How To Win Friends And Influence People

[beforewisdom]

A few months back in the thread about books we found personally influential Robert mentioned "How To Win Friends And Influence People" by Dale Carnegie ( not to be confused with Andrew Carnegie, the wealthy industrialist as in "Carnegie Hall").

 

I put it on my reading list for the year ( already past 20 books, I will need to prioritize! ). Veggieprincess also mentioned this book as well as his classic "How To Stop Worrying And Start Living".....also on my list for the year.

 

I've taken notes on the most influential personal effectiveness books in my life...the really good ones that I can read over and over again. Getting the main points down on paper makes me think about the points, organize them. Doing that brings me closer to actually implementing them in my life by forcing me to understand them better as well being able to remember them with the notes.

 

It turns out that there is a wikipedia page for HTWFAIP, that already has such a "cheat sheet". since so many people here seem to be into this book I thought I would post the URL:

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_win_friends_and_influence_people

[robert]

Awesome, thanks! Yeah, I loved the book. I may go back and read it again sometime soon. I don't do a lot of reading but I did enjoy that book quite a bit.

[veggieprincess]

beforewisdom... I'm going to give you the most important thing I got from "How To Stop Worrying and Start Living", so if you don't get to the book for awhile, this is what stuck with me from the time I was 14 years old when I read it (yes, I was a weird kid) until now.

 

The most profound thing the book said was that when you are really worried about something, think of the worst thing that could possibly happen, accept it as true and then move on.

 

So lets say you think you're going to be fired from your job. Pretend that it is going to happen for sure and then walk through the whole scenario in your head... For example, "Okay, I get fired... what's the worse that could happen. I can't find work, I lose my house, etc." Then come up with all of the solutions based on the worst possible scenario. "If I lose my house, I can always stay at my sisters and get a job at my Brother-In-Laws office until I find work". So once you've accepted the worst case scenario in any situation, you can deal with it, because 99.9% the worst thing never happens but even if it does you've already accepted it so you don't have to worry about it anymore.

 

It was invaluable advice and it's one of the main reasons I've always had such strong survival skills

[beforewisdom]

beforewisdom... I'm going to give you the most important thing I got from "How To Stop Worrying and Start Living", so if you don't get to the book for awhile, this is what stuck with me from the time I was 14 years old when I read it (yes, I was a weird kid) until now.

 

The most profound thing the book said was that when you are really worried about something, think of the worst thing that could possibly happen, accept it as true and then move on.

 

So lets say you think you're going to be fired from your job. Pretend that it is going to happen for sure and then walk through the whole scenario in your head... For example, "Okay, I get fired... what's the worse that could happen. I can't find work, I lose my house, etc." Then come up with all of the solutions based on the worst possible scenario. "If I lose my house, I can always stay at my sisters and get a job at my Brother-In-Laws office until I find work". So once you've accepted the worst case scenario in any situation, you can deal with it, because 99.9% the worst thing never happens but even if it does you've already accepted it so you don't have to worry about it anymore.

 

It was invaluable advice and it's one of the main reasons I've always had such strong survival skills

 

Thanks for that nugget...........I'm finding it to be really thought provoking.

 

I wonder how it would effect my sister. She catastrophizes everything. I wonder if she did that exercise if she just wouldn't dwell on how each solution would not work and work herself up into more of a tizzy.