He shouted, "Help, help, the wolf is here." The villagers heard him and came to his rescue. But when they got there, they saw no wolf and the boy laughed at them. They went away. The next day, the boy played the same trick and the same thing happened.

Then one day, while the boy was taking care of his sheep he actually saw a wolf and shouted for help. The people in the village heard him but this time nobody came to his rescue. They thought it was another trick and didn't trust him anymore. He lost his sheep to the wolf. What is the moral of the story?

The moral of the story is: When people tell lies, they lose credibility. Once they have lost credibility, even when they tell the truth, no one believes them.

The Quality of a Good Character is Honesty:

Truth can be misrepresented in two ways:

1. Incomplete facts or information
2. Exaggeration

Beware Of Half-Truths or Misrepresentation of Truths

There was a sailor who worked on the same boat for three years. One night he got drunk. This was the first time it ever happened. The captain recorded it in the log, "The sailor was drunk tonight." The sailor read it, and he knew this comment would affect his career, so he went to the captain, apologized and asked the captain to add that it only happened once in three years which was the complete truth. The captain refused and said, "What I have written in the log is the truth." The next day it was the sailor's turn to fill in the log. He wrote, "The captain was sober tonight." The captain read the comment and asked the sailor to change or add to it explaining the complete truth because this implied that the captain was drunk every other night. The sailor told the captain that what he had written in the log was the truth. Both statements were true but they conveyed misleading messages:

Exaggeration:

Exaggeration does two things:

1. It weakens a person's case and makes him lose credibility.
2. It is like an addiction. It becomes a habit. Some people can't tell the truth without exaggerating.

Be Sincere:

Sincerity is a matter of intent and hard to prove. We can achieve our goals by having a sincere desire to help others.

Stay Away from Pretense:

Asking a friend in trouble, "Is there anything I can do for you," is really annoying. It is more of an eyewash and pretense. If you really want to help, think of something appropriate to be done and then do it. Many people put on the cloak of sincerity more out of selfishness than substance, hoping that some day they could claim the right to receive help. Stay away from meaningless and phony pleasantries.

Caution-- Sincerity is no measure of good judgment. Someone could be sincere, yet wrong.