respect is a funny thing, especially when you view it from your own perspective. it is easy to give respect to someone, but how do you gain respect for yourself. you go your entire life looking for respect, but the reality is you must earn a person’s respect – whether that person is your spouse, your child, your parent or your boss. in each one on one relationship, you must establish a sense of respect -more easily done with personal relationships. with personal relationships, you can follow your instinct on how to act and respect will follow. but in professional relationships, it is harder to judge when you have earned a person’s respect. oftentimes, it is not clear if your boss or your subordinate respects you. and sometimes you realize that you are not respected as much as you believed in the work environment. therefore, the only path one must take in the work environment is to do what you think is right and act the way you feel is the right way –and if respect comes from your actions and words, then so be it. on the other hand, if respect is not earned by your actions, then so be it as well. in other words, you cannot control whether a person respects you or not, so don’t dwell on the idea of “does this person respect me”. that is not for you to worry about – you can only control your own actions and results. you cannot control earning respect from others. you might do every action with the greatest of success –and still respect might not follow. don’t look for respect from others and only look for respect from yourself.