19 Comments

It's assume we have social skills to discover what people want.

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If being nice and caring about people matters so much, then how come all of the coolest people in history with the most women were complete jerks?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/...

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You sure made him feel bad about himself.

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What's insincere about it? Everyone chooses his friends by what he expects to gain out of knowing them. The only difference between people in this regard are (1) what counts as "gain" for each person and (2) whether each of us is honest with himself about the fact of his own selfishness.

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Many years ago I took my seat on an airliner and a minute or so later a well dressed man of about my own age, mid thirties, place his bag in the overhead bin and took his seat next to me with “The book" in his hand. Noticing the title I decided to remain quiet, I am normally very friendly and am the first one to strike up a conversation.After two hours of silent flying we landed and my fellow traveler who had spent the whole time engrossed with Dale's bon mots even to the point of highlighting certain passages, rose and as we departed I said to him, " I can't believe how powerful that book is, you have influenced me profoundly and you can count on me as a friend for life."The look on his face was priceless. I turned, walked away, wondering how large and useless his self help library was.

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@Thanatos: Yeah, I agree that the course is good. Even though folks probably do pretty much already know most of what's in the book before reading it (at least intuitively), there's a difference b/w merely knowing or having read about something and continually applying it. Reading about playing the piano and actually practicing the techniques you read about are different things, the combination being far more effective than the former alone.

@Robin: Btw, since I don't know where else to put it, have you seen this? Someday far away we may refer to it when discussing the rights of ems. (Ok, here's the tie-in to this post: Carnegie's principles may be programmed into their brains.)

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

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Thanks for your story. This is a good book, but I never thought of giving it to my kids to read. That might be a good idea.

The book has a remarkable combination of a clear-eyed view of how people are, there rationalizations and weaknesses, along with real optimism and sympathy for others.

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All what you said is probably true but that does not mean that he would have been as successful with reading the book.

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Years ago my law firm paid for all the new associates including me to attend the Dale Carnegie course. I assumed it was lame as did the rest of my peers. We figured the book was written for Fuller Brush salesmen-in-waiting drones. We had to go if we wanted to get our bonuses so we went. And we read the book. Otherwise "no $1,000 for you!!!".

To this day I credit it with being able to speak forcefully in public and with being able to remember names. I can still see in my mind's eye BARBara RoseIn(en)Bloom and the others in the class. My fellow 1L, who was then like a mouse, always hugging the walls when he walked the halls, has long since walked tall - the "Daisy Mae! Oh Daisy Mae! I just wanna squeeeeeez ya Daisy Mae!!! exercise having exorcised his fear of public speaking.

Anyway, I thought it was corny going in and for years never said much about it for fear of being thought a grasping clown; but somehow, some way, it gave me a voice I didn't know I had. I'd guess it added about 8 figures to my lifetime earnings.

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If you can't say anything positive, don't say anything at all. How easy to learn and hard to follow.

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I think your point in the last paragraph is generally incorrect.

As a specific point, and for a specific goal in mind, obviously you use a targeted approach. If you sell equipment to electrical contractors, you go talk to electrical contractors.

But as a general life approach, I think Taleb in the Black Swan has the better point. If you go out and meet interesting people, and you meet enough of them , you will get the unexpected (positive black swan) opportunity that you would not be able to anticipate.

The other important point he made was to seize the opportunities that you were offered - truly good fortune is rarer than people expect.

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I found this book in second hand book stall at a school fundraising fete when I was about ten. At the time I was the kid in my year that nobody liked and everybody called a rude name that I really hated.One of the chapters in the book is about going to the trouble to remember people's names and making an effort to use them. I noticed that most of the kisd at school used nicknames for each other, not necesarily derogative, just not their given name. So I took the advice and started to say hello to everyone in my year by name.By the end of the year I had gotten everyone in my class to use my name instead of the rude name, and by the end of the next year the rude name had pretty much disappeared. In high school walking from class to class I would say hello to everyone by name. After a couple of years everyone would be saying hello to me, even if I wasn't saying hello that day, and even if they said hello to nobody else.By the end of high school I was voted onto the School Representative Council and became the vice president (overcoming the football captain's popularity to be president was a than I could manage).That book is the most useful book that I have ever read.

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As a contrarian, you might be interested in How to Lose Friends and Alienate People which is now out in a new paperback edition.

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I think the basic idea of focusing on what actually makes you likable is a good one, but I also think that people have become more sophisticated in their social interactions since the book was written, so you really have to mentally rewrite it for the modern era.

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Don't fall for it. Just ask yourself how many publishers and editors would be interested in publishing the stories of the 9999 people who also read the book but ended up as regular joes? As to Warren Buffett, he's one part bright and one part f*cking lucky, like most rich people. He might as well have attributed his financial success to his lucky underwear.

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