How to Win Friends and Influence People

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3 Sentence Summary

Dale Carnegie’s seminal book on relationship management may be over 80 years old, but the principles it teaches remain just as true today as they did back in 1937. A leader in the self-help genre, this classic will help you master the social cues and techniques that help you relate better with people, handle complaints, avoid arguments, make you a better speaker, and lead with charisma. If you can excuse some of the outdated language and social themes, I’m sure that you too will appreciate this celebrated book jammed pack with timeless wisdom.

5 Key Takeaways

1. Think in terms of other people’s point of view. Focus on their wants and interests.
2. Praise and encouragement are far better motivators than criticism and condemnation.
3. Humans are emotional beings. Appeal for their need for recognition and importance.
4. Respect the opinions of others, give away credit, and always avoid arguments.
5. Flattery is counterfeit. Always speak with truth and sincerity.

How to Win Friends and Influence People Summary

9 Suggestions to Get the Most Out of This Book

1. Have a deep, driving desire to learn, a vigorous determination to increase your ability to deal with people.
2. Read each chapter rapidly at first to get a bird’s-eye view. Then go back and reread each chapter thoroughly.
3. Stop frequently to think about what you just read and how you can apply the ideas.
4. Highlight, underline, and mark up the text as you read. It makes reading more fun and easier to review in the future.
5. Review these ideas often.
6. We learn by doing. Apply the rules you learn at every opportunity.
7. Make a game out of living out these principles.
8. Implement a system for self reflection and analysis. How well have you applied what you learned in the past week?
9. Record your successes to inspire and motivate continued learning and application.

3 Principles in Handling People

1. Don’t criticize, condemn or complain

• 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.
• We do not affect lasting changes with criticism.
• The person we are going to correct and condemn will probably justify himself or herself, and condemn us in return.
• It’s a lot easier (and profitable) to put time and energy into improving yourself than trying to regulate others.
• We do not deal with creatures of logic. Humans are creatures of emotion, bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity.
• Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain – and most fools do.
• It takes character and self control to be understanding and forgiving.
• Instead of condemning people, let’s try to understand them.

2. Give honest and sincere appreciation

• There is only one way to get people to do anything: Make them want to do it.
• The deepest urge in human nature is the desire to be important.
• Criticism from a superior kills ambitions.
• Be hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise.
• People always work harder under the spirit of approval than a spirit of criticism.
• Shallow flattery doesn’t work with discerning people. Flattery is counterfeit. Flattery is telling the other person precisely what he thinks about himself.
• Only sincere appreciation that comes from the heart has the power to motivate others.
• Sparks of gratitude light up flames of friendship.

3. Arouse in the other person an eager want

• The only way to influence other people is to talk about what they want and show them how to get it.
• Focus on the other person’s needs and desires – not your own.
• The world is full of people who are grabbing and self-seeking. So the rare individual who unselfishly tries to serve others has an enormous advantage.
• Think always in terms of other people’s point of view. See things from their angle.
• When we have a brilliant idea, instead of making others think it is ours, why not let them cook and stir the idea themselves.

6 Ways to Make People Like You

1. Become genuinely interested in other people

• Learn from dogs. They are the only animal that doesn’t have to work for a living. All they do is love you.
• You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.
• Before you give a presentation, tell yourself that you love your audience.
• Put yourself out to do things for other people – things that require time, energy, unselfishness and thoughtfulness.
• Make a point of remembering the birthdays of your friends.
• Greet people with animation and enthusiasm.
• It goes without saying – shows of interest must be sincere.

2. Smile

• The expression you wear on your face is far more important than the clothes you wear on your back.
• You must have a good time meeting people if you expect them to have a good time meeting you.
• Don’t feel like smiling? Do it anyways. Act as if you were already happy, and you will be. Feelings follow actions.
• Happiness is mental. It isn’t what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy.
• Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.
• Thought is supreme. Preserve a right mental attitude – the attitude of courage, frankness, and good cheer.
• To think rightly is to create.

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

• Build a system for remembering people’s names.
• The average person is more interested in their own name than in all the other names on earth put together.
• You win people’s loyalty by naming things after them.
• Most people don’t remember names for the simple reason that they don’t take the time and energy necessary to concentrate and repeat and fix names indelibly in their minds.
• The name sets the individual apart; it makes him or her unique among all others.

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

• Many people fail to make a favorable impression because they don’t listen attentively.
• People just want to be heard. The irritated customer, the dissatisfied employee, or the hurt friend.
• If you want people to shun you and laugh behind your back, do the following: Never listen to anyone for long. Talk incessantly about yourself. And interrupt them with your idea in the middle of their sentence.
• If you aspire to be a good conversationalist, be an attentive listener.
• To be interesting, be interested.
• Ask questions that the other persons will enjoy answering.
• Encourage others to talk about themselves and their accomplishments.
• People are 100x more interested in themselves and their problems, than they are with you and your problems.
• A person’s toothache means more to that person than a famine in China which kills a million people.

5. Talk in terms of the other person’s interests

• The road to a person’s heart is to talk about the things he or she treasures most.
• Talking in terms of the other person’s interests pays off for both parties.

6. Make the other person feel important – and do it sincerely

• If we are so contemptibly selfish that we can’t radiate a little happiness and pass on a bit of honest appreciation without trying to get something out of the other person in return, we shall meet with the failure we so richly deserve.
• Always make the other person feel important.
• Little phrases such as “I’m sorry to trouble you,” “Would you mind?” and “Thank you” oil the cogs of the monotonous grind of everyday life.

12 Ways to Win People to Your Way of Thinking

1. The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it

• 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.
• A misunderstanding is never ended by an argument but by tact, diplomacy, conciliation and a sympathetic desire to see the other person’s viewpoint.
• Anyone who takes the time to disagree with you is interested in the same things you are. Think of them as people who really want to help you, and you may turn your opponents into friends.

2. Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never say, “You’re wrong.”

• If you could be sure of being right only 55% of the time, you could make millions on Wall Street. So if you can’t be sure of being right even 55% of the time, why should you ever tell other people that they are wrong?
• If you are going to prove anything, don’t let anybody know it. Do it so subtly, so adroitly, that no one will feel that you are doing it.
• There’s magic is saying, “I may be wrong. I frequently am. Let’s examine the facts.”
• Few people are logical. Most of us are prejudiced and biased.
• We sometimes find ourselves changing our minds without any resistance or heavy emotion, but if we are told we are wrong, we resent the imputation and harden our hearts.
• Our first reaction to most of the statements (which we hear from other people) is an evaluation or judgement, rather than an understanding of it.
• Nothing good is accomplished by telling a person straight out that he or she is wrong. You only succeed in stripping that person of self-dignity and making yourself an unwelcome part of any discussion.

3. If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically

• If you know that you are going to be rebuked, beat the other person to it and do it yourself. It is much easier to listen to self-criticism than to bear condemnation from somebody else.
• Doing so will very likely cause the other person to respond with a generous and forgiving attitude.
• There is a certain degree of satisfaction in having the courage to admit one’s errors. It not only clears the air of guilt and defensiveness, but often helps solve the problem created by the error.
• 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.

4. Begin in a friendly way

• If you want to win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend.
• Gentleness and friendliness is always more effective than being argumentative and divisive.
• Showing appreciation can make people change their minds more readily than all the bluster and storming in the world.

5. Get the other person saying, “yes, yes” immediately

• Don’t start a conversation by discussing the things on which you differ.
• Begin by emphasizing the things on which you agree.
• Keep your opponent saying “Yes, yes” at the outset.
• The more “yeses” you can induce at the outset, the more likely you are to succeed in capturing the attention for our ultimate proposal.
• Don’t fall into the trap of fanning your own importance by antagonizing others at the outset.
• It doesn’t pay to argue. It is much more profitable and interesting to look at things from the other person’s viewpoint and try to get that person saying “yes, yes.”

6. Let the other person do a great deal of the talking

• Let the other people talk themselves out. They know more about their business and problems than you do.
• Listen patiently and with an open mind. Don’t interrupt.
• Talk less about you and your accomplishments. Only mention them when asked.

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

• People have more faith in the ideas they discover themselves than in the ideas that are given to them.
• It’s wiser to make suggestions than to ram your opinions down the throats of other people.
• No one likes to feel that he or she is being sold something or told to do a thing.
• The reason why rivers and seas receive the homage of a hundred mountain streams is that they keep below them.

8. Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view

• Success in dealing with people depends on a sympathetic grasp of the other persons’ viewpoint.
• Cooperativeness in conversation is achieved when you show that you consider the other person’s ideas and feelings as important as your own.
• Increase your tendency to think always in terms of the other person’s point of view.

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

• Want to stop arguments, create goodwill, and make the other person listen attentively? Here’s the magic phrase: “I don’t blame you one iota for feeling as you do. If I were you I would undoubtedly feel just as you do.”
• Three-fourths of the people you will ever meet are hungering and thirsting for sympathy. Give it to them, and they will love you.

10. Appeal to the nobler motives

• A person usually has two reasons for doing a thing: one that sounds good and a real one.
• All of us, being idealists at heart, like to think of motives that sound good. So in order to change people, appeal to their nobler motives.
• Most people are honest and want to pay their debts. The exception to that rule is comparatively few.

11. Dramatize your ideas

• Merely stating the truth isn’t enough. The truth has to be made vivid, interesting, and dramatic. You have to use showmanship.

12. Throw down a challenge

• The one major factor that motivates people is the work itself.
• If the work is exciting and interesting, people look forward to doing a good job.
• Every successful person loves the game. The chance for self-expression. The desire to excel. The desire for a feeling of importance.

Be A Leader: 9 Principles for How to Change People Without Giving Offense Or Arousing Resentment

1. Begin with praise and honest appreciation

• A barber lathers a man before he shaves him.
• It is always easier to listen to unpleasant things after we have heard some praise of our good points.

2. Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly

• Begin with praise. Then transition to a subtle criticism by using the word “and” instead of “but.”
• Calling attention to one’s mistakes indirectly works wonders with sensitive people who may resent bitterly any direct criticism.

3. Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person

• It’s easier to listen to a recital of your faults if the person criticizing begins by humbly admitting that he, too, is far from impeccable.
• Admitting one’s own mistakes – even when one hasn’t corrected them – can help convince somebody to change their behavior.

4. Ask questions instead of giving direct orders

• Give people the opportunity to do things themselves.
• Let them learn from their own mistakes.
• This technique saves a person’s pride and gives him or her a feeling of importance. It encourages cooperation instead of rebellion.
• Resentment caused by a brash order may last a long time – even if the order was given to correct an obviously bad situation.
• 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.

5. Let the other person save face

• We ride roughshod over the feelings of others, getting our own way, finding fault, issuing threats, criticizing a child or an employee in front of others, without even considering the hurt to the other person’s pride.
• A genuine understanding of the other person’s attitude would go so far toward alleviating the sting.

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

• When criticism is minimized and praise emphasized, the good things people do will be reinforced and the poorer things will atrophy for lack of attention.
• Everybody likes to be praised, but when praise is specific, it comes across as sincere.
• Nobody wants insincerity. Nobody wants flattery.

7. Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to

• If you want to improve a person in a certain aspect, act as though that particular trait were already one of his or her outstanding characteristics.

8. Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.

• Praise things others do right and minimize their errors.
• Give encouragement and others will desire to keep improving.
• Tell someone that they are stupid, has no gift for it, or is doing it all wrong and you will have destroyed almost every incentive to try and improve.

9. Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest

• Be sincere. Do not promise anything that you cannot deliver.
• Know exactly what it is you want the other person to do.
• Be empathetic. Ask yourself what is it 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 the idea that he personally will benefit.

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