We're dealing with a very dramatic and very fundamental paradigm shift here. You may try" to lubricate your' social interactions with personality techniques and skills, but in the process, you may truncate the vital character base. You can't have the fruits without the roots. It's the principle of sequencing: Private victory precedes Public Victory. Self-mastery and self-discipline are the foundation of good relationship with others. Some people say that you have to like yourself before you can like others. I think' that idea has merit but if you don't know yourself, if you don't control yourself, if you don't have mastery over yourself, it's very hard to like yourself, except in some short-term, psych-up, superficial way. Real self-respect comes from dominion over*self from true independence. Independence is an achievement. Inter dependence is a choice only independent people can make. Unless we are willing to achieve real independence, it's foolish to try to develop human relations skills. We might try. We might even have some degree of success when the sun is shining. But when the difficult times come - and they will - We won't have the foundation to keep things together. The most important ingredient we put into any relationship is not what we say or what we do, but what we are. And if our words and our actions come from superficial human relations techniques (the Personality Ethic) rather than from our own inner core (the character Ethic), others will sense that duplicity. We simply won't be able to create and sustain the foundation necessary" for effective interdependence. The techniques and skills that really make a difference in human interaction are the ones that almost naturally flow from a truly independent character. So the place to begin building any relationship is inside ourselves, inside our Circle of Influence, our own character. As we become independent - Proactive, centered in correct principles, value driven and able to organize and execute around the priorities in our life with integrity - we then can choose to become interdependent - capable of building rich, enduring, highly productive relationships with other people.

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