April 8, 2020

📚 Book Notes: How to Win Friends & Influence People

I read this again after 3-4 years and still found it fresh. I could relate to many situations where I mishandled them in the past. The ideas presented in this book are simple yet effective. I’ve seen them work for many people, including myself. The secret is to not treat them as life hacks! If you’re praising, do it sincerely.

Here are my notes from How to Win Friends & Influence People:

1. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, people don’t criticise themselves for anything no matter how wrong it may be.
2. As Dr. Johnson said: ‘God himself, sir, does not propose to judge man until the end of his days.’
   Why should you and I?
3. 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.
4. William Winter once remarked that ‘self-expression is the dominant necessity of human nature.’ Why can’t we adapt this same psychology to business dealings? When we have a brilliant idea, instead of making others think it is ours, 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.
   Remember: ‘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.’
5. Did you ever stop to think that a dog is the only animal that doesn’t have to work for a living? A hen has to lay eggs, a cow has to give milk, and a canary has to sing. But a dog makes his living by giving you nothing but love.
6. What was the reason for Andrew Carnegie’s success?
   He was called the Steel King; yet he himself knew little about the manufacture of steel. He had hundreds of people working for him who knew far more about steel than he did.
   But he knew how to handle people, and that is what made him rich. Early in life, he showed a flair for organisation, a genius for leadership. By the time he was ten, he too had discovered the astounding importance people place on their own name. And he used that discovery to win cooperation. To illustrate: When he was a boy back in Scotland, he got hold of a rabbit, a mother rabbit. Presto! He soon had a whole nest of little rabbits — and nothing to feed them. But he had a brilliant idea. He told the boys and girls in the neighbourhood that if they would go out and pull enough clover and dandelions to feed the rabbits, he would name the bunnies in their honour.
   The plan worked like magic, and Carnegie never forgot it.
7. People are so proud of their names that they strive to perpetuate them at any cost. Even blustering, hard-boiled old P.T. Barnum, the greatest showman of his time, disappointed because he had no sons to carry on his name, offered his grandson, C.H. Seeley, $25,000 dollars if he would call himself ‘Barnum’ Seeley.
   For many centuries, nobles and magnates supported artists, musicians and authors so that their creative works would be dedicated to them.
8. The unvarnished truth is that almost all the people you meet feel themselves superior to you in some way, and a sure way to their hearts is to let them realise in some subtle way that you realise their importance, and recognise it sincerely.
9. If you can be sure of being right only 55 percent of the time, you can go down to Wall Street and make a million dollars a day. If you can’t be sure of being right even 55 percent of the time, why should you tell other people they are wrong?
10. The ability to speak is a shortcut to distinction. It puts a person in the limelight, raises one head and shoulders above the crowd. And the person who can speak acceptably is usually given credit for an ability out of all proportion to what he or she really possesses.
11. Dale Carnegie claimed that all people can talk when they get mad. He said that if you hit the most ignorant man in town on the jaw and knock him down, he would get on his feet and talk with an eloquence, heat and emphasis that would have rivalled that world famous orator William Jennings Bryan at the height of his career. He claimed that almost any person can speak acceptably in public if he or she has self-confidence and an idea that is boiling and stewing within.

If you liked the above content, I’d definitely recommend reading the whole book. 💯

Until We Meet Again…
🖖 swap