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How to Win Friends & Influence People Mass Market Paperback – February 15, 1990
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For over 50 years the rock-solid, time-tested advice in this book has carried thousands of now famous people up the ladder of success in their business and personal lives.
Now this phenomenal book has been revised and updated to help readers achieve their maximum potential in the complex and competitive 90s!
Learn:
- The six ways to make people like you
- The twelve ways to win people to your way of thinking
- The nine ways to change people without arousing resentment
and much, much more!
- Print length304 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPocket Books
- Publication dateFebruary 15, 1990
- Dimensions4.19 x 0.8 x 6.75 inches
- ISBN-100671723650
- ISBN-13978-0671723651
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About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
"If You Want to Gather Honey, Don't Kick Over the Beehive"
On May 7, 1931, the most sensational manhunt New York City had ever known had come to its climax. After weeks of search, "Two Gun" Crowley -- the killer, the gunman who didn't smoke or drink -- was at bay, trapped in his sweetheart's apartment on West End Avenue.
One hundred and fifty policemen and detectives laid siege to his top-floor hideaway. They chopped holes in the roof; they tried to smoke out Crowley, the "cop killer," with tear gas. Then they mounted their machine guns on surrounding buildings, and for more than an hour one of New York's fine residential areas reverberated with the crack of pistol fire and the rat-tat-tat of machine guns. Crowley, crouching behind an overstuffed chair, fired incessantly at the police. Ten thousand excited people watched the battle. Nothing like it had ever been seen before on the sidewalks of New York.
When Crowley was captured, Police Commissioner E. P. Mulrooney declared that the two-gun desperado was one of the most dangerous criminals ever encountered in the history of New York. "He will kill," said the Commissioner, "at the drop of a feather."
But how did "Two Gun" Crowley regard himself? We know, because while the police were firing into his apartment, he wrote a letter addressed "To whom it may concern." And, as he wrote, the blood flowing from his wounds left a crimson trail on the paper. In his letter Crowley said: "Under my coat is a weary heart, but a kind one -- one that would do nobody any harm."
A short time before this, Crowley had been having a necking party with his girl friend on a country road out on Long Island. Suddenly a policeman walked up to the car and said: "Let me see your license."
Without saying a word, Crowley drew his gun and cut the policeman down with a shower of lead. As the dying officer fell, Crowley leaped out of the car, grabbed the officer's revolver, and fired another bullet into the prostrate body. And that was the killer who said: "Under my coat is a weary heart, but a kind one -- one that would do nobody any harm."
Crowley was sentenced to the electric chair. When he arrived at the death house in Sing Sing, did he say, "This is what I get for killing people"? No, he said: "This is what I get for defending myself."
The point of the story is this: "Two Gun" Crowley didn't blame himself for anything.
Is that an unusual attitude among criminals? If you think so, listen to this:
"I have spent the best years of my life giving people the lighter pleasures, helping them have a good time, and all I get is abuse, the existence of a hunted man."
That's Al Capone speaking. Yes, America's most notorious Public Enemy -- the most sinister gang leader who ever shot up Chicago. Capone didn't condemn himself. He actually regarded himself as a public benefactor -- an unappreciated and misunderstood public benefactor.
And so did Dutch Schultz before he crumpled up under gangster bullets in Newark. Dutch Schultz, one of New York's most notorious rats, said in a newspaper interview that he was a public benefactor. And he believed it.
I have had some interesting correspondence with Lewis Lawes, who was warden of New York's infamous Sing Sing prison for many years, on this subject, and he declared that "few of the criminals in Sing Sing regard themselves as bad men. They are just as human as you and I. So they rationalize, they explain. They can tell you why they had to crack a safe or be quick on the trigger finger. Most of them attempt by a form of reasoning, fallacious or logical, to justify their antisocial acts even to themselves, consequently stoutly maintaining that they should never have been imprisoned at all."
If Al Capone, "Two Gun" Crowley, Dutch Schultz, and the desperate men and women behind prison walls don't blame themselves for anything -- what about the people with whom you and I come in contact?
John Wanamaker, founder of the stores that bear his name, once confessed: "I learned thirty years ago that it is foolish to scold. I have enough trouble overcoming my own limitations without fretting over the fact that God has not seen fit to distribute evenly the gift of intelligence."
Wanamaker learned this lesson early, but I personally had to blunder through this old world for a third of a century before it even began to dawn upon me that ninety-nine times out of a hundred, people don't criticize themselves for anything, no matter how wrong it may be.
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.
B. F. Skinner, the world-famous psychologist, proved through his experiments that an animal rewarded for good behavior will learn much more rapidly and retain what it learns far more effectively than an animal punished for bad behavior. Later studies have shown that the same applies to humans. By criticizing, we do not make lasting changes and often incur resentment.
Hans Selye, another great psychologist, said, "As much as we thirst for approval, we dread condemnation."
The resentment that criticism engenders can demoralize employees, family members and friends, and still not correct the situation that has been condemned.
George B. Johnston of Enid, Oklahoma, is the safety coordinator for an engineering company. One of his responsibilities is to see that employees wear their hard hats whenever they are on the job in the field. He reported that whenever he came across workers who were not wearing hard hats, he would tell them with a lot of authority of the regulation and that they must comply. As a result he would get sullen acceptance, and often after he left, the workers would remove the hats.
He decided to try a different approach. The next time he found some of the workers not wearing their hard hat, he asked if the hats were uncomfortable or did not fit properly. Then he reminded the men in a pleasant tone of voice that the hat was designed to protect them from injury and suggested that it always be worn on the job. The result was increased compliance with the regulation with no resentment or emotional upset.
You will find examples of the futility of criticism bristling on a thousand pages of history. Take, for example, the famous quarrel between Theodore Roosevelt and President Taft -- a quarrel that split the Republican party, put Woodrow Wilson in the White House, and wrote bold, luminous lines across the First World War and altered the flow of history. Let's review the facts quickly. When Theodore Roosevelt stepped out of the White House in 1908, he supported Taft, who was elected President. Then Theodore Roosevelt went off to Africa to shoot lions. When he returned, he exploded. He denounced Taft for his conservatism, tried to secure the nomination for a third term himself, formed the Bull Moose party, and all but demolished the G.O.P. In the election that followed, William Howard Taft and the Republican party carried only two states -- Vermont and Utah. The most disastrous defeat the party had ever known.
Theodore Roosevelt blamed Taft, but did President Taft blame himself? Of course not. With tears in his eyes, Taft said: "I don't see how I could have done any differently from what I have."
Who was to blame? Roosevelt or Taft? Frankly, I don't know, and I don't care. The point I am trying to make is that all of Theodore Roosevelt's criticism didn't persuade Taft that he was wrong. It merely made Taft strive to justify himself and to reiterate with tears in his eyes: "I don't see how I could have done any differently from what I have."
Or, take the Teapot Dome oil scandal. It kept the newspapers ringing with indignation in the early 1920s. It rocked the nation! Within the memory of living men, nothing like it had ever happened before in American public life. Here are the bare facts of the scandal: Albert B. Fall, secretary of the interior in Harding's cabinet, was entrusted with the leasing of government oil reserves at Elk Hill and Teapot Dome -- oil reserves that had been set aside for the future use of the Navy. Did Secretary Fall permit competitive bidding? No sir, He handed the fat, juicy contract outright to his friend Edward L. Doheny. And what did Doheny do? He gave Secretary Fall what he was pleased to call a "loan" of one hundred thousand dollars. Then, in a high-handed manner, Secretary Fall ordered United States Marines into the district to drive off competitors whose adjacent wells were sapping oil out of the Elk Hill reserves. These competitors, driven off their ground at the ends of guns and bayonets, rushed into court -- and blew the lid off the Teapot Dome scandal. A stench arose so vile that it ruined the Harding Administration, nauseated an entire nation, threatened to wreck the Republican party, and put Albert B. Fall behind prison bars.
Fall was condemned viciously -- condemned as few men in public life have ever been. Did he repent? Never! Years later Herbert Hoover intimated in a public speech that President Harding's death had been due to mental anxiety and worry because a friend had betrayed him. When Mrs. Fall heard that, she sprang from her chair, she wept, she shook her fists at fate and screamed: "What! Harding betrayed by Fall? No! My husband never betrayed anyone. This whole house full of gold would not tempt my husband to do wrong. He is the one who has been betrayed and led to the slaughter and crucified."
There you are; human nature in action, wrongdoers, blaming everybody but themselves. We are all like that. So when you and I are tempted to criticize someone tomorrow, let's remember Al Capone, "Two Gun" Crowley and Albert Fall. Let's realize that criticisms are like homing pigeons. They always return home. Let's realize that the person we are going to correct and condemn will probably justify himself or herself, and condemn us in return; or, like the gentle Taft, will say: "I don't see how I could have done any differently from what I have."
On the morning of April 15, 1865, ...
Product details
- Publisher : Pocket Books (February 15, 1990)
- Language : English
- Mass Market Paperback : 304 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0671723650
- ISBN-13 : 978-0671723651
- Item Weight : 5 ounces
- Dimensions : 4.19 x 0.8 x 6.75 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #126,012 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #504 in Communication Skills
- #712 in Interpersonal Relations (Books)
- #2,230 in Success Self-Help
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Dale Carnegie (1888-1955) described himself as a "simple country boy" from Missouri but was also a pioneer of the self-improvement genre. Since the 1936 publication of his first book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, he has touched millions of readers and his classic works continue to impact lives to this day.
Image by Dale Carnegie Created in vector format by Scewing (Heritage Auctions) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
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Top reviews from the United States
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"How To Win Friends and Influence People" was the first personal development book I ever read. Being a depressed, lonely, 12 year old child I came across this book by accident at my local library. I was searching the computer's library catalog: "how to get friends", and this was the book that came up. Little did I know this book was going to become an essential for me in developing my social skills.
At first glance, you may read the principles taught in this book and go: "this is just common sense". But you may also have heard the quote "common sense isn't common". How many of us actively make an effort to genuinely smile and be empathetic towards others? How may of us jump to criticizing others without considering the other person's point of view? How many of us condemn others without remembering it won't make the other person change their mind?
I've read this book so many times I've lost count! It really changed my life, and I was so excited to see it be re-released for a new generation!
That said, the book edition of my youth was from the 1990's. How does this 2022 "Updated for the Next Generation of Leaders" edition hold up? I compared the 2 side-by-side.
PROS:
📌 Grammar revisions make the book easier to read. Examples include removal of filler words, word substitutions, and rewriting story examples. The changes are minor, so most of the time they are not very noticeable.
📌 A few new story examples have been added, featuring female figures like Evangeline Booth and Alice Foote MacDougall.
📌 A new concluding section: "Apply the Dale Carnegie Principles After the Book"
CONS:
📌 Lots of book edits come off less as necessary and more as attempts to be politically correct, to remove anything that could be seen as problematic. Examples include substituting words ("they" for "him", "not be able to walk" for "cripple", "house staff" for "servants") and stories that were needlessly removed (which leads to my next point).
📌 SO MANY story examples have been removed; no joke, I counted over 35! So many vivid examples that made the book so memorable for me as a kid, PC or not, are gone! I don't care if the story examples used Confederate general Robert E. Lee; they still illustrated the principles.
📌 Some edits just don't make sense at all. For example, they renamed Part 3, Chapter 5 from "The Secret of Socrates" to the principle "Get the Other Person Saying 'Yes, Yes' Immediately". No other chapter was renamed like this, and the Socrates example is still in the chapter.
As for the audiobook, the narrator gives a great presentation with a good range. But will his voice ever match the baritone of the original Andrew MacMillan? Unfortunately no.
In sum, for those who are new to reading this book or were born past the 2000's, I'd say this 2022 edition is a nice introduction, albeit a very sanitized one. There's a longer and better version out there. But if you're already a fan of the 90's publication and could care less about political correctness, there's not much new here to justify a second purchase. In fact, there's much less!
Sadly, this isn't the only book lately that's getting the Orwellian treatment. Other authors whose books have been altered lately for offensive content include Roald Dahl, Ian Fleming, Agatha Christie, and R.L. Stine (not to mention he's still alive and did not approve the changes). Simply put, it's really getting out of hand!
Consider me an old fashioned 30 year old Millennial, but I'll be sticking with my original copy.
If you've ever wondered about what it would be like to get along with nearly everyone, this book will answer that question better than any other. The information that will help you develop excellent people skills, grew out of curiosity, experiments and research. So you could say it is even scientific.
After reading three or more different versions of this book, including the one for the digital age and updated versions, I must say that I think this first version is my favorite.
I still however continue to disagree with the advice to not let someone know when they have a source of a quote wrong. People have corrected me in the past and I've appreciated them helping me out! The quote in this book about nothing being good or bad - that it is your thinking that makes it so - is deceptively wrong. People know the difference between good and evil things. And Socrates saying he knew nothing...how did he know that then?
Otherwise I agree with everything else in this brilliant study on human nature. I have been testing out the advice in this book this week and wish more people would read this book and take it seriously when talking and dealing with me. I apparently am not so different than the regular human who enjoys a bit of appreciation and recognition. You will find you really relate to this book in dozens of ways. Read this book to find out how to get along with more people and to figure out what really makes you tick or ticks you off!
~The Rebecca Review
Still though, the question of whether the advice in this book is dated remains. My take is that, the advice and examples given are indeed a tiny bit dated. However the overarching theme of each chapter and the takeaway messages are as strong and relevant now as ever. Here’s what you should get out of this book.
(1) TECHNIQUES IN HANDLING PEOPLE
* Don’t criticize, condemn or complain.
* Give honest and sincere appreciation.
* Arouse in the other person an eager want.
(2) WAYS TO MAKE PEOPLE LIKE YOU
* Become genuinely interested in other people.
* Smile.
* Remember that a persons’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
* Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
* Talk in terms of the other person’s interests.
* Make the other person feel important—and do it sincerely.
(3) HOW TO WIN PEOPLE TO YOUR WAY OF THINKING
* The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.
* Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never say, “You’re wrong”.
* If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
* Begin in a friendly way.
* Get the other person saying “yes, yes” immediately.
* Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.
* Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view.
* Be sympathetic with the other person’s ideas and desires.
* Appeal to the nobler motives.
* Dramatize your ideas.
* Throw down a challenge.
(4) HOW TO CHANGE PEOPLE WITHOUT GIVING OFFENSE OR AROUSING RESENTMENT
* Begin with praise and honest appreciation.
* Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly.
* Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.
* Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.
* Let the other person save face.
* Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be “hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise”.
* Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.
* Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.
* Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest
Top reviews from other countries
I recommend this book for everyone as I am sure if everyone reads and applied the advice contained within then interactions would become more pleasant.