How to win friends and influence people – Dale Carnegie

My notes from a classic How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, which I rated 5/5 on my Shelfari account and put to my all time Favorites list. What’s so great about this book is that it gives the real word examples so that you can try and implement them in your day to day life.

Here are my favorite quotes from this book, and hope you get a tip or two on how to win friends and influence people 🙂

The highest paid personel in engineering are frequently not those who know the most about engineering. The person who has technical knowledge plus the ability to express ideas, assume leadership and to arouse enthusiasm among people – that person is headed for higher earning power.

The ability to deal with people is as purchasable commodity as coffee.

Health is the prime interest of adults. Next interest is people; how to understand and to get along with people, how to make people like you and how to win others to your way of thinking.

Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged!

Don’t complain about the snow under your neighbors roof, while your own doorstep is unclean.

I will speak ill of no man, and speak all the good I know of everybody.

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain, and most fools do; it takes character, and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.

A great man shows his greatness by the way he treats little men.

To show you I’m sure you’ll never do this again I want you to service my F 51 tomorrow.

I consider my ability to arose enthusiasm among my people, said Charles Schwab, the greatest asset that I possess.

The way to develop the best in the person is by appreciation and encouragement.

Father forgets – W. Livingston Larned

Criticism from superiors kills ambition.

We often take our spouses so much for granted that we never let them know that we appreciate them.

I can’t think of six things I would like to change about you – I love you the way you are.

If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other persons point of view, and see things from that person’s angle, as well as from your own.

Arouse in the other person an eager want. He who can do this has the whole world with him, he who does not walks a lonely way.

You can make more friends in two months by becoming genuinely interested in other people then you can into years trying to get other people interested in you.

Most folks are happy as they make their minds to be.

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

Listening intently and be genuinely interested in another people stories and they will love you for it, because they just want to tell their story and you can actually learn a thing or two from we won.

Always make the other person feel important.

What was I trying to get out of him? If we are so contemptively selfish that we can’t radiate a little happiness and pass on a bit of honest appreciation without trying to get something out of it in return, if our souls are no bigger than sour crab apples, we should meet with the failure we so richly deserve.

I wanted something priceless. I got the feeling that I’ve done something for him being done anything whatever in return for me.

Do onto others, as you would have others do onto you.

6 ways to make people like you:

  • become genuinely interested in other people
  • smile
  • person’s name is the most important sound to that person in any language
  • be a good listener – encourage others to talk about them selves
  • talk in terms of the other person’s interest
  • make the other person feel important

If you’re wrong admit it quickly and emphatically.

…the sun then told the wind that gentlenessand friendliness were always stronger than fury and force.

He who treads softly goes far.

If te work is exciting and interesting the worker looks forward to do it and it’s motivated to do a good job.

Win people to your way of thinking:

  • the only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it
  • show respect for other people’s opinions, never say “you’re wrong”
  • if you’re wrong admit it quickly and emphatically
  • begin in a friendly way
  • get the other person saying YES YES immediatelly
  • let the other person do a great deal of talking
  • let the other person feel the ideas is his or hers
  • try honestly to see things from other person’s point of view
  • be symphatetic with other person’s ideas and desires
  • appeal to the nobler motives
  • dramatise your ideas
  • throw down a challenge

Praise is like sunlight to the warm human spirit. We can not flower and grow without it, and yet while most of us are too ready to apply to others the cold wind of criticism, we are somehow reluctant to give our fellow warm sunshine of praise.

Effective leader keeps this in mind:

  • be sincere, don’t promise anything that you can’t deliver
  • forget about your benefits and concentrate on the benefits of other person
  • know exactly what you want the other person to do
  • be emphatetic – ask yourself what it is the other person really wants
  • consider the benefits that person will receive from doing what you suggest
  • match those benefits to the other person’s wants
  • when you make your request put it in a form that will convey to the other person that he personally will benefit

Be a leader who often changes people’s attitudes and behavior. Some suggestions to accomplish this:

  • begin with praise and honest appreciation
  • call attention to peoples mistakes indirectly
  • talk about your own mistakes before criticising the other person
  • ask questions instead of giving direct orders
  • let the other person save face
  • praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement
  • be harthy in your approbation and lavish in your praise
  • give the other person a fine reputation to live up to
  • use encouragement, make the fault easy to correct
  • make the other person happy doing the thing you suggest
Written by Nikola Brežnjak