How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

How to Win Friends and Influence People was first written by Dale Carnegie in 1937. Since then it has sold over 15 million copies and become one of the most successful and influential business books of all time.

He wrote the book because he found out that the ability to communicate and deal with people properly is a HUGELY important business and life skill.

He claims that the amount of money we earn doesn’t necessarily reflect our technical knowledge (how-to stuff), but much more our ability to deal with people and our ability to lead people. If we want to earn more, get a promotion, or increase our business, it pays to learn how to effectively deal with people. (This claim is backed by science.)

This is what this book is all about. And it will not only help you in business, but truly in any area of life where people are involved. It will help you solve or most of the time even completely avoid conflicts. It will help you convince people of your ideas and opinions. It will make you a better leader. It will turn you into a conversation master. It will help you win friends. It will help you influence people more easily.

And most of all, it will make people LIKE you A LOT. Seriously. People will LOVE you if you apply the principles of this book. They will enjoy spending time with you and being around you. All because you will be only one of very few people who know how to deal with people in a nice, genuine, understanding, and successful way.

To achieve all of the aforementioned things and more, Carnegie teaches us a total of 30 principles divided into 4 parts:

• PART 1: Fundamental Techniques in Handling People (3 Principles)
• PART 2: Six Ways to Make People Like You (6 Principles)
• PART 3: How to Win People to Your Way of Thinking (12 Principles)
• PART 4: Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment (9 Principles)

We will be discussing few principles separately.

Welcome to part 1!

There are three fundamental techniques for handling people. They are kind of basic and unspecific, but MASSIVELY important whenever we’re dealing with people.

These simple techniques will be repeated throughout the book.

In fact, many techniques will constantly be repeated in different principles. I’m pretty sure that Dale Carnegie did that on purpose to make things really clear and truly hammer these techniques into our mind through constant repetition. So, if you sometimes feel like you’ve already heard something before, that’s how it should be.

Let’s start!

Principle #1: Don't Criticize, Condemn Or Complain

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.

Criticism is dangerous. It puts a person on the defensive, makes him want to justify himself.

Criticism also arouses resentment, and hurts that person’s pride, feelings, ego, and sense of importance.

If we criticize someone, that person will usually almost immediately start to resent us. “Who do you think you are?! Do you think you’re better than me?! You couldn’t have done it better either. Next time I will criticize you, too, you little know-it-all.” This might be something they’re thinking.

Another thing that happens is that the person who gets criticized will start to justify himself. He will invent all kinds of reasons why it wasn’t his fault, why he couldn’t have done anything else, and that he tried everything he could. At best, that’s the start of a hefty dispute, nothing else. That’s leading us exactly nowhere. Even if someone KNOWS that he’s probably wrong, he will still justify himself.

What a HUGE waste of time and energy that could have been spared if a better way of handling such a situation had been used (we’ll learn many better approaches in this book).

Think about the last time you’ve been criticized for something.

Didn’t you immediately start to justify yourself? Be honest. You probably did, right? We all do it naturally. Another question. Did you like the person for criticizing you? Or did you resent the other person? Resentment, right? Again, this is our natural inclination. It’s just how it works…

Let's realize that criticisms are like homing pigeons. They always return home. Let's realize that the person we are going to correct and condemn will probably justify himself or herself, and condemn us in return

Ultimately criticisms will always come back to us in the form of resentment and condemnation.

What we should do instead of criticizing is try to understand the other person. Be understanding and forgiving. Try to figure out why they do what they do. Try to see the situation from their perspective. This approach breeds sympathy, tolerance and kindness instead of resentment and justification.

Criticizing, condemning and complaining is easy. To be understanding and forgiving takes self-control and character.

(By the way, studies completely back up this point. They show that human beings learn much faster through positive reinforcement than through criticism or even punishment. Reward for good behavior works better than criticism for bad behavior.)

Principle #2: Give Honest And Sincere Appreciation

John Dewey, one of America's most profound philosophers, said that the deepest urge in human nature is "the desire to be important."

What do we all want? We want to survive, to eat and drink, to sleep, to have enough money, to protect our children and loved-ones, to have sex… AND we want to feel important.

Fairly often all of these basic wants are gratified – all EXCEPT a feeling of importance.

One way to give people a feeling of importance, is by giving them sincere appreciation and encouragement. Letting them know that they are important, what they do is important, and that they are doing a great job (at whatever it is).

Lincoln once began a letter saying: "Everybody likes a compliment." William James said: "The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated." He didn't speak, mind you, of the "wish" or the "desire" or the "longing" to be appreciated. He said the "craving" to be appreciated.

Everybody likes a compliment. Everybody likes a pat on the back. Everybody likes sincere appreciation. Everybody likes to know that what they do is important and that they do it well and that they should continue doing it.

Remember from earlier that people respond much better to positive reinforcement (appreciation) than to criticism. Positive reinforcement gives us a feeling of importance and makes us want to do even better next time, while criticism kills our ambition.

(Whenever I’m talking about positive reinforcements, compliments, and appreciation, I assume that these are meant sincerely.)

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

Dale Carnegie tells us we should never forget that all our associates are human beings and hungry for appreciation.

When we can truly appreciate someone, we give that person a feeling of importance. We give him motivation, increase his self-esteem, and ultimately make him feel better about himself.

When you think about it this way, it’s really a no-brainer… it doesn’t even cost a thing.

So what are some easy ways to do this?

We could compliment a co-worker on her great speech. Tell her that we really liked how confident she was. That we wish we’d also be as confident as her in front of a huge crowd. We could let her know that we got a lot out of it, that we learned a lot, that her PowerPoint slides were well put together, that she brought the point across very well…

We can try to find little things that most people don’t recognize but the person itself probably did on purpose. Maybe she’s wearing shoes that match her trousers very well.

We can appreciate someone’s personality traits like patience, ambition, and honesty. We can compliment someone on his or her work ethic. We could tell that person that we realize how hard he or she is working. We can compliment someone’s clothing style. Even a simple “Thank You” can do the job if it’s expressed through sincere appreciation.

Whatever it is... TRUE, FROM THE HEART appreciation is always welcome and satisfies a person’s craving to be appreciated. It satisfies their need to feel important.

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