Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People is one of the world's most effective books on human relations. If you want to improve your social IQ, be more influential and improve your leadership, then this book must be your bible. Even though the book was written 84 years ago, it is still applicable today and that is why it is one of the best selling books in the world. In this lesson I will summarize the entire book. After reading this summary, you can say that you have read this book because it covers every chapter and every important piece of information.
First part - Basic techniques in communication with people
Chapter 1 - Do not criticize, judge or complain
People don't criticize themselves for anything, no matter how wrong they are. Remember that humans are creatures of emotion and are motivated by their ego and pride. Criticizing people almost always puts them on the defensive and they find ways to justify their actions. Even family members of criminals often deny guilt and blame the system instead of the person for the crimes. Criticism hurts a person's pride and sense of importance. Remember, people can develop a grudge against insults that can last a lifetime.
Famous airplane test pilot Bob Hoover was flying back from the San Diego Air Show when all of a sudden both of his engines quit. Thanks to his impressive flying skills, he managed to land the plane and save those on board. Unfortunately, the plane was badly damaged. The reason for the dangerous engine failure was that the World War II plane was accidentally filled with jet fuel at the airport. Hoover saw the mechanic make the mistake and the young man was in tears, knowing how furious Hoover was about losing his expensive plane and the danger he had put the three people on board. Did Hoover yell at him, berate him, criticize him? Not in the least. On the contrary, Hoover said that to show his confidence in a mechanic who had learned his lesson, he would like the same mechanic to service his plane the next day. The reason for Hoover's benevolence may have been that he knew something that the psychologist B.F. Skinner discovered a long time ago - that animals that are rewarded for good behavior learn more effectively than those that are punished for bad behavior. The same applies to people - criticizing them will not encourage them to change their behavior because they are not driven primarily by reason, but by emotion. Any weak person can criticize or complain, but true character is to understand and forgive.
Chapter 2 - Make an honest and sincere confession
One of the strongest drivers of human behavior is the desire to be appreciated by others. We all like to be praised and hear that we are doing a good job. Some people even argue that all civilization ultimately rests on the human desire to matter. Our craving for approval and praise drives us to climb the highest mountains, write novels, and start multi-million dollar companies. You don't need to give someone a great title to show your appreciation. It is enough to use simple phrases like "thank you" and "I'm sorry", while at the same time giving sincere and sincere praise. Don't go overboard with false flattery, because people will see right through it. Instead, stop thinking about yourself for a moment and focus on the good sides of the person in front of you. Also, make sure you make the other person feel important. Try to put yourself in the right mindset by thinking like Ralph Waldo Emerson, who said that every person he met was superior in certain things, so there was always something he could learn and appreciate in other people. Or consider the Golden Rule - do unto others as you would have others do unto you. So the next time you see a tired, bored and underappreciated employee somewhere, try to brighten their day with some expressions of gratitude. Leave little sparks of gratitude throughout the day and you'll be surprised how positively people respond when their desire for recognition is satisfied. You will soon become a person that others like and enjoy working with, and most importantly, you will have a positive impact on the lives of those around you.
Chapter 3 - attracting another person's interest.
Let's say you like cheesecake, when you go fishing you don't put cheesecake on the end of your hook, you put what the fish wants, which is a worm. Then why do you treat people differently? Of course, you are interested in what you want, but no one else is. Everyone else is just like you, we all want what we want. The only way to influence other people is to talk about what they want and show them how to get it. Every person in the world knows what they want and cares about what they get. Approach them from this perspective. Before you speak, stop and ask yourself, "What can the other person get out of this?" Even challenge yourself not to say anything about what you want. Continually show others that you want to help them. The world is full of people who are selfish, so the rare person who selflessly serves others has a huge advantage. Andrew Carnegie had a sister-in-law whose children never answered letters. He met someone from whom he could get an answer without asking for it. He wrote letters in which he mentioned at the end that he was sending a five-dollar bill, but left out the money. And indeed, they replied thanking him for the letter and asking where the money was.
Part Two - Six Ways to Get People to Like You.
Chapter 1 - Take a genuine interest in other people. Who is universally loved as friendly and approachable? A dog. They are always excited to see you and you seem to be the most important thing in their world. Showing interest in other people makes them feel important. We all love people who admire us. People are not interested in you or me, but in themselves. Every day, throughout your life, when you see a group photo, whose face do you look at first? Remember, you make friends much more easily by being interested in them than by trying to get them interested in you. Ask people about their past and goals. Remember the problems people have and when you come across a solution, share it with that person. Make an effort to talk to people below your level, employees who are not subordinate to you, service staff, etc. To people above your level, show genuine interest in them, their work, and their advice. They feel important when they can share the secrets of their success.
Chapter 2 - smile. A smile says, "I like you, you make me happy, I'm glad to see you." It is a message of goodwill. On one occasion, a New York stockbroker named William B. Steinhardt decided to try something new on the advice of the author. Previously known as a grumpy person who rarely smiled in his personal or professional life, Steinhardt vowed to simply smile more. Giving himself a speech of encouragement in front of the mirror, on the first morning of the experiment he greeted his wife with a smile, then smiled at the doorman of the building, the cashier at the subway station, traders at the stock market and colleagues at work. The result: people started smiling back at him. Steinhardt said there was more luck in the first two months of the experiment than in the entire previous year. Moreover, he noticed that he was able to resolve complaints and disagreements more easily at work, which brought him more income than before. In short, he was a richer and happier man. As the story shows, a smile can go a long way. If someone we just met makes us smile, we will automatically love them. A baby's smile, for example, instantly makes us feel warm and cuddly inside, as does seeing a dog wagging its tail in sheer delight at seeing us. So if you want someone to like you right away, show them you're happy to see them with a smile. When they see how happy you are to meet them, they can't help but be happy to see you too.
Chapter 3 - remember that a person's name is the sweetest and most important sound in any language a name is a person's identity it makes them unique among all others this is a principle I always ignored before and whenever I met someone new I would hear their name and after five seconds forget it him and later when I needed his name I would always apologize by saying sorry I'm really bad with names can you repeat your name after reading the book I noticed this was a huge mistake when you remember another person's name it shows that you really are listened and cared when you spoke using names lowers the barrier and makes other people feel closer these days when i meet someone i really pay attention to the first few seconds they mention their names and instead of just saying nice to meet you i always say nice I like getting to know you. Repeating Tom's name helps me remember it better, plus it makes the other person feel connected to me, so the next time you go to the gym or somewhere else instead of saying "Hi, how are you today?" say "Hi Tom, how are you today?" you will start to notice the difference saying a name is a subtle and welcome compliment forgetting it or misspelling it is a mistake that suggests you don't care enough to get it right people pay a lot of money to have their names remembered after they die naming buildings, dedicating parks to them etc. a businessman who can't remember the names of his important clients is simply saying that he doesn't care about a large part of his business Carnegie wanted to merge with an automobile company that was called Pullman when Carnegie mentioned that the new company would still be called Pullman, Pullman was become much more interested if you have difficulty remembering a name, make sure you catch it the first time it comes up in a conversation and ask for it to be repeated or even written down if necessary, then repeat it to the person several times during the conversation, finally, when you are alone , make some kind of connection to remember it better.
Chapter 4 - be a good listener encourage others to talk about themselves someone's life is the most important life to that person someone's headache means more to them than hunger that kills a million people letting someone talk makes that person feel important and flattered everyone has been through what consider difficult times and like to talk about it if they have overcome them ask about it even better combine this with another tip which was give genuine appreciation and praise tell them how fascinating their stories are and how you wish you had their knowledge or experience when having a conversation most people are so busy with what they want to say next that they barely listen to the other person at all real listening means you make a conscious effort to give the other person your full attention and the benefits of this approach are significant once the author attended a dinner in New York where he met a botanist, he had never met one before, the author listened to him for hours enthralled with descriptions of exotic plants and experiments, later the botanist remarked to the host that the author was an interesting interlocutor, but the fact is that the author almost he didn't say anything at all, he was just a good interested listener before reading the book I never paid attention to this principle when I was talking to someone I always waited for the person to finish the conversation so I could change the subject to my areas of interest or while the person was talking I was constantly thought of things to say when the person was done and when that person was done, I would blurt out information that I thought was interesting.
Chapter 5 - talk in terms of the other person's interests using the earlier analogy why the fish with the cheesecake the fish with the bait that the partner wants people are usually much more enthusiastic about topics that interest them than those that only interest you before you meet someone research their interests thoroughly in order to have working knowledge in that area identify someone's main goals then talk about how you will help them get closer to their goals for example my goal with this YouTube channel is to reach 15,000 subscribers in the next four months and how would I achieve that goal if I came to you and said people please subscribe to my channel because I have a goal to achieve then you probably wouldn't care it doesn't mean anything to you at all but instead if I can provide you with some useful information with this video add some positive value to your life and only after that ask you to subscribe and open the bell notification so that you can benefit from my future videos then there is a better chance that you will because if you are watching this video I assume that you are interested in your personal growth and maybe it will be for you interesting my future videos as you can see I didn't even mention my goal I was talking about the benefits you will get
Chapter 6 - make the other person feel important and do it honestly almost everyone you meet feels superior in some way let them know in some subtle way that you understand their importance conversely avoid doing things that belittle the other person and make them feel small or give praise to the unimportant without expecting anything from them just to radiate happiness and lift them up this one kind of sums up the previous principles so I won't spend too much time on it
Part 3 - 12 ways to get people on your side.
Chapter 1 - Praise is good but what do you do when someone disagrees with you is the next topic How to win friends and influence people in short put aside your instinct to fight fire with fire people don't like to be proven wrong they don't like to admit that they have to change their minds no matter how right you are supposedly they crave importance correcting their opinion hurts their pride you think it's important to be seen as the smartest person in the room but that will get you frozen chapter 1 the only way to get the best out of an argument is to avoid it arguing with the other person doesn't really make much sense if you lose you lose the argument if you win the other person will resent you for hurting their pride and you still haven't really won them over nine times out of ten arguing will only make the other person stand even more firmly behind their points of view therefore the only solution is to avoid such disputes from the very beginning when the discussion starts don't trust the first reaction that arises in you because usually you react instinctively and whatever you do control your temper listen to what your opponent has to say without resistance or protest and promise to consider their thoughts carefully try to find areas where you agree this will help reduce your opponent's defensiveness
chapter 2 - it starts in a friendly way, a hostile attitude only causes mutual hostility, people don't want to change their minds, they can't be forced to agree with you, but they can be led to think about how to attract the animal. Do you chase after her growling or offer food? A drop of honey attracts more flies than a gallon of bile. Someone had a difficult landlord who raised the rent instead of complaining about how unfair it was, he talked about how much he appreciated the house and the way the landlord was running the building and how he would like to stay another year but can't afford it.
Chapter 3 - show respect for other people's opinion, never say you are wrong. When attacked for being wrong, people will defend their opinion to the death, lose sight of the main point and hope to find little exceptions to prove their point. We form beliefs lightly, but then develop an irrational passion to defend them when someone threatens to prove us wrong. Consider the story of how the author hired an interior designer to make curtains for his home. Afterwards, he was shocked by the size of the bill, and when he mentioned the price to a friend, she exclaimed that it was obviously overcharged. The author defended his actions by explaining that the high price was an indicator of quality, but when another friend stopped by and started praising the same curtains, this time the author admitted that he actually thought he had overpaid and regretted the purchase. This positive approach disarmed him and he was free to admit his mistake. You see, any time you tell someone they're wrong, you're actually saying "I'm smarter than you", it's a direct attack on their self-esteem and they'll want revenge because you clearly don't respect their opinion.
Chapter 4- if you are guilty, admit it quickly and emphatically. Once the author was walking his dog Rex in a nearby forest. Rex liked to run free, so he didn't wear a basket or a leash. Unfortunately, they ran into a policeman who sternly told the author that it was illegal, but that this time he would let them off with just a warning. The author obeyed, but Rex didn't like the basket, so they soon went back to their old ways. Then the same policeman caught the two again, this time even before the policeman opened his mouth, the author himself expressed how very very sorry and how unacceptable his wrongdoing was. Normally, the police officer would probably be angry and give him a ticket, but thanks to this honest confession, he did the opposite. The policeman started to argue that the little dog really wasn't harming anyone, accepted Carnegie's apology and let them go on their merry way. Admitting a mistake helps because the other person usually tries to feel important by criticizing you for your mistake, but the moment you admit your fault, the situation changes completely. Now, in order to feel important, they can no longer attack you, but must show generosity by forgiving you. That's exactly what made the cop so gentle in this example, so the next time you realize you're wrong, admit it with gusto, it'll get better results and you'll find it's actually a lot more enjoyable than having to defend yourself when the other person points it out to your mistake.
Chapter 5 - let the other person talk a lot. A person who disagrees with you will not pay attention to you until they express their opinion, so encourage them to fully express their ideas. I'm sure you've seen arguments where neither person listened to the other because they felt their points weren't being acknowledged by the other side, so always resist the temptation to interrupt the person. It's expensive every time you do it, imagine there's an empty bottle that's being refilled while the person is talking. When it fills it up, it becomes much more open to new thoughts. Before the bottle is full, it feels silent. Every time you stop, you empty the bottle and it has to start over.
Chapter 6 - honestly try to see things from the other person's perspective if you were born in the same body as your partner, had his experiences and saw the world through the same prism, by definition you would come to the same conclusions. Consider the other person's ideas and feelings as important as your own. Imagine looking outside from another person's body. Adopting this attitude is actually productive, it will help you discover your partner's interests and articulate your argument in a way that appeals to his interests. For example, put yourself in the shoes of the interviewer. Do you think she enjoys the interview process and talking to dozens of people? And she also hopes that the next person to come in will be the right choice. And she wants to finish the interviews. Change your perspective. Instead of seeing the interview as a meeting to solve your problem, see it as a meeting to solve the other party's problem. If you focus on their problems and explain how you will solve them, then your problem will be solved.
Chapter 7 - Be sympathetic to the other person's ideas and wishes. Any person who is upset feels completely justified in their anger, regardless of what you believe. Do you think that when you're angry, you say to yourself, "I know I'm being irrational and that my anger doesn't make sense, but I'm still going to be angry"? People crave sympathy, they want us to recognize everything they feel. If we can empathize with others, they will appreciate our side and often accept our way of thinking.
Chapter 8 - Start with questions that the other person will answer "yes" to. Every time someone says no, they lock themselves into defensiveness and consistency bias. So don't start by talking about the areas where you differ, but start with what you agree on. Get the person to say "yes" instead of forcing your conclusion on the person. Guide her to her conclusion through a series of logical questions. This can sound like a trap if the person realizes what you are doing. It is better to do this with a sincere and patient tone rather than one that already knows the answers. Ask tough questions with vague answers so she doesn't feel like you've backed her into a corner. This technique is often used by sellers. For example, imagine I want to sell you a summary of my book and say, "You seem like a person who likes to read, don't you?". You would answer "yes". Then I would go on and say, "Do you like to save money? Do you like to save time? Most likely your answers would be yes again." When I get these yeses, then I would say, "Buy my book summary, it's exactly what you want. You will save time and money and read the book faster. How would you feel at that moment? I'm sure you'd feel like I caught you in something you didn't want, even if you liked my product, you'd probably be put off by my approach and probably give up.
Chapter 9 - Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers. People prefer their own ideas to other people's. When they come up with their own ideas, they feel smart and important. Executing their ideas instead of someone else's gives them a sense of control. For example, I once negotiated with a person who did not like to compromise. After a while I noticed that it would be very difficult to reach an agreement, so I decided to use this tactic and said: "You know more about this subject than I do. You are the world's expert on this. I want to hear your opinion. How can we reach an agreement?" ?". The person paused for a moment and then started giving me advice and options. Her approach changed from an adversary to a mentor. After hearing all her options, I chose one of them and decided to implement it. Since she gave me that option, she was much more engaged and interested in its successful implementation.
Chapter 10 - Appeal to a Nobler Motive. A person usually has two reasons for doing something - one that sounds good and the real reason. Forget the real reason, appeal to their highest moral principles. For example, when someone breaks an agreement, say that your impression of that person's character was that they have great integrity. Give them some time to think about it. If they come back and want to continue, you will accept it without hesitation and admit that you misjudged their character, but you still personally believe that they are a person of their word and will not break the deal. We humans do not want to lose the noble motives we possess.
Chapter 11 - dramatize your ideas attention is scarcer than ever before find ways to attract it without being too sly just telling the truth is not enough the truth must be presented vividly, interestingly and dramatically find a way to visually represent the roles the cashier noticed the slow motion in the checkout line he told the owner he was losing money with every customer he threw coins on the floor to illustrate his point imagine how effective this would be if he repeated that to illustrate the money lost Steve Jobs famously introduced the iPod as 1,000 songs in your pocket not talking about gigabytes of storage here are some tactics how you can apply this principle provide a visual analogy show objects for size, speed and cost equate opportunity with dollars for example your business loses a Mercedes-Benz daily not solving this problem I personally like this tactic and I have used it often in the past for example when I was finishing my internship I had to give a final presentation about the results we were about 25 students in total and among them my presentation was one of the most interesting because I didn't talk about the boring tasks I was doing in Excel I just started by saying that my practice saved the company thirteen thousand dollars when I said that every manager in the audience started he listened carefully and asked a lot of questions at the end to be honest i did the same boring things as other practitioners the only difference was i calculated the number of hours i spent and converted it into dollars since it was an unpaid practice i could easily tell if I had saved money because some paid employee would have done the same job the company would have had to pay the salary
Chapter 12 - set a challenge when motivation doesn't work organize a competition it drives people because they don't want to be others the desire to rule and excel is a basic driver of behavior for example if a person is insecure subtly question their strength I don't blame you for being afraid that's a tough job will need a big person to take care of the job
Part Four - The last part of this book is about changing people without offending or causing resentment
Chapter 1 - start with praise and sincere gratitude it is always easier to listen to unpleasant things after hearing praise about our good points without praise it sounds completely critical when giving praise avoid formality this is quite normal in the corporate world where you can hear some formal praise and then a big a critical point and finally a little praise instead always try to give sincere and specific praise about specific things instead of generalities this is even more effective when the person knows that you are dissatisfied with the work and have come to regret in this situation, if you give a sincere thank you, it will be a big surprise and the person will be open to your feedback
Chapter 2 - indirectly draw attention to other people's mistakes avoid direct attack people usually know what they have done wrong direct attention creates resistance here are two tactics first follow sincere praise not with but but with and you may have heard that what comes before but doesn't apply here are two examples for you to compare the first is you did a great job you worked hard but you could have prevented these careless mistakes vs. you did a great job you worked hard and if you focus next on building a checklist you will improve your accuracy rate the last approach avoid negative feelings of failure another tactic if the task is late do it yourself and then show the work to the person for example John Wanamaker saw a customer being ignored at the sales counter while the salespeople chatted in the corner he served the woman himself and then handed over the purchase sellers to pack it
Chapter 3 - talk about your own mistakes before criticizing another person admitting your own mistakes shows that you recognize the task as difficult and that the person's mistakes are understandable implicitly encourages the person to rise to your level Carnegie says if you want to change people to your way of thinking always first talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person never say that you did the wrong thing or that you shouldn't be doing it this will only push the other person into defensive mode and he will try to prove that he is in correct with every possible explanation instead talk about your own mistakes first tell them how you felt when you were in their shoes and how wrong you were for example I once hired students for an internship program at a company I worked for a few years ago during the interview process i could see that many students couldn't express themselves due to stress and tension i'm sure you are familiar with that feeling as soon as you enter the interview room your IQ level drops to 20 and you can't even answer simple questions that's me too made the job difficult because it was hard to tell if the student didn't know the answer or simply couldn't answer due to stress the situation became even more difficult when the student was introverted and shy so I always tried to put them at ease by telling them it was just being friendly interview and that they shouldn't be stressed however it never worked one day I decided to start the interview process with my own embarrassing interview story when I was applying for the same position they were applying for then I told them how I couldn't to answer the interviewer when she asked me to name one social network that was famous at that time Facebook was the biggest social network and I used it daily however, I could not answer such a simple question the interviewer waited a few seconds for my answer, and then quietly said Facebook and today I can't understand how I couldn't answer such a simple question the story made the students laugh and put them at ease because they could see that I had been in their shoes and admitting my own embarrassing story helped them to feel comfortable showed that we are all human and that we all make mistakes in stressful situations like this
Chapter 4 - asking questions instead of giving orders asking questions has many advantages firstly it allows your partner to come to his own conclusions independently people prefer their own ideas secondly it gives control to the person and makes them important instead of following the orders of others the person now follows their own thirdly, stimulates your partner's creativity new and better ideas may emerge here are some questions you can use do you think it would work what do you think about this can we think of different ways to do it
Chapter 5 - allow the person to preserve their dignity people crave importance if you destroy that importance the person will resist you and become harder to influence let them preserve their pride the book does not give clear guidelines on a general way to achieve this but it focuses on on preserving the person's pride and what is important to them for example, when an employee made a mistake, she apologized for the mistake and said she would have a new report before the next meeting instead of criticizing her carelessness, the manager thanked her for work, said that this was not an unusual mistake for a new project, expressed his confidence in her and knew that she had done her best
Chapter 6 - praise every little improvement praising every improvement inspires others to keep improving again remember that people crave importance like food and giving a little praise makes them hungry for more I personally believe in the power of this tactic because I have seen it work in in my own experience it changed me from a shy person who didn't communicate to a team leader who managed 25 people and gave presentations to hundreds of people if you are going to implement this tactic please provide specific praise single out a specific achievement instead of general flattering comments it makes your praise more resonant i honestly remember when i started another job many colleagues in the office warned me to be very careful with one employee in india they told me that he was quite lazy replying to emails very late and the quality of his work was not good several of my colleagues even complained to his manager but that didn't change much when I started working with him I could see that my colleagues were right but instead of focusing on his mistakes I decided to apply the Carnegie principle and focus on the small positives and praise him sincerely so that whenever I saw even a little good work on his part I praised him for that particular work and sometimes added his manager to the copy after a while the number of good works started to increase and after seven weeks he became a completely different person he became very proactive and friendly in his communication and it was not only to me but to others he even added me as a friend on Facebook which never happened either to one of my colleagues before
Chapter 7- give a person a good reputation to emulate if you want to improve something in a person act as if that quality is already one of their outstanding characteristics for example say when you talk to your friends one of them says he knows you as a person who can keep a good secret and can be trusted regardless of the conditions other friends also agree with this opinion after hearing this even if you are not a person who can keep a good secret you will start acting like one you will be very careful not to lose that status you will always be very speak carefully so as not to reveal another's secret and lose your precious title
Chapter 8 - make a mistake easy to correct if you tell someone they lack talent and will never be good at something you have removed interest and hope for improvement instead tell them they have real talent and fundamentals but just need to practice to be better make the steps easy feasible for example here is what a dance instructor might say to a bad dancer you have a natural sense of rhythm you are a naturally talented dancer
Chapter 9 - make the person happy for doing the things you suggest this principle is similar to one of the previous principles which was about having the other person's interest in mind personally I think that just talking about other people's interests can raise suspicion for example if someone only talks about your interests without your own may suspect that not everything is being revealed one way to avoid sounding disingenuous is to
immediately admit why you want the action and then talk about the benefits you both enjoy.
I hope you found the book summary useful and inspiring. I encourage you to try some of the techniques presented in the book to improve your communication skills and build better relationships with the people around you.
Eon (Mentor)
