Skip to content

Comment on How to Win Friends and Influence People Summarized

Comments

Much of the advice in this book can be explained by people wanting to feel important. Doing anything that makes people feel less important (criticizing, arguing, saying "you're wrong") doesn't help your situation. Doing anything that makes people feel more important (give sincere appreciation, remember a person's name, let others talk about themselves) likely will help your situation.

I still recommend reading this book. You'll get a lot more out of it than you will from summaries, because the book contains real-life examples that clarify what each principle means and how it can be applied. If you're put off by the title, remember that it was written in 1936. "Influence people," sounds very manipulative today, but in the book it simply means "to be an influential person." I think that's an important distinction to make, because the latter is more relationship-oriented than the former.

AboutSource Built by g1lg1l

Hackerly is an independent reader for Hacker News, built on the public HN API. Not affiliated with Y Combinator.