Joe Hart - Take Command: Find Your Inner Strength, Build Enduring Relationships, and Live the Life You Want

A Dale Carnegie Book

Joe Hart & Michael Crom

Take Command

Find Your Inner Strength, Build Enduring Relationships, and Live the Life You Want

Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

Copyright 2023 by Dale Carnegie & Associates, Inc.

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First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition January 2023

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Interior design by Ruth Lee-Mui

Jacket design by Adly Elewa

Jacket art by Solarseven/Getty Images

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

ISBN 978-1-9821-9010-1

ISBN 978-1-9821-9012-5 (ebook)

Who has impacted you on a deep, personal level and helped bring out your best? Maybe it was a parent, friend, or coworker. Maybe it was a celebrity, sports hero, or leader who inspired you to do greater things. For my coauthor, Michael Crom, and me, one of the most influential people in our lives was someone weve never met: Dale Carnegie, the author of How to Win Friends and Influence People and How to Stop Worrying and Start Living and the creator of the world-famous Dale Carnegie Course.

I remember my father talking about Dale when I was a teenager. My dad had a small den near our kitchen, and he sat me down one day for what appeared to be a serious conversation. Joey, he said. Life is about personal growth and building strong relationships. This book can help you as it has me. He handed me a fairly worn paperback copy of How to Win Friends. As I flipped through the tattered pages, I realized that my dad was a living example of the principles in this book. Everywhere we went, my dad greeted people with a broad smile and their name. He genuinely cared about the people he met.

Many years later, as a young lawyer, I decided to take a Dale Carnegie Course. Little did I know how that program would change the direction of my life. Inspired by what I had learned and filled with a renewed confidence and vision, I left the practice of law, went into business, and then started an e-learning company. Dale Carnegie Training became my first client. My company and I spent years developing online programs to reinforce what participants and graduates learned in the classroom. In building and selling my first company, surviving daunting challenges, and helping to start a second business, Dales ideas were invaluable to me. His principles have helped me be a more attentive, caring, and supportive father, husband, friend, and leader. I attribute a tremendous amount of what Ive achieved to Dale and his wisdom. Today, I have the privilege and honor of serving as the president and CEO of Dales company, Dale Carnegie Traininga personal and professional training business, with two hundred operations in eighty-six countries, that strives to help people and teams unlock their greatness and perform at the highest levels.

Michaels story is a bit different since he is Dales grandson. His childhood was a joyful one, growing up in a family that not only lived Dales principles in business but applied them to their familys relationships. Michaels father, Ollie, joined Dales company as a young man, working as a field trainer, and he ultimately became the organizations CEO.

I admired my dad and always wanted to follow in his footsteps, but I was terribly introverted at the time. I was shy, unassuming, and uncomfortable being around other people. As a teenager, I could never envision myself as a trainer or leader as my father had been. But then I took the Dale Carnegie Course at fifteen, and it changed everything. All of a sudden, I had new tools that helped me be courageous and confident. It was like beginning a new stage of my life. Michael joined Dale Carnegie a year after graduating college. He worked as a shipping clerk, a software developer, an instructional designer, and eventually moved into sales and management roles around the United States. I loved helping clients develop skills and tools that changed their lives for the better, just as the programs had changed my life. Michael eventually became the executive vice president and chief learning officer for Dale Carnegie Training. Today, he is active with his church and his community, and he serves on several boards, including Dale Carnegies. While his most important role is as a father and husband, he finds great meaning and fulfillment in helping others realize their potential.

Dale was born on a farm in rural Missouri, where his parents struggled to survive. Year after year, the family faced misfortuneflooding that wiped out their crops, disease that killed their livestock, and crippling debt, which forced the family to sell their farm. Despite these challenges, Dales family was loving and close. His parents, eager to help Dale and his brother, Clifton, experience an easier life, moved so the boys could attend a nearby teachers college. It was there that Dale discovered his passion for public speaking as he joined debate and similar groups. Through hard work, Dale made a name for himself. After college, he decided to try his hand at sales, unsuccessfully at first, selling correspondence courses. He then moved to selling meat products, where he became the most successful salesperson in the country. Rather than joining management, he moved to New York City to follow his dream of becoming an actor. His acting career was not successful, so he experimented with several different jobs before he found his true purposeteaching.

Through his work with his students, Dale realized how our fears, doubts, and worries can hold us back. He saw public speaking as a key to unlocking ones potential. In 1912, he created the Dale Carnegie Course, originally to help those with a fear of public speaking. He soon discovered that speaking was also a way to help people develop their human relations skills, which were a critical factor in their success.

Dale wrote How to Win Friends and Influence People after one of his students, a business manager for publisher Simon & Schuster, convinced him to do so. To Dales great surprise and joy, it became an almost instant international bestseller. In fact, it was one of the top-selling nonfiction books of the twentieth century, selling an estimated sixty million copies. He later wrote another best-selling book, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living. The success of these books and his programs allowed Dale to begin developing Dale Carnegie Training as a global organization. Dales teachings became incredibly popular, and today, over 110 years later, millions of people around the world have taken one of Dales programs, helping them achieve richer, fuller lives.