This week we are going to spend the entire week reviewing one of my all time favorite books How to Win Friends and Influence People written by Dale Carnegie over 80 years ago.
How to Win Friends and Influence People is an amazing personal development book, and I go back and read it as often as I can. It is one of the best-selling books of all time with over 30 million copies sold since 1934 when it was first printed. Amazon has it listed as the 11th highest selling non-fiction book of all time, and Time Magazine lists it in the top 100 most influential books in history. It is a book that can help you create the best version of yourself while helping you to create massive success in your life.
I’d like to provide a high-level summary of this book and encourage you to pick up a copy and spend time studying its concepts and teachings. I believe you can study its principles repeatedly and still gain knowledge and understand as you grow in your business and life.
Before we get into the book, however, I want to comment a bit on how and why Carnegie wrote this book.
- he was a teacher that developed the principles out of a need for learning himself.
- he was approached by a gentleman that heard his lecture who offered to publish his book. (Simon & Schuster)
- Note #1 he developed something he was passionate about
- Note #2 I believe that one of the #1 problems we deal with in life and business today is communication.
“In the heyday of his activity, John D. Rockefeller said that “the ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee.” “And I will pay more for that ability,” said John D., “than for any other under the sun.”….and yet it really isn’t taught to us which I believe is a major problem.
The book begins by helping us to understand exactly what the wisdom inside its cover can help you to do for you. The list of things it can help you do was originally 12 items, so I included all of them here:
- Get you out of a mental rut, give you new thoughts, new visions, new ambitions.
- Enable you to make friends quickly and easily.
- Increase your popularity.
- Help you to win people to your way of thinking.
- Increase your influence, your prestige, your ability to get things done.
- Enable you to win new clients, new customers.
- Increase your earning power.
- Make you a better salesman, a better executive.
- Help you to handle complaints, avoid arguments, keep your human contacts smooth and pleasant.
- Make you a better speaker, a more entertaining conversationalist.
- Make the principles of psychology easy for you to apply in your daily contacts.
- Help you to arouse enthusiasm among your associates.
Now I want to make sure you read between the lines here a bit. The goal is not to put yoru efforts into making people like you, gain recognition, or even put too much value in others opinions of you…although that is a definite byproduct. The goal is to create influence in order to achieve the level of prosperity you desire in your life. So, if any of the items above interest you, then read on…
Each part of this book gives you tangible advise and strategies for you to use, but more importantly it is packed with Stories, Examples and Quotes that will help you to understand and apply each of its principles. The 4 parts of the book are:
- Techniques for Handling People (3)
- Ways to make people like you (6)
- Winning People over to your way of Thinking (12)
- Becoming a Leader. (9)
I encourage you to read each chapter in the book and relate it to your particular business, life or experience in order to gain golden nuggets of information and strategies you can use immediately.
Throughout this week, I will be discussing and expanding on each of the 4 sections of the book below on The Daily Mastermind Podcast. I would love for you to pick up a copy of the book and join me each day as we drill down on this timeless Masterclass from Dale Carnegie.
