How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

Dale Carnegie was an American writer and lecturer, and the developer of courses in self-improvement, salesmanship, corporate training, public speaking, and interpersonal skills. He is not related to Andrew Carnegie, the Scottish industrialist, steel tycoon and philanthropist.


The book is a "practical, working handbook on human relations".

Guidelines to win friends and influence people

1. Don’t criticize, condemn or complain
2. Give honest and sincere appreciation
3. Arouse in the other person an eager want
4. Become genuinely interested in other people
5. Smile
6. Remember people’s names and details about them
7. Be an active listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
8. Talk in terms of the other person’s interests
9. Always make the other person feel important
10. Avoid arguments
11. Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never say, "You're wrong."
12. If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically
13. Begin in a friendly way
14. Get the other person saying "yes, yes" immediately
15. Let the other person do a great deal of the talking specially when handling complaints.
16. Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.
17. Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view.
18. Be sympathetic with the other person’s ideas
19. Appeal to the nobler motives.
20. Dramatize your ideas.
21. Throw down a challenge. Stimulate competition.
22. Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.
23. Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.
24. Let the other person save face.
25. Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.

"'Education, said Dr. John G. Hibben, former president of Princeton University, 'is the ability to meet life’s situations...'"

"For 'the great aim of education,'' said Herbert Spencer, 'is not knowledge but action."

"Learning is an active process. We learn by doing. So, if you desire to master the principles you are studying in this book, do something about them. Apply these rules at every opportunity. If you don’t you will forget them quickly. Only knowledge that is used sticks in your mind."

Reflect at end of the day/week:
'What mistakes did I make that time?'
'What did I do that was right-and in what way could I have improved my performance?'
'What lessons can I learn from that experience?'

Criticism

"Criticism is futile because it puts a person on the defensive and usually makes him strive to justify himself. Criticism is dangerous, because it wounds a person’s precious pride, hurts his sense of importance, and arouses resentment."

"ninety-nine times out of a hundred, people don’t criticize themselves for anything, no matter how wrong it may be."

"an animal rewarded for good behavior will learn much more rapidly and retain what it learns far more effectively than an animal punished for bad behavior. Later studies have shown that the same applies to humans. By criticizing, we do not make lasting changes and often incur resentment. "

"But it takes character and self-control to be under-standing and forgiving. “A great man shows his greatness,” said Carlyle, “by the way he treats little men.”"

"Instead of condemning people, let’s try to understand them. Let’s try to figure out why they do what they do. That’s a lot more profitable and intriguing than criticism; and it breeds sympathy, tolerance and kindness. “To know all is to forgive all.”"

Get people to do what they want to do by making them want it

"There is only one way under high heaven to get anybody to do anything. Did you ever stop to think of that? Yes, just one way. And that is by making the other person want to do it."

"Remember, there is no other way."

Deep Desires

The deepest urge in human nature is "the desire to be important."

"Some of the things most people want include:"

1. Health and the preservation of life.
2. Food
3. Sleep
4. Money and the things money will buy.
5. Life in the hereafter.
6. Sexual gratification.
7. The well-being of our children.
8. A feeling of importance.

People want to feel important

"It was this desire for a feeling of importance that led an uneducated, poverty-stricken grocery clerk to study some law books he found in the bottom of a barrel of household plunder that he had bought for fifty cents. You have probably heard of this grocery clerk. His name was Lincoln."

"It is this desire that lures many boys and girls into joining gangs and engaging in criminal activities. The average young criminal, according to E. P. Mulrooney, onetime police commissioner of New York, is filled with ego, and his first request after arrest is for those lurid newspapers that make him out a hero."

"If you tell me how you get your feeling of importance, I’ll tell you what you are. That determines your character."

"That is the most significant thing about you. For example, John D. Rockefeller got his feeling of importance by giving money to erect a modern hospital in Peking, China, to care for millions of poor people whom he had never seen and never would see. "

"Dillinger, on the other hand, got his feeling of importance by being a bandit, a bank robber and killer. When the FBI agents were hunting him, he dashed into a farmhouse up in Minnesota and said, 'I’m Dillinger!' He was proud of the fact that he was Public Enemy Number One. “I’m not going to hurt you, but I’m Dillinger!” he said."

"History sparkles with amusing examples of famous people struggling for a feeling of importance. Even George Washington wanted to be called “His Mightiness, the President of the United States”; and Columbus pleaded for the title “Admiral of the Ocean and Viceroy of India.” "

"Catherine the Great refused to open letters that were not addressed to “Her Imperial Majesty”; and Mrs. Lincoln, in the White House, turned upon Mrs. Grant like a tigress and shouted, 'How dare you be seated in my presence until I invite you!'"

"Our millionaires helped finance Admiral Byrd’s expedition to the Antarctic in 1928 with the understanding that ranges of icy mountains would be named after them; and Victor Hugo aspired to have nothing less than the city of Paris renamed in his honor. Even Shakespeare, mightiest of the mighty, tried to add luster to his name by procuring a coat of arms for his family."

"Charles Schab was paid millions dollars when it was unheard of.
'I consider my ability to arouse enthusiasm among my people,' said Schwab, 'the greatest asset I possess, and the way to develop the best that is in a person is by appreciation and encouragement.'"

"That is what Schwab did. But what do average people do? The exact opposite. If they don’t like a thing, they bawl out their subordinates; if they do like it, they say nothing."

"What do you think was discovered to be the main reason wives ran away? It was 'lack of appreciation.' And I'd bet that a similar study made of runaway husbands would come out the same way. We often take our spouses so much for granted that we never let them know we appreciate them."

"The difference between appreciation and flattery? That is simple. One is sincere and the other insincere."

"Give honest and sincere appreciation."


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