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designates my notes. / designates important. / designates very important.

• I have renumbered the chapters and principles. In the original book the chapters and principles start over at 1 in each part of the book.

Thoughts

This is, at its heart, a book on psychological manipulation.

It certainly frames the tactics as benign, but make no mistake it is chock full of manipulation.

Dale makes great pains in saying that all of the tactics in the book are to come from the heart and not be false. It is all well and good to say that, but it would not be far fetched to imagine someone with only personal gain on their mind could use these tactics “fraudulently.”

One example he gives, and this applies to anything you might need to point out that would make the target less than pleased, is how to approach people that you might want to criticize.

• When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity.

If we must find fault in another, we must not criticize them directly, for this will be felt as an attack on them and put the into a defensive posture.

You must instead appeal to them on a variety of levels. Empathize with them. Explain how you have made this mistake or that a million times before. It is an easy mistake to make. You don’t even have to mention that they made the same mistake. They will get your drift and you won’t ever put them in the spotlight.

Or, when you finally do deliver the criticism, couch it in a way that softens the blow by adding a little praise and using the word “and” instead of “but.”

• This could be easily overcome by changing the word “but” to “and." “We’re really proud of you, Johnnie, for raiseing your grades this term, and by continuing the same conscientious efforts next term, your algebra grade can be up with all the others.”

Maybe you’ve never actually made that mistake. Maybe the praise you deliver is a bit hollow. Would there be much harm in letting them save some face for a little white lie?

Similarly, his advice on being a good conversationalist can be used honorably or can be misused to simply get the other party to relax for whatever reason you might want them relaxed.

• 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.

• Remember that the people you are talking to are a hundred times more interested in themselves and their wants and problems than they are in you and your problems. A person’s toothache means more to that person than a famine in China which kills a million people. A boil on one’s neck interests one more than forty earthquakes in Africa. Think of that the next time you start a conversation.

When applying some of these techniques to sales (or any other ask) you can employ the tactic of eliciting a number of “yes” responses before you make your actual ask. Like tip-toeing around criticism, this tactic will get your opponent out of their defensive posture and into a receptive one.

• The skillful speaker gets, at the outset, a number of “Yes” responses. This sets the psychological process of the listeners moving in the affirmative direction.

I think one of the best pieces of advice in the book, which I can find no real criticism of, is a 2500 year old quote:

• Twenty-five centuries ago, Lao-tse, a Chinese sage, said some things that readers of this book might use today:

• “The reason why rivers and seas receive the homage of a hundred mountain streams is that they keep below them. Thus they are able to reign over all the mountain streams. So the sage, wishing to be above men, putteth himself below them; wishing to be before them, he putteth himself behind them. Thus, though his place be above men, they do not feel his weight; though his place be before them, they do not count it an injury.”

Another useful thought is that you should, in any case, have a clear idea of what you plan on saying and a reasonable expectation of the kind of responses you might encounter.

• “I would rather walk the sidewalk in front of a person’s office for two hours before an interview,” said Dean Donham of the Harvard business school, “than step into that office without a perfectly clear idea of what I was going to say and what that person - from my knowledge of his or her interests and motives - was likely to answer.”

Exceptional Quotes

• PRINCIPLE 1
  • Don’t criticize, condemn or complain.

• PRINCIPLE 2
  • Give honest and sincere appreciation.

• PRINCIPLE 3
  • Arouse in the other person an eager want.

• PRINCIPLE 4
  • Become genuinely interested in other people.

• PRINCIPLE 5
  • Smile.

• PRINCIPLE 6
  • Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.

• PRINCIPLE 7
  • Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.

• PRINCIPLE 8
  • Talk in terms of the other person’s interests.

• PRINCIPLE 9
  • Make the other person feel important-and do it sincerely.

• PRINCIPLE 10
  • The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.

• PRINCIPLE 11
  • Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never say, “You’re wrong."

• PRINCIPLE 12
  • If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.

• PRINCIPLE 13
  • Begin in a friendly way.

• PRINCIPLE 14
  • Get the other person saying “yes, yes” immediately.

• PRINCIPLE 15
  • Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.

• PRINCIPLE 16
  • Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.

• PRINCIPLE 17
  • Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view.

• PRINCIPLE 18
  • Be sympathetic with the other person’s ideas and desires.

• PRINCIPLE 19
  • Appeal to the nobler motives.

• PRINCIPLE 20
  • Dramatize your ideas.

• PRINCIPLE 21
  • Throw down a challenge.

• PRINCIPLE 22
  • Begin with praise and honest appreciation.

• PRINCIPLE 23
  • Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly.

• PRINCIPLE 24
  • Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.

• PRINCIPLE 25
  • Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.

• PRINCIPLE 26
  • Let the other person save face.

• PRINCIPLE 27
  • Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be “hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise.”

• PRINCIPLE 28
  • Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.

• PRINCIPLE 29
  • Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.

• PRINCIPLE 30
  • Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.

This could be easily overcome by changing the word “but” to “and." “We’re really proud of you, Johnnie, for raiseing your grades this term, and by continuing the same conscientious efforts next term, your algebra grade can be up with all the others.”

When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity.

Emerson said: “Every man I meet is my superior in some way, In that, I learn of him.”

You don’t feel like smiling? Then what? Two things. First, force yourself to smile. If you are alone, force yourself to whistle or hum a tune or sing. Act as if you were already happy, and that will tend to make you happy. Here is the way the psychologist and philosopher William James put it:

Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.

Thus the sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there. . . .”

A barber lathers a man before he shaves him

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.

Remember that the people you are talking to are a hundred times more interested in themselves and their wants and problems than they are in you and your problems. A person’s toothache means more to that person than a famine in China which kills a million people. A boil on one’s neck interests one more than forty earthquakes in Africa. Think of that the next time you start a conversation.

Any fool can try to defend his or her mistakes - and most fools do - but it raises one above the herd and gives one a feeling of nobility and exultation to admit one’s mistakes.

The skillful speaker gets, at the outset, a number of “Yes” responses. This sets the psychological process of the listeners moving in the affirmative direction.

Twenty-five centuries ago, Lao-tse, a Chinese sage, said some things that readers of this book might use today:

“The reason why rivers and seas receive the homage of a hundred mountain streams is that they keep below them. Thus they are able to reign over all the mountain streams. So the sage, wishing to be above men, putteth himself below them; wishing to be before them, he putteth himself behind them. Thus, though his place be above men, they do not feel his weight; though his place be before them, they do not count it an injury.”

“I would rather walk the sidewalk in front of a person’s office for two hours before an interview,” said Dean Donham of the Harvard business school, “than step into that office without a perfectly clear idea of what I was going to say and what that person - from my knowledge of his or her interests and motives - was likely to answer.”

A man convinced against his will Is of the same opinion still.

Table of Contents

• Preface
• How This Book Was Written-And Why
• Nine Suggestions on How to Get the Most Out of This Book

Part One - Fundamental Techniques in Handling People

• 01: “If You Want to Gather Honey, Don’t Kick Over the Beehive”
• 02: The Big Secret of Dealing with People
• 03: “He Who can do this has the Whole World with Him. He Who cannot Walks a Lonely Way”

Part Two - Ways to Make People Like You

• 04: Do This and You’ll be Welcome Anywhere
• 05: A Simple Way to Make a Good First Impression
• 06: If You Don’t Do This, You Are Headed for Trouble

Part Three - How to Win People to Your Way of Thinking

• 07: An Easy Way to Become A Good Conversationalist
• 08: How to Interest People
• 09: How to Make People Like You Instantly
• 10: You Can’t Win an Argument
• 11: A Sure Way of Making Enemies - And How to Avoid it
• 12: If You’re Wrong, Admit it
• 13: A Drop of Honey
• 14: The Secret of Socrates
• 15: The Safety Valve in Handling Complaints
• 16: How to Get Cooperation
• 17: A Formula that will Work Wonders for You
• 18: What Everybody Wants
• 19: An Appeal That Everybody Likes
• 20: The Movies Do It. TV Does It. Why Don’t You Do It?
• 21: When Nothing Else Works, Try This

Part Four - Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment

• 22: If You Must Find Fault, This Is The Way To Begin
• 23: How to Criticize-and Not be Hated For it
• 24: Talk About Your Own Mistakes First
• 25: No One Likes to Take Orders
• 26: Let the Other Person Save Face
• 27: How to Spur People On to Success
• 28: Give A Dog A Good Name
• 29: Make the Fault Seem Easy to Correct
• 30: Making People Glad to Do What You Want
• 31: A Shortcut to Distinction

· Preface

page 3:

• Why revise a book that has proven and continues to prove its vigorous and universal appeal? Why tamper with success?

• To answer that, we must realize that Dale Carnegie himself was a tireless reviser of his own work during his lifetime. How to Win Friends and Influence People was written to be used as a textbook for his courses in Effective Speaking and Human Relations and is still used in those courses today. Until his death in 1955 he constantly improved and revised the course itself to make it applicable to the evolving needs of an every-growing public. No one was more sensitive to the changing currents of present-day life than Dale Carnegie. He constantly improved and refined his methods of teaching; he updated his book on Effective Speaking several times. Had he lived longer, he himself would have revised How to Win Friends and Influence People to better reflect the changes that have taken place in the world since the thirties.

• Dorothy Carnegie (Mrs. Dale Carnegie)

· How This Book Was Written-And Why

page 6:

• the highest-paid personnel in engineering are frequently not those who know the most about engineering. One can for example, hire mere technical ability in engineering, accountancy, architecture or any other profession at nominal salaries. But 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.

• In the heyday of his activity, John D. Rockefeller said that “the ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee.” “And I will pay more for that ability,” said John D., “than for any other under the sun.”

page 9:

• Countless numbers of salespeople have sharply increased their sales by the use of these principles.

page 11:

• For “the great aim of education,” said Herbert Spencer, “is not knowledge but action.” And this is an action book.

· Nine Suggestions on How to Get the Most Out of This Book

1. Want to learn.

page 12:

2. Read each chapter rapidly at first to get a bird’s-eye view of it. You will probably be tempted then to rush on to the next one. But don’t - unless you are reading merely for entertainment. But if you are reading because you want to increase your skill in human relations, then go back and reread each chapter thoroughly. In the long run, this will mean saving time and getting results.

3. Stop frequently in your reading to think over what you are reading. Ask yourself just how and when you can apply each suggestion.

• This is great advice. Though I suspect this book will be on the lighter side (I read it many years ago) taking your time with heavier tomes is a commendable suggestion.

4. Read with a crayon, pencil, pen, magic marker or highlighter in your hand. When you come across a suggestion that you feel you can use, draw a line beside it. If it is a four-star suggestion, then underscore every sentence or highlight it, or mark it with “****.” Marking and underscoring a book makes it more interesting, and far easier to review rapidly.

5. After reading it thoroughly, you ought to spend a few hours reviewing it every month

page 13:

6. Bernard Shaw once remarked: “If you teach a man anything, he will never learn.” Shaw was right. Learning is an active process. We learn by doing. So, if you desire to master the principles you are studying in this book, do something about them. Apply these rules at every opportunity. If you don’t you will forget them quickly. Only knowledge that is used sticks in your mind.

7. The president of an important Wall Street bank once described, in a talk before one of my classes, a highly efficient system he used for self-improvement. This man had little formal schooling; yet he had become one of the most important financiers in America, and he confessed that he owed most of his success to the constant application of his homemade system. This is what he does, I’ll put it in his own words as accurately as I can remember.

page 14:

• “For years I have kept an engagement book showing all the appointments I had during the day. My family never made any plans for me on Saturday night, for the family knew that I devoted a part of each Saturday evening to the illuminating process of self-examination and review and appraisal. After dinner I went off by myself, opened my engagement book, and thought over all the interviews, discussions and meetings that had taken place during the week. I asked myself:

  • ‘What mistakes did I make that time?’
  • ‘What did I do that was right-and in what way
  • could I have improved my performance?’
  • ‘What lessons can I learn from that experience?’

• “I often found that this weekly review made me very unhappy. I was frequently astonished at my own blunders. Of course, as the years passed, these blunders became less frequent. Sometimes I was inclined to pat myself on the back a little after one of these sessions. This system of self-analysis, self-education, continued year after year, did more for me than any other one thing I have ever attempted.

• “It helped me improve my ability to make decisions - and it aided me enormously in all my contacts with people. I cannot recommend it too highly.”

9. You will find at the end of this book several blank pages on which you should record your triumphs in the application of these principles. Be specific. Give names, dates, results.

page 15:

In order to get the most out of this book:

1. Develop a deep, driving desire to master the principles of human relations.

2. Read each chapter twice before going on to the next one.

3. As you read, stop frequently to ask yourself how you can apply each suggestion.

4. Underscore each important idea.

5. Review this book each month.

6. Apply these principles at every opportunity. Use this volume as a working handbook to help you solve your daily problems.

7. Make a lively game out of your learning by offering some friend a dime or a dollar every time he or she catches you violating one of these principles.

8. Check up each week on the progress you are mak-ing. Ask yourself what mistakes you have made, what improvement, what lessons you have learned for the future.

9. Keep notes in the back of this book showing how and when you have applied these principles.

Part One - Fundamental Techniques in Handling People

· Chapter 01 - “If You Want to Gather Honey, Don’t Kick Over the Beehive”

page 18:

• Criticism is futile because it puts a person on the defensive and usually makes him strive to justify himself.

• B. F. Skinner, the world-famous psychologist, proved through his experiments that an animal rewarded for good behavior will learn much more rapidly and retain what it learns far more effectively than an animal punished for bad behavior. Later studies have shown that the same applies to humans.

page 20:

• Or, take the Teapot Dome oil scandal. It kept the newspapers ringing with indignation in the early 1920s. It rocked the nation! Within the memory of living men, nothing like it had ever happened before in American public life. Here are the bare facts of the scandal: Albert B. Fall, secretary of the interior in Harding’s cabinet, was entrusted with the leasing of government oil reserves at Elk Hill and Teapot Dome - oil reserves that had been set aside for the future use of the Navy. Did secretary Fall permit competitive bidding? No sir. He handed the fat, juicy contract outright to his friend Edward L. Doheny. And what did Doheny do? He gave Secretary Fall what he was pleased to call a “loan” of one hundred thousand dollars. Then, in a high-handed manner, Secretary Fall ordered United States Marines into the district to drive off competitors whose adjacent wells were sapping oil out of the Elk Hill reserves. These competitors, driven off their ground at the ends of guns and bayonets, rushed into court - and blew the lid off the Teapot Dome scandal. A stench arose so vile that it ruined the Harding Administration, nauseated an entire nation, threatened to wreck the Republican party, and put Albert B. Fall behind prison bars.

page 26:

• When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity.

• “A great man shows his greatness,” said Carlyle, “by the way he treats little men.”

page 29:

• 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.”

• PRINCIPLE 1

  • Don’t criticize, condemn or complain.

· Chapter 02 - The Big Secret of Dealing with People

page 30:

• 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.

• John Dewey, one of America’s most profound philosophers, phrased it a bit differently. Dr. Dewey said that the deepest urge in human nature is “the desire to be important.” Remember that phrase: “the desire to be important.” It is significant. You are going to hear a lot about it in this book.

page 32:

• 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.

page 35:

• One of the first people in American business to be paid a salary of over a million dollars a year (when there was no income tax and a person earning fifty dollars a week was considered well off) was Charles Schwab, He had been picked by Andrew Carnegie to become the first president of the newly formed United States Steel Company in 1921, when Schwab was only thirty-eight years old. (Schwab later left U.S. Steel to take over the then-troubled Bethlehem Steel Company, and he rebuilt it into one of the most profitable companies in America.)

• Why did Andrew Carnegie pay a million dollars a year, or more than three thousand dollars a day, to Charles Schwab? Why? Because Schwab was a genius? No. Because he knew more about the manufacture of steel than other people? Nonsense. Charles Schwab told me himself that he had many men working for him who knew more about the manufacture of steel than he did.

• Schwab says that he was paid this salary largely because of his ability to deal with people. I asked him how he did it. Here is his secret set down in his own words - words that ought to be cast in eternal bronze and hung in every home and school, every shop and office in the land - words that children ought to memorize instead of wasting their time memorizing the conjugation of Latin verbs or the amount of the annual rainfall in Brazil - words that will all but transform your life and mine if we will only live them:

page 36:

• “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.

• “There is nothing else that so kills the ambitions of a person as criticisms from superiors. I never criticize anyone. I believe in giving a person incentive to work. So I am anxious to praise but loath to find fault. If I like anything, I am hearty in my approbation and lavish in my praise. "

• “In my wide association in life, meeting with many and great people in various parts of the world,” Schwab declared, “I have yet to find the person, however great or exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than he would ever do under a spirit of criticism.”

• That he said, frankly, was one of the outstanding reasons for the phenomenal success of Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie praised his associates publicly as well as privately.

• Carnegie wanted to praise his assistants even on his tombstone. He wrote an epitaph for himself which read: “Here lies one who knew how to get around him men who were cleverer than himself:”

• Sincere appreciation was one of the secrets of the first John D. Rockefeller’s success in handling men. For example, when one of his partners, Edward T. Bedford, lost a million dollars for the firm by a bad buy in South America, John D. might have criticized; but he knew Bedford had done his best - and the incident was closed. So Rockefeller found something to praise; he congratulated Bedford because he had been able to save 60 percent of the money he had invested. “That’s splendid,” said Rockefeller. “We don’t always do as well as that upstairs.”

page 39:

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

page 41:

• Emerson said: “Every man I meet is my superior in some way, In that, I learn of him.”

page 42:

• PRINCIPLE 2
  • Give honest and sincere appreciation.

· Chapter 03 - “He Who can do this has the Whole World with Him. He Who cannot Walks a Lonely Way”

page 42:

• I often went fishing up in Maine during the summer. Personally I am very fond of strawberries and cream, but I have found that for some strange reason, fish prefer worms. So when I went fishing, I didn’t think about what I wanted. I thought about what they wanted. I didn’t bait the hook with strawberries and cream. Rather, I dangled a worm or a grasshopper in front of the fish and said: “Wouldn’t you like to have that?”

• Why not use the same common sense when fishing for people?

page 44:

• Harry A, Overstreet in his illuminating book Influencing Human Behavior said; “Action springs out of what we fundamentally desire . . . and the best piece of advice which can be given to would-be persuaders, whether in business, in the home, in the school, in politics, is: 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.”

page 47:

• Here is one of the best bits of advice ever given about the fine art of human relationships. “If there is any one secret of success,” said Henry Ford, “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.”

page 54:

• Looking at the other person’s point of view and arousing in him an eager want for something is not to be construed as manipulating that person so that he will do something that is only for your benefit and his detriment. Each party should gain from the negotiation.

page 58:

• PRINCIPLE 3
  • Arouse in the other person an eager want.

Part Two - Ways to Make People Like You

· Chapter 04 - Do This and You’ll be Welcome Anywhere

page 60:

• The New York Telephone Company made a detailed study of telephone conversations to find out which word is the most frequently used. You have guessed it: it is the personal pronoun “I.” “I.” I.” It was used 3,900 times in 500 telephone conversations. “I.” “I.” “I.” “I.”

• PRINCIPLE 4

  • Become genuinely interested in other people.

· Chapter 05 - A Simple Way to Make a Good First Impression

page 71:

• Actions speak louder than words, and a smile says, “I like you, You make me happy. I am glad to see you.”

page 72:

• Professor James V. McConnell, a psychologist at the University of Michigan, expressed his feelings about a smile. “People who smile,” he said, “tend to manage teach and sell more effectively, and to raise happier children. There’s far more information in a smile than a frown. That’s why encouragement is a much more effective teaching device than punishment.”

page 75:

• You don’t feel like smiling? Then what? Two things. First, force yourself to smile. If you are alone, force yourself to whistle or hum a tune or sing. Act as if you were already happy, and that will tend to make you happy. Here is the way the psychologist and philosopher William James put it:

• Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.

• Thus the sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there. . . .”

• PRINCIPLE 5

  • Smile.

· Chapter 06 - If You Don’t Do This, You Are Headed for Trouble

page 85:

• One of the first lessons a politician learns is this: “To recall a voter’s name is statesmanship. To forget it is oblivion.”

• All this takes time, but “Good manners,” said Emerson, “are made up of petty sacrifices.”

page 86:

• PRINCIPLE 6
  • Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.

· Chapter 07 - An Easy Way to Become A Good Conversationalist

page 88:

• “Few human beings,” wrote Jack Woodford in Strangers in Love, few human beings are proof against the implied flattery of rapt attention.” I went even further than giving him rapt attention. I was “hearty in my approbation and lavish in my praise.”

• What is the secret, the mystery, of a successful business interview? Well, according to former Harvard president Charles W. Eliot, “There is no mystery about successful business intercourse. . . . Exclusive attention to the person who is speaking to you is very important. Nothing else is so flattering as that.”

page 95:

• 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.

• Remember that the people you are talking to are a hundred times more interested in themselves and their wants and problems than they are in you and your problems. A person’s toothache means more to that person than a famine in China which kills a million people. A boil on one’s neck interests one more than forty earthquakes in Africa. Think of that the next time you start a conversation.

• PRINCIPLE 7

  • Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.

· Chapter 08 - How to Interest People

page 99:

• PRINCIPLE 8
  • Talk in terms of the other person’s interests.

· Chapter 09 - How to Make People Like You Instantly

page 100:

• There is one all-important law of human conduct. If we obey that law, we shall almost never get into trouble. In fact, that law, if obeyed, will bring us countless friends and constant happiness. But the very instant we break the law, we shall get into endless trouble. The law is this: Always make the other person feel important. John Dewey, as we have already noted, said that the desire to be important is the deepest urge in human nature; and William James said: “The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.”

page 104:

• 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 realize in some subtle way that you recognize their importance, and recognize it sincerely.

• Remember what Emerson said: “Every man I meet is my superior in some way. In that, I learn of him.”

page 110:

• PRINCIPLE 9
  • Make the other person feel important-and do it sincerely.

Part Three - How to Win People to Your Way of Thinking

· Chapter 10 - You Can’t Win an Argument

page 113:

• Nine times out of ten, an argument ends with each of the contestants more firmly convinced than ever that he is absolutely right.

• A man convinced against his will Is of the same opinion still.

page 117:

• PRINCIPLE 10
  • The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.

· Chapter 11 - A Sure Way of Making Enemies - And How to Avoid it

page 119:

• If a person makes a statement that you think is wrong - yes, even that you know is wrong - isn’t it better to begin by saying: “Well, now, look, I thought otherwise, but I may be wrong. I frequently am. And if I am wrong, I want to be put right. Let’s examine the facts.”

page 121:

• Few people are logical. Most of us are prejudiced and biased. Most of us are blighted with preconceived notions, with jealousy, suspicion, fear, envy and pride. And most citizens don’t want to change their minds about their religion or their haircut or communism or their favorite movie star.

page 128:

• PRINCIPLE 11
  • Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never say, “You’re wrong."

· Chapter 12 - If You’re Wrong, Admit it

page 130:

• Say about yourself all the derogatory things you know the other person is thinking or wants to say or intends to say - and say them before that person has a chance to say them. The chances are a hundred to one that a generous, forgiving attitude will be taken and your mistakes will be minimized just as the mounted policeman did with me and Rex.

page 132:

• Any fool can try to defend his or her mistakes - and most fools do - but it raises one above the herd and gives one a feeling of nobility and exultation to admit one’s mistakes.

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• PRINCIPLE 12
  • If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.

· Chapter 13 - A Drop of Honey

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• If your temper is aroused and you tell ‘em a thing or two, you will have a fine time unloading your feelings. But what about the other person? Will he share your pleasure? Will your belligerent tones, your hostile attitude, make it easy for him to agree with you?

• Nobody appreciated the truth of Woodrow Wilson’s statement more than John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Back in 1915, Rockefeller was the most fiercely despised man in Colorado, One of the bloodiest strikes in the history of American industry had been shocking the state for two terrible years. Irate, belligerent miners were demanding higher wages from the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company; Rockefeller controlled that company. Property had been destroyed, troops had been called out. Blood had been shed. Strikers had been shot, their bodies riddled with bullets.

• Carnegie then goes on to describe Rockefeller’s sympathetic approach. What he doesn’t mention is that Rockefeller had hired “Poison” Ivy Lee, an early propagandist, to help reshape Rockefeller’s public persona. I am not sure if Lee was involved in writing the speech Rockefeller gave after the massacre, but I wouldn’t doubt it.

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• Years ago, when I was a barefoot boy walking through the woods to a country school out in northwest Missouri, I read a fable about the sun and the wind. They quarreled about which was the stronger, and the wind said, “I’ll prove I am. See the old man down there with a coat? I bet I can get his coat off him quicker than you can.”

• So the sun went behind a cloud, and the wind blew until it was almost a tornado, but the harder it blew, the tighter the old man clutched his coat to him.

• Finally, the wind calmed down and gave up, and then the sun came out from behind the clouds and smiled kindly on the old man. Presently, he mopped his brow and pulled off his coat. The sun then told the wind that gentleness and friendliness were always stronger than fury and force.

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• PRINCIPLE 13
  • Begin in a friendly way.

· Chapter 14 - The Secret of Socrates

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• In talking with people, don’t begin by discussing the things on which you differ. Begin by emphasizing - and keep on emphasizing - the things on which you agree.

• Get the other person saying “Yes, yes” at the outset.

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• The skillful speaker gets, at the outset, a number of “Yes” responses. This sets the psychological process of the listeners moving in the affirmative direction.

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• PRINCIPLE 14
  • Get the other person saying “yes, yes” immediately.

· Chapter 15 - The Safety Valve in Handling Complaints

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• Must people trying to win others to their way of thinking do too much talking themselves. Let the other people talk themselves out. They know more about their business and problems than you do. So ask them questions. Let them tell you a few things.

• If you disagree with them you may be tempted to interrupt. But don’t. It is dangerous. They won’t pay attention to you while they still have a lot of ideas of their own crying for expression. So listen patiently and with an open mind. Be sincere about it. Encourage them to express their ideas fully.

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• PRINCIPLE 15
  • Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.

· Chapter 16 - How to Get Cooperation

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• Don’t you have much more faith in ideas that you discover for yourself than in ideas that are handed to you on a silver platter? If so, isn’t it bad judgment to try to ram your opinions down the throats of other people? Isn’t it wiser to make suggestions - and let the other person think out the conclusion?

• I’m not completely sure on this one. Most ideas would be “discovered” via a book, so it isn’t like I’ve figured something out on my own. Further, I would be happy to adopt an idea that someone presented if they personally adhere to, and show the results of, that idea.

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• " ‘After I got to know the President,’ House said, ‘I learned the best way to convert him to an idea was to plant it in his mind casually, but so as to interest him in it - so as to get him thinking about it on his own account. The first time this worked it was an accident. I had been visiting him at the White House and urged a policy on him which he appeared to disapprove. But several days later, at the dinner table, I was amazed to hear him trot out my suggestion as his own.’ "

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• Twenty-five centuries ago, Lao-tse, a Chinese sage, said some things that readers of this book might use today:

• “The reason why rivers and seas receive the homage of a hundred mountain streams is that they keep below them. Thus they are able to reign over all the mountain streams. So the sage, wishing to be above men, putteth himself below them; wishing to be before them, he putteth himself behind them. Thus, though his place be above men, they do not feel his weight; though his place be before them, they do not count it an injury.”

• PRINCIPLE 16

  • Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.

· Chapter 17 - A Formula that will Work Wonders for You

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• Remember that other people may be totally wrong. But they don’t think so. Don’t condemn them. Any fool can do that. Try to understand them. Only wise, tolerant, exceptional people even try to do that.

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• “I would rather walk the sidewalk in front of a person’s office for two hours before an interview,” said Dean Donham of the Harvard business school, “than step into that office without a perfectly clear idea of what I was going to say and what that person - from my knowledge of his or her interests and motives - was likely to answer.”

page 163:

• PRINCIPLE 17
  • Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view.

· Chapter 18 - What Everybody Wants

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• Dr. Arthur I. Gates said in his splendid book Educational Psychology: “Sympathy the human species universally craves. The child eagerly displays his injury; or even inflicts a cut or bruise in order to reap abundant sympathy. For the same purpose adults . . . show their bruises, relate their accidents, illness, especially details of surgical operations. ‘Self-pity’ for misfortunes real or imaginary is in some measure, practically a universal practice.”

• PRINCIPLE 18

  • Be sympathetic with the other person’s ideas and desires.

· Chapter 19 - An Appeal That Everybody Likes

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• PRINCIPLE 19
  • Appeal to the nobler motives.

· Chapter 20 - The Movies Do It. TV Does It. Why Don’t You Do It?

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• This is the day of dramatization. Merely stating a truth isn’t enough. The truth has to be made vivid, interesting, dramatic. You have to use showmanship.

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• PRINCIPLE 20
  • Dramatize your ideas.

· Chapter 21 - When Nothing Else Works, Try This

• That is what every successful person loves: the game. The chance for self-expression. The chance to prove his or her worth, to excel, to win. That is what makes foot-races and hog-calling and pie-eating contests. The desire to excel. The desire for a feeling of importance.

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• PRINCIPLE 21
  • Throw down a challenge.

Part Four - Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment

· Chapter 22 - If You Must Find Fault, This Is The Way To Begin

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• A barber lathers a man before he shaves him

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• Beginning with praise is like the dentist who begins his work with Novocain. The patient still gets a drilling, but the Novocain is pain-killing. A leader will use . . .

• PRINCIPLE 22

  • Begin with praise and honest appreciation.

· Chapter 23 - How to Criticize-and Not be Hated For it

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• Many people begin their criticism with sincere praise followed by the word “but” and ending with a critical statement. For example, in trying to change a child’s careless attitude toward studies, we might say, “We’re really proud of you, Johnnie, for raising your grades this term. But if you had worked harder on your algebra, the results would have been better.”

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• This could be easily overcome by changing the word “but” to “and." “We’re really proud of you, Johnnie, for raiseing your grades this term, and by continuing the same conscientious efforts next term, your algebra grade can be up with all the others.”

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• PRINCIPLE 23
  • Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly.

· Chapter 24 - Talk About Your Own Mistakes First

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• PRINCIPLE 24
  • Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.

· Chapter 25 - No One Likes to Take Orders

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• He always gave suggestions, not orders. Owen D. Young never said, for example, “Do this or do that,” or “Don’t do this or don’t do that.” He would say, “You might consider this,” or “Do you think that would work?”

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• Asking questions not only makes an order more palatable; it often stimulates the creativity of the persons whom you ask. People are more likely to accept an order if they have had a part in the decision that caused the order to be issued.

page 199:

• PRINCIPLE 25
  • Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.

· Chapter 26 - Let the Other Person Save Face

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• PRINCIPLE 26
  • Let the other person save face.

· Chapter 27 - How to Spur People On to Success

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• Why, I wonder, don’t we use the same common sense when trying to change people that we use when trying to change dogs? Why don’t we use meat instead of a whip? Why don’t we use praise instead of condemnation? Let us praise even the slightest improvement. That inspires the other person to keep on improving.

page 207:

• PRINCIPLE 27
  • Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be “hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise.”

· Chapter 28 - Give A Dog A Good Name

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• PRINCIPLE 28
  • Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.

· Chapter 29 - Make the Fault Seem Easy to Correct

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• PRINCIPLE 29
  • Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.

· Chapter 30 - Making People Glad to Do What You Want

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• But that is what they said to Napoleon when he created the Legion of Honor and distributed 15,000 crosses to his soldiers and made eighteen of his generals “Marshals of France” and called his troops the “Grand Army.” Napoleon was criticized for giving “toys” to war-hardened veterans, and Napoleon replied, “Men are ruled by toys.”

page 219:

• PRINCIPLE 30
  • Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.

· Chapter 31 - A Shortcut to Distinction

• This was the original introduction.

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• by Lowell Thomas

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• The fact that these people, ten or twenty years after leaving grade school, high school or college, come and take this training is a glaring commentary on the shocking deficiencies of our educational system.

• What do adults really want to study? That is an important question; and in order to answer it, the University of Chicago, the American Association for Adult Education, and the United Y.M.C.A. Schools made a survey over a two-year period.

• That survey revealed that the prime interest of adults is health. It also revealed that their second interest is in developing skill in human relationships - they want to learn the technique of getting along with and influencing other people. They don’t want to become public speakers, and they don’t want to listen to a lot of high sounding talk about psychology; they want suggestions they can use immediately in business, in social contacts and in the home.