When Theodore Roosevelt was in the White House, he confessed that if he could be right 75 per cent of the time, he would reach the highest measure of his expectations.

If that was the highest rating that one of the most distinguished men of the twentieth century could hope to obtain, what about you and me?

If you can be sure of being right only 55 per cent of the time, you can go down to Wall Street, make $1 million a day, buy a yacht, and marry a chorus girl. And if you can’t be sure of being right even 55 per cent of the time, why should you tell the other people they are wrong?

You can tell a man he is wrong by a look or an intonation or a gesture just as eloquently as you can in words— and if you tell him he is wrong, do you make him want to agree with you? Never! For you have struck a direct blow at his intelligence, his judgment, his pride, his self-respect. That will make him want to strike back. But it will never make him want to change his mind. You may then hurl at him all the logic of a Plato or an Immanuel Kant, but you will not alter his opinion, for you have hurt his feelings.

Never begin by announcing, “I am going to prove so and so to you.” That’s bad. That’s tantamount to saying: “I’m smarter than you are. I’m going to tell you a thing or two and make you change your mind.”

That is a challenge. That arouses opposition, and makes the listener want to battle with you before you even start.

It is difficult, under even the most benign conditions, to change people’s minds. So why make it harder? Why handicap yourself?

If you are going to prove anything, don’t let anybody know it. Do it so subtly, so adroitly that no one will feel that you are doing it.

“Men must be taught as if you taught them not
And things unknown proposed as things forgot.”

As Lord Chesterfield said to his son:

“Be wiser than other people, if you can; but do not tell them so.”

I believe now hardly anything that I believed twenty years ago—except the multiplication table; and I begin to doubt even that when I read about Einstein. In another twenty years, I may not believe what I have said in this book. I am not so sure now of anything as I used to be. Socrates said repeatedly to his followers in Athens: “One thing only I know; and that is that I know nothing.”

Well, I can’t hope to be any smarter than Socrates; so I have quit telling people they are wrong. And I find that it pays.

If a man makes a statement that you think is wrong— yes, even that you know is wrong—isn’t it better to begin by saying: “Well, now, look! I thought otherwise, but I may be wrong. I frequently am. And if I am wrong, I want to be put right. Let’s examine the facts”?

There’s magic, positive magic, in such phrases as: “I may be wrong. I frequently am. Let’s examine the facts.”

Nobody in the heavens above or on the earth beneath or in the waters under the earth will ever object to your saying: “I may be wrong. Let’s examine the facts.”

That is what a scientist does. I once interviewed Stefansson, the famous explorer and scientist who spent eleven years up beyond the Arctic Circle and who lived on absolutely nothing but meat and water for six years. He told me of a certain experiment he had conducted, and I asked him what he tried to prove by it. I shall never forget his reply. He said: “A scientist never tries to prove anything. He attempts only to find the facts.”

You like to be scientific in your thinking, don’t you? Well, no one is stopping you but yourself.

You will never get into trouble by admitting that you may be wrong. That will stop all argument and inspire the other fellow to be just as fair and open and broadminded as you are. It will make him want to admit that he, too, may be wrong.

If you know positively that a man is wrong, and you tell him so bluntly, what happens? Let me illustrate by a specific case. Mr. S——, a young New York attorney, was arguing a rather important case recently before the United States Supreme Court (Lustgarten v. Fleet Corporation 280 U.S. 320). The case involved a considerable sum of money and an important question of law.

During the argument, one of the Supreme Court justices said to Mr. S.: “The statute of limitations in admiralty law is six years, is it not?”

Mr. S—— stopped, stared at Justice —— for a moment, and then said bluntly: “Your Honour, there is no statute of limitations in admiralty.”

“A hush fell on the court,” said Mr, S——, as he related his experience to one of the author’s classes, “and the temperature in the room seemed to go down to zero. I was right. Justice —— was wrong. And I had told him so. But did that make him friendly? No. I still believe that I had the law on my side. And I know that I spoke better than I ever spoke before. But I didn’t persuade. I made the enormous blunder of telling a very learned and famous man that he was wrong.”

Few people are logical. Most of us are prejudiced and biased. Most of us are blighted with preconceived notions, with jealousy, suspicion, fear, envy, and pride. And most citizens don’t want to change their minds about their religion or their hair-cut or Communism or Clark Gable. So, if you are inclined to tell people they are wrong, please read the following paragraph on your knees every morning before breakfast. It is from Professor James Harvey Robinson’s enlightening book, The Mind in the Making.

“We sometimes find ourselves changing our minds without any resistance or heavy emotion, but if we are told we are wrong, we resent the imputation and harden our hearts. We are incredibly heedless in the formation of our beliefs, but find ourselves filled with an illicit passion for them when anyone proposes to rob us of their companionship. It is obviously not the ideas themselves that are dear to us, but our self-esteem which is threatened. . . . The little word ‘my’ is the most important one in human affairs, and properly to reckon with it is the beginning of wisdom. It has the same force whether it is ‘my’ dinner, ‘my’ dog, and ‘my’ house, or ‘my’ father, ‘my’ country, and ‘my’ God. We not only resent the imputation that our watch is wrong, or our car shabby, but that our conception of the canals of Mars, of the pronunciation of ‘Epictetus’, of the medicinal value of salicin, or of the date of Sargon I is subject to revision. .. . We like to continue to believe what we have been accustomed to accept as true, and the resentment aroused when doubt is cast upon any of our assumptions leads us to seek every manner of excuse for clinging to it. The result is that most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already do.”

I once employed an interior decorator to make some draperies for my home. When the bill arrived, I caught my breath.

A few days later, a friend called and looked at the drapes. The price was mentioned, and she exclaimed with a note of triumph: “What? That’s awful. I am afraid he put one over on you.”

True? Yes, she had told the truth, but few people like to listen to truths that reflect on their judgment. So, being human, I tried to defend myself. I pointed out that the best is eventually the cheapest, that one can’t expect to get quality and artistic taste at bargain-basement prices, and so on and on.

The next day another friend dropped in, admired the draperies, bubbled over with enthusiasm, and expressed a wish that she could afford such exquisite creations for her home. My reaction was totally different. “Well, to tell the truth,” I said, “I can’t afford them myself. I paid too much. I’m sorry I ordered them.”

When we are wrong, we may admit it to ourselves, And if are we handled gently and tactfully, we may admit it to others and even take pride in our frankness and broad mindedness. But not if someone else is trying to ram the unpalatable fact down our aesophagus. . . .

Horace Greeley, the most famous editor in America during the time of the Civil War, disagreed violently with Lincoln’s policies. He believed that he could drive Lincoln into agreeing with him by a campaign of argument, ridicule, and abuse. He waged this bitter campaign month after month, year after year. In fact, he wrote a brutal, bitter, sarcastic, and personal attack on President Lincoln the night Booth shot him.

But did all this bitterness make Lincoln agree with Greeley? Not at all. Ridicule and abuse never do.

If you want some excellent suggestions about dealing with people and managing yourself and improving your personality, read Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography—one of the most fascinating life stories ever written, one of the classics of American literature. Borrow a copy from your public library or get a copy from your book-store.

In this biography, Ben Franklin tells how he conquered the iniquitous habit of argument and transformed himself into one of the most able, suave, and diplomatic men in American history.

One day, when Ben Franklin was a blundering youth, an old Quaker friend took him aside and lashed him with a few stinging truths, something like this:

“Ben, you are impossible. Your opinions have a slap in them for everyone who differs with you. They have become so expensive that nobody cares for them. Your friends find they enjoy themselves better when you are not around. You know so much that no man can tell you anything. Indeed, no man is going to try, for the effort would lead only to discomfort and hard work. So you are not likely ever to know any more than you do now, which is very little.”

One of the finest things I know about Ben Franklin is the way that he accepted that smarting rebuke. He was big enough and wise enough to realize it was true, to sense that he was headed for failure and social disaster. So he made aright-about face. He began immediately to change his insolent, bigoted ways.

“I made it a rule [said Franklin] to forbear all direct contradiction to the sentiments of others, and all positive assertion of my own. I even forbade myself the use of every word or expression in the language that imported a fix’d opinion, such as ‘certainly’, ‘undoubtedly’, etc., and I adopted, instead of them, ‘I conceive’, ‘I apprehend’, or ‘I imagine’ a thing to be so or so; or ‘it so appears to me at present’, When another asserted something that I thought an error, I deny’d myself the pleasure of contradicting him abruptly, and of showing immediately some absurdity in his proposition: and in answering I began by observing that in certain cases or circumstances his opinion would be right, but in the present case there appear’d or seem’d to me some difference, etc. I soon found the advantage of this change in my manner; the conversations I engag’d in went on more pleasantly.

The modest way in which I propos’d my opinions procur’d them a readier reception and less contradiction; I had less mortification when I was found to be in the wrong, and I more easily prevail’d with others to give up their mistakes and join with me when I happened to be in the right.

“And this mode, which I at first put on with some violence to natural inclination, became at length so easy, and so habitual to me, that perhaps for these fifty years past no one has ever heard a dogmatical expression escape me. And to this habit (After my character of integrity) I think it principally owing that I had early so much weight with my fellow citizens when I proposed new institutions, or alterations in the old, and so much influence in public councils, never eloquent, subject to much hesitation in my choice of words, hardly correct in language, and yet I generally carried my points.”

How do Ben Franklin’s methods work in business? Let’s take two examples.

F. J. Mahoney, of 114 Liberty Street, New York, sells special equipment for the oil trade. He had booked an order for an important customer in Long Island. A blueprint had been submitted and approved, and the equipment was in the process of fabrication. Then an unfortunate thing happened. The buyer discussed the matter with his friends. They warned him he was making a grave mistake. He had had something pawned off on him that was all wrong. It was too wide, too short, too this, and too that. His friends worried him into a temper. Calling Mr. Mahoney on the phone, he swore he wouldn’t accept the equipment that was already being manufactured.

“I checked things over very carefully and knew positively that we were right,” said Mr. Mahoney as he told the story, “and I also knew that he and his friends didn’t know what they were talking about, but I sensed that it would be dangerous to tell him so. I went out to Long Island to see him, and as I walked into his office, he leaped to his feet and came toward me, talking rapidly. He was so excited that he shook his fist as he talked. He condemned me and my equipment and ended up by saying: ‘Now, what are you going to do about it?”

“E told him very calmly that I would do anything he said. ‘You are the man who is going to pay for this,’ I said, ‘so you should certainly get what you want. However, somebody has to accept the responsibility. If you think you are right, give us a blueprint and, although we have spent $2,000 making this job for you, we’ll scrap that. We are willing to lose $2,000 in order to please you. However, I must warn you that if we build it as you insist, you must take the responsibility. But if you let us proceed as we planned, which we still believe is the right way, we will assume the responsibility.’

“He had calmed down by this time, and finally said: ‘All right, go ahead, but if it is not right, God help you.’

“It was right, and he has already promised us another order for two similar jobs this season.

“When this man insulted me and shook his fist in my face and told me I didn’t know my business, it took all the self-control I could summon up not to argue and try to justify myself. It took a lot of self-control, but it paid. If I had told him he was wrong and started an argument, there would have been a lawsuit, bitter feelings, a financial loss, and the loss of a valuable customer. Yes, I am convinced that it doesn’t pay to tell a man he is wrong.”

Let’s take another example—and remember these cases I am citing are typical of the experience of thousands of other men, R, V. Crowley is a salesman for the Gardner W. Taylor Lumber Company, of New York. Crowley admitted that he had been telling hard-boiled lumber inspectors for years that they were wrong. And he had won the arguments too. But it hadn’t done any good. “For these lumber inspectors”, said Mr. Crowley, “are like baseball umpires. Once they make a decision, they never change it.”

Mr. Crowley saw that this firm was losing thousands of dollars through the arguments he won. So while taking my course, he resolved to change tactics and abandon arguments. With what results? Here is the story as he told it to the fellow members of his class:

“One morning the phone rang in my office. A hot and bothered person at the other end proceeded to inform me that a car of lumber we had shipped into his plant was entirely unsatisfactory. His firm had stopped unloading and requested that we make immediate arrangements to remove the stock from their yard. After about one-fourth of the car had been unloaded, their lumber inspector reported that the lumber was running 55 per cent below grade. Under the circumstances, they refused to accept it.

“I immediately started for his plant, and on the way turned over in my mind the best way to handle the situation. Ordinarily, under such circumstances, I should have quoted grading rules and tried, as a result of my own experience and knowledge as a lumber inspector, to convince the other inspector that the lumber was actually up to grade, and that he was misinterpreting the rules in his inspection. However, I thought I would apply the principles learned in this training.

“When I arrived at the plant, I found the purchasing agent and the lumber inspector in a wicked humour, all set for an argument and a fight. We walked out to the car that was being unloaded, and I requested that they continue to unload so that I could see how things were going. I asked the inspector to go right ahead and lay out the rejects, as he had been doing, and to put the good pieces in another pile.

“After watching him for a while it began to dawn on me that his inspection actually was much too strict and that he was misinterpreting the rules. This particular lumber was white pine, and I knew the inspector was thoroughly schooled in hard woods, but net a competent, experienced inspector on white pine. White pine happened to be my own strong suit, but did I offer any objection to the way he was grading the lumber? None whatever. I kept on watching and gradually began to ask questions as to why certain pieces were not satisfactory. I didn’t for one instant insinuate that the inspector was wrong. I emphasized that my only reason for asking was in order that we could give his firm exactly what they wanted in future shipments.

“By asking questions in a very friendly, co-operative spirit, and insisting continually that they were right in laying out boards not satisfactory to their purposes, I got him warmed up and the strained relations between us began to thaw and melt away. An occasional carefully put remark on my part gave birth to the idea in his mind that possibly some of these rejected pieces were actually within the grade that they had bought, and that their requirements demanded a more expensive grade. I was very careful, however, not to let him think I was making an issue of this point.

“Gradually his whole attitude changed. He finally admitted to me that he was not experienced on white pine and began to ask me questions about each piece as it came out of the car. I would explain why such a piece came within the grade specified, but kept on insisting that we did not want him to take it if it was unsuitable for their purpose. He finally got to the point where he felt guilty every time he put a piece in the rejected pile. And at last he saw that the mistake was on their part for not having specified as good a grade as they needed.

“The ultimate outcome was that he went through the entire carload again after I left, accepted the whole lot, and we received a cheque in full.

“In that one instance alone, a little tact and the determination to refrain from telling the other man he was wrong, saved my company one hundred and fifty dollars in actual cash, and it would be hard to place a money value on the good will that was saved.”

By the way, I am not revealing anything new in this chapter. Nineteen centuries ago, Jesus said: “Agree with thine adversary quickly.”

In other words, don’t argue with your customer or your husband or your adversary. Don’t tell him he is wrong, don’t get him stirred up, but use a little diplomacy.

And 2,200 years before Christ was born, old King Akhtoi of Egypt gave his son some shrewd advice—advice that is sorely needed to-day. Old King Akhtoi said one afternoon, between drinks, four thousand years ago: “Be diplomatic. It will help you gain your point.”

So, if you want to win people to your way of thinking, Rule 2 is:

SHOW RESPECT FOR THE OTHER MAN’S OPINIONS. NEVER TELL A MAN HE IS WRONG.

Shortly after the close of the war, I learned an invaluable lesson one night in London. I was manager at the time for Sir Ross Smith. During the war, Sir Ross had been the Australian ace out in Palestine; and, shortly after peace was declared, he astonished the world by flying halfway around it in thirty days. No such feat had ever been attempted before. It created a tremendous sensation. The Australian government gave him $50,000; the King of England knighted him; and, for a while, he was the most talked-of man under the Union Jack—the Lindbergh of the British Empire. I was attending a banquet one night given in Sir Ross’s honour; and during the dinner, the man sitting next to me told a humorous story which hinged on the quotation, “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will.”

The raconteur mentioned that the quotation was from the Bible. He was wrong. I knew that. I knew it positively. There couldn’t be the slightest doubt about it. And so, to get a feeling of importance and display my superiority, I appointed myself as an unsolicited and unwelcome committee of one to correct him. He stuck to his guns. What? From Shakespeare? Impossible! Absurd! That quotation was from the Bible. And he knew it!

The story-teller was sitting on my right; and Mr. Frank Gammond, an old friend of mine, was seated at my left. Mr. Gammond had devoted years to the study of Shakespeare. So the story-teller and I agreed to submit the question to Mr. Gammond. Mr. Gammond listened, kicked me under the table, and then said: “Dale, you are wrong. The gentleman is right. It is from the Bible.”

On the way home that night, I said to Mr. Gammond: “Frank, you knew that quotation was from Shakespeare.”

“Yes, of course,” he replied, “Hamlet, Act V, Scene 2. But we were guests at a festive occasion, my dear Dale. Why prove to a man he is wrong? Is that going to make him like you? Why not let him save his face? He didn’t ask for your opinion. He didn’t want it. Why argue with him? Always avoid the acute angle.”

“Always avoid the acute angle.” The man who said that is now dead; but the lesson that he taught me goes marching on. It was a sorely needed lesson, because I had been an inveterate arguer. During my youth, I had argued with my brother about everything under the Milky Way. When I went to college, I studied logic and argumentation, and went in for debating contests. Talk about being from Missouri, I was born there. I had to be shown. Later, I taught debating and argumentation in New York; and once, I am ashamed to admit, I planned to write a book on the subject. Since then, I have listened to, criticized, engaged in, and watched the effects of thousands of arguments. As a result of it all, I have come to the conclusion that there is only one way under high heaven to get the best of an argument ~and that is to avoid it. Avoid it as you would avoid rattlesnakes and earthquakes.

Nine times out of ten, an argument ends with each of the contestants being more firmly convinced than ever that he is absolutely right.

You can’t win an argument. You can’t, because if you lose it, you lose it; and if you win it, you lose it. Why? Well, suppose you triumph over the other man and shoot his argument full of holes and prove that he is non compos mentis. Then what? You will feel fine. But what about him? You have made him feel inferior. You have hurt his pride. He will resent your triumph. And——-

“A man convinced against his will
Is of the same opinion still.”

The Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company has laid down a definite policy for its salesmen: “Don’t argue!”

Real salesmanship isn’t argument. It isn’t anything even remotely like argument. The human mind isn’t changed that way.

To illustrate: Years ago, a belligerent Irishman by the name of Patrick J. O’Haire joined one of my classes. He had had little education, and how he loved a scrap! He had once been a chauffeur, and he came to me because had been trying, without much success, to sell automobile trucks. A little questioning brought out the fact that he was continually scrapping with and antagonizing the very people he was trying to do business with. If a prospect said anything derogatory about the trucks he was selling, Pat saw red and was right at the man’s throat. Pat won a lot of arguments in those days. As he said to me afterwards: “I often walked out of a man’s office saying: ‘I told that bird something.’ Sure I had told him something, but I hadn’t sold him anything.”

My first problem was not to teach Patrick J. O’Haire to talk. My immediate task was to train him to refrain from talking and to avoid verbal fights.

Mr. O’Haire is now one of the star salesmen for the White Motor Company in New York. How does he do it? Here is his story in his own words: “If I walk into a buyer’s office now and he says: ‘What? A White truck? They’re no good! I wouldn’t take one if you gave it to me. I’m going to buy the Whoseit truck,’ I say: ‘Brother, listen, the Whoseit is a good truck. If you buy the Whoseit, you’ll never make a mistake. The Whoseits are made by a fine company and sold by good people.’

“He is speechless then. There is no room for an argument. If he says the Whoseit is best and I say sure it is, he has to stop. He can’t keep on all afternoon saying : ‘It’s the best,” when I’m agreeing with him. We then get off the subject of Whoseit, and I begin to talk about the good points of the White truck.

“There was a time when a crack like that would make me see scarlet and red and orange. I would start arguing against the Whoseit; and the more I argued against it, the more my prospect argued in favour of it; and the more he argued, the more he sold himself on my competitor’s product.

“As I look back now I wonder how I was ever able to sell anything. I lost years of my life in scrapping and arguing. I keep my mouth shut now. It pays.”

As wise old Ben Franklin used to say:

“If you argue and rankle and contradict, you may achieve a victory sometimes; but it will be an empty victory because you will never get your opponent’s good will”.

So figure it out for yourself. Which would you rather have: an academic, theatrical victory or a man’s good will? You can seldom have both.

The Boston Transcript once printed this bit of significant doggerel:

“Here lies the body of William Jay,
Who died maintaining his right of way—
He was right, dead right, as he sped along,
But he’s just as dead as if he were wrong.”

You may be right, dead right, as you speed along in your argument; but as far as changing the other’s man’s mind is concerned, you will probably be just as futile as if you were wrong.

William G. McAdoo, Secretary of the Treasury in Woodrow Wilson’s cabinet, declared that he had learned, as a result of his crowded years in politics, that “it is impossible to defeat an ignorant man by argument”.

“An ignorant man?” You put it mildly, Mr. McAdoo. My experience has been that it is all but impossible to make any man—regardless of his I.Q. rating—change his mind by a verbal joust.

For example, Frederick S. Parsons, an income-tax consultant, had been disputing and wrangling for an hour with a government tax inspector. An item of $9,000 was at stake. Mr. Parsons claimed that this nine thousand was in reality a bad debt, that it would never be collected, that it ought not to be taxed. “Bad debt, my eye!” retorted the inspector. “It must be taxed.”

“This inspector was cold, arrogant, and stubborn,” Mr. Parsons said as he told the story to the class. “Reason was wasted on him and so were facts. . . . The longer we argued, the more stubborn he became. So I decided to avoid argument, change the subject, and give him appreciation.

“I said: ‘I suppose that this is a very petty matter in comparison with the really important and difficult decisions you are required to make. I’ve made a study of taxation myself. But I’ve had to get my knowledge from books, You are getting yours from the firing line of experience, I sometimes wish I had a job like yours. It would teach me a lot.’ I meant every word I said.

“Well, the inspector straightened up in his chair, leaned back, and talked for a long time about his work, telling me of the clever frauds he had uncovered. His tone gradually became friendly; and presently he was telling me about his children. As he left, he advised me that he would consider my problem further, and give me his decision in a few days.

“He called at my office three days later and informed me that he had decided to leave the tax return exactly as it was filed.”

This tax inspector was demonstrating one of the most common of human frailties. He wanted a feeling of importance; and as long as Mr. Parsons argued with him, he got his feeling of importance by loudly asserting his authority. But as soon as his importance was admitted, and the argument stopped, and he was permitted to expand his ego, he became a sympathetic and kindly human being.

Constant, the head valet in Napoleon’s household, often played billiards with Josephine. Constant says on page 73, Volume I, of his Recollections of the Private Life of Napoleon: “Although I had some skill, I always managed to let her beat me, which pleased her exceedingly.”

Let’s learn a constant lesson from Constant. Let’s let our customers and sweethearts and husbands and wives beat us in the little discussions that may arise.

Buddha said, “Hatred is never ended by hatred but by love”, and a misunderstanding is never ended by an argument, but by tact, diplomacy, conciliation, and a sympathetic desire to see the other person’s viewpoint.

Lincoln once reprimanded a young army officer for indulging in a violent controversy with an associate. “No man who is resolved to make the most of himself”, said Lincoln, “can spare the time for personal contention. Still less can he afford to take the consequences, including the vitiation of his temper and the loss of self-control. Yield larger things to which you show no more than equal rights; and yield lesser ones though clearly your own. Better give your path to a dog than be bitten by him in contesting for the right. Even killing the dog would not cure the bite.”

Therefore, Rule 1 is:

THE ONLY WAY TO GET THE BEST OF AN ARGUMENT IS TO AVOID IT.

SIX WAYS TO MAKE PEOPLE LIKE YOU

Rule 1: Become genuinely interested in other people.
Rule 2: Smile.
Rule 3: Remember that a man’s name is to him the sweetest and most important sound in the English language.
Rule 4: Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
Rule 5: Talk in terms of the other man’s interests.
Rule 6: Make the other person feel important – and do it sincerely.

I was waiting in line to register a letter in the Post Office at Thirty-Third Street and Eighth Avenue in New York. I noticed that the registry clerk was bored with his job — weighing envelopes, handing out the stamps, making change, issuing receipts — the same monotonous grind year after year. So I said to myself: “I am going to try to make that chap like me. Obviously, to make him like me, I must say something nice, not about myself, but about him. So I asked myself: ‘What is there about him that I can honestly admire?’ ” That is sometimes a hard question to answer, especially with strangers; but, in this case, it happened to be easy. I instantly saw something I admired no end.

So while he was weighing my envelope, I remarked with enthusiasm: “I certainly wish I had your head of hair.”

He looked up, half-startled, his face beaming with smiles. “Well, it isn’t as good as it used to be,” he said modestly. I assured him that although it might have lost some of its pristine glory, nevertheless it was still magnificent. He was immensely pleased. We carried on a pleasant little conversation, and the last thing he said to me was: “Many people have admired my hair.”

I’ll bet that chap went out to lunch that day walking on air. I’ll bet he went home that night and told his wife about it. I’ll bet he looked in the mirror and said: “It is a beautiful head of hair.”

I told this story once in public; and a man asked me afterwards: “What did you want to get out of him?”

What was I trying to get out of him!!! What was I trying to get out of him!!!

If we are so contemptibly selfish that we can’t radiate a little happiness and pass on a bit of honest appreciation without trying to screw something out of the other person in return—if our souls are no bigger than sour crab apples, we shall meet with the failure we so richly deserve.

Oh yes, I did want something out of that chap. I wanted something priceless. And I got it. I got the feeling that I had done something for him without his being able to do anything whatever in return for me. That is a feeling that glows and sings in your memory long after the incident is passed.

There is one all-important law of human conduct. If we obey that law, we shall almost never get into trouble. In fact, that law, if obeyed, will bring us countless friends and constant happiness. But the very instant we break that law, we shall get into endless trouble. The law is this: Always make the other person feel important. Professor John Dewey, as we have already noted, says that the desire to be important is the deepest urge in human nature; and Professor William James says: “The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.” As I have already pointed out, it is the urge that differentiates us from the animals. It is the urge that has been responsible for civilization itself.

Philosophers have been speculating on the rules of human relationships for thousands of years, and out of all that speculation there has evolved only one important precept. It is not new. It is as old as history. Zoroaster taught it to his fire-worshippers in Persia three thousand years ago, Confucius preached it in China twenty-four centuries ago. Lao-Tse, the founder of Taoism, taught it to his disciples in the Valley of the Han. Buddha preached it on the banks of the Holy Ganges five hundred years before Christ. The sacred books of Hinduism taught it a thousand years before that. Jesus taught it among the stony hills of Judea nineteen centuries ago. Jesus summed it up in one thought—probably the most important rule in the world: “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.”

You want the approval of those with whom you come in contact. You want recognition of your true worth. You want a feeling that you are important in your little world. You don’t want to listen to cheap, insincere flattery, but you do crave sincere appreciation. You want your friends and associates to be, as Charles Schwab puts it, “hearty in their approbation and lavish in their praise”. All of us want that.

So let’s obey the Golden Rule, and give unto others what we would have others give unto us.

How? When? Where? The answer is: all the time, everywhere.

For example, I asked the information clerk in Radio City for the number of Henry Souvaine’s office. Dressed in a neatuniform, he prided himself on the way he dispensed knowledge. Clearly and distinctly he replied: “Henry Souvaine. (Pause.) 18th floor. (Pause.) Room 1816.”

I rushed for the elevator, then paused and went back and said: “I want to congratulate you on the splendid way you answered my question. You were very clear and precise. You did it like an artist. And that’s unusual.”

Beaming with pleasure, he told me why he made each pause, and precisely why each phrase was uttered as it was. My few words made him carry his necktie a bit higher; and as I shot up to the eighteenth floor. I got a feeling of having added a trifle to the sum total of human happiness that afternoon.

You don’t have to wait until you are ambassador to France or chairman of the Clambake Committee of the Elk’s Club before you use this philosophy of appreciation. You can work magic with it almost every day.

If, for example, the waitress brings us mashed potatoes when we ordered French fried, let’s say: “I’m sorry to trouble you, but I prefer French fried.” She’ll reply: “No trouble at all”, and will be glad to do it because you have shown respect for her.

Little phrases such as “I’m sorry to trouble you”, “Would you be so kind as to——”, “Won’t you please”, “Would you mind”, “Thank you”—little courtesies like that oil the cogs of the monotonous grind of everyday life—and, incidentally, they are the hall-mark of good breeding.

Let’s take another illustration. Did you ever read any of Hall Caine’s novels—The Christian, The Deemster, The Manxman? Millions of people read his novels, countless millions. He was the son of a blacksmith. He never had more than eight years’ schooling in his life, yet when he died he was the richest literary man the world has ever known.

The story goes like this: Hall Caine loved sonnets and ballads: so he devoured all of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s poetry. He even wrote a lecture chanting the praises of Rossetti’s artistic achievements—and sent a copy to Rossetti himself. Rossetti was delighted. “Any young man who has such an exalted opinion of my ability,” Rossetti probably said to himself, “must be brilliant.” So Rossetti invited this blacksmith’s son to come to London and act as his secretary. That was the turning point in Hall Caine’s life; for, in his new position, he met the literary artists of the day. Profiting by their advice and inspired by their encouragement, he launched upon a career that emblazoned his name across the sky.

His home, Greeba Castle, on the Isle of Man, became a Mecca for tourists from the far corners of the world; and he left an estate of $2,500,000. Yet—who knows—-he might have died poor and unknown had he not written an essay expressing his admiration for a famous man.

Such is the power, the stupendous power, of sincere, heartfelt appreciation.

Rossetti considered himself important. That is not strange. Almost everyone considers himself important, very important.

So does every nation.

Do you feel that you are superior to the Japanese? The truth is that the Japanese consider themselves far superior to you. A conservative Japanese, for example, is infuriated at the sight of a white man dancing with a Japanese lady.

Do you consider yourself superior to the Hindus in India? That is your privilege; but a million Hindus feel so infinitely superior to you that they wouldn’t befoul themselves by condescending to touch food that your heathen shadow had fallen across and contaminated.

Do you feel you are superior to the Eskimos? Again, that is your privilege; but would you really like to know what the Eskimo thinks of you? Well, there are a few native hobos among the Eskimos, worthless tramps who refuse to work. The Eskimos call them “white men”—that being their utmost term of contempt.

Each nation feels superior to other nations. That breeds patriotism—and wars.

The untarnished truth is that almost every man you meet feels himself superior to you in some way; and a sure way to his heart is to let him realize in some subtle way that you recognize his importance in his little world, and recognize it sincerely.

Remember what Emerson said: “Every man I meet is in some way my superior; and in that I can learn of him.”

And the pathetic part of it is that frequently those who have the least justification for a feeling of achievement bolster up their inner feeling of inadequacy by an outward shouting and tumult and conceit that are offensive and truly nauseating.

As Shakespeare put it: “Man, proud man! dressed in a little brief authority, plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven as make the angels weep.”

I am going to tell you three stories of how businessmen in my own courses have applied these principles with remarkable results. Let’s take the case first of a Connecticut attorney who prefers not to have his name mentioned because of his relatives. We’ll call him Mr. R.

Shortly after joining the course, he motored down to Long Island with his wife to visit some of her relatives. She left him to chat with an old aunt of hers and then rushed off by herself to visit some of her younger relatives. Since he had to make a talk on how he had applied the principles of appreciation, he thought he would begin with the old lady. So he looked around the house to see what he could honestly admire.

“This house was built about 1890, wasn’t it?” he inquired.

“Yes,” she replied, “that is precisely the year it was built.”

“It reminds me of the house in which I was born,” he said. “It is beautiful. Well built. Roomy. You know, they don’t build houses like this any more.”

“You’re right,” the old lady agreed. “The young folks nowadays don’t care for beautiful homes, All they want is a small apartment and an electric ice-box, and then they go off gadding about in their automobiles.

“This is a dream house,” she said in a voice vibrating with tender memories. “This house was built with love. My husband and I dreamed about it for years before we built it. We didn’t have an architect. We planned it all ourselves.”

She then showed him about the house, and he expressed his hearty admiration for all the beautiful treasures she had picked up in her travels and cherished over a lifetime: Paisley shawls, an old English tea-set, Wedgwood china, French beds and chairs, Italian paintings, and silk draperies that had once hung in a French chateau.

“After showing me through the house,” said Mr. R., “she took me out to the garage. There, jacked up on blocks, was a Packard car—almost new.”

“My husband bought that car shortly before he passed on,” she said softly. “I have never ridden in it since his death. . . . You appreciate nice things, and I’m going to give this car to you.”

“Why, aunty,” he said, “you overwhelm me. I appreciate your generosity, of course; but I couldn’t possibly accept it. I’m not even a relative of yours. I have a new car; and you have many relatives that would like to have that Packard.”

“Relatives!” she exclaimed. “Yes, I have relatives who are just waiting till I die so they can get that car. But they are not going to get it.”

“If you don’t want to give it to them, you can very easily sell it to a second-hand dealer,” he told her.

“Sell it!” she cried. “Do you think I would sell this car? Do you think I could stand to see strangers riding up and down the street in that car—that car that my husband bought for me? I wouldn’t dream of selling it. I am going to give it to you. You appreciate beautiful things!”

He tried to get out of accepting the car; but he couldn’t without hurting her feelings.

This old lady, left in a big house all alone with her Paisley shawls, her French antiques, and her memories, was starving for a little recognition. She had once been young and beautiful and sought after. She had once built a house warm with love and had collected things from all over Europe to make it beautiful. Now, in the isolated loneliness of old age, she craved a little human warmth, a little genuine appreciation—and no one gave it to her. And when she found it, like a spring in the desert, her gratitude couldn’t adequately express itself with anything less than the gift of a Packard car.

Let’s take another case: Donald M. McMahon, superintendent of Lewis and Valentine, nurserymen and landscape architects in Rye, New York, related this incident:

“Shortly after I heard the talk on ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’, I was landscaping the estate of a famous attorney. The owner came out to give me a few suggestions about where he wished to plant a mass of rhododendrons and azaleas.

“I said: ‘Judge, you have a lovely hobby. I have been admiring your beautiful dogs. I understand you win a lot of blue ribbons every year at the big dog show in Madison Square Garden.’

“The effect of this little expression of appreciation was striking.

“Yes,” the judge replied, ‘I do have a lot of fun with my dogs. Wouldn’t you like to see my kennels?”

“He spent almost an hour showing me his dogs and the prizes they had won. He even brought out their pedigrees and explained the blood lines responsible for such beauty and intelligence.

“Finally, turning to me, he asked: ‘Do you have a little boy?”

“ ‘Yes, I do,’ I replied.

“ ‘Well, wouldn’t he like a puppy?’ the judge inquired.

“ ‘Oh, yes, he’d be tickled pink.’

“All right, I am going to give him one,’ the judge announced.

“He started to tell me how to feed the puppy. Then he paused. ‘You’ll forget it if I tell you. I’ll write it out.’ So the judge went in the house, typed out the pedigree and feeding instructions and gave me a puppy worth a hundred dollars and one hour and fifteen minutes of his valuable time, largely because I expressed my honest admiration for his hobby and achievements.”

George Eastman, of Kodak fame, invented the transparent film that made motion pictures possible, amassed a fortune of a $100 million, and made himself one of the most famous business-men on earth. Yet in spite of all these tremendous accomplishments, he craved little recognitions even as you and I.

To illustrate: A number of years ago, Eastman was building the Eastman School of Music in Rochester and also Kilbourn Hall, a theatre in memory of his mother. James Adamson, president of the Superior Seating Company of New York, wanted to get the order to supply the theatre:chairs for these buildings. Phoning the architect, Mr. Adamson made an appointment to see Mr. Eastman in Rochester.

When Adamson arrived, the architect said: “I know you want to get this order; but I can tell you right now that you won’t stand a ghost of a chance if you take more than five minutes of George Eastman’s time. He is a martinet. He is very busy. So tell your story quickly and get out.”

Adamson was prepared to do just that.

When he was ushered into the room, he noticed Mr. Eastman bending over a pile of papers at his desk. Presently,Mr. Eastman looked up, removed his glasses, and walked toward the architect and Mr. Adamson, saying: “Good morning, gentlemen, what can I do for you.”

The architect introduced them, ‘and then Mr. Adamson said:

“While we have been waiting for you, Mr. Eastman, I have been admiring your office. I wouldn’t mind working myself if I had a room like this to work in. You know I am in the interior-woodworking business myself, and I never saw a more beautiful office in all my life.”

George Eastman replied: “You remind me of something I had almost forgotten. It is beautiful, isn’t it? I enjoyed it a great deal when it was first built. But I. come down here now with a lot of other things on my mind and sometimes don’t even see the room for weeks at a time.”

Adamson walked over and rubbed his hand across a panel. “This is English oak, isn’t it? A little different texture from Italian oak.”

“Yes,” Eastman replied. “That is imported English oak. It was selected for me by a friend who specializes in fine woods.”

Then Eastman showed him about the room, pointing out the proportions, the colouring, the hand carving, and other effects that he had helped to plan and execute.

While drifting about the room, admiring the woodwork, they paused before a window, and George Eastman, in his modest, soft-spoken way, pointed out some of the institutions through which he was trying to help humanity: the University of Rochester, the General Hospital, the Homeopathic Hospital, the Friendly Home, the Children’s Hospital. Mr. Adamson congratulated him warmly on the idealistic way he was using his wealth to alleviate the sufferings of humanity. Presently George Eastman unlocked a glass case and pulled out the first camera he had ever owned—-an invention he had bought from an Englishman.

Adamson questioned him at length about his early struggles to get started in business, and Mr. Eastman spoke with real feeling about the poverty of his childhood, told how his widowed mother had kept a boarding-house while he clerked in an insurance office for fifty cents a day. The terror of poverty haunted him day and night, and he resolved to make enough money so his mother wouldn’t have to work herself to death in a boarding-house. Mr. Adamson drew him out with further questions, and listened, absorbed,while he related the story of his experiments with dry photographic plates. He told how he had worked in an office all day, and sometimes experimented all night, taking only brief naps while the chemicals were working, sometimes working and sleeping in his clothes for seventy-two hours at a stretch.

James Adamson had been ushered into Eastman’s office at ten-fifteen and warned that he must not take more than five minutes; but an hour passed, two hours passed. They were still talking.

Finally, George Eastman turned to Adamson and said: “The last time I was in Japan I bought some chairs, brought them home, and put them in my sun porch. But the sun peeled the paint, so I went down town the other day and bought some paint and painted the chairs myself. Would you like to see what sort of a job I can do painting chairs? All right. Come up to my home and have lunch with me and I’ll show you.”

After lunch, Mr. Eastman showed Adamson the chairs he had brought from Japan. They weren’t worth more than $1.50 apiece, but George Eastman, who had made $100 million in business, was proud of them because he himself had painted them.

The order for the seats amounted to $90,000. Who do you suppose got the order-—James Adamson or one of his competitors?

From that time on until Mr. Eastman’s death, he and James Adamson were close friends.

Where should you and I begin applying this magic touchstone of appreciation? Why not begin right at home? I don’t know of any other place where it is more needed— or more neglected. Your wife must have some good points— at least you once thought she had, or you wouldn’t have married her. But how long has it been since you expressed your admiration for her attractions? How long???? How long????

I was fishing up on the head-waters of the Miramichi in New Brunswick a few years ago. I was isolated in a lonely camp deep in the Canadian woods. The only thing I could find to read was a country newspaper. I read everything in it, including the ads and an article by Dorothy Dix. Her article was so fine that I cut it out and kept it. She claimed she was tired of always hearing lectures to brides. She declared that someone ought to take the bridegroom to one side and give him this bit of sage advice:

“Never get married until you have kissed the Blarney Stone. Praising a woman before marriage is a matter of inclination. But praising one after you marry her is a matter of necessity—and personal safety. Matrimony is no place for candour. It is a field for diplomacy.

“If you wish to fare sumptuously every day, never knock your wife’s housekeeping or make invidious comparisons between it and your mother’s. But, on the contrary, be for ever praising her domesticity and openly congratulate yourself upon having married the only woman who combines the attractions of Venus and Minerva and Mary Ann. Even when the steak is leather and the bread a cinder, don’t complain. Merely remark that the meal isn’t up to her usual standard of perfection, and she will make a burnt offering of herself on the kitchen stove to live up to your ideal of her.”

Don’t begin this too suddenly—or she’ll be suspicious.

But tonight, or tomorrow night, bring her some flowers or a box of candy. Don’t merely say: “Yes, I ought to do it.” Do it! And bring her a smile in addition, and some warm words of affection. If more wives and more husbands did that, I wonder if we should still have one marriage out of every six shattered on the rocks of Reno?

Would you like to know how to make a woman fall in love with you? Well, here is the secret. This is going to be good. It is not my idea. I borrowed it from Dorothy Dix. She once interviewed a celebrated bigamist who had won the hearts and savings-bank accounts of twenty-three women. (And, by the way, it ought to be noted in passing that she interviewed him in gaol.) When she asked him his recipe for making women fall in love with him, he said it was no trick at all: all you had to do was to talk to a woman about herself.

And the same technique works with men: “Talk to a man about himself,” said Disraeli, one of the shrewdest men who ever ruled the British Empire, “talk to a man about himself and he will listen for hours.”

So if you want people to like you, Rule 6 is:

MAKE THE OTHER PERSON FEEL IMPORTANT — AND DO IT SINCERELY.

You’ve been reading this book long enough. Close it now, knock the dead ashes out of your pipe, and begin to apply this philosophy of appreciation at once on the person nearest you—and watch the magic work.

Everyone who visited Theodore Roosevelt at Oyster Bay was astonished at the range and diversity of his knowledge. “Whether it was a cowboy or a Rough Rider, a New York politician or a diplomat,” wrote Gamaliel Bradford, “Roosevelt knew what to say to him.” And how was it done? The answer was simple. Whenever Roosevelt expected a visitor, he sat up late the night before reading up on the subject in which he knew his guest was particularly interested.

For Roosevelt knew, as all leaders know, that the royal road to a man’s heart is to talk to him about the things he treasures most.

The genial William Lyon Phelps, erstwhile professor of literature at Yale, learned this lesson early in life.

“When I was eight years old and was spending a week-end visiting my Aunt Libby Linsley at her home in Stratford on the Housatonic [writes William Lyon Phelps in his essay on Human Nature] a middle-aged man called one evening, and after a polite skirmish with my aunt, he devoted his attention to me. At that time, I happened to be excited about boats, and the visitor discussed the subject in a way that seemed to me particularly interesting. After he left, I spoke of him with enthusiasm. What a man! And how tremendously interested in boats! My aunt informed me he was a New York lawyer; that he cared nothing whatever about boats—took not the slightest interest in the subject. ‘But why then did he talk all the time about boats?’

“ ‘Because he is a gentleman. He saw you were interested in boats, and he talked about the things he knew would interest and please you. He made himself agreeable.”

And William Lyon Phelps adds: “I never forgot my aunt’s remark.”

As I write this chapter, I have before me a letter from Edward L. Chalif, a man active in Boy Scout work.

“One day I found I needed a favour,” writes Mr. Chalif. “A big Scout jamboree was coming off in Europe, and I wanted the president of one of the largest corporations in America to pay the expenses of one of my boys for the trip.

“Fortunately, just before I went to see this man, I heard that he had drawn a cheque for a million dollars, and that after it was cancelled, he had had it framed.

“So the first thing I did when I entered his office was to ask to see that cheque. A cheque for a million dollars! I told him I never knew that anybody had even written such a cheque, and that I wanted to tell my boys that I had actually seen a cheque for a million dollars. He gladly showed it to me; I admired it and asked him to tell me all about how it happened to be drawn.”

You notice, don’t you, that Mr. Chalif didn’t begin by talking about the Boy Scouts, or the jamboree in Europe, or what it was he wanted? He talked in terms of what interested the other man, Here’s the result:

“Presently the man I was interviewing said : ‘Oh, by the way, what was it you wanted to see me about?’ So I told him.

“To my vast surprise,” Mr. Chalif continues, “he not only granted immediately what I asked for, but much more, I had asked him to send only one boy to Europe, but he sent five boys and myself, gave me a letter of credit for a thousand dollars and told us to stay in Europe for seven weeks. He also gave me letters of introduction to his branch presidents, putting them at our service; and he himself met us in Paris and showed us the town. Since then, he has given jobs to some of the boys whose parents were in want; and he is still active in our group.

“Yet I know if I hadn’t found out what he was interested in, and got him warmed up first, I wouldn’t have found him one-tenth as easy to approach.”

Is this a valuable technique to use in business? Is it? Let’s see. Take Henry G. Duvernoy, of Duvernoy & Sons, one of the highest-class baking firms in New York.

Mr. Duvernoy had been trying to sell bread to a certain New York hotel. He had called on the manager every week for four years. He went to the same social affairs the manager attended. He even took rooms in the hotel and lived there in order to get the business. But he failed.

“Then,” said Mr, Duvernoy, “after studying human relations, I resolved to change my tactics. I decided to find out what interested this man—what caught his enthusiasm.

“I discovered he belonged to a society of hotel men called the Hotel Greeters of America. He not only belonged, but his bubbling enthusiasm had made him president of the organization, and president of the International Greeters. No matter where its conventions were held, he would be there even if he had to fly over mountains or cross deserts or seas.

“So when I saw him the next day, I began talking about the Greeters. What a response I got. What a response! He talked to me for half an hour about the Greeters, his tones vibrant with enthusiasm. I could plainly see that this society was his hobby, the passion of his life. Before I left his office, he ‘sold’ me a membership of his organization.

“In the meantime, I had said nothing about bread. But a few days later, the steward of his hotel phoned me to come over with samples and prices.

I don’t know what you did to the old boy,’ the steward greeted him. ‘But he sure is sold on you!’

“Think of it! I had been drumming at that man for four years—trying to get his business—and I’d still be drumming at him if I hadn’t finally taken the trouble to find out what he was interested in, and what he enjoyed talking about.”

So, if you want to make people like you, Rule 5 is:

TALK IN TERMS OF THE OTHER MAN’S INTERESTS.

I was recently invited to a bridge party. Personally, I don’t play bridge—and there was a blonde there who didn’t play bridge either. She had discovered that I had once been Lowell Thomas’ manager before he went on the radio, that I had travelled in Europe a great deal while helping him prepare the illustrated travel talks he was then delivering. So she said: “Oh, Mr. Carnegie, I do want you to tell me about all the wonderful places you have visited and the sights you have seen.”

As we sat down on the sofa, she remarked that she and her husband had recently returned from a trip to Africa. “Africa!” I exclaimed. “How interesting! I always wanted to see Africa, but I never got there except for a twenty-four-hour stay once in Algiers. Tell me, did you visit the big-game country? Yes? How fortunate! I envy you! Do tell me about Africa.”

That was good for forty-five minutes. She never again asked me where I had been or what I had seen. She didn’t want to hear me talk about my travels. All she wanted was an interested listener, so she could expand her ego and tell about where she had been.

Was she unusual? No. Many people are like that.

For example, I recently met a distinguished botanist at a dinner party given by J. W. Greenberg, the New York book publisher. I had never talked to a botanist before, and I found him fascinating. I literally sat on the edge of my chair and listened while he spoke of hashish and Luther Burbank and indoor gardens and told me astonishing facts about the humble potato. I have a small indoor garden of my own — and he was good enough to tell me how to solve some of my problems.

As I said, we were at a dinner party, There must have been a dozen other guests there; but I violated all the canons of courtesy, ignored everyone else, and talked for hours to the botanist.

Midnight came. I said good night to everyone and departed. The botanist then turned to our host and paid me several flattering compliments. I was “most stimulating”. I was this and I was that; and he ended up by saying I was a “most interesting conversationalist”.

An interesting conversationalist? I? Why, I had said hardly anything at all. I couldn’t have said anything if I had wanted to without changing the subject, for I don’t know any more about botany than I know about the anatomy of a penguin. But I had done this: I had listened intently. I had listened because I was genuinely interested. And he felt it. Naturally that pleased him. That kind of listening is one of the highest compliments we can pay to anyone. “Few human beings,” wrote Jack Woodford in Strangers in Love, “few human beings are proof against the implied flattery of rapt attention.” I went even farther than giving him rapt attention. I was “hearty in my approbation and lavish in my praise”.

I told him I had been immensely entertained and instructed—and I had. I told him I wished that I had his knowledge—and I do. I told him that I should love to wander the fields with him—and I should. I told him I must see him again-—and I must.

And so I had him thinking of me as a good conversationalist when, in reality, I had been merely a good listener and encouraged him to talk.

What is the secret, the mystery, of a successful business interview? Well, according to that genial scholar Charles W. Eliot, “there is no mystery about successful business intercourse. . . . Exclusive attention to the person who is speaking to you is very important. Nothing else is so flattering as that.”

Self-evident, isn’t it? You don’t have to study for four years in Harvard to discover that. Yet I know and you know merchants who will rent expensive space, buy their goods economically, dress their windows appealingly, spend hundreds of dollars in advertising, and then hire clerks who haven’t the sense to be good listeners—clerks who interrupt customers, contradict them, irritate them, and all but drive them from the store.

Take, for example, the experience of J. C. Wootton. He related this story in one of my classes: He bought a suit in a department store in the enterprising city of Newark, New Jersey, near the sea. The suit proved to be disappointing; the dye of the coat rubbed off and darkened the collar of his shirt.

Taking the suit back to the store, he found the salesman he had dealt with and told his story. Did I say he “told” his story? Sorry, that is an exaggeration. He attempted to tell his story. But he couldn’t. He was interrupted.

“We’ve sold thousands of those suits,” the salesman retorted, ‘and this is the first complaint we have ever had.”

That was what his words said; and his tones were even worse. His belligerent tones said: “You are lying. Think you are going to put something over on us, don’t you? Well, I’ll show you a thing or two.”

In the heat of this argument, a second salesman pitched in. “All dark suits rub a little at first,” he said. “That can’t be helped. Not in suits at that price. It’s in the dye.”

“By this time, I was fairly sizzling,’ Mr. Wootton remarked as he told his story. “The first salesman questioned my honesty. The second one intimated that I had purchased a second-rate article. I boiled. I was on the point of telling them to take their suit and go to hell, when suddenly the head of the department strolled by. He knew his business. He changed my attitude completely. He turned an angry man into a satisfied customer. How did he do it? By three things:

“First, he listened to my story from beginning to end without saying a word.

“Second, when I had finished and the salesmen again started to air their views, he argued with them from my point of view, Not only did he point out that my collar obviously was stained from the suit, but he also insisted that nothing should be sold from that store that did not give complete satisfaction.

“Third, he admitted he didn’t know the cause of the trouble and said to me very simply: ‘What would you like me to do with the suit? I’ll do anything you say.’

“Only a few minutes before I had been ready to tell them to keep their confounded suit. But now I answered: ‘I want only your advice. I want to know whether the condition is temporary, and if anything can be done about it”

“He suggested that I try the suit for another week. ‘If it isn’t satisfactory then,’ he promised, ‘bring it in and we’ll give you one that is. We are so sorry to have caused you this inconvenience.’

“I walked out of the store satisfied; the suit was all right at the end of the week; and my confidence in that department store was completely restored.”

Small wonder that manager was head of his department; and, as for his subordinates, they will remain—I was about to say they would remain clerks all their lives. No, they will probably be demoted to the wrapping department, where they never will come in contact with customers.

The chronic kicker, even the most violent critic, will frequently soften and be subdued in the presence of a patient, sympathetic listener—a listener who will be silent while the irate fault-finder dilates like a king cobra and spews the poison out of his system. To illustrate: The New York Telephone Company discovered a few years ago that it had to deal with one of the most vicious customers who ever cursed a “hello girl”. And he did curse. He raved. He threatened to tear the phone out by its roots. He refused to pay certain charges which he declared were false. He wrote letters to the newspapers. He filed innumerable complaints with the Public Service Commission, and he started several suits against the telephone company.

At last, one of the company’s most skilful “trouble shooters” was sent to interview this stormy petrel. This “trouble shooter” listened and let the cantankerous old boy enjoy himself by pouring out his tirade. The telephone man listened and said “yes” and sympathized with his grievance.

“He raved on and I listened for nearly three hours,” the “troubleshooter” said as he related his experiences before one of the author’s classes. “Then I went back and listened some more. I interviewed him four times, and before the fourth visit was over I had become a charter member of an organization he was starting. He called it the ‘Telephone Subscribers’ Protective Association’. I am still a member of this organization, and, so far as I know, I’m the only member in the world today besides Mr. ——.

“I listened and sympathized with him on every point that he made during these interviews. He had never had a telephone man talk to him that way before, and he became almost friendly. The point on which I went to see him was not even mentioned on the first visit, nor was it mentioned on the second or third, but upon the fourth interview I closed the case completely, had all bills paid in full, and for the first time in the history of his difficulties with the Telephone Company he withdrew his complaints to the Commission.”

Doubtless Mr. —— considered himself to be a holy crusader, defending the public rights against a callous exploitation. But in reality, what he wanted was a feeling of importance. He got this feeling of importance at first by kicking and complaining. But as soon as he got his feeling of importance from a representative of the company, his imagined grievances vanished into thin air.

One morning, years ago, an angry customer stormed into the office of Julian F. Detmer, founder of the Detmer Woollen Company, which later became the world’s largest distributors of woollens to the tailoring trade.

“This man owed us fifteen dollars,’ Mr. Detmer explained to me. “The customer denied it, but we knew he was wrong. So our credit department had insisted that he pay. After getting a number of letters from our credit men, he packed his grip, made a trip to Chicago, and hurried into my office to inform me not only that he was not going to pay that bill, but that he was never going to buy another dollar’s worth of goods from the Detmer Woollen Company.

“I listened patiently to all he had to say. I was tempted to interrupt, but I realized that would be bad policy. So I let him talk himself out. When he finally simmered down and got in a receptive mood, I said quietly: ‘I want to thank you for coming to Chicago to tell me about this. You have done me a great favour, for if our credit department has annoyed you, it may annoy other good customers, and that would be just too bad. Believe me, I am far more eager to hear this than you are to tell it.’

“That was the last thing in the world he expected me to say. I think he was a trifle disappointed, because he had come to Chicago to tell me a thing or two, but here I was thanking him instead of scrapping with him. I assured him we would wipe the fifteen-dollar charge off the books and forget it, because he was a very careful man with only one account to look after, while our clerks had to look after thousands. Therefore he was less likely to be wrong than we were.

“I told him that I understood exactly how he felt and that, if I were in his shoes, I should undoubtedly feel precisely as he did. Since he wasn’t going to buy from us any more, I recommended some other woollen houses.

“In the past, we had usually lunched together when he came to Chicago, so I invited him to have lunch with me this day. He accepted reluctantly, but when he came back to the office he placed a larger order than ever before. He returned home in a softened mood and, wanting to be just as fair with us as we had been with him, looked over his bills, found one that had been mislaid, and sent us a cheque for fifteen dollars, with his apologies.

“Later, when his wife presented him with a baby boy, he gave his son the middle name of Detmer and he remained a friend and customer of the house until his death twenty-two years afterwards.”

Years ago, a poor Dutch immigrant boy was washing the windows of a bakery shop after school for fifty cents a week, and his people were so poor that he used to go out in the street with a basket every day and collect stray bits of coal that had fallen in the gutter where the coal wagons had delivered fuel. That boy, Edward Bok, never got more than six years’ schooling in his life; yet eventually he made himself one of the most successful magazine editors in the history of American journalism. How did he do it? That is a long story, but how he got his start can be told briefly. He got his start by using the principles advocated in this chapter.

He left school when he was thirteen and became an office boy for the Western Union at six dollars and twenty-five cents a week; but he didn’t for one moment give up the idea of an education. Instead, he started to educate himself. He saved his car fares and went without lunch until he had enough money to buy an encyclopedia of American biography—and then he did an unheard-of thing. He read the lives of famous men and wrote them asking for additional information about their childhoods. He was a good listener. He encouraged famous people to talk about themselves. He wrote General James A. Garfield, who was then running for President, and asked if it was true that he was once a tow boy on a canal; and Garfield replied. He wrote General Grant asking about a certain battle; and Grant drew a map for him and invited this fourteen-year-old boy to dinner and spent the evening talking to him.

He wrote’ Emerson and encouraged Emerson to talk about himself. This Western Union messenger boy was soon corresponding with many of the most famous people in the nation: Emerson, Phillips Brooks, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Longfellow, Mrs. Abraham Lincoln, Louisa May Alcott, General Sherman, and Jefferson Davis.

He not only corresponded with these distinguished people but as soon as he got a vacation he visited many of them as a welcome guest in their homes. This experience imbued him with a confidence that was invaluable. These men and women fired him with a vision and ambition that revolutionized his life. And, all this, let me repeat, was made possible solely by the application of the principles we are discussing here.

Isaac F. Marcosson, who is probably the world’s champion interviewer of celebrities, declared that many people fail to make a favourable impression because they don’t listen attentively. “They have been so much concerned with what they going to say next that they do not keep their ears open. . . . Big men have told me that they prefer good listeners to good talkers, but the ability to listen seems rarer than almost any other good trait.”

And not only big men crave a good listener, but ordinary folk do too. As the Reader’s Digest once said: “Many persons call a doctor when all they want is an audience.”

During the darkest hours of the Civil War. Lincoln wrote to an old friend out in Springfield, Illinois, asking him to come to Washington. Lincoln said he had some problems he wanted to discuss with him. The old neighbour called at the White House, and Lincoln talked to him for hours about the advisability of issuing a proclamation freeing the slaves. Lincoln went over all the arguments for and against such a move, and then read letters and newspaper articles, some denouncing him for not freeing the slaves and others denouncing him for fear he was going to free them. After talking for hours. Lincoln shook hands with his old neighbour, said good night, and sent him back to Illinois without even asking for his opinion. Lincoln had done all the talking himself. That seemed to clarify his mind. “He seemed to feel easier after the talk,” the old friend said. Lincoln hadn’t wanted advice. He had wanted merely a friendly, sympathetic listener to whom he could unburden himself. That’s what we all want when we are in trouble. That is frequently all the irritated customer wants, and the dissatisfied employee or the hurt friend.

If you want to know how to make people shun you and laugh at you behind your back and even despise you, here is the recipe: Never listen to anyone for long. Talk incessantly about yourself. If you have an idea while the other fellow is talking, don’t wait for him to finish. He isn’t as smart as you. Why waste your time listening to his idle chatter? Bust right in and interrupt him in the middle of a sentence.

Do you know people like that? I do, unfortunately; and the astonishing part of it is that some of them have their names in the social register.

Bores, that is all they are—bores intoxicated with their own egos, drunk with a sense of their own importance.

The man who talks only of himself, thinks only of himself. And “the man who thinks only of himself”, says Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia University, “is hopelessly uneducated.” “He is not educated,” says Dr. Butler, “no matter how instructed he may be.”

So if you aspire to be a good conversationalist, be an attentive listener. As Mr. Charles Northam Lee puts it: “To be interesting, be interested.” Ask questions that the other man will enjoy answering. Encourage him to talk about himself and his accomplishments.

Remember that the man you are talking to is a hundred times more interested in himself and his wants and his problems than he is in you and your problems. His toothache means more to him than a famine in China that kills a million people. A boil on his neck interests him more than forty earthquakes in Africa. Think of that next time you start a conversation.

So if you want people to like you, Rule 4 is:

BE A GOOD LISTENER. ENCOURAGE OTHERS TO TALK ABOUT THEMSELVES.

Back in 1898, a tragic thing happened in Rockland County, New York. A child had died, and on this particular day the neighbours were preparing to go to the funeral. Jim Farley went out to the barn to hitch up his horse. The ground was covered with snow, the air was cold and snappy; the horse hadn’t been exercised for days; and as he was led out to the watering-trough, he wheeled playfully, kicked both his heels high into the air, and killed Jim Farley. So the little village of Stony Point had two funerals that week instead of one.

Jim Farley left behind him a widow and three boys, and a few hundred dollars in insurance.

His oldest boy, Jim, was ten, and he went to work in a brickyard, wheeling sand and pouring it into the moulds and turning the brick on edge to be dried by the sun. This boy Jim never had a chance to get much education. But with his Irish geniality, he had a flair for making people like him, so he went into politics, and as the years went by, he developed an uncanny ability for remembering people’s names.

He never saw the inside of a high school; but before he was forty-six years of age, four colleges had honoured him with degrees, and he had become chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and Postmaster General of the United States.

I once interviewed Jim Farley and asked him the secret of his success. He said: “Hard work,” and I said, “Don’t be funny.”

He then asked me what I thought was the reason for his success, I replied: “I understand you can call ten thousand people by their first names.”

“No. You are wrong,” he said. “I can call fifty thousand people by their first names.”

Make no mistake about it. That ability helped Mr. Farley put Franklin D. Roosevelt in the White House.

During the years that Jim Farley travelled as a salesman for a gypsum concern, and during the years that he held office as town clerk in Stony Point, he built up a system for remembering names.

In the beginning it was a very simple one. Whenever he met a new acquaintance, he found out his complete name, the size of his family, the nature of his business, and the colour of his political opinions. He got all these facts well in mind as part of the picture, and the next time he met that man, even if it was a year later, he was able to slap him on the back, inquire after the wife and kids, and ask about the hollyhocks in the backyard. No wonder he developed a following!

For months before Roosevelt’s campaign for President began, Jim Farley wrote hundreds of letters a day to people all over the western and north-western states. Then he hopped on to a train and in nineteen days covered twenty states and twelve thousand miles, travelling by buggy, train, automobile, and skiff. He would drop into town, meet his people at lunch or breakfast, tea or dinner, and give them a “heart-to-heart talk”. Then he’d dash off again on another leg of his journey.

As soon as he arrived back East, he wrote to one man in each town he had visited, asking for a list of all the guests to whom he had talked. The final list contained thousands and thousands of names; yet each person on that list was paid the subtle flattery of getting a personal letter from James Farley. These letters began “Dear Bill” or “Dear Joe”, and they were always signed “Jim”.

Jim Farley discovered early in life that the average man is more interested in his own name than he is in all the other names on earth put together. Remember that name and call it easily, and you have paid him a subtle and very effective compliment. But forget it or misspell it—and you have placed yourself at a sharp disadvantage. For example, I once organized a public-speaking course in Paris and sent multigraphed letters to all the American residents in the city. French typists with apparently little knowledge of English filled in the names and naturally they made blunders. One man, the manager of a large American bank in Paris, wrote me a scathing rebuke because his name had been misspelled.

What was the reason for Andrew Carnegie’s success?

He was called the Steel King; yet he himself knew little about the manufacture of steel. He had hundreds of men working for him who knew far more about steel than he did.

But he knew how to handle men, and that is what made him rich. Early in life, he showed a flair for organization, a genius for leadership. By the time he was ten, he, too, had discovered the astonishing importance people place on their own name. And he used that discovery to win co-operation. To illustrate: When he was a boy back in Scotland, he got hold of a rabbit, a mother rabbit. Presto! He soon had a whole nest of little rabbits—and nothing to feed them. But he had a brilliant idea. He told the boys in the neighbour-hood that if they would go out and pull enough clover and dandelions to feed the rabbits, he would name the bunnies in their honour.

The plan worked like magic; and Carnegie never forgot it.

Years later, he made millions by using that same psychology in business. For example, he wanted to sell steel rails to the Pennsylvania Railroad. J. Edgar Thomson was the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad then. So Andrew Carnegie built a huge steel mill in Pittsburgh and called it the “Edgar Thomson Steel Works”.

Here is a riddle. See if you can guess it, When the Pennsylvania Railroad needed steel rails, where do you suppose J. Edgar Thomson bought them?. . ., From Sears, Roebuck? No. No. You’re wrong. Guess again.

When Carnegie and George Pullman were battling each other for supremacy in the sleeping-car business, the Steel King again remembered the lesson of the rabbits.

The Central Transportation Company, which Andrew Carnegie controlled, was fighting with the company that Pullman owned. Both were struggling to get the sleeping-car business of the Union Pacific road, bucking each other, slashing prices, and destroying all chance of profit. Both Carnegie and Pullman had gone to New York to see the board of directors of the Union Pacific. Meeting one evening in the St. Nicholas Hotel, Carnegie said: “Good evening, Mr. Pullman, aren’t we making a couple of fools of ourselves?”

“What do you mean?” Pullman demanded.

Then Carnegie expressed what he had on his mind—a merger of their two interests. He pictured in glowing terms the mutual advantages of working with, instead of against, each other. Pullman listened attentively, but he was not wholly convinced. Finally he asked: “What would you call the new company?” and Carnegie replied promptly: “Why, the Pullman Palace Car Company, of course.”

Pullman’s face brightened. “Come into my room,” he said. “Let’s talk it over.” That talk made industrial history.

This policy of Andrew Carnegie’s of remembering and honouring the names of his friends and business associates was one of the secrets of his leadership. He was proud of the fact that he could call many of his labourers by their first names; and he boasted that while he was personally in charge, no strike ever disturbed his flaming steel mills.

Paderewski, on the other hand, made his coloured Pull- man chef feel important by always addressing him as “Mr. Copper”. On fifteen different occasions, Paderewski toured America, playing to wildly enthusiastic audiences from coast to coast; and on each occasion he travelled in a private car and the same chef had a midnight meal ready for him after the concert. Never in all those years did Paderewski ever call him “George” after the American manner. With his old-world formality, Paderewski always spoke to him as “Mr. Copper”, and Mr. Copper loved it.

Men are so proud of their names that they strive to perpetuate them at any cost. Even blustering, hard-boiled old P. T. Barnum, disappointed because he had no sons to carry on his name, offered his grandson, C. H. Seeley, $25,000 if he would call himself “Barnum” Seeley.

Two hundred years ago, rich men used to pay authors to dedicate their books to them.

Libraries and museums owe their richest collections to men who cannot bear to think that their names might perish from the memory of the race, The New York Public Library has its Astor and Lenox collections. The Metropolitan Museum perpetuates the names of Benjamin Altman and J. P. Morgan. And nearly every church is beautified by stained-glass windows commemorating the names of the donors.

Most people don’t remember names, for the simple reason that they don’t take the time and energy necessary to concentrate and repeat and fix names indelibly in their minds. They make excuses for themselves; they are too busy.

But they are probably no busier than Franklin D. Roosevelt, and he took time to remember and recall even the names of mechanics with whom he came in contact.

To illustrate: The Chrysler organization built a special car for Mr. Roosevelt. W. F. Chamberlain and a mechanic delivered it to the White House. I have in front of me a letter from Mr. Chamberlain relating his experiences. “I taught President Roosevelt how to handle a car with a lot of unusual gadgets, but he taught me a lot about the fine art of handling people.”

“When I called at the White House”, Mr. Chamberlain writes, “the President was extremely pleasant and cheerful. He called me by name, made me feel very comfortable, and particularly impressed me with the fact that he was vitally interested in the things I had to show him and tell him. The car was so designed that it could be operated entirely by hand. A crowd gathered around to look at the car; and he remarked: ‘I think it is marvellous. All you have to do is to touch a button and it moves away and you can drive it without effort. I think it is grand—I don’t know what makes it go. I’d love to have the time to tear it down and see how it works.’

“When Roosevelt’s friends and associates admired the machine, he said in their presence: ‘Mr. Chamberlain, I certainly appreciate all the time and effort you have spent in developing this car. It is a mighty fine job.” He admired the radiator, the special rear-vision mirror and clock, the special spotlight, the kind of upholstery, the sitting position of the driver’s seat, the special suitcases in the trunk with his monogram on each suitcase. In other words, he took notice of every detail to which he knew I had given considerable thought. He made a point of bringing these various pieces of equipment to the attention of Mrs. Roosevelt, Miss Perkins, the Secretary of Labour, and his secretary. He even brought the old coloured porter into the picture by saying: ‘George, you want to take particularly good care of the suitcases.’

“When the driving lesson was finished, the President turned to me and said: ‘Well, Mr. Chamberlain, I have been keeping the Federal Reserve Board waiting thirty minutes. I guess I had better get back to work.’

“I took a mechanic with me down to the White House. He was introduced to Roosevelt when he arrived. He didn’t talk to the President, and Roosevelt heard his name only once. He was a shy chap, and he kept in the background. But before leaving us, the President looked for the mechanic, shook his hand, called him by name, and thanked him for coming down to Washington. And there was nothing perfunctory about his thanks. He meant what he said. I could feel that.

“A few days after returning to New York, I got an autographed photograph of President Roosevelt and a little note of thanks, again expressing his appreciation for my assistance. How he finds time to do it is a mystery to me.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt knew that one of the simplest, most obvious, and most important ways of gaining good will is by remembering names and making people feel important—yet how many of us do it?

Half the time we are introduced to a stranger, chat a few minutes, and can’t even remember his name when we say good-bye.

One of the first lessons a politician learns is this: “To recall a voter’s name is statesmanship. To forget it is oblivion.”

And the ability to remember names is almost as important in business and social contacts as it is in politics.

Napoleon the Third, Emperor of France and nephew of the great Napoleon, boasted that in spite of all his royal duties he could remember the name of every person he met.

His technique? Simple. If he didn’t hear the name distinctly, he said: “So sorry. I didn’t get the name clearly.” Then, if it was an unusual name, he would say, “How is it spelt?”

During the conversation he took the trouble to repeat the name several times, and tried to associate it in his mind with the man’s features, expression, and general appearance.

If the man were someone of importance, Napoleon went to even further pains. As soon as His Royal Highness was alone, he wrote the man’s name down on a piece of paper, looked at it, concentrated on it, fixed it securely in his mind, and then tore up the paper. In this way, he gained an eye impression of the name as well as an ear impression.

All this takes time, but “Good manners”, said Emerson, “are made up of petty sacrifices”.

So if you want people to like you, Rule 3 is:

REMEMBER THAT A MAN’S NAME IS TO HIM THE SWEETEST AND MOST IMPORTANT SOUND IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

I recently attended a dinner party in New York. One of the guests, a woman who had inherited money, was eager to make a pleasing impression on everyone. She had squandered a modest fortune on sables, diamonds, and pearls. But she hadn’t done anything whatever about her face. It radiated sourness and selfishness. She didn’t realize what every man knows: namely, that the expression a woman wears on her face is far more important than the clothes she wears on her back. (By the way, that is a good line to remember when your wife wants to buy a fur coat.)

Charles Schwab told me his smile had been worth $1 million. And he was probably understating the truth. For Schwab’s personality, his charm, his ability to make people like him were almost wholly responsible for his extraordinary success; and one of the most delightful factors in his personality is his captivating smile.

I once spent an afternoon with Maurice Chevalier—and, frankly, I was disappointed. Glum, taciturn, he was sharply different from what I expected—until he smiled. Then it seemed as if the sun had broken through a cloud. If it hadn’t been for a smile, Maurice Chevalier would probably still be a cabinet-maker, back in Paris, following the trade of his father and brothers.

Actions speak louder than words, and a smile says: “I like you. You make me happy. I am glad to see you.”

That is why dogs make such a hit. They are so glad to see us that they almost jump out of their skins. So, naturally, we are glad to see them.

An insincere grin? No. That doesn’t fool anybody. We know it is mechanical and we resent it. I am talking about a real smile, a heart-warming smile, a smile that comes from within, the kind of a smile that will bring a good price in the market-place.

The employment manager of a large New York department store told me he would rather hire a sales girl who hadn’t finished grade school, if she had a lovely smile, than a doctor of philosophy with a sober face.

The chairman of the board of directors of one of the largest rubber companies ‘in the United States told me that, according to his observations, a man rarely succeeds at anything unless he has fun doing it. This industrial leader doesn’t put much faith in the old adage that hard work alone is the magic key that will unlock the door to our desires, “I have known men”, he said, “who succeeded because they had a rip-roaring good time conducting their business. Later, I saw those men began to work at the job. It grew dull. They lost all joy in it, and they failed.”

You must have a good time meeting people if you expect them to have a good time meeting you.

I have asked thousands of businessmen to smile at someone every hour of the day for a week and then come to class and talk about the results. Has it worked? Let’s see . . . Here is a letter from William B. Steinhardt, a member of the New York Curb Exchange. His case isn’t isolated. In fact, it is typical of hundreds of others.

“I have been married for over eighteen years,” writes Mr. Steinhardt, “and in all that time I seldom smiled at my wife or spoke two dozen words to her from the time I got up until I was ready to leave for business. I was one of the worst grouches who ever walked down Broadway.

“Since you asked me to make a talk about my experience with smiles, I thought I would try it for a week. So the next morning, while combing my hair, I looked at my glum mug in the mirror and said to myself: ‘Bill, you are going to wipe the scowl off that sour puss of yours today. You are going to smile. And you are going to begin right now.’ As I sat down to breakfast, I greeted my wife with a ‘Good morning, my dear’, and smiled as I said it.

“You warned me that she might be surprised. Well, you under-estimated her reaction. She was bewildered. She was shocked. I told her that in the future she could expect this as a regular occurrence, and I have kept it up every morning now for two months.

“This changed attitude of mine has brought more happiness in our home during these two months than there was during the last year.

“As I leave for my office now, I greet the elevator boy in the apartment house with a ‘Good morning’ and a smile, I greet the doorman with a smile. I smile at the cashier in the subway booth when I ask for change. As I stand on the floor on the Curb Exchange, I smile at men who never saw me smile until recently.

“I soon found that everybody was smiling back at me. I treat those who come to me with complaints or grievances in a cheerful manner. I smile as I listen to them, and I find that adjustments are accomplished much easier. I find that smiles are bringing me dollars, many dollars every day.

“I make my office with another broker. One of his clerks is a likeable young chap, and I was so elated about the results I was getting that I told him recently about my new philosophy of human relations. He then confessed that when I first came to make my office with his firm he thought me a terrible grouch—and only recently changed his mind. He said I was really human when I smiled.

“I have also eliminated criticism from my system. I give appreciation and praise now instead of condemnation. I have stopped talking about what I want. I am now trying to see the other person’s viewpoint. And these things have literally revolutionized my life. I am a totally different man, a happier man, a richer man, richer in friendship and happiness—the only things that matter much after all.”

Remember this letter was written by a sophisticated, worldly-wise stockbroker who makes his living buying and selling stocks for his own account on the New York Curb Exchange—a business so difficult that 99 out of every 100 who attempt it fail.

You don’t feel like smiling? Then what? Two things. First, force yourself to smile. If you are alone, force yourself to whistle or hum a tune or sing. Act as if you were already happy, and that will tend to make you happy. Here is the way the late Professor William James of Harvard put it:

“Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.

“Thus the sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there . . .”

Everybody in the world is seeking happiness—and there is one sure way to find it. That is by controlling your thoughts. Happiness doesn’t depend on outward conditions. It depends on inner conditions.

It isn’t what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it. For example, two people may be in the same place, doing the same thing; both may have about an equal amount of money and prestige—and yet one may be miserable and the other happy. Why? Because of a different mental attitude. I saw just as many happy faces among the Chinese coolies sweating and toiling in the devastating heat of China for seven cents a day as I see on Park Avenue.

“Nothing is good or bad,” said Shakespeare, “but thinking makes it so.”

Abe Lincoln once remarked that “most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” He was right. I recently saw a vivid illustration of that truth. I was walking up the stairs of the Long Island station in New York. Directly in front of me thirty or forty crippled boys on canes and crutches were struggling up the stairs. One boy had to be carried up. I was astonished at their laughter and gaiety. I spoke about it to one of the men in charge of the boys. “Oh, yes,” he said, “when a boy realizes that he is going to be a cripple for life, he is shocked at first; but, after he gets over the shock, he usually resigns himself to his fate, and then becomes happier than normal boys.”

I felt like taking my hat off to those boys. They taught me a lesson I hope I shall never forget.

I spent an afternoon with Mary Pickford during the time when she was preparing to get a divorce from Douglas Fair- banks. The world probably imagined at the time that she was distraught and unhappy; but I found her to be one of the most serene and triumphant persons I had ever met. She radiated happiness. Her secret? She has revealed it in a little book of thirty-five pages, a book you might enjoy. Go to your public library and ask for a copy of Why Not Try God? by Mary Pickford.

Franklin Bettger, former third baseman for the St. Louis Cardinals, and now one of the most successful insurance men in America, told me that he figured out years ago that a man with a smile is always welcome. So, before entering a man’s office, he always pauses for an instant and thinks of the many things he has to be thankful for, works up a great big honest-to-goodness smile, and then enters the room with the smile just vanishing from his face.

This simple technique, he believes, has had much to do with his extraordinary success in selling insurance.

Peruse this bit of sage advice from Elbert Hubbard—but remember, perusing it won’t do you any good unless you apply it:

“Whenever you go out of doors, draw the chin in, carry the crown of the head high, and fill the lungs to the utmost; drink in the sunshine; greet your friends with a smile, and put soul into every hand-clasp. Do not fear being misunderstood and do not waste a minute thinking about your enemies. Try to fix firmly in your mind what you would like to do; and then, without veering of direction, you will move straight to the goal. Keep your mind on the great and splendid things you would like to do, and then, as the days go gliding by you will find yourself unconsciously seizing upon the opportunities that are required for the fulfilment of your desire, just as the coral insect takes from the running tide the element it needs. Picture in your mind the able, earnest, useful person you desire to be, and the thought you hold is hourly transforming you into that particular individual. . . Thought is supreme. Preserve a right mental attitude— the attitude of courage, frankness, and good cheer. To think rightly is to create. All things come through desire, and every sincere prayer is answered. We become like that on which our hearts are fixed. Carry your chin in and the crown of your head high. We are gods in the chrysalis.”

The ancient Chinese are a wise lot—wise in the ways of the world; and they have a proverb that you and I ought to cut out and paste inside our hats. It goes like this: “A man without a smiling face must not open a shop.”

And speaking of shops, Frank Irving Fletcher, in one of his advertisements for Oppenheim, Collins & Co., gave us this bit of homely philosophy.

The Value Of A Smile At Christmas

It costs nothing, but creates much.

It enriches those who receive, without impoverishing those who give.

It happens in a flash, and the memory of it sometimes lasts for ever.

None are so rich they can get along without it, and none so poor but are richer for its benefits.

It creates happiness in the home, fosters good will in a business, and is the countersign of friends.

It is rest to the weary, daylight to the discouraged, sunshine to the sad, and Nature’s best antidote for trouble.

Yet it cannot be bought, begged, borrowed, or stolen, for it is something that is no earthly good to anybody till it is given away!

And if in the last-minute rush of Christmas buying some of our salespeople should be too tired to give you a smile, may we ask you to leave one of yours?

For nobody needs a smile so much as those who have none left to give!

So if you want people to like you, Rule 2 is:

SMILE.

Why read this book to find out how to win friends? Why not study the technique of the greatest winner of friends the world has ever known? Who is he? You may meet him tomorrow coming down the street. When you get within ten feet of him, he will begin to wag his tail. If you stop and pat him, he will almost jump out of his skin to show you how much he likes you. And you know that behind this show of affection on his part, there are no ulterior motives: he doesn’t want to sell you any real estate, and he doesn’t want to marry you.

Did you ever stop to think that a dog is the only animal that doesn’t have to work for a living? A hen has to lay eggs; a cow has to give milk; and a canary has to sing. But a dog makes his living by giving you nothing but love.

When I was five years old, my father bought a little yellow-haired pup for fifty cents. He was the light and joy of my childhood. Every afternoon about four-thirty, he would sit in the front yard with his beautiful eyes staring steadfastly at the path, and as soon as he heard my voice or saw me swinging my dinner pail through the buck brush, he was off like a shot, racing breathlessly up the hill to greet me with leaps of joy and barks of sheer ecstasy.

Tippy was my constant companion for five years. Then one tragic night—I shall never forget it—he was killed within ten feet of my head, killed by lightning. Tippy’s death was the tragedy of my boyhood.

You never read a book on psychology, Tippy. You didn’t need to. You knew by some divine instinct that one can make more friends in two months by becoming genuinely interested in other people than one can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you. Let me repeat that. You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.

Yet I know and you know people who blunder through life trying to wigwag other people into becoming interested in them.

Of course, it doesn’t work. People are not interested in you. They are not interested in me. They are interested in themselves—morning, noon, and after dinner.

The New York Telephone Company made a detailed study of telephone conversations to find out which word is the most frequently used. You have guessed it: it is the personal pronoun “I.” “I.” I.” It was used 3,990 times in 500 telephone conversations. “I.” “I.” “I.” “I.” “I.”

When you see a group photograph that you are in, whose picture do you look for first?

If you think people are interested in you, answer this question: If you died tonight, how many people would come to your funeral?

Why should people be interested in you unless you are first interested in them? Reach for your pencil now and write your reply here:

If we merely try to impress people and get people interested in us, we will never have many true, sincere friends. Friends, real friends, are not made that way.

Napoleon tried it, and in his last meeting with Josephine he said: “Josephine, I have been as fortunate as any man ever was on this earth; and yet, at this hour, you are the only person in the world on whom I can rely.” And historians doubt whether he could rely even on her.

The late Alfred Adler, the famous Viennese psychologist, wrote a book entitled What Life Should Mean to You. In that book he says: “It is the individual who is not interested in his fellow men who has the greatest difficulties in life and provides the greatest injury to others. It is from among such individuals that all human failures spring.”

You may read scores of erudite tomes on psychology without coming across a statement more significant for you and for me. I dislike repetition, but Adler’s statement is so rich with meaning that I am going to repeat it in italics:

“It is the individual who is not interested in his fellow men who has the greatest difficulties in life and provides the greatest injury to others. It is from among such individuals that all human failures spring.”

I once took a course in short-story writing in New York University, and during that course the editor of Collier’s talked to our class. He said he could pick up any one of the dozens of stories that drifted across his desk every day, and after reading a few paragraphs he could feel whether or not the author liked people. “If the author doesn’t like people,” he said, “people won’t like his stories.”

This hard-boiled editor stopped twice in the course of his talk on fiction writing, and apologized for preaching a sermon. “I am telling you”, he said, “the same things your preacher would tell you. But, remember, you have to be interested in people if you want to be a successful writer of stories.”

If that is true of writing fiction, you can be sure it is trebly true of dealing with people face to face.

I spent an evening in the dressing-room of Howard Thurston, the last time he appeared on Broadway—Thurston the acknowledged dean of magicians, Thurston the king of legerdemain. For forty years he travelled all over the world, time and again, creating illusions, mystifying audiences, and making people gasp with astonishment. More than 60 million people paid admission to his show, and he made almost $2 million in profit.

I asked Mr. Thurston to tell me the secret of his success. His schooling certainly had nothing to do with it, for he ran away from home as a small boy, became a hobo, rode in box cars, slept in haystacks, begged his food from door to door, and learned to read by looking out of boxcars at signs along the railway.

Did he have a superior knowledge of magic? No, he told me hundreds of books had been written about legerdemain, and scores of people knew as much about it as he did. But he had two things that the others didn’t have. First, he had the ability to put his personality across the footlights. He was a master showman. He knew human nature. Everything he did, every gesture, every intonation of his voice, every lifting of an eyebrow had been carefully rehearsed in advance, and his actions were timed to split seconds. But, in addition to that, Thurston had a genuine interest in people. He told me that many magicians would look at the audience and say to themselves: “Well, there is a bunch of suckers out there, a bunch of hicks; I’ll fool them all right.” But Thurston’s method was totally different. He told me every time he entered the stage he said to himself: “I am grateful because these people come to see me. They make it possible for me to make my living in a very agreeable way. I’m going to give them the very best I possibly can.”

He declared he never stepped in front of the footlights without first saying to himself over and over: “I love my audience. I love my audience.” Ridiculous? Absurd? You are privileged to think about it anything you like. I am merely passing it on to you without comment as a recipe used by one of the most famous magicians of all time.

Madame Schumann-Heink told me much the same thing. In spite of hunger and heartbreak, in spite of a life filled with so much tragedy that she once attempted to kill herself and her babies—in spite of all that, she sang her way up to the top until she became perhaps the most distinguished Wagnerian singer who ever thrilled an audience; and she, too, confessed that one of the secrets of her success is that fact that she is intensely interested in people.

That, too, was one of the secrets of Theodore Roosevelt’s astonishing popularity. Even his servants loved him. His coloured valet, James E. Amos, wrote a book about him entitled Theodore Roosevelt, Hero to His Valet. In that book Amos relates this illuminating incident:

“My wife one time asked the President about a bobwhite. She had never seen one and he described it to her fully. Some time later, the telephone at our cottage rang. [Amos and his wife lived in a little cottage on the Roosevelt estate at Oyster Bay.] My wife answered it and it was Mr. Roosevelt himself. He had called her, he said, to tell her that there was a bobwhite outside her window and that if she would look out she might see it. Little things like that were so characteristic of him. Whenever he went by our cottage, even though we were out of sight, we would hear him call out: ‘Oo-oo-oo, Annie!’ or ‘Oo-oo-oo, James!’ It was just a friendly greeting as he went by.”

How could employees keep from liking a man like that? How could anyone keep from liking him? Roosevelt called at the White House one day when the President and Mrs. Taft were away. His honest liking for humble people was shown by the fact that he greeted all the old White House servants by name, even the scullery maids.

“When he saw Alice, the kitchen-maid,” writes Archie Butt, “he asked her if she still made corn bread. Alice told him that she sometimes made it for the servants, but no one ate it upstairs.

“ ‘They show bad taste,’ Roosevelt boomed, ‘and I’ll tell the President so when I see him.’

“Alice brought a piece to him on a plate, and he went over to the office, eating it as he went and greeting gardeners and labourers as he passed…

“He addressed each person just as he was wont to address him in the past. They still whisper about it to each other, and Ike Hoover said with tears in his eyes: ‘It is the only happy day we have in nearly two years, and not one of us would exchange it for a hundred-dollar bill.’ ”

It was this same intense interest in the problems of other people that made Dr. Charles W. Eliot one of the most successful presidents who ever directed a university—and you will recall that he presided over the destinies of Harvard from four years after the close of the Civil War until five years before the outbreak of the World War. Here is an example of the way Dr. Eliot worked. One day a freshman, L. R. G. Crandon, went to the president’s office to borrow $50 from the Students’ Loan Fund. The loan was granted. “Then I made my heartfelt thanks and started to leave”—I am quoting Crandon’s own words now—“when President Eliot said: ‘Pray be seated.’ Then he proceeded, to my amazement, to say in effect: “I am told that you cook and eat in your room. Now I don’t think that is at all bad for you if you get the right food and enough of it. When I was in college, I did the same. Did you ever make veal loaf? That, if made from sufficiently mature and sufficiently cooked veal, is one of the best things you could have, because there is no waste. This is the way I used to make it.’ He then told me how to pick the veal, how to cook it slowly, with such evaporation that the soup would turn into jelly later, then how to cut it up and press it with one pan inside another and eat it cold.”

I have discovered from personal experience that one can win the attention and time and co-operation of even the most-sought-after people in America by becoming genuinely interested in them. Let me illustrate:

Years ago I conducted a course in fiction writing at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, and we wanted Kathleen Norris, Fannie Hurst, Ida Tarbell, Albert Payson Terhune, Rupert Hughes, and other distinguished and busy authors to come over to Brooklyn and give us the benefit of their experiences. So we wrote them, saying we admired their work and were deeply interested in getting their advice and learning the secrets of their success.

Each of these letters was signed by about a hundred and fifty students. We said we realized that these authors were busy—too busy to prepare a lecture. So we enclosed a list of questions for them to answer about themselves and their methods of work. They liked that. Who wouldn’t like it? So they left their homes and travelled over to Brooklyn to give us a helping hand.

By using the same method, I persuaded Leslie M. Shaw, Secretary of the Treasury in Theodore Roosevelt’s cabinet, George W. Wickersham, Attorney General in Taft’s cabinet, William Jennings Bryan, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and many other prominent men to come and talk to the students of my courses in public speaking.

All of us, be we butcher or baker or the king upon his throne, all of us like people who admire us. Take the German Kaiser, for example. At the close of the World War, he was probably the most savagely and universally despised man on this earth. Even his own nation turned against him when he fled over into Holland to save his neck. The hatred against him was so intense that millions of people would have loved to have torn him limb from limb or burned him at the stake. In the midst of all this forest fire of fury, one little boy wrote the Kaiser a simple, sincere letter glowing with kindness and admiration. This little boy said that no matter what the others thought, he would always love Wilhelm as his Emperor. The Kaiser was deeply touched by his letter and invited the little boy to come and see him. The boy came, so did his mother—and the Kaiser married her. That little boy didn’t need to read a book on “How to Win Friends and Influence People”. He knew how instinctively.

If we want to make friends, let’s put ourselves out to do things for other people—things that require time, energy, unselfishness, and thoughtfulness. When the Duke of Windsor was Prince of Wales, he was scheduled to tour South America, and before he started out on that tour he spent months studying Spanish so that he could make public talks in the language of the country; and the South Americans loved him for it.

For years I have made it a point to find out the birthdays of my friends. How? Although I haven’t the foggiest bit of faith in astrology, I begin by asking the other party whether he believes the date of one’s birth has anything to do with character and disposition. I then ask him to tell me the month and day of his birth. If he says November 24, for example, I keep repeating to myself: “November 24, November 24.” The minute his back is turned, I write down his name and birthday and later transfer it to a birthday book. At the beginning of each year, I have these birth- day dates scheduled in my calendar pad, so they come to my attention automatically. When the natal day arrives, there is my letter or telegram. What a hit it makes! I am frequently the only person on earth who remembers.

If we want to make friends, let’s greet people with animation and enthusiasm. When somebody calls you on the telephone, use the same psychology. Say “Hello” in tones that bespeak how pleased you are to have the person call. The New York Telephone Company conducts a school to train its operators to say “Number please” in a tone that means “Good morning, I am happy to be of service to you”. Let’s remember that when we answer the telephone tomorrow. Does this philosophy work in business? Does it? I could cite scores of illustrations; but we have time for only two.

Charles R. Walters, of one of the large banks in New York City, was assigned to prepare a confidential report on a certain corporation. He knew of only one man who possessed the facts he needed so urgently. Mr. Walters went to see that man, the president of a large industrial company. As Mr. Walters was ushered into the president’s office, a young woman stuck her head through a door and told the president that she didn’t have any stamps for him that day.

“I am collecting stamps for my twelve-year-old son,” the president explained to Mr. Walters.

Mr. Walters stated his mission, and began asking questions. The president was vague, general, nebulous. He didn’t want to talk, and apparently nothing would persuade him to talk. The interview was brief and barren.

“Frankly, I didn’t know what to do,” Mr. Walters said as he related the story to the class. “Then I remembered what his secretary had said to him—stamps, twelve-year-old son . . . And I also recalled that the foreign department of our bank collected stamps—stamps taken from letters pouring in from every continent washed by the seven seas.

“The next afternoon I called on this man and sent in word that I had some stamps for his boy. Was I ushered in with enthusiasm? Yes, sir. He couldn’t have shaken my hand with more enthusiasm if he had been running for Congress. He radiated smiles and good will. ‘My George will love this one,’ he kept saying as he fondled the stamps. ‘And look at this! This is a treasure.’

“We spent half an hour talking stamps and looking at a picture of his boy, and he then devoted more than an hour of his time to giving me every bit of information I wanted—without my even suggesting that he do it. He told me all he knew, and then called in his subordinates and questioned them. He telephoned some of his associates. He loaded me down with facts, figures, reports, and correspondence. In the parlance of newspaper men, I had a scoop.”

Here is another illustration:

C. M. Knaphle, Jr., of Philadelphia, had tried for years to sell coal to a large chain-store organization. But the chain-store company continued to purchase its fuel from an out-of-town dealer and continued to haul it right past the door of Knaphle’s office. Mr. Knaphle made a speech one night before one of my classes, pouring out his hot wrath upon the chain stores, branding them as a curse to the nation.

And still he wondered why he couldn’t sell them.

I suggested that he try different tactics. To put it briefly, this is what happened. We staged a debate between members of the course on “Resolved that the spread of the chain store is doing the country more harm than good”.

Knaphle, at my suggestion, took the negative side; he agreed to defend the chain stores, and then went straight to an executive of the chain-store organization that he despised and said: “I am not here to try to sell coal. I have come to ask you to do me a favour.” He then told about his debate and said, “I have come to you for help because I can’t think of anyone else who would be more capable of giving me the facts I want. I am anxious to win this debate; and I’ll deeply appreciate whatever help you can give me.”

Here is the rest of the story in Mr. Knaphle’s own words:

I had asked this man for precisely one minute of his time. It was with that understanding that he consented to see me. After I had stated my case, he motioned me to a chair and talked to me for exactly one hour and forty-seven minutes. He called in another executive who had written a book on chain stores. He wrote to the National Chain Store Association and secured for me a copy of a debate on the subject. He feels that the chain store is rendering a real service to humanity. He is proud of what he is doing for hundreds of communities. His eyes fairly glowed as he talked; and I must confess that he opened my eyes to things I had never even dreamed of. He changed my whole mental attitude.

“As I was leaving, he walked with me to the door, put his arm around my shoulder, wished me well in my debate, and asked me to stop in and see him again and let him know how I made out. The last words he said to me were: “Please see me again later in the spring. I should like to place an order with you for coal.”

“To me that was almost a miracle. Here he was offering to buy coal without my even suggesting it. I had made more headway in two hours by becoming genuinely interested in him and his problems than I could have made in ten years by trying to get him interested in me and my coal.”

You didn’t discover a new truth, Mr. Knaphle, for a long time ago, a hundred years before Christ was born, a famous old Roman poet, Publilius Syrus, remarked: “We are interested in others when they are interested in us.”

So if you want people to like you, Rule 1 is:

BECOME GENUINELY INTERESTED IN OTHER PEOPLE.

If you want to develop a more pleasing personality, a more effective skill in human relations, let me urge you to read The Return to Religion, by Dr. Henry Link. Don’t let the title frighten you. It isn’t a goody-goody book. It was written by a well-known psychologist who has personally interviewed and advised more than three thousand people who have come to him with personality problems. Dr. Link told me that he could easily have called his book How to Develop Your Personality. It deals with that subject. You will find it interesting, illuminating. If you read it, and act upon its suggestions, you are almost sure to increase your skill in dealing with people.

1. If you wish to get the most out of this book, there is one indispensable requirement, one essential infinitely more important than any rule or technique. Unless you have this one fundamental requisite, a thousand rules on how to study will avail little. And if you do have this cardinal endowment, then you can achieve wonders without reading any suggestions for getting the most out of a book.

What is this magic requirement? Just this: a deep, driving desire to learn, a vigorous determination to increase your ability to deal with people.

How can you develop such an urge? By constantly reminding yourself of how important these principles are to you. Picture to yourself how their mastery will aid you in your race for leading a richer social and financial rewards. Say to yourself over and over: “My popularity, my happiness, and my income depend to no small extent upon my skill in dealing with people.”

2. Read each chapter rapidly at first to get a bird’s-eye view of it. You will probably be tempted then to rush on to the next one. But don’t. Unless you are reading merely for entertainment. But if you are reading because you want to increase your skill in human relations, then go back and re-read each chapter thoroughly. In the long run, this will mean saving time and getting results.

3. Stop frequently in your reading to think over what you are reading. Ask yourself just how and when you can apply each suggestion. This kind of reading will aid you far more than racing ahead like a whippet chasing a rabbit.

4. Read with a red crayon, pencil,  or fountain pen in your hand; and when you come across a suggestion that you feel you can use, draw a line beside it. If it is a four-star suggestion, then underscore every sentence, or mark it with “XXXX”. Marking and underscoring a book make it more interesting and far easier to review rapidly.

5. I know a man who has been office manager for a large insurance concern for fifteen years. He reads every month all the insurance contracts his company issues. Yes, he reads the same contracts over month after month, year after year. Why? Because experience has taught him that is the only way he can keep their provisions clearly in mind.

I once spent almost two years writing a book on public speaking; and yet I find I have to keep going back over it from time to time in order to remember what I wrote in my own book. The rapidity with which we forget is astonishing.

So, if you want to get real, lasting benefit out of this book, don’t imagine that skimming through it once will suffice. After reading it thoroughly, you ought to spend a few hours reviewing it every month. Keep it on your desk in front of you every day. Glance through it often. Keep constantly impressing yourself with the rich possibilities for improvement that still lie in the offing. Remember that the use of these principles can be made habitual and unconscious only by a constant and vigorous campaign of review and application. There is no other way.

6. Bernard Shaw once remarked: “If you teach a man anything, he will never learn.” Shaw was right. Learning is an active process. We learn by doing. So, if you desire to master the principles you are studying in this book, do something about them. Apply these rules at every opportunity. If you don’t, you will forget them quickly. Only knowledge that is used sticks in your mind.

You will probably find it difficult to apply these suggestions all the time. I know because I wrote the book, and yet I find it difficult to apply everything I have advocated. For example, when you are displeased, it is much easier to criticize and condemn than it is to try to understand the other person’s viewpoint. It is frequently easier to find fault than to find praise. It is more natural to talk about what you want than to talk about what the other person wants. And so on, So, as you read this book, remember that you are not merely trying to acquire information. You are attempting to form new habits. Ah yes, you are attempting a new way of life. That will require time and persistence and daily application.

So refer to these pages often. Regard this as a working handbook on human relations; and whenever you are confronted with some specific problem – such as handling a child, winning a wife to your way of thinking, or satisfying an irritated customer – hesitate about doing the natural thing, the impulsive thing. This is usually wrong. Instead, turn to these pages and review the paragraphs you have underscored. Then try these new ways and watch them achieve magic for you.

7. Offer your spouse, your son, or some business associate a dime or a dollar every time he or she catches you violating a certain principle. Make a lively game out of mastering these rules.

8. The president of an important Wall Street bank once described, in a talk before one of my classes, a highly efficient system he used for self-improvement. This man had little formal schooling, yet he is now one of the most important financiers in America, and he confessed that he owed most of his success to the constant application of his home-made system. This is what he does. I’ll put it in his own words as accurately as I can remember.

“For years I have kept an engagement book showing all the appointments I have during the day. My family never makes any plans for me on Saturday night, for the family knows that I devote a part of each Saturday evening to the illuminating process of self-examination and review and appraisal. After dinner I go off by myself, open my engagement book, and think over all the interviews, discussions and meetings that have taken place during the week. I ask myself:

“What mistakes did I make that time?”

“What did I do that was right – and in what way could I have improved my performance?”

“What lessons can I learn from that experience?”

“I often find that this weekly review makes me very unhappy. I am frequently astonished at my own blunders. Of course, as the years have gone by, these blunders have become less frequent. Sometimes now I am inclined to pat myself on the back a little after one of these sessions. This system of self-analysis, self-education, continued year after year, has done more for me than any other one thing I have ever attempted.

“It has helped me improve my ability to make decisions – and it has aided me enormously in all my contacts with people. I cannot recommend it too highly.”

Why not use a similar system to check up on your application of the principles discussed in this book? If you do, two things will result.

First, you will find yourself engaged in an educational process that is both intriguing and priceless.

Second, you will find that your ability to meet and deal with people will grow and spread like a green bay tree.

9. Keep a diary in which to record your triumphs in the application of these principles. Be specific. Give names, dates, results. Keeping such a record will inspire you to greater efforts; and how fascinating these entries will be when you chance upon them some evening years from now!

In order to get the most out of this book:

1. Develop a deep, driving desire to master the principles of human relations
2. Read each chapter twice before going on to the next one.
3. As you read, stop frequently to ask yourself how you can apply each suggestion.
4. Underscore each important idea.
5. Review this book each month.
6. Apply these principles at every opportunity. Use this volume as a working handbook to help you solve your daily problems.
7. Make a lively game out of your learning by offering some friend a dime or a dollar every time he catches you violating one of these principles.
8. Check up each week on the progress you are making. Ask yourself what mistakes you have made, what improvement, what lessons you have learned for the future.
9. Keep a diary showing how and when you have applied these principles.