Reading Notes for:

How to Win Friends & Influence People

By Dale Carnegie

When working with people – Always try to increase your tendency to think of things from the other person’s point of view.

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.

Why would a three year old react at the viewpoint of a 30 year old?

*Principal One:  Don’t criticize, condemn or complain.

*Principal Two:  Give honest, sincere appreciation.

*Principal Three:  Arouse in the other person an eager want.

Dog is about the only animal whose only job is to give affection.

You can make more friends in two months of trying to get to know other people than two years of trying to get people interested in you.

We are interested in others when they are interested in us.

People who smile tend to manage, teach and sell . . . and raise children more effectively.  – University of Michigan.

Don’t feel like smiling?  Force yourself to.  Act as if you are already happy and you will be.

• Actions seem to follow feelings but really action and feeling go hand in hand.  Regulating the action – which is under control of the will – we can indirectly affect the feeling.
• Everyone is seeking happiness and controlling your thoughts is the only sure way to find it.  Happiness does not depend on outward conditions – its inward conditions.
• Abe Lincoln: “Most people are only about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

Asian proverb:  “A man without a smiling face must not open a shop.”

The average person is more interested in their own name than all the other names on earth combined.  Remember that name and call it easily and you will have paid a subtle but effective compliment.

When Carnegie was competing for the steel rail business of a Pennsylvania railroad, he named a steel mill in Pittsburgh after the railroad president.

• When competing against Pullman for Union Pacific sleeping car business he came up with idea to work together.  Pullman was not interested until Carnegie put his name on it – done.

Make people feel like what you want is personalized to them.

P.T. Barnum – distressed by lack of son – offered his grandson $25,000 to change his first name to Barnum.  People donate huge $ to have buildings and museums in their names.

-Want their names perpetuated.

F.D.R. knew that one of the simplest, most obvious and most important ways of gaining goodwill was by remembering people’s names and making them feel important.

Politicians know to remember a voter’s name is statesmanship; to forget it is oblivion.

* Principal One:  Become genuinely interested in others.
* Principal Two:  Smile
* Principal Three:  Remember that hearing their name is sweetest sound to people.
* Principal Four:  Be a good listener; encourage others to talk.  Be hearty in your appreciation and lavish in your praise.

An angry, aggravated person is no match for an attentive sympathetic listener.

Some people call a doctor when all they want is an audience.