Lifetime Plan for Success

date Apr 19, 2007
authors Dale Carnegie
reading time 3 mins

How to Win Friends and Influence People & How to stop worrying and start living by Dale Carnegie - these 2 best sellers were combined in this book. If i can sum up in just 2 words about what this book exactly teaches, it’ll be tactfulness and diplomacy. It’s a great book… in fact i would wanna buy it!

On criticism… (pg 29)

When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity. … … Benjamin Franklin, tactless in his youth, became so diplomatic, so adroit at handling people, that he made American Ambassador to France. The secret of his success? “I will speak ill of no man,” he said, “… and speak all the good I know of everybody.”

Any fool can criticise, condemn and complain - most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.

A practical book with practical straight forward advice. Think i’ll make a summary of some of the principles stated in this book…

Fundamental Techniques in Handling People

  1. Don’t Criticize, condemn or complain
  2. Give Honest, sincere appreciation
  3. Arouse in the other person an eager want

6 ways to make people like you

  1. Become genuinely interested in other people
  2. Smile
  3. Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language
  4. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves
  5. Talk in terms of the other person’s interests
  6. Make the other person feel important - do it sincerely

Win 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 person’s opinion. Never say, “You’re wrong.”
  3. In 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 person do a great deal of the talking
  7. Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers
  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 nobler motives
  11. Dramatise your ideas
  12. Throw down a challenge

 Be a leader

  1. Begin with praise and honest appreciation
  2. Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly
  3. Talk about your own mistakes before criticising other person
  4. Ask questions instead of giving orders
  5. Let the person save face
  6. Praise the slightest improvement and praise in every improvement. Be “hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise.”
  7. Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to
  8. Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct
  9. Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest

How to break the Worry Habit before it break you

  1. Crowd worry out of your mind by keeping busy. Plenty of action is one of the best therapies ever devised for curing ‘wibber gibbers.’
  2. Don’t fuss about trifles. Don’t permit little things 0 the mere termites of life - to ruin your happiness
  3. Use the law of averages to outlaw your worries. Ask yourself: ‘What are the odds against this thing’s happening at all?’
  4. Cooperate with the inevitable. If you know a circumstances is beyond your power to change or revise, say to yourself: ‘It is so; it cannot be otherwise.’
  5. Put a ‘stop-less’ order on your worries. Decide just how much anxiety a thing may be worth - and refuse to gave it any more
  6. Let the past bury its dead. Don’t saw the sawdust