How to Win friends and Influence people by Dale Carnegie
In this video we’re gonna talk about how to get people to like you and we’re gonna
talk about the 4 most important strategies to get people to like us and how they are
paradoxical to the way they normally think of how to get people to like us.
So now let me tell you my story.
I got my first job out of grad school in engineering.
I thought I wanted to impress everyone.
I wanted to rise up the ladder.
I wanted to be the smartest person in the room.
I wanted to be liked by everyone.
And what did I do?
I would talk all the time.
In meeting I would try to prove how smart I was.
I still remember a meeting I was at my director and VPs and other engineers and my director
said something which I thought was wrong and I pointed it out and I said, “No that is
wrong”.
Even though it was true that what he said was wrong and I thought in the moment that
I had proved how smart I was, I had not really proved how smart I was but instead proved
that I had no skills how to handle people.
And I would talk on and on and on in like during lunch breaks or during off hours or
even during times that we had together about my interest or the things I do in life about
how amazing my life was, my passions, my interests, my hobbies, this and that, my, my, my.
That’s all I was doing.
I was only interested in what I was doing because I wanted to show to them that I was
smart, I was intelligent, I was amazing.
I was trying so hard to prove that I was worthy, that I was smart, that I was intelligent,
that I belong there, that they should promote me, that they should like me.
And what happened a year and a half later?
I got laid off.
And I thought, well these guys have no idea what they missed out on so they have no idea
how smart I was, how intelligent I am.
And so disappointing.
Until a friend of mine handed me the book How to win Friends and Influence People.
And this book revolutionized my life.
Literally revolutionized my life because I did not realize that everything I was doing
up to that point in terms of human relationships, in terms of winning friends.
Everything was wrong.
Everything was the exact opposite of what I should have been doing because the paradoxical
truth of how to win friends, how to get people to like you, Is that we had to like people
in order to have them like us.
That is the paradox.
We think that we have to make them like us.
But no, it’s much much much more effective for us to like them.
Because when we like them, they like us.
And the truth is can you really like someone by talking all the time or being interested
in yourself or proving how good you are or proving how important you are.
Can you really like someone like that?
No. and if you cannot like someone as the paradox says if you don’t like them they
will not like you.
So, in order to get someone to like you, you have to like them.
And how do you do that?
There are four key strategies.
The first one is to become genuinely interested in other people as Dale Carnegie says.
You will make more friends in two months by being interested in other people, than in
two years by trying to make people interested in you.
Because the fundamental truth is people are interested in themselves.
If only I had the understanding that I need to talk to my colleagues about their interests.
If I could only become interested in their lives, in their pains, in their frustrations,
in their challenges, I could have become more friendly to them and I could have had more
friends.
The second important key, be a good listener and encourage others to talk about themselves.
There’s a reason why we have two ears and one mouth.
And here’s another paradox, if you aspire to be a good conversationalist, you have to
be a great listener.
You have to give them the gift of your full attention.
You have to encourage them to talk about their accomplishments, about their well-being, about
things that they enjoy.
You have to listen.
Because people are so much more, a hundred times more interested in themselves and what
they’re talking about than what you have to talk about.
So people will think of you as a great conversationalist if you are a great listener.
And the funny thing, the paradoxical thing is, when you think of a conversationalist,
you think of someone who can converse, who can talk.
But it’s the opposite.
The paradox which is true which is someone who can listen, someone who can ask questions
and just let the other person talk.
The third truth about getting people to like you is to talk in terms of their interest,
not yours.
The exact opposite.
Don’t talk in terms of your interest.
Talk in terms of the other person’s interest.
That’s the road.
The royal road to a person’s heart which is to talk about the things that interest
him or her the most.
Talk about their kids, their family, their health, their relationships whatever it is.
There are quite a few things, there are quite a few reasons why you should talk about them
because first of all, it gets them to like you.
But also you get to learn something new.
You get to see the world from their eyes.
You get to see and learn what they have learned.
And the fourth truth of getting people to like you is to make the other person feel
important and to do it sincerely.
That is probably the one truth that I completely missed on when I was constantly in my job
when I was trying to prove how good I was, how important I was, how smart I was, how
capable I was.
I was doing the exact wrong thing because as William James said, the deepest principle
in human nature is the craving to be appreciated, the craving to feel like we’re good, that
we are worthy.
When you take that away from people, you cannot get them to like you.
So people want to be appreciated, people want to feel like they’re important in your life.
When you can show it to them that they are important to you, that’s when you become
important to them.
And very paradoxical idea.
Only when you feel like they are important to you, will they now start to feel that you
are important to them.
And really interesting example from the life of Benjamin Disraeli, the legendary UK prime
minister.
One time when he was running for elections, this lady went for dinner with the guy who
was competing against him who stood against him in the elections.
And she said, when I got done with the dinner I felt like I was in the company of one of
the smartest men in the world.
That gentleman was so smart.
Definitely he deserves to run for prime minister of the UK.
However, a few days later she went on a dinner with Benjamin Disraeli and here’s what she
said about Benjamin Disraeli, she said, when I went for dinner with Benjamin Disraeli,
I felt like I was the smartest person in the world and that is why I will vote for Benjamin
Disraeli.
Now this is the key, Benjamin Disraeli made her feel important.
He talked to her about herself.
He let her talk about her interest, her passions, and he let her proved to him she was important.
And that’s when she knew she was important to him, he was important to her.
So there you have it.
How to win friends and influence people.
4 really key skills to get people to like you.
4 paradoxical skills to get people to like you.
Always remember, if you can remember one thing from this whole thing, in order to get people
to like you, you must like them.
That is the way forward.