How to get people on your side: Excerpts from Dale Carnegie
Hello !! Trust you have been doing great. For a couple of weeks now, I have been challenging myself to read books that can help me in certain areas of my life. I decided to review books I read here on steemit . So if you don't like reading a lot, you could just read a summary from my post,
The book how to win friends and influence people is the book on the spot light and it was written by Dale Carnegie a very renowned author. For starters, if you don't like reading you might get discouraged which is normal but you don't want to miss the knowledge you can get from this book. Another thing that can get you uninterested in the book is the American politics in the book, if you are like me who didn't know anything about American politics you will get discouraged but one thing I must assure you is that the book is worth reading although I felt there were some repetitions of the same point in different ways.
May we begin?
The book is divided into 4 parts
- Fundamental techniques in handling people
- Six ways to make people like you
- How to win people to your way of thinking
- Be a leader: how to change people without giving offense or arousing resentment
For this post, I will be talking about lessons I learnt from part 1
Lesson 1: Nobody likes criticisms, so don't criticize anybody.
Ever noticed how difficult it is to admit to yourself that you are wrong? Have you also noticed that it's so difficult to also admit when someone tells you bluntly of your wrong doings? You make a mistake like over spending at the supermarket and the next thing you do is blame your partner for not stopping you from overspending . Do you know why you easily want to blame anything else except yourself? The reason is simple. It is because it is painful to admit when we are wrong. So why would you want to tell or criticize someone when you can't do it to yourself easily? If you feel bad when people criticize you then it simply means that people also feel bad when they are criticized. There was this particular time I was trading and I told my self I was never going to go against my trading rules. Somehow I went against my trading rules and I got bitten so badly by the market. Guess what?? I kept on blaming my friend who was there while I was violating my rules, I blamed my data connection, I blamed everything except my self. If you want to deal with people effectively don't criticize them.
Lesson 2: Give honest and sincere appreciation.
Honest appreciation means appreciating someone because that is how you feel and not because you have to. This singular act is a skill everyone has to learn. According to this book, the most important thing any person wants, is that feeling of importance. Personally I find it difficult to give compliments. When you sincerely appreciate people, there is this confidence they feel around you and they tend to feel comfortable around you. Dale Carnegie's wife once came home and asked him to state six thing he didn't like about her and guess what he did? He bought her six roses and sent it to her office and wrote "I love you the way you are". How do you think she felt? How would you have felt as a lady if your man did this to you? I guess you would be in cloud nine by now. However this is not the case. We are so quick to criticize that we forget the good. If I was the person I would probably tell her six things and add an extra one. I will most likely defend my self and call it constructive criticism. If you really want to win people's heart, sincerely appreciate them and don't flatter them.
Lesson 3:Don’t force people to do what you want them to do.
Most times people are tempted to tell people things they want them to do without asking themselves what these people really want. I mean who cares about what you want? I once had a friend who smoked all sort of stuff and personally I don’t like smoking (I had no reason, probably because of the way my mother painted it or probably because I knew the health risks associated with smoking) and I was somehow judgemental about it. I told her to stop and she did. Are you shocked? I felt like a boss who had convinced someone to stop a habit. I didn’t bother to know why she was even smoking. After leaving the country she started smoking again and guess what she told me? She said she was doing it because she wanted to be friends with me not because she wanted to stop. Another example can be seen when men or fathers try to cage their children most especially their little daughters all in the name of trying to protect them. Can I tell you what happens to these children when they leave the confines of their parents? Most of them end up doing the things they were protected against. The question is why do they finally go against your will?
There are a lot of factors that contributes to this, some of them include the adventurous nature of man, peer pressure and so on, According to this book, the reason stems from the fact that you didn’t arouse the eagerness of the person to want what you desire. If I had tried another approach like trying to give her the advantages of smoking and also the disadvantages and just chip in my little opinion, what do you think would have been the outcome? It would have been much better trust me. I have never tried smoking even in the midst of the highest pressure and this is probably due to the way my mother made me see smoking so when I left for school I was never enticed into smoking. Next time when you want people to do something give them what they stand to benefit and arouse in them what will make them do it.
Phew... My hand hurts. I just reviewed the first part of the book. I will be reviewing the next part in my next post. There is a lot more to learn. I am open to your opinions in the comment section.