The original version of this book was written in 1937 with 5,000 copies available. Word then quickly began to spread the globe about the value contained within the book with over 16 million copies now in print. Business owners, salespersons, and generally people who are interested in better relating to their fellow human being, have constantly referred to How to Win Friends and Influence People over the years as the best book you can read on the subject.

Classic Literature

In every subject there are usually one or two books people categorize as “must-read” if you are to succeed in the subject. In the wealth world there is Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich and Wallace Wattles’ The Science of Getting Rich. In the advertising world there is Claude Hopkins’ Scientific Advertising. In the self-help world there is Maxwell Maltz’s Psycho-Cybernetics or The New Psycho-Cybernetics. While in the human relationships and communication skills world, the number one book to read is How to Win Friends and Influence People. There are people of course who disagree with this, but there are substantial numbers of experts in their respective industries that refer to these books as the best ones you can read. (I strongly encourage you to read these classic books as they are original sources of most self-help information taught today.)

Most of these classical books mentioned date back to 1920. They are the pioneers in their respective industry. Books that discuss the psychology of financial success to this day use the exact same principles mentioned in Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich. The same goes for other self-help classics like James Allen’s As A Man Thinketh. How to Win Friends and Influence People is no exception. Nearly any communication skills book today mentions a principle originating from the book, whether it be to show interest in people or to avoid criticism. It is the authority book in human relations.

If you are not familiar with self-help classics, you may wonder how the heck these books written in the early-to-mid 1900s be useful today? Surely humanity has made many superior discoveries that exceed this “old school” material?

I use to think books today were superior to self-help classics. I heard hundreds of people praise How to Win Friends and Influence People. I thought the book was most people’s introduction to communication skills. I thought, “Sure, the book is great because it’s your first experience in learning the amazing effect of good communication.”

There is something to do with learning about a subject from its original pioneers, however, that makes the information powerful.

What I later found, which is what many people experience, is that by reading the book one time every year you encounter new realizations. Life-changing insights are also frequently experienced by many people upon re-reading Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich. I believe this is because your awareness and experience in the present is not enough to completely grasp the principles in these classic books.

Fundamental People Skills

After reading the 2007 edition of this book, I realized the book’s four parts, which deal with techniques to handle people, ways to make people like you, winning people to your way of thinking, and being a successful leader, are fundamental skills of all human relations. I consistently refer to these principles in my articles and other teachings. The important point I want to distinguish is that fundamentals are not basic skills. Fundamentals in any area form a solid framework for further skill development.

An athlete cannot become good at his or her sport by failing to develop its fundamentals. Sport coaches will tell you that an athlete who does not have the right fundamentals is tough to coach because every skill builds from the foundations laid by fundamental skills. Professional athletes always fine tune their fundamental skills because they know the profound affect such skills have on their professional abilities. Advanced techniques are only useful when the person knows the fundamentals. Also, having good fundamentals produces an exponential effect that puts you ahead of 95% of people, while advanced techniques in any area produces a slight improvement that gives you an edge of the 5% who also have sound fundamentals.

Tiger Woods still improves his fundamentals, but he can work on perfecting his 2 iron stinger where he hits the ball with a very low trajectory, while the average golfer is better off focusing on fundamentals like a better grip, stance, and pre-shot routine. The skills taught in How to Win Friends and Influence People constantly need to be revisited and worked on regardless of how good you think you are in communication.

More Specifics of the Book

At the start of each chapter, Carnegie discusses the chapter’s principle. He then provides an example of how someone, mostly students from his speaking course, have applied the principle in their business or family life. The stories themselves can be a revelation at times as you become aware of how and in what situations the principles can be applied.

The majority of the book discusses concepts instead of word-for-word techniques. One principle is making the other person feel important. Carnegie doesn’t tell you to say exactly this and that. He provides the “what”, which is the concept, with a little bit of the “how”.

The table of contents is below:

The principles of each part are nicely summarized at its end so you can easily review and memorize them. Each principle may seem simple at times, but don’t let simple deceive you from its power. These are powerful principles still changing the lives of those who read the book five or more times.

If you don’t already have a copy of Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People, you need to go grab your copy now from Amazon by clicking here.

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. Review of The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking by Dale Carnegie
2. Review of Influence by Robert Cialdini
3. How to Not Care What People Are Thinking About You – and Release Your People-Magnetic Self Into the Conversation
4. Review of Winning with People by John Maxwell
5. Review of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey