Summary of "How to Win Friends and Influence People"

remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language

People love to hear their own name.

People who have read this book seem to think it is polite or pleasant to repeatedly use a person's first name in conversation.

Perhaps it was so, in the 1930s. However, I suspect that something has changed since then, namely, the popularity of this book with salespeople. Today, repeatedly using a person's name in conversation makes you sound like an overly ingratiating salesperson who's read Dale Carnegie. Don't do this; it's creepy.

Leil Lowndes' How to Talk to Anyone is written as a sort of modern sequel to HtWFaIP according to the author, I found it worthwhile.

I got the audiobook.

As a side-note, professionally produced audiobooks tend to be read by people with very pleasing voices to listen to, which adds an additional incentive to listening to them.

Update 2021: The original link is dead. Link to the current version, archived for posterity: https://web.archive.org/web/20210225082506/http://becomingeden.com/summary-of-how-to-win-friends-and-influence-people/

I'd recommend the book to anyone, even if only for its historical value as one of the lasting early[1] self-help books (together with Napoleon Hill's, I guess). There are some good insights in the book that are worth following.

However, it shares some of the problems that many modern self-help books have as well: very high on anecdote and broad generalizations, yet very light on evidence, or even considering alternative explanations for observations.

[1] Of course, self-help books are as least as old as Marcus Aurelius' Meditations...

Thank you.

Since I presume you have read the book, may I ask, how did it work for you?

I'm very interested in upping my social skills.

Cheers

The section on not-arguing seems exactly in line with my thought on the matter. Well, I'd qualify "never tell others that they are wrong" a bit more - I'd say you should make sure it's factually true, and make sure that the person has practice in admitting mistakes in this area (think math students in math). But if those conditions hold, you can save a lot of time and condescension.

Anyhow, instead of making a post out of not-arguing like I'd half-planned, I may just fillet Carnegie.

I once skimmed "How to win friends and influence people". I didn't read enough to have a good opinion of the advice (I suspect djcb's description of it being fairly good advice as long as the author's experience generalises well, which HTWFAIP probably does better than many but not perfectly).

However, what had a profound influence on me was that though there's an unfortunate stereotype of people who've read too much Carnegie seeming slimy and fake, the author seemed to genuinely want to like people and be nice to them, which I thought was lovely.

Here is a useful cheat sheet: http://www.scribd.com/doc/3152662/How-to-Win-Friends-and-Influence-People-cheat-sheet

I would recommend reading the book or listening to the audiobook, it is actually a pretty engaging read, ab it heavy on the business examples though. You do need to put effort into developing 5 second skills and heuristics for it to be all that useful, otherwise it is just a load of points that sits in the back of your mind.

I would also recommend The Teaching Company's "Effective Communication Skills" if you want more on the subject.

Has anybody mentioned "Dark Arts"?

I do.