How to Win Friends & Influence People
Dale Carnegie
read
Nearly a century old and still the starting point for dealing with people. I keep going back to chapters instead of moving on.
Dale Carnegie published this in 1936, and almost everything in it still works. The title makes it sound slippery. The advice itself is mostly about paying attention to other people properly.
The first principles set the tone. Don't criticise, condemn or complain, because nobody ever changed their mind after being told off. Give honest appreciation. Be genuinely interested in the other person, remember their name, and let them do most of the talking. Talk about what they care about, not what you care about. On arguments he says the only way to win one is to avoid it, because even when you win, the other person resents you for it.
He tells stories to make each point, and a lot of them are about salesmen, managers and Abraham Lincoln. One I remember is Lincoln writing angry letters he never sent, getting the feeling out on paper and then putting the letter away.
I keep going back to chapters instead of finishing it and moving on, because it's the kind of book you have to practise. Three Diwalis on strangers' doorsteps taught me that people decide in seconds whether they'll listen to you. This book explains a lot of why.
