Book Review: How To Win Friends And Influence People By Dale Carnegie

Some context

After the great depression in the 20th century, the American world, full of businessmen, salesmen, and CEOs needed a way to communicate with other people in a social manner that would help them build friendships and sell their products.

Not only that, people wanted to simply improve their social skills because no such book had been made before, according to Dale Carnegie. Dale Carnegie is your basic self-improvement guru, but to the difference of most of the other ones, he actually is authentic and he speaks the truth.

He wrote many books related to social relationships, self-improvement, and health, but the most famous one of his books, probably THE self-improvement book of the 20th Century, the one that was a major hit in the industry next to Napoleon Hill's Think And Grow Rich, is his incredible book How To Win Friends And Influence People, published in 1936.

This book is composed of the following parts:

"Twelve Things This Book Will Do For You", "Fundamental Techniques in Handling People", "Twelve Ways to Win People to Your Way of Thinking", and "Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment"

Review of the main ideas of the book

The main ideas of the book are found in the "Fundamental Techniques In Handling People". Sure, these ideas might not be a resume of EVERYTHING in the book, but it's a rough representation of the ideas Dale Carnegie is trying to convey here.

The first principle of this part of the book is Do Not Criticize, Condemn, Or Complain. You should not criticize the other person because this will only arouse resentment in him or her. This resentment can make the relationship turn grey and can lead to bad consequences if taken too far.

We should rather look at ourselves in a mirror instead of criticizing the other person, and we should remember that people never blame themselves for anything they do. Even Al Capone said that he was a public benefactor. Think about this.

The second principle of this part of the book is to Give Honest, Sincere Appreciation. This principle is very important. As we tend to naturally go toward criticism, we should rather go toward praise. Praising the other person and giving them honest and sincere appreciation is important because it puts both of you into a spirit of cooperativeness. It makes the person feel important because we all have a major feeling of importance.

We all are addicted to our own importance, we want to be number one and be famous and this and that, so when we get compliments and HONEST compliments, this makes us feel good and we start to build "bridges" of friendships between us and the person who praised us. So, if it works for us, why wouldn't it work for others too?

However, it's important to give HONEST and SINCERE appreciation. Being inauthentic will not help you in this case. Your appreciation of the person needs to come from the heart or else it will be felt. Sure, you could give dishonest and insincere appreciation, but there is a high chance the other person will feel it, and overall, you're just being a manipulator. And, Carnegie was clear on this: he's not speaking about manipulation, he's speaking about a new, socially rich way of life.

The third principle of this part of the book is Arouse In The Other Person An Eager Want. Since we all have a feeling of importance and we all hate being criticized, when someone forces us to do something, it makes us feel resentment toward them. Sometimes, we don't even do the task because there are no perceived benefits. Therefore, if we want to get anybody to do anything, let's try to show him or her the benefits he or she will have if he or she follows what we tell him or her to do. A lot of he or she.

But, forcing people or screaming at them to do things will only build resentment in the long term, which will make the relationship turn bad. It will make people despise you in your back and there will be no trust established. If your boss is always screaming and unempathetic, there's a high chance people speak behind his back, negatively. However, if you have a great boss, more often than not, people will love him.

So, arouse in the other person an eager want. Your employees do not want to produce a specific task that they think is too hard? Make them want to do it by highlighting the benefits they would get. Your child doesn't want to eat breakfast? Tell him how he's going to be able to be a big man and beat the bully at school if he annoys him or how he can go and integrate the football competition because he has energy. Find a way to attach meaning to the task they don't want to do.

The writing style

Dale Carnegie, in his book, speaks in a very friendly and accessible-to-everyone manner. He uses some basic vocabulary for the most part that is still understandable to this day, and he always writes in a way that engages the reader.

If the writing style of the author is something that always annoys you whilst reading a book, this book is for you. The writing style is great and well-thought-out, and he writes in a conventional and friendly manner that will help everyone understand the message. Even tho it was written in America, mainly for Americans at that time, it's a universal book that can touch the hearts of many people on this earth.

He uses a lot of examples from famous and not-so-famous people, from history books to personal experiences, and from Lincoln to some random guy in Massachusetts, really, he knows how to balance his writing right.

The fact that he uses so many examples for one single principle each time makes us understand the message a lot faster: it's better to learn the principles through real-life examples so as to understand how to put them into action or how they would work in certain situations rather than giving us blindly the principle.

And, these examples ultimately make the book more engaging and funnier to read. You actually feel good about reading this book, as every time you read it you learn something new. It's not just practical straightforward advice, it's also a cultural and historical book that tells us about tales of the past and it enlargens our culture.

If it wasn't for this book, I would've never probably learned the philosophy of Abraham Lincoln and how he changed for the better back in his younger, criticizing days, or the way Theodore Roosevelt took decisions during his presidency. It might not be very useful, but it's cool to get this extra cultural bonus whilst learning how to practically better my social relationships.

Why read this book?

If you want to better your social relationships, this book is for you. If you're a manager, an entrepreneur, a coach, or someone who has to deal with humans all day long and who specifically needs to lead them, this book is definitely for you. The proof is, that a whole portion of the book is specifically on leadership.

If you struggle to make friends or make friendships or relationships last because of your temperament, your way of thinking, or maybe your unsociability, this book is for you too. Even if you're social, it will help you make your relationships even better, which is always a bonus that is worth taking.

This book is great for any type of leader, be they teachers, or industry leaders, as well as political men and women or more simply managers. And, if you're a parent, it can help you foster better relationships with your family too.

In other words, when social relationships are involved, this book will help. It will help reinforce, consolidate, and build friendships and social relationships along the way, be it with your comrades at work, your friends, your gym bros, your children, etc. And, not only will it help you achieve this, but it will also help you learn tremendously about human nature and how to navigate any social relationship, even if you don't want to build any friendships in the first place.

Having good social skills is fundamentally important because one of the biggest parts of self-improvement is our social life. We need to be able to navigate our social environment with impeccability as much as we can to not induce fights and resentment.

This book is a true, full guide to social relationships. It is THE true, full guide to social relationships. Really, when I'm saying this, it's not a joke at all. This book is a true guide to bettering your social relationships, it's the one you need if you want to better your social life as a whole or in specific parts of it such as with your family, your child, your friends, etc.

And, since there are so many historical events and dates and names presented in this book, you will be able to enlarge your culture whilst learning how to use the principles in real life by learning from the mistakes or by learning from the victories of others. In this way, not only can you see how to apply the principles in the different situations of life, but you can also enlarge your culture, and ultimately the book ends up being more engaging. It's telling us a story whilst teaching us about a principle: it's very engaging.

Conclusion

How To Win Friends and Influence People is a great, great book written by Dale Carnegie and published in 1936. It teaches us the importance of fostering goodwill and good social relationships in our lives, it tells us how to do so, and it gives us techniques to navigate any kind of social relationships with empathy, humor, goodwill, and a genuine desire to improve ourselves and the world around us, because if we're here only for us, what have we left behind?

This book is great. It is my 2nd favorite book behind The Way Of The Superior Man by David Deida because it's a true, full, and complete guide to social relationships. It's precise and at the same time broad. It applies to specific situations but also to all situations. It's for a precise audience at first (the 1930 American) but it's universal.

Finally, thank you for reading. I appreciate it. If you want to buy How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, buy it here on Amazon. By buying here, nothing will change but it'll make me a little bit of money, so it's a cool way to support us.

I'll see you next time.

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