Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People

With over 15 million copies sold, Dale Carnegie’s timeless business and human relations book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, is widely considered by many as the most practical and most shaping book ever written. Shaping the World's Shapers Since its first public release in 1937, How to Win Friends and Influence People has helped thousands, if not millions – from business executives, sales managers, entrepreneurs, doctors, lawyers, dentists, government officials, civic and religious leaders up to parents, couples and other ordinary people. In How to Win Friends and Influence People, Carnegie, the master of human relations, practically shared the simplest and probably the most effective ways on how to handle people, how to make them like you, how to win their way of thinking and how to change their behavior, opinions and perspectives without resulting into animosity and resentment. A Lesson in Modesty: This Won't Work All the Time However, Carnegie made it clear right from the start that such principle contained in How to Win Friends and Influence People, is not an exact science and isn’t 100% effective – which is actually a good thing. Perhaps the personal finance writers of this era might need to learn a lesson or two in modesty from the works of Carnegie or at least from his transformed readers. The Natural Human Tendency to Point Fingers According to Carnegie, the wrongdoers blame everybody but themselves. While Carnegie’s cold-blooded axiom may be true at some degree, there are still a few who remain objective and rationale with their doings. On the other hand, it was only Carnegie presenting human nature at its worst. It is a natural human tendency to see fault to anyone but the man in the mirror. Such is a case of humanity against divinity. They say pointing fingers is human while blaming one’s self is divine – with all that, Carnegie chose to discuss humanity. Carnegie was right on the mark. People are interested in relating with people not to an omnipresent being (good or bad, you decide.) How to Win Friends and Influence People: A Life Changer How to Win Friends and Influence People contains conventional wisdom that can produce results in an instant. Carnegie was able to create not just a book but a practical and effective guide on how to live a better life, how to climb the ladder of success and how to reach Alfred Maslow’s ultimate level of self-actualization. Carnegie teaches his readers to be less self-centered and to be more understanding with the deficiencies and imperfections of others – an immaculate lesson that can dramatically change a person’s way of life.