3 Key Principles Of Human Relationships

Bettering your social relationships isn't as hard as you once thought

Bettering your social relationships isn't as hard as you once thought. Seriously, it really isn't. You only have to follow, at least for now, three key principles that can really make a change in the long term. These three key principles of human relations have been dialed in in the book How To Win Friends And Influence People by Dale Carnegie, published in November 1936, and probably THE self-help book of all time next to Napoleon Hill's Think And Grow Rich.

Dale Carnegie was a very empathetic and wise person, and he taught the value of compassion, understanding, patience, and love in most of his principles in the book. We will see how to apply his teachings to better our social relationships with tangible examples.

Before concluding on this article, I'll set a little paragraph about having friends on self-improvement. Let's dive in.

The 3 key principles

David Carnegie was not someone who used to beat around the bush. He directly got to the subject with tangible examples so we could take real lessons out of history. The 3 key principles I'm about to showcase here, namely, Do Not Criticize, Condemn Or Complain, Give Honest And Sincere Appreciation, and Arouse In The Other Person An Eager Want, are the three you only really need to begin bettering your relationships at first.

These three principles could save you many problems, even years of problems, it could maybe save you relationships, marriages, families, business deals, etc. So let's dive into these key three principles of human relations.

1) Do Not Criticize, Condemn Or Complain

Criticizing, condemning, or complaining only arouses resentment in our entourage. You see, you probably have an ego. If you get criticized there's a high chance you would build resentment toward the person who criticized your ego.

If this is the case for you, why would other humans feel differently? Stop criticizing others, and start actually putting all that energy into yourself. Maybe you're not as good as you thought you were, or maybe you really are good, but you could still improve.

Stop wasting time criticizing, or condemning people, or even complaining about people because that just simply puts people not only on the defensive, and they slowly build resentment like a dam filled up with water.

I am going to give you a tangible example. Let's say one day you commute to work and you have a team meeting with your boss and your colleagues about a new productivity tactic in the company. You sit down, listen to that guy babble on for thirty minutes, and you don't think his plan is actually that good.

Instead of criticizing your boss, condemning him, or complaining about his bad project, let's rather tell him something more like "I appreciate the effort you spent into developing this strategy for us. But I thought about some enhancement that could be done to further better this project. Maybe we could book a time where we could brainstorm ideas?"

This would be way better than saying things such as "It's been thirty minutes, and you said a project that is not going to work!" or "You've been busy for the past few weeks developing this and it isn't even effective!"

Sure, sometimes people need to face reality, but when it's your boss, it's better to be genuinely his friend than his enemy. So, use this principle of human relations at all times, and you'll better your social relationships immeasurably.

But let's use it on another example. Let's say you come back home and your child has broken your wife's favorite vase. You could criticize your child, condemn and complain about him, telling him he's a pain in the ass or you could use Dale Carnegie's principle.

If you use Dale Carnegie's principle, you could say "Why did you break the vase? Now look, daddy will have to buy a new one and he will lose money. That's not fun, we need money to buy food and gifts. How is daddy going to feed you if he has no money?". You could even make this a family activity and time spent with your kid by asking him to put the vase back apart with you, if you only take a few minutes to assist him, putting each part together with glue for example.

Do you see how I converted the situation? He could've dashed into the room screaming, asking the child why he did what he did, punishing him from desserts or whatever, yet the empathic approach will probably be the one that will work at giving a lesson effectively without building resentment, the one that will work at putting the vase back together, and the one that will work at enhancing your relationship with your child.

So, remember to never criticize, condemn, or complain. It just arouses resentment in the relationship like a dam of hatred slowly breaking apart until one day it bursts. Really, there's no need to criticize condemn, and complain on a daily basis.

Now sure, we are human, and we express emotions, but we ought not to be so stupid to the point of speaking without thinking, right?

Finally, constructive criticism is fine, but if you don't want to build resentment in other people, I suggest always putting it in a form that doesn't directly point the finger at their ego or at them, for example, instead of saying "You could've made a better project" say "I have ideas to enhance the project so it's even better".

2) Give Honest And Sincere Appreciation

As criticizing, condemning, or complaining builds resentment, giving honest and sincere appreciation builds friendships.

Giving honest and sincere appreciation is a simple yet effective practice which will not only improve your personal life but also the life of others. Think of it as grateful journalism. Grateful journalism is a self-help habit that consists of listing in a journal every day what you're grateful for. "I'm grateful for the sky because it's blue and colorful and enlivening" is for example what you could found in a grateful journal.

However, here, you're expressing your appreciation out loud. Not only are you saying you're grateful for people out loud, but you're also saying they're awesome when you meet people that are genuinely awesome or do something awesome. It's simple rules of politeness that I slowly see disappear in our modern society. Some people don't even say hello or thank you to bus drivers, some don't even say hello or thank you to supermarket cashiers, and we don't have any human rules and contacts anymore.

So, express your appreciation freely. Not only will it improve your life (better mental health for example by being more grateful) but you'll also build relationships, and you'll make another persons day. In your loving relationship with your man or woman, express your appreciation freely. He or she cooked you food? Of course, thank him or her. Tell her how wonderful it tastes and how meaningful it is to you.

He prepared the bed. Thank him! She looks wonderful? Tell her! It's as easy as this: every single grateful emotion you feel inside of you, even the slightest, express them. And it begins not only in your personal relationships with your family, friends, and your partner but also in the street, with strangers.

Show genuine and sincere appreciation and people will love you automatically, except if they really have a grudge against you for no reason. People love being the center of interest. In fact, you and I, and our friends, family members, and partners are always searching for a feeling of importance.

We, humans, are thirsty for a feeling of importance, it is something all humans are striving for at one moment or the next. Dale Carnegie even illustrates this principle of one clear example of a business deal that went wrong.

When Edward T. Bedford, John D. Rockefeller's business partner lost a million dollars for the firm because of a bad investment, Rockefeller could've criticized him. He could've screamed at him. He could've been mad, and resentment could've been built. He could've found a million reasons to criticize him.

Yet, what do you think he did? First off, he understood that the incident couldn't be changed and that it was gone, and that there was no need to dwell on past mistakes. Secondly, he congratulated Edward T. Bedford for having saved 60% of the money he had invested, and Rockefeller congratulated him, saying that "We don't always do as well as that upstairs".

If Rockefeller can forgive someone for losing a MILLION DOLLARS in a bad business investment, can't you forgive your child who broke a vase and give him sincere appreciation? Can't you forgive your business colleague who accidentally erased an important file from your computer or USB key?

But remember, this appreciation should be GENUINE, HONEST, SINCERE, and HEARTFELT. If it's not genuine and authentic, not only people might feel it, you will be basically playing on the verge of manipulation, and you will not truly be invested in the relationship. We're speaking about a genuine way to save your relationships here, not a way to manipulate people.

3) Arouse in the other person an eager want.

What is the most common thing between a man, a child, a lion, an elephant, a pigeon, a dog, and a monkey? Is it the fact we're all breathing and alive? No. I mean yes, but it's the fact that we all only truly care about ourselves.

Mankind only cares about itself, and if you don't trust me, look at the ocean. Thousands of billions of plastics, and don't get me on with microplastics, chemicals, herbicides, endocrine disruptors, and all that stuff that castrates and makes fish, polar bears, and every single species that are regularly in water suffocate and die.

And this is true of the lion too. The lion wants its prey for him or his tribe alone. He doesn't care about wether the hyenas wants some, and he's right to do so! The elephant too, the pigeon too, the dog too, and the monkey too.

Therefore, if people are more concerned about their lives than any other thing in the universe, you cannot make them do what you want them to do. You have to convince them to do it, by showing them the benefits they will get out of it.

For example, I'm selling a weight-loss course. I can't force you to buy it, I can't tell you to just "go and buy it it's nice". No, I have to speak to your wants and needs, I have to make you want to do it. And so I have to arouse in you, the other person, an eager want.

You have to be eager to buy my course to buy it. I have to show to you the benefits that would accrue to you if you buy it: weight loss, healthier physically and mentally, maybe getting into self-improvement, being more attractive, attracting more women or men, wearing the clothes you want, being proud and confident, etc. Let me give you another example. If I tell you, when the fridge is full "go buy some butter". Will you go and buy some fresh butter from the supermarket? Probably not. If, however, there's no butter in the fridge, and I tell you to go and buy some fresh butter, will you go buy butter? Probably yes.

If you don't appeal to people's wants and needs, you can't get them to do anything. If you want people to do the things you want them to do, you have to arouse in them an eager want. Dale Carnegie gives the following idea to illustrate what he means by this principle: when we have an idea in business, why not let people make their own conclusion to it, create it themselves, own it, steer it, and "eat a couple of helpings from it". If you just told someone your business plan he might not agree, whilst if it's him who actually builds this business plan, how can he not agree?! It's his own doing!

So, always keep the principle in mind that people don't care about doing stuff if they don't want to do it. So find a way to make them want to do it. Always tell people the benefits that would accrue to them if they only did the thing you want them to do, and also, oftentimes tell them the benefits that would accrue to them if they only didn't do the thing you want them to do as it could help them make an informed decision. You're giving them the two sides of the sword, and they have to choose whether it's worth it or not to do the thing you want them to do.

Going back to my weight-loss course, I could tell you the benefits that would accrue to you if you bought my course, and the ones that would accrue to you if you didn't buy it. Maybe if you don't buy, you save money, time, and energy that you could spend otherwise on worsening yourself, becoming fatter, and watching TV or you could invest this time in my weight-loss course (wink).

So, always arouse in the other person an eager want. Tell people what they can get if they do the thing you want them to do, show them how to get it, and they'll probably get it! It's all a question of arousing a want or a need in the other person.

Having friends on self-improvement

Having friends on self-improvement is great. We need friends. We need people around us who help us, motivate us, or simply make us happy. However, as much as we need friends, as we better ourselves, we slowly realize that a lot of them are actually losers.

This might seem harsh but it's the truth. Now don't get me wrong, if you have some loser friends but they're very close to you and they're nice etc then you can stay with them, but a lot of us have "loser friends" who are not really great friends anyway, or who try to push us into "playing one more hour of video games" or "go and watch the new Netflix bullshit".

So, I recommend getting away from these type of negative people or just loser friends who doesn't want to improve. As you become better, they shrink into irrelevance because simply they're not improving. A lot of them will try to tell you that "you changed" that "self-improvement is not that great" and will try to put down you and your projects.

You become better so you highlight their lack of discipline, consistency, intelligence, wisdom, knowledge, and so on and so forth and so they ultimately end up feeling like poop. And they deserve to feel like poop because they live like poop.

So, in other words, having friends during your self-improvement journey is great, but 1) make sure that these people are on their self-improvement journey too and 2) make sure they're actually good people that deserve your attention and time. If not, take them away from your life.

Not only does it hurt you to stay with losers (you become the average of the five people you spend time with), but it also hurts your relationships because if you're a man for example who's with loser friends, women will be less attracted to you. It's a symbol of status for both men and women to be with good friends.

If you're a masculine man and you're with masculine friends and high-value men, you'll be way more attractive to women because this would validate your social status. If you're a feminine woman and you hang out with other high-value feminine women, then you'll be more attractive because your social status would be validated too. The "hierarchy" would be set. Because trust me, it exists, and as "inegalitarian" it might sound, it's the truth of life on earth.

So, for your life, your social status, your attractiveness, and everything in between including your other relationships and more, do not hang out with losers. Period.

Conclusion

To conclude, the three key principles here: Do Not Criticize, Condemn, Or Complain; Give Honest And Sincere Appreciation; and Arouse In The Other Person An Eager Want are the only three key principles you need to work on now. Try to implement these principles daily if you want to better your social relationships.

Remember tho, all of this has to come from a genuine desire to better your relationships, and not a desire to manipulate. Dale Carnegie is speaking about a new way of life, not a way to manipulate people into doing what you want them to do.

As always, thank you for reading and I hope this article was of help to you. I recommend reading How To Win Friends And Influence People if you really want to get a grasp of these principles and of the other dozens of principles presented in the book. It's a must-read.

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