How To Win Friends And Influence People

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Young Carnegie had to struggle for an education, for hard luck wasfficeffice" />

always battering away at the old farm in northwest Missouri with a

flying tackle and a body slam. Year after year, the "102" River rose

and drowned the corn and swept away the hay. Season after season,

the fat hogs sickened and died from cholera, the bottom fell out of

the market for cattle and mules, and the bank threatened to

foreclose the mortgage.

Sick with discouragement, the family sold out and bought another

farm near the State Teachers' College at Warrensburg, Missouri.

Board and room could be had in town for a dollar a day, but young

Carnegie couldn't afford it. So he stayed on the farm and commuted

on horseback three miles to college each day. At home, he milked

the cows, cut the wood, fed the hogs, and studied his Latin verbs by

the light of a coal-oil lamp until his eyes blurred and he began to

nod.

Even when he got to bed at midnight, he set the alarm for three

o'clock. His father bred pedigreed Duroc-Jersey hogs - and there was

danger, during the bitter cold nights, that the young pigs would

freeze to death; so they were put in a basket, covered with a gunny

sack, and set behind the kitchen stove. True to their nature, the pigs

demanded a hot meal at ffice:smarttags" />3 A.M. So when the alarm went off, Dale

Carnegie crawled out of the blankets, took the basket of pigs out to

their mother, waited for them to nurse, and then brought them back

to the warmth of the kitchen stove.

There were six hundred students in State Teachers' College, and

Dale Carnegie was one of the isolated half-dozen who couldn't afford

to board in town. He was ashamed of the poverty that made it

necessary for him to ride back to the farm and milk the cows every

night. He was ashamed of his coat, which was too tight, and his

trousers, which were too short. Rapidly developing an inferiority

complex, he looked about for some shortcut to distinction. He soon

saw that there were certain groups in college that enjoyed influence

and prestige - the football and baseball players and the chaps who

won the debating and public-speaking contests.

Realizing that he had no flair for athletics, he decided to win one of

the speaking contests. He spent months preparing his talks. He

practiced as he sat in the saddle galloping to college and back; he

practiced his speeches as he milked the cows; and then he mounted

a bale of hay in the barn and with great gusto and gestures

harangued the frightened pigeons about the issues of the day.

But in spite of all his earnestness and preparation, he met with

defeat after defeat. He was eighteen at the time - sensitive and

proud. He became so discouraged, so depressed, that he even

thought of suicide. And then suddenly he began to win, not one

contest, but every speaking contest in college.

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Other students pleaded with him to train them; and they won also.fficeffice" />

After graduating from college, he started selling correspondence

courses to the ranchers among the sand hills of western Nebraska

and eastern Wyoming. In spite of all his boundless energy and

enthusiasm, he couldn't make the grade. He became so discouraged

that he went to his hotel room in Alliance, Nebraska, in the middle of

the day, threw himself across the bed, and wept in despair. He

longed to go back to college, he longed to retreat from the harsh

battle of life; but he couldn't. So he resolved to go to Omaha and get

another job. He didn't have the money for a railroad ticket, so he

traveled on a freight train, feeding and watering two carloads of wild

horses in return for his passage, After landing in south Omaha, he

got a job selling bacon and soap and lard for Armour and Company.

His territory was up among the Badlands and the cow and Indian

country of western South Dakota. He covered his territory by freight

train and stage coach and horseback and slept in pioneer hotels

where the only partition between the rooms was a sheet of muslin.

He studied books on salesmanship, rode bucking bronchos, played

poker with the Indians, and learned how to collect money. And

when, for example, an inland storekeeper couldn't pay cash for the

bacon and hams he had ordered, Dale Carnegie would take a dozen

pairs of shoes off his shelf, sell the shoes to the railroad men, and

forward the receipts to Armour and Company.

He would often ride a freight train a hundred miles a day. When the

train stopped to unload freight, he would dash uptown, see three or

four merchants, get his orders; and when the whistle blew, he would

dash down the street again lickety-split and swing onto the train

while it was moving.

Within two years, he had taken an unproductive territory that had

stood in the twenty-fifth place and had boosted it to first place

among all the twenty-nine car routes leading out of south Omaha.

Armour and Company offered to promote him, saying: "You have

achieved what seemed impossible." But he refused the promotion

and resigned, went to New York, studied at the American Academy

of Dramatic Arts, and toured the country, playing the role of Dr.

Hartley in Polly of the Circus.

He would never be a Booth or a Barrymore. He had the good sense

to recognize that, So back he went to sales work, selling automobiles

and trucks for the Packard Motor Car Company.

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He knew nothing about machinery and cared nothing about it.fficeffice" />

Dreadfully unhappy, he had to scourge himself to his task each day.

He longed to have time to study, to write the books he had dreamed

about writing back in college. So he resigned. He was going to spend

his days writing stories and novels and support himself by teaching

in a night school.

Teaching what? As he looked back and evaluated his college work,

he saw that his training in public speaking had done more to give

him confidence, courage, poise and the ability to meet and deal with

people in business than had all the rest of his college courses put

together, So he urged the Y.M.C.A. schools in New York to give him

a chance to conduct courses in public speaking for people in

business.

What? Make orators out of business people? Absurd. The Y.M.C.A.

people knew. They had tried such courses -and they had always

failed. When they refused to pay him a salary of two dollars a night,

he agreed to teach on a commission basis and take a percentage of

the net profits -if there were any profits to take. And inside of three

years they were paying him thirty dollars a night on that basis -

instead of two.

The course grew. Other "Ys" heard of it, then other cities. Dale

Carnegie soon became a glorified circuit rider covering New York,

Philadelphia, Baltimore and later London and Paris. All the textbooks

were too academic and impractical for the business people who

flocked to his courses. Because of this he wrote his own book

entitled Public Speaking and Influencing Men in Business. It became

the official text of all the Y.M.C.A.s as well as of the American

Bankers' Association and the National Credit Men's Association.

Dale Carnegie claimed that all people can talk when they get mad.

He said that if you hit the most ignorant man in town on the jaw and

knock him down, he would get on his feet and talk with an

eloquence, heat and emphasis that would have rivaled that world

famous orator William Jennings Bryan at the height of his career. He

claimed that almost any person can speak acceptably in public if he

or she has self-confidence and an idea that is boiling and stewing

within.

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The way to develop self-confidence, he said, is to do the thing youfficeffice" />

fear to do and get a record of successful experiences behind you. So

he forced each class member to talk at every session of the course.

The audience is sympathetic. They are all in the same boat; and, by

constant practice, they develop a courage, confidence and

enthusiasm that carry over into their private speaking.

Dale Carnegie would tell you that he made a living all these years,

not by teaching public speaking - that was incidental. His main job

was to help people conquer their fears and develop courage.

He started out at first to conduct merely a course in public speaking,

but the students who came were business men and women. Many of

them hadn't seen the inside of a classroom in thirty years. Most of

them were paying their tuition on the installment plan. They wanted

results and they wanted them quick - results that they could use the

next day in business interviews and in speaking before groups.

So he was forced to be swift and practical. Consequently, he

developed a system of training that is unique - a striking combination

of public speaking, salesmanship, human relations and applied

psychology.

A slave to no hard-and-fast rules, he developed a course that is as

real as the measles and twice as much fun.

When the classes terminated, the graduates formed clubs of their

own and continued to meet fortnightly for years afterward. One

group of nineteen in Philadelphia met twice a month during the

winter season for seventeen years. Class members frequently travel

fifty or a hundred miles to attend classes. One student used to

commute each week from Chicago to New York. Professor William

James of Harvard used to say that the average person develops only

10 percent of his latent mental ability. Dale Carnegie, by helping

business men and women to develop their latent possibilities,

created one of the most significant movements in adult education

LOWELL THOMAS 1936

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Part One - Fundamental Techniques In Handling People

1 "If You Want To Gather Honey, Don't Kick Over The Beehive"

On May 7, 1931, the most sensational manhunt New York City had

ever known had come to its climax. After weeks of search, "Two

Gun" Crowley - the killer, the gunman who didn't smoke or drink -

was at bay, trapped in his sweetheart's apartment on West End

Avenue.

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One hundred and fifty policemen and detectives laid siege to his topfloor hideway. They chopped holes in the roof; they tried to smokefficeffice" />

out Crowley, the "cop killer," with teargas. Then they mounted their

machine guns on surrounding buildings, and for more than an hour

one of New York's fine residential areas reverberated with the crack

of pistol fire and the rut-tat-tat of machine guns. Crowley, crouching

behind an over-stuffed chair, fired incessantly at the police. Ten

thousand excited people watched the battle. Nothing like it ever

been seen before on the sidewalks of New York.

When Crowley was captured, Police Commissioner E. P. Mulrooney

declared that the two-gun desperado was one of the most dangerous

criminals ever encountered in the history of New York. "He will kill,"

said the Commissioner, "at the drop of a feather."

But how did "Two Gun" Crowley regard himself? We know, because

while the police were firing into his apartment, he wrote a letter

addressed "To whom it may concern, " And, as he wrote, the blood

flowing from his wounds left a crimson trail on the paper. In this

letter Crowley said: "Under my coat is a weary heart, but a kind one

- one that would do nobody any harm."

A short time before this, Crowley had been having a necking party

with his girl friend on a country road out on Long Island. Suddenly a

policeman walked up to the car and said: "Let me see your license."

Without saying a word, Crowley drew his gun and cut the policeman

down with a shower of lead. As the dying officer fell, Crowley leaped

out of the car, grabbed the officer's revolver, and fired another bullet

into the prostrate body. And that was the killer who said: "Under my

coat is a weary heart, but a kind one - one that would do nobody

any harm.'

Crowley was sentenced to the electric chair. When he arrived at the

death house in Sing Sing, did he say, "This is what I get for killing

people"? No, he said: "This is what I get for defending myself."

The point of the story is this: "Two Gun" Crowley didn't blame

himself for anything.

Is that an unusual attitude among criminals? If you think so, listen to

this:

"I have spent the best years of my life giving people the lighter

pleasures, helping them have a good time, and all I get is abuse, the

existence of a hunted man."

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That's Al Capone speaking. Yes, America's most notorious Publicfficeffice" />

Enemy- the most sinister gang leader who ever shot up Chicago.

Capone didn't condemn himself. He actually regarded himself as a

public benefactor - an unappreciated and misunderstood public

benefactor.

And so did Dutch Schultz before he crumpled up under gangster

bullets in Newark. Dutch Schultz, one of New York's most notorious

rats, said in a newspaper interview that he was a public benefactor.

And he believed it.

I have had some interesting correspondence with Lewis Lawes, who

was warden of New York's infamous Sing Sing prison for many years,

on this subject, and he declared that "few of the criminals in Sing

Sing regard themselves as bad men. They are just as human as you

and I. So they rationalize, they explain. They can tell you why they

had to crack a safe or be quick on the trigger finger. Most of them

attempt by a form of reasoning, fallacious or logical, to justify their

antisocial acts even to themselves, consequently stoutly maintaining

that they should never have been imprisoned at all."

If Al Capone, "Two Gun" Crowley, Dutch Schultz, and the desperate

men and women behind prison walls don't blame themselves for

anything - what about the people with whom you and I come in

contact?

John Wanamaker, founder of the stores that bear his name, once

confessed: "I learned thirty years ago that it is foolish to scold. I

have enough trouble overcoming my own limitations without fretting

over the fact that God has not seen fit to distribute evenly the gift of

intelligence."

Wanamaker learned this lesson early, but I personally had to blunder

through this old world for a third of a century before it even began

to dawn upon me that ninety-nine times out of a hundred, people

don't criticize themselves for anything, no matter how wrong it may

be.

Criticism is futile because it puts a person on the defensive and

usually makes him strive to justify himself. Criticism is dangerous,

because it wounds a person's precious pride, hurts his sense of

importance, and arouses resentment.

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B. F. Skinner, the world-famous psychologist, proved through hisfficeffice" />

experiments that an animal rewarded for good behavior will learn

much more rapidly and retain what it learns far more effectively than

an animal punished for bad behavior. Later studies have shown that

the same applies to humans. By criticizing, we do not make lasting

changes and often incur resentment.

Hans Selye, another great psychologist, said, "As much as we thirst

for approval, we dread condemnation,"

The resentment that criticism engenders can demoralize employees,

family members and friends, and still not correct the situation that

has been condemned.

George B. Johnston of Enid, Oklahoma, is the safety coordinator for

an engineering company, One of his re-sponsibilities is to see that

employees wear their hard hats whenever they are on the job in the

field. He reported that whenever he came across workers who were

not wearing hard hats, he would tell them with a lot of authority of

the regulation and that they must comply. As a result he would get

sullen acceptance, and often after he left, the workers would remove

the hats.

He decided to try a different approach. The next time he found some

of the workers not wearing their hard hat, he asked if the hats were

uncomfortable or did not fit properly. Then he reminded the men in a

pleasant tone of voice that the hat was designed to protect them

from injury and suggested that it always be worn on the job. The

result was increased compliance with the regulation with no

resentment or emotional upset.

You will find examples of the futility of criticism bristling on a

thousand pages of history, Take, for example, the famous quarrel

between Theodore Roosevelt and President Taft - a quarrel that split

the Republican party, put Woodrow Wilson in the White House, and

wrote bold, luminous lines across the First World War and altered the

flow of history. Let's review the facts quickly. When Theodore

Roosevelt stepped out of the White House in 1908, he supported

Taft, who was elected President. Then Theodore Roosevelt went off

to Africa to shoot lions. When he returned, he exploded. He

denounced Taft for his conservatism, tried to secure the nomination

for a third term himself, formed the Bull Moose party, and all but

demolished the G.O.P. In the election that followed, William Howard

Taft and the Republican party carried only two states - Vermont and

Utah. The most disastrous defeat the party had ever known.

Theodore Roosevelt blamed Taft, but did President Taft blame

himself? Of course not, With tears in his eyes, Taft said: "I don't see

how I could have done any differently from what I have."

Who was to blame? Roosevelt or Taft? Frankly, I don't know, and I

don't care. The point I am trying to make is that all of Theodore

Roosevelt's criticism didn't persuade Taft that he was wrong. It

merely made Taft strive to justify himself and to reiterate with tears

in his eyes: "I don't see how I could have done any differently from

what I have."

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Or, take the Teapot Dome oil scandal. It kept the newspapers ringingfficeffice" />

with indignation in the early 1920s. It rocked the nation! Within the

memory of living men, nothing like it had ever happened before in

American public life. Here are the bare facts of the scandal: Albert B.

Fall, secretary of the interior in Harding's cabinet, was entrusted with

the leasing of government oil reserves at Elk Hill and Teapot Dome -

oil reserves that had been set aside for the future use of the Navy.

Did secretary Fall permit competitive bidding? No sir. He handed the

fat, juicy contract outright to his friend Edward L. Doheny. And what

did Doheny do? He gave Secretary Fall what he was pleased to call a

"loan" of one hundred thousand dollars. Then, in a high-handed

manner, Secretary Fall ordered United States Marines into the district

to drive off competitors whose adjacent wells were sapping oil out of

the Elk Hill reserves. These competitors, driven off their ground at

the ends of guns and bayonets, rushed into court - and blew the lid

off the Teapot Dome scandal. A stench arose so vile that it ruined

the Harding Administration, nauseated an entire nation, threatened

to wreck the Republican party, and put Albert B. Fall behind prison

bars.

Fall was condemned viciously - condemned as few men in public life

have ever been. Did he repent? Never! Years later Herbert Hoover

intimated in a public speech that President Harding's death had been

due to mental anxiety and worry because a friend had betrayed him.

When Mrs. Fall heard that, she sprang from her chair, she wept, she

shook her fists at fate and screamed: "What! Harding betrayed by

Fall? No! My husband never betrayed anyone. This whole house full

of gold would not tempt my husband to do wrong. He is the one who

has been betrayed and led to the slaughter and crucified."

There you are; human nature in action, wrongdoers, blaming

everybody but themselves. We are all like that. So when you and I

are tempted to criticize someone tomorrow, let's remember Al

Capone, "Two Gun" Crowley and Albert Fall. Let's realize that

criticisms are like homing pigeons. They always return home. Let's

realize that the person we are going to correct and condemn will

probably justify himself or herself, and condemn us in return; or, like

the gentle Taft, will say: "I don't see how I could have done any

differently from what I have."

On the morning of April 15, 1865, Abraham Lincoln lay dying in a hall

bedroom of a cheap lodging house directly across the street from

Ford's Theater, where John Wilkes Booth had shot him. Lincoln's

long body lay stretched diagonally across a sagging bed that was too

short for him. A cheap reproduction of Rosa Bonheur's famous

painting The Horse Fair hung above the bed, and a dismal gas jet

flickered yellow light.

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As Lincoln lay dying, Secretary of War Stanton said, "There lies thefficeffice" />

most perfect ruler of men that the world has ever seen."

What was the secret of Lincoln's success in dealing with people? I

studied the life of Abraham Lincoln for ten years and devoted all of

three years to writing and rewriting a book entitled Lincoln the

Unknown. I believe I have made as detailed and exhaustive a study

of Lincoln's personality and home life as it is possible for any being to

make. I made a special study of Lincoln's method of dealing with

people. Did he indulge in criticism? Oh, yes. As a young man in the

Pigeon Creek Valley of Indiana, he not only criticized but he wrote

letters and poems ridiculing people and dropped these letters on the

country roads where they were sure to be found. One of these

letters aroused resentments that burned for a lifetime.

Even after Lincoln had become a practicing lawyer in Springfield,

Illinois, he attacked his opponents openly in letters published in the

newspapers. But he did this just once too often.

In the autumn of 1842 he ridiculed a vain, pugnacious politician by

the name of James Shields. Lincoln lamned him through an

anonymous letter published in Springfield Journal. The town roared

with laughter. Shields, sensitive and proud, boiled with indignation.

He found out who wrote the letter, leaped on his horse, started after

Lincoln, and challenged him to fight a duel. Lincoln didn't want to

fight. He was opposed to dueling, but he couldn't get out of it and

save his honor. He was given the choice of weapons. Since he had

very long arms, he chose cavalry broadswords and took lessons in

sword fighting from a West Point graduate; and, on the appointed

day, he and Shields met on a sandbar in the Mississippi River,

prepared to fight to the death; but, at the last minute, their seconds

interrupted and stopped the duel.

That was the most lurid personal incident in Lincoln's life. It taught

him an invaluable lesson in the art of dealing with people. Never

again did he write an insulting letter. Never again did he ridicule

anyone. And from that time on, he almost never criticized anybody

for anything.

Time after time, during the Civil War, Lincoln put a new general at

the head of the Army of the Potomac, and each one in turn -

McClellan, Pope, Burnside, Hooker, Meade - blundered tragically and

drove Lincoln to pacing the floor in despair. Half the nation savagely

condemned these incompetent generals, but Lincoln, "with malice

toward none, with charity for all," held his peace. One of his favorite

quotations was "Judge not, that ye be not judged."

And when Mrs. Lincoln and others spoke harshly of the southern

people, Lincoln replied: "Don't criticize them; they are just what we

would be under similar circumstances."

Yet if any man ever had occasion to criticize, surely it was Lincoln.

Let's take just one illustration:

The Battle of Gettysburg was fought during the first three days of

July 1863. During the night of July 4, Lee began to retreat southward

while storm clouds deluged the country with rain. When Lee reached

the Potomac with his defeated army, he found a swollen, impassable

river in front of him, and a victorious Union Army behind him. Lee

was in a trap. He couldn't escape. Lincoln saw that. Here was a

golden, heaven-sent opportunity-the opportunity to capture Lee's

army and end the war immediately. So, with a surge of high hope,

Lincoln ordered Meade not to call a council of war but to attack Lee

immediately. Lincoln telegraphed his orders and then sent a special

messenger to Meade demanding immediate action.

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And what did General Meade do? He did the very opposite of whatfficeffice" />

he was told to do. He called a council of war in direct violation of

Lincoln's orders. He hesitated. He procrastinated. He telegraphed all

manner of excuses. He refused point-blank to attack Lee. Finally the

waters receded and Lee escaped over the Potomac with his forces.

Lincoln was furious, " What does this mean?" Lincoln cried to his son

Robert. "Great God! What does this mean? We had them within our

grasp, and had only to stretch forth our hands and they were ours;

yet nothing that I could say or do could make the army move. Under

the circumstances, almost any general could have defeated Lee. If I

had gone up there, I could have whipped him myself."

In bitter disappointment, Lincoln sat down and wrote Meade this

letter. And remember, at this period of his life Lincoln was extremely

conservative and restrained in his phraseology. So this letter coming

from Lincoln in 1863 was tantamount to the severest rebuke.

My dear General,

I do not believe you appreciate the magnitude of the misfortune

involved in Lee's escape. He was within our easy grasp, and to have

closed upon him would, in connection With our other late successes,

have ended the war. As it is, the war will be prolonged indefinitely. If

you could not safely attack Lee last Monday, how can you possibly

do so south of the river, when you can take with you very few-no

more than two-thirds of the force you then had in hand? It would be

unreasonable to expect and I do not expect that you can now effect

much. Your golden opportunity is gone, and I am distressed

immeasurably because of it.

What do you suppose Meade did when he read the letter?

Meade never saw that letter. Lincoln never mailed it. It was found

among his papers after his death.

My guess is - and this is only a guess - that after writing that letter,

Lincoln looked out of the window and said to himself, "Just a minute.

Maybe I ought not to be so hasty. It is easy enough for me to sit

here in the quiet of the White House and order Meade to attack; but

if I had been up at Gettysburg, and if I had seen as much blood as

Meade has seen during the last week, and if my ears had been

pierced with the screams and shrieks of the wounded and dying,

maybe I wouldn't be so anxious to attack either. If I had Meade's

timid temperament, perhaps I would have done just what he had

done. Anyhow, it is water under the bridge now. If I send this letter,

it will relieve my feelings, but it will make Meade try to justify

himself. It will make him condemn me. It will arouse hard feelings,

impair all his further usefulness as a commander, and perhaps force

him to resign from the army."

So, as I have already said, Lincoln put the letter aside, for he had

learned by bitter experience that sharp criticisms and rebukes almost

invariably end in futility.

Theodore Roosevelt said that when he, as President, was confronted

with a perplexing problem, he used to lean back and look up at a

large painting of Lincoln which hung above his desk in the White

House and ask himself, "What would Lincoln do if he were in my

shoes? How would he solve this problem?"