Featured Book: How to Win Friends And Influence People

“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”
― Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People

How to Win Friends and Influence People is one of the pioneering books of the personal development world. Countless successful people have cited its teachings from Warren Buffett to Orpah to Elon Musk. These are some of the richest and most successful people on the planet who have mentioned it. It's no wonder given what a pivotal part of life dealing with people is. Everything depends on other people whether it pertains to our personal relationships, work relationships or even just dealing with government administration or your internet provider, there is a perennial need to interact with people and a struggle to tilt their behavior in our favor. 

The teachings from How to Win Friends and Influence People are many, but some of the core concepts that the book touches on are 1) taking an interest in others, 2) giving others a sense of importance and 3) giving compliments to people in a genuine way.

1. Taking an Interest in Others: This is a concept that is omnipresent in the book and the idea is simple. If you want people to find you interesting, then take an interest in them. 
   
   "You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you."
   
   The author touches on the fact that people who are interested in only themselves and their own lives are insufferably boring. This is because people don't care. They yearn for someone who will take an interest in their lives rather than go on about their own life all day. The book lays this out quite clearly.
   

2. Make Other People Feel Important: People want to feel like they matter. The author lays out how people yearn for significance in the world above almost everything else. 
   
   "The unvarnished truth is that almost all the people you meet feel themselves superior to you in some way, and a sure way to their hearts is to let them realize in some subtle way that you recognize their importance and recognize it sincerely."
   
   The point is true that everyone in the world is better at something than the average person is. So if you can find something sincere and make people aware that you recognize they are competent in that skill or domain, then they will associate you with positive feelings of self confidence. People are always going to prefer being around other people who admire and respect them than people who do not or people who only focus on their negative traits and give them no credit for their positive ones.
   

3. Compliment with Sincerity: Carnegie posits that we should point out when we see something positive in someone else. He even refers to it as a 'superpower' that people have and they do not use. It is true that people have a tendency to point out the negative in people oftentimes more often than they will give credit to others for positive traits. 
   
   "Flattery is telling the other person precisely what he thinks about himself. Genuine appreciation is telling him what you sincerely think about him."
   

This one is self-explanatory. Do not say something good about someone else in an instrumental way to try and get what you want unless you mean it. Otherwise, all you will do is have the person lose respect for you and you may also lose respect for yourself .

This book as stated is a timeless classic that has endured decades and for good reason. The principles in the book are as true today as they were when it was first published in 1936 almost a century ago. Human beings have not changed all that much and they probably won't anytime soon so this book is a great investment to learn skills that will last you a lifetime.