HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE. Dale Carnegie

I once spent almost two years writing a book on public speaking and yet I found I had to keep going back over it from time to time in order to remember what I had written in my own book. The rapidity with which we forget is astonishing.

      So, if you want to get a real, lasting benefit out of this book, don't imagine that skimming through it once will suffice. After reading it thoroughly, you ought to spend a few hours reviewing it every month, Keep it on your desk in front of you every day. Glance through it often. Keep constantly impressing yourself with the rich possibilities for improvement that still lie in the offing. Remember that the use of these principles can be made habitual only by a constant and vigorous campaign of review and application. There is no other way.

      6. Bernard Shaw once remarked: "If you teach a man anything, he will never learn." Shaw was right. Learning is an active process. We learn by doing. So, if you desire to master the principles you are studying in this book, do something about them. Apply these rules at every opportunity. If you don't you will forget them quickly. Only knowledge that is used sticks in your mind.

      You will probably find it difficult to apply these suggestions all the time. I know because I wrote the book, and yet frequently I found it difficult to apply everything I advocated. For example, when you are displeased, it is much easier to criticize and condemn than it is to try to understand the other person's viewpoint. It is frequently easier to find fault than to find praise. It is more natural to talk about what you want than to talk about what the other person wants. And so on, So, as you read this book, remember that you are not merely trying to acquire information. You are attempting to form new habits. Ah yes, you are attempting a new way of life. That will require time and persistence and daily application.

      So refer to these pages often. Regard this as a working handbook on human relations; and whenever you are confronted with some specific problem - such as handling a child, winning your spouse to your way of thinking, or satisfying an irritated customer - hesitate about doing the natural thing, the impulsive thing. This is usually wrong. Instead, turn to these pages and review the paragraphs you have underscored. Then try these new ways and watch them achieve magic for you.

      7. Offer your spouse, your child or some business associate a dime or a dollar every time he or she catches you violating a certain principle. Make a lively game out of mastering these rules.

      8. The president of an important Wall Street bank once described, in a talk before one of my classes, a highly efficient system he used for self-improvement. This man had little formal schooling; yet he had become one of the most important financiers in America, and he confessed that he owed most of his success to the constant application of his homemade system. This is what he does, I'll put it in his own words as accurately as I can remember.

      "For years I have kept an engagement book showing all the appointments I had during the day. My family never made any plans for me on Saturday night, for the family knew that I devoted a part of each Saturday evening to the illuminating process of self-examination and review and appraisal. After dinner I went off by myself, opened my engagement book, and thought over all the interviews, discussions and meetings that had taken place during the week. I asked myself:

      'What mistakes did I make that time?' 'What did I do that was right-and in what way could I have improved my performance?' 'What lessons can I learn from that experience?'

      "I often found that this weekly review made me very unhappy. I was frequently astonished at my own blunders. Of course, as the years passed, these blunders became less frequent. Sometimes I was inclined to pat myself on the back a little after one of these sessions.

      This system of self-analysis, self-education, continued year after year, did more for me than any other one thing I have ever attempted.

      "It helped me improve my ability to make decisions - and it aided me enormously in all my contacts with people. I cannot recommend it too highly."

      Why not use a similar system to check up on your application of the principles discussed in this book? If you do, two things will result.

      First, you will find yourself engaged in an educational process that is both intriguing and priceless.

      Second, you will find that your ability to meet and deal with people will grow enormously.

      9. You will find at the end of this book several blank pages on which you should record your triumphs in the application of these principles. Be specific. Give names, dates, results. Keeping such a record will inspire you to greater efforts; and how fascinating these entries will be when you chance upon them some evening years from now!

      In order to get the most out of this book:

      1 Develop a deep, driving desire to master the principles of human relations,

      2 Read each chapter twice before going on to the next one.

      3 As you read, stop frequently to ask yourself how you can apply each suggestion.

      4 Underscore each important idea.

      5 Review this book each month.

      6 Apply these principles at every opportunity. Use this volume as a working handbook to help you solve your daily problems.

      7 Make a lively game out of your learning by offering some friend a dime or a dollar every time he or she catches you violating one of these principles.

      8 Check up each week on the progress you are making. Ask yourself what mistakes you have made, what improvement, what lessons you have learned for the future.

      9 Keep notes in the back of this book showing how and when you have applied these principles.

      A Shortcut to Distinction

      by Lowell Thomas

       This biographical information about Dale Carnegie was written as an introduction to the original edition of How to Win Friends and Influence People. It is reprinted in this edition to give the readers additional background on Dale Carnegie.

      It was a cold January night in 1935, but the weather couldn't keep them away. Two thousand five hundred men and women thronged into the grand ballroom of the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York. Every available seat was filled by half-past seven. At eight o'clock, the eager crowd was still pouring in. The spacious balcony was soon jammed. Presently even standing space was at a premium, and hundreds of people, tired after navigating a day in business, stood up for an hour and a half that night to witness - what?

      A fashion show?

      A six-day bicycle race or a personal appearance by Clark Gable?

      No. These people had been lured there by a newspaper ad. Two evenings previously, they had seen this full-page announcement in the New York Sun staring them in the face:

      Learn to Speak Effectively

       Prepare for Leadership

      Old stuff? Yes, but believe it or not, in the most sophisticated town on earth, during a depression with 20 percent of the population on relief, twenty-five hundred people had left their homes and hustled to the hotel in response to that ad.

      The people who responded were of the upper economic strata - executives, employers and professionals.

      These men and women had come to hear the opening gun of an ultramodern, ultrapractical course in "Effective Speaking and Influencing Men in Business"- a course given by the Dale Carnegie Institute of Effective Speaking and Human Relations.

      Why were they there, these twenty-five hundred business men and women?

      Because of a sudden hunger for more education because of the depression?

      Apparently not, for this same course had been playing to packed houses in New York City every season for the preceding twenty-four years. During that time, more than fifteen thousand business and professional people had been trained by Dale Carnegie. Even large, skeptical, conservative organizations such as the Westinghouse Electric Company, the McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, the Brooklyn Union Gas Company, the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, the American Institute of Electrical Engineers and the New York Telephone