The Vintage Reader

No way to win friends and influence people

When I was young (and sometimes not even so young), my mother's favorite thing to say when I was misbehaving was "That's no way to win friends and influence people!" That phrase has been in my head a lot this week for various reasons, so I decided to pull out my old copy of How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Norman Vincent Peale, and find out what is a way to win friends and influence people. Some excerpts:

THE BIG SECRET OF DEALING WITH PEOPLE

There is only one way under high Heaven to get anybody to do anything. Did you ever stop to think of that? Yes, just one way. And that is by making the other person want to do it.

Peale goes on to say that the big thing that everyone wants is to feel important. In fact, he says, "It is this desire which lures many boys into becoming gangsters and gunmen. 'The average young criminal of today,' says E. P. Mulrooney, former Police Commissioner of New York, 'is filled with ego, and his first request after arrest is for those lurid newspapers that make him out a hero. The disagreeable prospect of taking a 'hot squat' in the electric chair seems remote, so long as he can gloat over his likeness sharing space with pictures of Babe Ruth, LaGuardia, Einstein, Lindbergh, Toscanini, or Roosevelt.'"

SIX WAYS TO MAKE PEOPLE LIKE YOU
(I'm just going to list them here; each one is a chapter, but he sums them up at the end)

1. Become genuinely interested in other people.
2. Smile.
3. Remember that a man's name is to him the sweetest and most important sound in the English language. [I wonder: is that where people picked up that annoying technique of saying your name in every sentence? I get really sick of that.]
4. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
5. Talk in terms of the other man's interests.
6. Make the other person feel important--and do it sincerely.

This does have a nice refreshing feel to it, doesn't it? Everywhere you go everyone's always talking about themselves. I do it too, of course. I'm doing it right now! Oh well.

IN A NUTSHELL: TWELVE WAYS OF WINNING PEOPLE TO YOUR WAY OF THINKING

1. The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.
2. Show respect for the other man's opinions. Never tell a man he is wrong.
3. If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
4. Begin in a friendly way.
5. Get the other person saying "yes, yes" immediately.
6. Let the other man do a great deal of the talking.
7. Let the other man feel that the idea is his.
8. Try honestly to see things from the other person's point of view.
9. Be sympathetic with the other person's ideas and desires.
10. Appeal to the nobler motives.
11. Dramatize your ideas.
12. Throw down a challenge.

That's all for today; I need to go clean the house. Tomorrow: Nine Ways to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment.