How to Win Friends and Influence People

Book Outline

1. Techniques in Handling People
   1. Don’t criticize, condemn or complain.
   2. Give honest and sincere appreciation.
   3. Arouse in the other person an eager want.
2. Six ways to make people like you
   1. Become genuinely interested in other people.
   2. Smile.
   3. Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
   4. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
   5. Talk in terms of the other person’s interests.
   6. Make the other person feel important – and do it sincerely.
3. Win people to your way of thinking
   1. The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.
   2. Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never say, “You’re wrong.”
   3. If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
   4. Begin in a friendly way.
   5. Get the other person saying “yes, yes” immediately.
   6. Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.
   7. Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.
   8. Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view.
   9. Be sympathetic with the other person’s ideas and desires.
   10. Appeal to the nobler motives.
   11. Dramatize your ideas.
   12. Throw down a challenge.
4. Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment
   1. Begin with praise and honest appreciation.
   2. Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly.
   3. Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.
   4. Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.
   5. Let the other person save face.
   6. Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be “hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise.”
   7. Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.
   8. Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.
   9. Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.

Book notes

• People want to feel great and important
• Do not flatter. Flattery is just telling someone what they already think about themselves.
• Bait the hook to suit the fish
• If you want someone to do something, ask yourself what they need in order to want to do it.
• Get the other persons point of view, and see things from that person’s angle, as well as your own
• “Self expression is the dominant necessity of human nature”
• Humans are not rational beings, but emotional ones.
• You make more friends by being interested in them rather than to try and get them interested in you.
• “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” – Shakespeare, Hamlet
• Remember peoples’ names and birthdays. It makes them feel unique and is important to them.
• To be a good conversationalist, you simply must be a good listener.