How To Win Friends and Influence People
Last read November 10, 2021
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the person who has technical knowledge plus the ability to express ideas, to assume leadership, and to arouse enthusiasm among people—that person is headed for higher earning power.
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For ‘the great aim of education,’ said Herbert Spencer, ‘is not knowledge but action.’
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What is this magic requirement? Just this: a deep, driving desire to learn, a vigorous determination to increase your ability to deal with people.
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Read each chapter rapidly at first to get a bird’s-eye view of it.
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then go back and reread each chapter thoroughly.
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Ask yourself just how and when you can apply each suggestion.
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When you come across a suggestion that you feel you can use, draw a line beside it.
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if you want to get a real, lasting benefit out of this book, don’t imagine that skimming through it once will suffice. After reading it thoroughly, you ought to spend a few hours reviewing it every month.
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if you desire to master the principles you are studying in this book, do something about them. Apply these rules at every opportunity.
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Offer your spouse, your child or some business associate a dime or a dollar every time he or she catches you violating a certain principle.
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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.
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Let’s realise that criticisms are like homing pigeons. They always return home. Let’s realise that the person we are going to correct and condemn will probably justify himself or herself, and condemn us in return;
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sharp criticisms and rebukes almost invariably end in futility.
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‘A great man shows his greatness,’ said Carlyle, ‘by the way he treats little men.’
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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.’
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As Dr. Johnson said: ‘God himself, sir, does not propose to judge man until the end of his days.’ Why should you and I?
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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.
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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.
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‘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.
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Yet I know, as you know, people who would think they had committed a crime if they let their families or employees go for six days without food; but they will let them go for six days, and six weeks, and sometimes sixty years without giving them the hearty appreciation that they crave almost as much as they crave food.
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The difference between appreciation and flattery? That is simple. One is sincere and the other insincere. One comes from the heart out; the other from the teeth out. One is unselfish; the other selfish. One is universally admired; the other universally condemned.
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‘Don’t be afraid of enemies who attack you. Be afraid of the friends who flatter you.’
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The next time you enjoy filet mignon at the club, send word to the chef that it was excellently prepared, and when a tired salesperson shows you unusual courtesy, please mention it.
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In our interpersonal relations we should never forget that all our associates are human beings and hunger for appreciation. It is the legal tender that all souls enjoy.
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Try leaving a friendly trail of little sparks of gratitude on your daily trips. You will be surprised how they will set small flames of friendship that will be rose beacons on your next visit.
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Give honest and sincere appreciation.
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Tomorrow you may want to persuade somebody to do something. Before you speak, pause and ask yourself: ‘How can I make this person want to do it?’
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‘If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.’
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Mrs. Anderson did not state what she wanted, but wrote in the letter how she could help them, and focused on their wants, not her own.
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‘People who can put themselves in the place of other people, who can understand the workings of their minds, need never worry about what the future has in store for them.’
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If out of reading this book you get just one thing—an increased tendency to think always in terms of other people’s point of view, and see things from their angle—if you get that one thing out of this book, it may easily prove to be one of the building blocks of your career.
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First, arouse in the other person an eager want. He who can do this has the whole world with him. He who cannot walks a lonely way.
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When we have a brilliant idea, instead of making others think it is ours,
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why not let them cook and stir the idea themselves. They will then regard it as their own; they will like it and maybe eat a couple of helpings of it.
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Yet I know and you know people who blunder through life trying to wigwag other people into becoming interested in them.
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Of course, it doesn’t work. People are not interested in you. They are not interested in me. They are interested in themselves—morning, noon and after dinner.
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He declared he never stepped in front of the footlights without first saying to himself over and over: ‘I love my audience. I love my audience.’
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I never forgot that to be genuinely interested in other people is a most important quality for a salesperson to possess—for any person, for that matter.’
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All of us, be we workers in a factory, clerks in an office or even a king upon his throne—all of us like people who admire us.
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When somebody calls you on the telephone use the same psychology. Say ‘Hello’ in tones that bespeak how pleased you are to have the person call.
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Showing a genuine interest in others not only wins friends for you, but may develop in its customers a loyalty to your company.
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I had made more headway in two hours by becoming genuinely interested in him and his problems than I could have made in ten years trying to get him interested in me and my product.
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Publilius Syrus, remarked: ‘We are interested in others when they are interested in us.’
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Become genuinely interested in other people.
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Everybody in the world is seeking happiness—and there is one sure way to find it. That is by controlling your thoughts. Happiness doesn’t depend on outward conditions. It depends on inner conditions.
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‘There is nothing either good or bad,’ said Shakespeare, ‘but thinking makes it so.’
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Jim Farley discovered early in life that the average person is more interested in his or her own name than in all the other names on earth put together.
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Benton Love, chairman of Texas Commerce Bancshares, believes that the bigger a corporation gets, the colder it becomes. ‘One way to warm it up,’ he said, ‘is to remember people’s names. The executive who tells me he can’t remember names is at the same time telling me he can’t remember a significant part of his business and is operating on quicksand.’
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Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
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And not only important personages crave a good listener, but ordinary folk do too. As the Reader’s Digest once said: ‘Many persons call a doctor when all they want is an audience.’
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So if you aspire to be a good conversationalist, be an attentive listener. To be interesting, be interested. Ask questions that other persons will enjoy answering. Encourage them to talk about themselves and their accomplishments.
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Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
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Little phrases such as ‘I’m sorry to trouble you,’ ‘Would you be so kind as to—?’ ‘Won’t you please?’ ‘Would you mind?’ ‘Thank you’—little courtesies like these oil the cogs of the monotonous grind of everyday life—and incidentally, they are the hallmark of good breeding.
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Make the other person feel important—and do it sincerely.
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SIX WAYS TO MAKE PEOPLE LIKE YOU PRINCIPLE 1 Become genuinely interested in other people. PRINCIPLE 2 Smile. PRINCIPLE 3 Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language. PRINCIPLE 4 Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves. PRINCIPLE 5 Talk in terms of the other person’s interests. PRINCIPLE 6 Make the other person feel important—and do it sincerely.
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Nine times out of ten, an argument ends with each of the contestants more firmly convinced than ever that he is absolutely right.
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There’s magic, positive magic, in such phrases as: ‘I may be wrong, I frequently am. Let’s examine the facts.’
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In talking with people, don’t begin by discussing the things on which you differ. Begin by emphasising—and keep on emphasising—the things on which you agree. Keep emphasising, if possible, that you are both striving for the same end and that your only difference is one of method and not of purpose.
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A ‘No’ response, according to Professor Overstreet,[1] is a most difficult handicap to overcome. When you have said ‘No,’ all your pride of personality demands that you remain consistent with yourself. You may later feel that the ‘No’ was ill-advised; nevertheless, there is your precious pride to consider! Once having said a thing, you feel you must stick to it.
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‘It took me years and cost me countless thousands of dollars in lost business before I finally learned that it doesn’t pay to argue, that it is much more profitable and much more interesting to look at things from the other person’s viewpoint and try to get that person saying “yes, yes.”’
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