He who can do this has the whole world with him. He who cannot walks a lonely way.

Let’s say I’m a big fan of soccer and you hate soccer, yesterday I saw a very interesting soccer game and I want to talk about it, so, I spent 2 hours with you talking only about the game, can you imagine how the conversation will look like??
It will be the most annoying 2 hours ever, I would be surprised if you can stay for 2 hours but why is that?

It’s so obvious that I want to talk about the game and you want something different, and as human being I have a big interest in talking about what I want not what you want with ignorance to the fact that you too have the opposite interest which is talking about your wants not mine.
By ignoring your want am losing you attention and as result I will not be able to convince, influence or leave impact on you.

I love cheese cake but when I go for fishing I use worms instead of cheese cake because fish for some weird reason prefer hot worms over cheese cake, so, in order to get the fish I get to give it what it want not what I want. If common sense works with fish why don’t we try it with people?

Remember, to be able to influence other people and leave impact on them, you get to talk about what they want not what you want and show them how to get it.

Harry A. Overstreet in his book Influencing Human Behavior said:
“Action springs out of what we fundamentally desire...and the best piece of advice which can be given to would-be persuaders, whether in business, in the home, in the school, in politics is: First, arouse in the other person an eager want. He who can do this has the whole world with him. He who cannot walks a lonely way.”

Henry ford said about the art of dealing with people:
“If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person's point of view and see things from that person's angle as well as from your own.”

Focusing only on your interest is purely selfish and it’s not going to get you something back, remember we don’t live alone in this world and to succeed in your life you get to be able to deal with others.

Next time you find yourself trying to persuade someone to do something, pause for seconds, and put yourself in the other person’s place, ask yourself if I were in this person’s position what would persuade me to do what am asked to do?, try to understand how other people think, try to see the picture from their own perspective and show them your understanding and caring, explain the mutual benefits and how it’s aligned with their end goals.

The world is full of salespeople who are tired, discouraged, unpaid… because of their selfishness, they care about what they want only instead of focusing on the buyers’ interest, let’s face it nobody want to buy anything from salesperson, if you want to buy something you will go and get it, you are not going to wait to a salesperson to come to you.

Yes, It’s true that we have no interest in buying things from salesperson, but we so interested in finding solutions to our problems, so, if a salespersons can show us how their product will help us fix our problem, indeed we will be interested but how they can do that?

The answer is simple; salespeople must show more interest in helping customers’ than getting money out of their pockets.

Owen D.Young said:
“People who can put themselves in the place of other people, who can understand the workings of their minds, never need worry about what the future has in store for them.”

The author think that if this lesson “Thinking always in term of other people’s point of view” is the only lesson you get out of this book, it will be a major building block in your career.

Always remember to find and understand the other person is eager want and show them how you can help them to get it, by doing this you will have the whole world with you.

Principle 3: Arouse in the other person an eager want.

The big secret of dealing with people

As we promised we will continue our journey with “How to win friends and influence people”, today we are summarizing chapter 2, titled “The big secret of dealing with people” enjoy:

Those who master the art of dealing with people, becomes able to get anyone to want to do anything for them. You can punish your kids if they didn’t cleanup their room, threat your employees to fire them if they didn’t cooperate, threat anyone with weapon to make them want to give you their wallets...etc, this might work on the short term or when you are only around them but these methods have tough consequences; always remember “what goes around always comes around”.

The only way to get you to do something for me is by giving you something special, something you really want more than anything, and this lead to another question what do we as humans want most??
Think about it you want a lot of things: Food, health, money …etc, but most of these wants are gratified and not longing all except one, this one is the desire to be important

Sigmund Freud said “everything you and I do springs from two motives: the sex urge and the desire to be great.” John Dewey said “The deepest urge in human nature is the desire to be important.” And William James said “The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.”

The desire to be great is the key; it’s the want that if a person can honestly satisfy it for others he will get them to die for him, and as the author put it “even the undertaker will be sorry when he dies”

The deep desire to be important and appreciated by others is what differentiates between humans and animals; take those who enter their pets into competitions for cute pets as example, their pets don’t really care about the winning, it mean nothing to them, but for their owners winning is everything, it give them the feeling of important, the feeling of having the best pet ever and you will find them talking about it everywhere.

The desire to be important is what makes you care about fashion, buy latest car, talk about your smart kids…….etc.
The desire to be important is what inspired grocery clerk to study law from books he found in the bottom of barrel, this grocery clerk is Lincoln. Feeling of important is what inspired Charles Dickens to write his immortal novels.

The question now is how do we get our feeling of important? Well it’s different from one person to another; some people get their feeling of important by helping others, giving money to charity, being effective member in the community…. etc on the other hand some get their feeling out of stealing, killing, being bandit, if you can tell how someone gets their feeling of important, this will be your gate to understand and determine this person’s character.

Charles Schwab was one of the first American business men who get paid more than one million dollar a year; Schwab was hired by Andrew Carnegie as president of united state steel company. Schwab wasn’t genius nor he knew more about the steel industry more than any other people, he himself told the author that he has a lot of men working for him know about the industry more than he does, then what is his secret?? The author asked him the same question and the below was his answer:

“I consider my ability to arouse enthusiasm among my people, said Schwab, the greatest asset I possess, and the way to develop the best that is in a person is by appreciation and encouragement.There is nothing else that so kills the ambitions of a person as criticisms from superiors. I never criticize anyone. I believe in giving a person incentive to work. So I am anxious to praise but loath to find fault. If I like anything, I am hearty in my approbation and lavish in my praise. "

Andrew Carnegie the one who picked Schwab to work for him always praised his employees even after his death; Carnegie wrote an epitaph for himself said
“Here lies one who knew how to get around him men who were cleverer than himself.”
A study has been made to discover the reason behind running away wives and guess what the reason was lack of appreciation and the author think that if a similar study made about running away husbands the results will be the same.

People are hungry for appreciation almost as much as their hunger for food, some people would think that they committed a crime if they left their family without food for six days, but its ok for them to leave their family for six days, weeks or maybe years without honest appreciation.

Appreciation is important but don’t mix between appreciation and flatter, appreciation is sincere comes out of heart, but flatter is about selfishness people use it to manipulate each other.
General Alvaro Obregon said about flatter “Don’t be afraid of enemies who attack you. Be afraid of friends who flatter you.”

Most of the time if we don’t have any definite problems to think about we spend 95% of our times thinking about ourselves but if we can spend some time to think about other people’s good point we will not need flatter anymore.

Appreciation is something we neglect in our daily life, we forget to give sincere appreciation to our kids, employees, friends...etc, people are thirsty for appreciation, so, try to figure out other people’s good points and give them sincere appreciation and you will be amazed with the results, they will remember your words and repeat it over and over even after you have forgotten them.

Principle 2: Give honest and sincere appreciation.

If you want to gather honey don’t kick over the beehive

We will start our journey with a great book named How to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie. The book sold more than 16 million copies; it’s has been recognized as one of the greatest books in teaching the art of dealing with other people. As we promised we will summarize the whole book, so let’s start with chapter one, titled “If you want to gather honey, don’t kick over the beehive”.

In 1931 “Two Gun” Crowley one of the most dangerous criminals in the history of New York was captured, he was sentenced to death by electric chair, when he arrived at the death house he said “This is what I get for defending myself ”.

The point behind this story is that Crowley didn’t blame himself for what happened to him instead he blamed others. But Crowley was not the only criminal who point finger to others, Al Capone , Dutch Schultz and more did, they thought of themselves as Public benefactors.

Most of the criminals don’t consider themselves as bad men; Lewis Lawes said, Lewis was a warden of Sing Sing prison, he said that most of criminals think of themselves as good people, and like any other humans they are able to rationalize and explain why they kill, steal… etc

But how can a criminal think of himself as a good fellow??

Well by pointing finger at someone we are putting this person in a defense position and that person will do his best to justify himself and most probably will condemn you in return and this what happened with criminals, the whole world point finger at them and criticize their behavior, so, in return they start defending themselves and condemn others for what happened to them.

If criminals behind prison walls don’t blame themselves for what happened to them, imagine how the people we deal with everyday would think.

Condemn & Criticism is dangerous because it touches the person’s pride and hurt his sense of important; criticism doesn’t do any good to anybody, and the most important fact here to remember is that criticism doesn’t correct the situation it just makes people justify themselves to us and condemn us in return.

Abraham Lincoln is one of the greatest leaders the world has known, and leadership is the art of dealing with people, as a great leader did Lincoln indulge in criticism?

Surprisingly, yes when he was young he used to write poems & letters ridiculing people, and he used to hide his identity by sending anonyms letters.

In 1842 he ridicule a politician named James Shields, but Shields wasn’t like anyone, he was very sensitive. Shields find out that Lincoln is the one who wrote the letter and he challenge him to duel, Lincoln didn’t want to fight but he had to save his face so he accept it. Before the duel started two friends intervened and convinced both Lincoln and Shield to stop it.

What happened with Shield was a great lesson to Lincoln, it taught him the art of dealing with people, after that he never ridicules anybody and almost never criticizes anyone.

When Lincoln’s wife or others where criticizing other people for criticizing Lincoln, he used to say “Don’t criticize them; they are just what we would be under similar circumstances”

Do you know a lot of people who are indulge in criticizing others? Of course you do and you want them to change, but why don’t you take the initiative start with yourself there’s a saying “Don't complain about the snow on your neighbor’s roof, when your own doorstep is unclean”, every time you feel that you want to criticize someone remember that 99.9% of people don’t criticize themselves for nothing, so try to understand the person first instead of pointing figure and let people understand you too, don’t wait till you learn it the hard way like what happened with Lincoln.

Carnegie finish this chapter by these great words “As Dr. Johnson said: God himself sir, does not propose to judge man until the end of his days. Why should you and I?”

Principle 1: Don’t Criticize, condemn or complain

What are we trying to achieve?

We live in a world where thousands of books are being published every day, and with all those books around us it’s not easy to choose which one to read, and if you are a curious person and want to gain the most knowledge ever, you would want to read most of available books which is for some of us is not possible because it takes a lot of time.

So we have decided to summarize all the books that we read chapter by chapter and post it here, the summary is a not a replacement for the book, it just help you to get the best out of the book in a fast way and also it will help you to decide whether to buy the book or not.

We don’t have any restriction over any type of books, and we will summarize all the books we find interesting and if you guys have any specific book you want us to know about you can email us at summarizeit@gmail.com.

Finally, we are not professional writers so you might find some mistakes, by sending your feedback you will help us improve our writing and our summarization style.

You can send feedback via email summarizeit@gmail.com or by commenting on the post.