This is a blast of notes that I had taken on How to Win Friends & Influence People. Just posting (without formatting) for keeping tabs on how I thought about the things. 🙂
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Notes while reading How to Win Friends & Influence People
How to get more out of the book:
a. Have deep desire to master human relations
b. Read each chapter twice before moving on.
c. Stop regularly to ask “how do I apply this?”
d. Underline while reading.
e. Review the book each month
f. Apply principles at every chance.
g. Develop motivation to use principles (like owing money when misusing technique)
h. Review progress weekly of mistakes, improvement and lessons learned.
i. Make notes in back of book.
PREFACE
The book has been translated into almost every written language, so it obviously has some good content.
There are always improvements being made to the text, this is just a starting point for these times – it was originally written in the 30s.
HOW THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN – AND WHY
Why should I bother to read this information? Most people need extensive training in the art of getting along with people on a day to day basis. Even in highly technical fields like engineering, success is only 15% technical ability and 85% interpersonal skills (personality & ability to lead people.)
“…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.”
This is a very exhaustive text – he read ferociously, and hired someone else – for a year and a half – to do the same! They pored through magazines, old books, new theories, biographies, and autobiographies – absolutely everything. Then they moved to interviewing successful people! Then, while that information was in use in the lecture hall, he solicited experiences from students to come back to relate what was learned – that’s where this book has spawned from. After remake and remake, this book has become what it is. It took 15 years to get to this form.
The rules set down in the book work like magic – they are tested and true, not simply guesswork or theories.
“For, ‘the great aim of education…is not knowledge but action.’ And this is an action book.”
NINE SUGGESTIONS ON HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF THIS BOOK
1. “A deep, driving desire to learn, a vigorous determination to increase your ability to deal with people.”
Action: Say to yourself over and over: “My popularity, my happiness and sense of worth depend to no small extent upon my skill in dealing with people.”
2. Read chapter fast at first to get an overview, then reread the chapter thoroughly.
3. Stop frequently to think about what’s being read.
4. Read with something to mark with. Put lines in the margin, or asterisks to highlight things – even underline comments that have strong potency. This will make it easier and faster to review for the greatest return over the long run.
5. After reading thoroughly the first time, spend a few hours each month reviewing it. Glance through it often for reference and refreshers. Recognize the room for improvement that will constantly be available to you.
6. Learning is an active process. We learn by doing. Apply these rules at every opportunity. Remember that you’re not trying to fill cells in your brain, you are trying to form new habits – to develop a new way of life. This is a handbook of human relations. Refer to these pages when an impulsive response seeps into your consciousness – make a choice that will develop your future.
7. Offer someone money each time they catch you violating a certain principle. Make a lively game out of mastering these rules.
Action: Develop a rule breaker jar to put in the kitchen as a reminder.
8. Designate a portion of every week to self-examination and review and appraisal.
Action: Develop a form to fill notes out on (when reviewing my weekly schedule.) Include the following questions: 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?
9. Record specific successes of the application of these principles. Include names, dates, & results.
Part One – Fundamental Techniques in Handling People
CHAPTER 1 – IF YOU WANT TO GATHER HONEY, DON’T KICK OVER THE BEEHIVE
Most people don’t regard themselves as bad people, they justify, rationalize and explain.
“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.”
Experiments have proven that animals and humans alike who are “rewarded for good behavior will learn much more rapidly and retain what it learns far more effectively than an animal punished for bad behavior.”
“Let’s realize that the person we are going to correct and condemn will probably justify himself or herself, and condemn us in return.”
Action: Minimize criticisms that I offer – even in the spirit of ‘constructiveness’. Instead, work to build up the things that they are doing well.
Lincoln’s favorite quote, “Judge not, that ye be not judged.”
Lincoln: “Don’t criticize them; they are just what we would be under similar circumstances.” And later, “if I send this letter, it will relieve my feelings, but it will make Meade try to justify himself. It will make him condemn me. It will arouse hard feelings, impair all his further usefulness…and perhaps force him to resign…”
Idea – if you have harsh feelings towards a person, write them a letter – the most intensely cruel letter that can be composed of the situation – and then trash it. You’ll feel the better for getting it out of your system, and they’ll never find out about the rebuke.
“Do you know someone you would like to change and regulate and improve? Good! That is fine. I am all in favor of it. But why not begin on yourself? From a purely selfish standpoint, that is a lot more profitable than trying to improve others – yes, and a lot less dangerous.”
“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.”
Initial thought after reading Father Forgets: Life is short, be nice.
“It was not that I did not love you; it was that I expected too much of youth. I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years.”
“As Dr. Johnson said: ‘God himself, sir, does not propose to judge man uintil the end of his days.’ Why should you and I?”
PRINCIPLE 1) Don’t criticize, condemn or complain.
CHAPTER 2 – THE BIG SECRET OF DEALING WITH PEOPLE
“There is only one way under high heaven to get anybody to do anything.” “And that is by making the other person want to do it.”
True, this can be with force, coercion, intimidation, or whatever vicious technique you can devise, but the fact remains. They will only do things if there is internal, personal motivation to pursue that item.
Everything that you and I do springs from the desire to be important.
Some things that people most want include:
1. Health and life preservation.
2. Food.
3. Sleep.
4. Money and the things money affords you.
5. An afterlife.
6. Sexual gratification.
7. The well being of our children.
8. A feeling of importance.
William James said: “The deepest principle in human nature is the CRAVING to be appreciated.”
“The rare individual who honestly satisfies this heart hunger will hold people in the palm of his or her hand.”
That desire to be important and great is what drives people to somewhat outlandish conclusions – remember the great criminals in our day, picture the egotistic teenager and his flashy car, the bragging of personal ability.
“If you tell me how you get your feeling of importance, I’ll tell you what you are. That determines your character.”
“If some people are so hungry for a feeling of importance, that they actually go insane to get it, imagine what miracle you and I can achieve by giving people honest appreciation this side of insanity.
Charles Schwab said: “I consider my ability to arouse enthusiasm among my people 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.”
It may seem natural to want to rebuke someone after a mistake, but be the bigger man, be interested in fostering improvement in the future – look for the good elements! Did they save some money or face from being lost? Were they able to come out with any extra skills at the end? Look for those positive things, and reinforce their efforts – that will pay you back much more than simply chiding them for a bad hand.
Primary reason that wives leave marriages: “lack of appreciation.” I’d bet that works for dating too.
Often we are more concerned with our temporary bodies by nourishing them with food than to nourish the spirit by positive reinforcement – breathing life into another human being.
“Flattery seldom works with discerning people. It is shallow, selfish and insincere. It ought to fail and it usually does. True, some people are so hungry, so thirsty for appreciation that they will swallow anything, just as a starving man will eat grass and fishworms.” “Flattery is counterfeit…” “The difference between appreciation and flattery?” “One comes from the heart out; the other from the teeth out. One is unselfish; the other selfish. One is universally admired; the other universally condemned.”
Learn not to take flattery to heart – recognize it for what it is: cheap praise.
How to not use flattery with other people:
“When we are not engaged in thinking about some definite problem, we usually spend about 95 percent of our time thinking about ourselves. Now, if we stop thinking about ourselves for a while and begin to think of the other person’s good points, we won’t have to resort to flattery so cheap and false that it can be spotted almost before it is out of the mouth.”
Action: Post the following statement:
“I shall pass this way but once; any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.”
Emerson said: “Every man I meet is my superior in some way. In that, I learn of him.”
PRINCIPLE 2) Give honest and sincere appreciation.
CHAPTER 3 – “HE WHO CAN DO THIS HAS THE WHOLE WORLD WITH HIM. HE WHO CANNOT WALKS A LONELY WAY.”
When you fish, you don’t think about what you want on the end of the hook, you think about what will attract the fish… why would you try to attract your peers with something that would repel you? Aren’t they not made of the same drives?
“…it is necessary to bait the hook to suit the fish.”
“So the only way on earth to influence other people is to talk about what they want and show them how to get it.”
“Every act you have ever performed since the day you were born was performed because you wanted something.”
“…the best piece of advice which can be given to would-be persuaders, [no matter the application] is: First, arouse the other person in an eager want.”
Examples: A) Sending a letter, neglecting to include the mentioned money (they wanted the $, so they wrote back) B) Explaining the value of vegetables (if eaten, he’d be able to stick up for himself against the bully) C) Understand things from their view (finger-painting is for kids who have been to kindergarten.)
Even if you are wronged, look for the way to talk in their interests. “Even if [you] convince him that he was wrong, his pride would have made it difficult for him to back down and give in.”
“If there is any one secret of success, 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.”
Examples: A) Letter writing, be sure to structure it in a way that they understand how they will benefit from following direction from the piece of paper.
We are all eternally interested in solving our problems. “…if salespeople can show us how their services or merchandise will help us solve our problems, they won’t need to sell us.” “…and customers like to feel that they are buying – not being sold.”
“People who can put themselves in the place of other people, who can understand the workings of their minds, need never worry about what the future has in store for them.”
“If out of reading this book you get just one thing – an increased tendency to think always in terms of other people’s point of view, and see things from their angle – if you get that one thing out of this book, it may easily prove to be one of the building blocks of your career.”
Remember to ask yourself: “How can I tie up what I want to what he wants?”