Closet Confidential

Each Sunday, The Simple Dollar assessments a personal productivity or self development book.

How to Win Friends and Influence People How to Win Friends and Influence People had a tremendous positive impact on my life when I was younger. I was packed with a lot of social anxiety and was extremely uncomfortable interacting with people outside of my immediate social circle – and quite often even uncomfortable interacting within that traffic circle. Over a period of about a year, I used the ideas in this book to become substantially more outgoing, even to the point of being able to speak in front of a room of people and effectively carry on positive conversations with potential co-worker. I can’t even possibly guess how useful the posts of this book has been to me around the last five years.

How to Win family and Influence People was first released in 1937, which to some people might mean that the content is dated. In a few places, you can detect some dated linguistic communication and cultural guarantors, but for the most part it is a non-issue; it’s quite easy to visualize every human interaction occasion given in the book in a modern context.

Discovering How to Win family and Influence folk

Section 1: Fundamental Techniques in Handling People

1. “If You Want To Gather Honey, Don’t Kick Over The Beehive”

Most people don’t behave very well to criticism, condemnation, or charge, so if you’re feeling such things about someone, just bite your tongue and hold back. By doing this, you avoid adding unnecessary negativity to a conversation, negativity that can very easily backlash on you by making others think reduced of you.

2. The Big Secret of Dealing With People

Speak positively of others every chance you get. Think of a few positive things to say about each person you know and then reference those positive attributes when you can.

3. “He Who Can Do This Has The Whole World With Him. He Who Cannot Walks A Lonely Way”

Make the other person interested in you by leading with the things that are useful to them. Take a cover letter, for example; don’t lead with “I want this job,” but instead with whatever stating your best characteristic for that job.

Section 2: Six Ways to Make People Like You

1. Do This and You’ll Be Welcome Anywhere

The suggestion here was one of the most challenging ones for me to see. In essence, Carnegie says that you should become genuinely interested in other people, which is rather challenging for most introverts to do. What I’ve available that works for me is that I try to internalize what other people are saying – does this make sense in my life? Then, I try to specific what I figure out – it shows that I am taking an exact interest in what they’re saying.

2. A Simple Way to Make a Good First Impression

All you have to do is smile, but it’s more complicated than it sounds. I generally find success by greeting people in a positive fashion while anticipating things that make me happy – it makes it much easier to push forth a smile.

3. If You Don’t Do This, You Are Headed For Trouble

I am very good with names – I can recall facts about people by name without any trouble – but I run into issues when I see a face and try to put a name with it. This chapter suggests getting as good as you can with it. I’ve found that if I really need to remember someone’s name with their face, particularly before a conference, I look at their picture online with some reliability. This helps me to imprint their design in my mind and then be able to recall their name quickly after meeting them.

4. An Easy Way to Become a Good Conversationa show

Here, Carnegie says effective ways to be seen as being a good conversationalist is to genuinely listen to others. I’ve always found this part to be easy – it’s the speaking part that I find tough.

5. How to Interest People

The key technique here is to translate what you hear into talking about what interests the person you’re speaking to. Listen for things that they are interested in that you know a product about, and then observe that point as a train of conversation – don’t just interject your current passions into the discussion, because they might not be shared.

6. How to Make People Like You Instantly

If you want to build a real bond with people else, make it clear how important that person is to you and do it in a way that the sincerity of the feeling comes across. I find a great way to do this is actually by connecting two people I know together – I introduce them to each other with a compliment to both of them, especially if I know something that they’ll have a mutual interest in.

Buy or Don’t Buy

If you’re introverted like I am and sometimes have complexity communicating with other people or carrying on conversations, buy How to Win Friends and Influence People now, not later. Spend some time practicing every single one of the tips. You’ll soon find yourself actually conversing with people instead of being nervous or uncomfortable, simply because you have a variety of good ideas on how to start and precisely how to keep it going. Will not worry about it being dated; the fundamentals of human interaction are timeless and the reason this book has been in print for seventy years is because it works. It worked for me, at least. (how to win friends and influence people pdf free download)

On the other hand, if you have no problem talking with others and speaking in public, this book probably won’t help too much; instead, I’d read Keith Ferrazzi’s Never Eat Alone (read my detailed review). It basically takes the fundamentals here and builds them even further, showing you how to assemble a wide bunch of friends and associates and have healthy associations with all of them; a really fantastic book.

One thing I would suggest, still, is reviewing for How to Win Friends and Influence People at a used book store or on PaperBackSwap for free. This book has been steadily in print for seventy years, most of that time in paperback form, so it’s pretty easy to find a used replicate of it on the low-priced.