There is a book that was written in the late 1930s and published in the 1940s that is still in print. The title is Think and Grow Rich. The author was a man by the name of Napoleon Hill. If you go to Amazon and type in the title, you will find books ranging from the original text to updated text to other authors using the title and making the book gender-specific. The other best-selling book from that time period in the same area is How to Win Friends and Influence People. It was written by Dale Carnegie. It was so popular it went through 17 editions in its first year. It was revised in 1981 and remains an all-time bestseller today. Again if you go to Amazon and look up the title, you will find many books with that title. I even noticed there was even a day by day calendar with quotations taken from the book.
What are these books promising? In the first book, it is wealth, and in the second book, it is friends. It looks like you should buy both books and read them. You will be then wealthy with many friends. Both books provide insights into how we can succeed in life. I found a good summary of How to Win Friends and Influence People Wikipedia Here is a short portion of their summary:
Six Ways to Make People Like You
- Become genuinely interested in other people. “You can make more friends in two months by being interested in them, than in two years by making them interested in you.” The only way to make quality, lasting friendships is to learn to be genuinely interested in them and their interests.
- Smile. Happiness does not depend on outside circumstances, but rather on inward attitudes. Smiles are free to give and have an amazing ability to make others feel wonderful. Smile in everything that you do.
- Remember that a person’s name is, to that person, the sweetest and most important sound in any language. “The average person is more interested in their own name than in all the other names in the world put together.” People love their names so much that they will often donate large amounts of money just to have a building named after themselves. We can make people feel extremely valued and important by remembering their name.
- Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves. The easiest way to become a good conversationalist is to become a good listener. To be a good listener, we must actually care about what people have to say. Many times people don’t want an entertaining conversation partner; they just want someone who will listen to them.
- Talk in terms of the other person’s interest. The royal road to a person’s heart is to talk about the things he or she treasures most. If we talk to people about what they are interested in, they will feel valued and value us in return.
- Make the other person feel important – and do it sincerely. The golden rule is to treat other people how we would like to be treated. We love to feel important and so does everyone else. People will talk to us for hours if we allow them to talk about themselves. If we can make people feel important in a sincere and appreciative way, then we will win all the friends we could ever dream of.
Like yesterday this blog is getting long. These two books are a great way to help yourself. You can probably find a copy at your local library. I have seen PDF versions online. And you can always go to Amazon as I did when researching this blog. Look for the little blue letters underneath or by “More buying choices” and click on those. I found very inexpensive used books – even one for $0.99. The best way to help yourself is to start by doing something.
