This website is sort of an all-encompassing general overview of how to develop a social life and common problems people face in doing so. The writing is kind of boring, and a little frustratingly vague sometimes, but at the same time it’s utterly reasonable and probably applies to almost everybody’s situation.
My experience with this website was that I would read a bunch of it, saying to myself “okay, I know… yes, that’s obvious… okay, I’m not an idiot, maybe I don’t need to read this site after all”, and then all of a sudden come across something that made me suddenly realize that I had been doing something terribly wrong for the last four years and immediately mentally correct it.
I would recommend that anyone who doesn’t have a wide social circle read through this whole website (it’s maybe about as long as a book), and anyone who is socially awkward in some situations scroll through the table of contents and see if any articles jump out that seem relevant to their interests.
Since I have read this website three months ago, I would definitely say my social skills have improved.
The thesis of this book seems to be something like this: “Many people try to make themselves look good in order to get someone to like them, even at the expense of making the target look bad. Instead, you should make the target look good, even at the expense of making yourself look bad. This works because people like feeling important and high status, and if you can make them feel that way, they’ll enjoy being around you.” The book is divided up into thirty or so chapters, each which revolves around a single-sentence “principle” that reflects the thesis. Each chapter then consists of six or so supposedly true anecdotes in which someone makes someone else like them by applying the principle.
I don’t know if I necessarily agree with Carnegie’s principle. It proves too much—cool jocks don’t enjoy hanging around nerds even though it presumably makes them feel important. There is definitely something to be said for appearing to be a desirable high-status person yourself. However, after reading this book, I sort came up with a weaker version of Carnegie’s thesis that was a really big epiphany for me. So I have this book to thank for that.
The book is also fairly boring and repetitive, as you might imagine given my description of its structure, and it’s something like eighty years old, which should make it a little suspicious, because times have changed since then. (Although it does have a sort of old-fashioned charm which makes it entertaining.)
My social skills have improved since about three months ago when I read this book.
I would not recommend this book, unless you have a tendency to act arrogant or self-absorbed and need to give yourself messages to act in the opposite direction. Or if you just want to act nicer in general.
I think this book is well worth reading (and then rereading every few years). Robin’s take.
It proves too much—cool jocks don’t enjoy hanging around nerds even though it presumably makes them feel important.
I think this is evidence for Carnegie’s thesis- cool jocks enjoy exerting dominance over nerds, because exerting dominance makes them feel important. They don’t enjoy hanging around nerds because that doesn’t make them feel important, because nerds are (generally) not good at making other people feel important.
They don’t enjoy hanging around nerds because that doesn’t make them feel important, because nerds are (generally) not good at making other people feel important.
That is true and a partial explanation. It is also significant that nerds make people feel important based on different criteria and in response to different stimulus. This makes some of the dominance asserting skills that the jocks have less useful.
How to Talk to Anyone by Leil Lowndes is written as a sort of spiritual sequel to HtWF. It goes a lot farther in breaking things down to a simpler level. HtWF often assumes you know how to do certain things. I would strongly recommend it to anyone reading HtWF who thinks “okay, so what should I actually do?”
Thanks to my previous employer, I actually went a step further and took a Dale Carnegie class called Effective Communications & Human Relations / Skills for Success Course. I think it was $1600 or so a couple years ago. My manager thought that I was doing a good job but that I was not particularly nice to people, which was accurate. So, thankfully, he paid for me to take the course and, as far as I can tell, it had a strong influence on me in a positive way.
The course was geared towards professionals of all flavors—engineers, salesman, executives, etc. And, while they teach technical-ish stuff about remembering names, giving presentations and the like, the essential elements of the course were positivity and high energy. The primary instructors never said a single negative thing and they never let their high energy levels dip. The classes were each three hours and held on like Tuesdays after work. So they were charged with keeping 40-50 people who just finished a full day of work interested. They succeeded each night. It was quite an accomplishment. They were probably the friendliest people I’ve ever met.
As for me, while I was never particular friendly, I’ve always had a knack for public speaking. Not only do I not get nerves when speaking to a group, but I feel energized by it. IIRC, every class each student had to speak to a small group and then most of the time we all had to speak to everyone. I did very well and won a couple awards including the highest achievement award, which all my fellow students voted on. I was pretty surprised to win that but it was cool. The experience instilled in me a lot of confidence. So much so that I eventually switched careers to sales.
My favorite memory of the course occurred the night that we each had to get up in succession and give a 3 minute speech on something or other. I was to go about half way through. There was a stage in the room that everyone so far had stood on while giving their speeches. I thought standing on the stage was too impersonal, as the stage was set back and not very well lit. Ever the contrarian, I stood in front of the stage and gave my speech when it was my turn. Everyone after me stood in front of the stage.
Social skills
SucceedSocially.com
This website is sort of an all-encompassing general overview of how to develop a social life and common problems people face in doing so. The writing is kind of boring, and a little frustratingly vague sometimes, but at the same time it’s utterly reasonable and probably applies to almost everybody’s situation.
My experience with this website was that I would read a bunch of it, saying to myself “okay, I know… yes, that’s obvious… okay, I’m not an idiot, maybe I don’t need to read this site after all”, and then all of a sudden come across something that made me suddenly realize that I had been doing something terribly wrong for the last four years and immediately mentally correct it.
I would recommend that anyone who doesn’t have a wide social circle read through this whole website (it’s maybe about as long as a book), and anyone who is socially awkward in some situations scroll through the table of contents and see if any articles jump out that seem relevant to their interests.
Since I have read this website three months ago, I would definitely say my social skills have improved.
How to Win Friends & Influence People—Dale Carnegie
The thesis of this book seems to be something like this: “Many people try to make themselves look good in order to get someone to like them, even at the expense of making the target look bad. Instead, you should make the target look good, even at the expense of making yourself look bad. This works because people like feeling important and high status, and if you can make them feel that way, they’ll enjoy being around you.” The book is divided up into thirty or so chapters, each which revolves around a single-sentence “principle” that reflects the thesis. Each chapter then consists of six or so supposedly true anecdotes in which someone makes someone else like them by applying the principle.
I don’t know if I necessarily agree with Carnegie’s principle. It proves too much—cool jocks don’t enjoy hanging around nerds even though it presumably makes them feel important. There is definitely something to be said for appearing to be a desirable high-status person yourself. However, after reading this book, I sort came up with a weaker version of Carnegie’s thesis that was a really big epiphany for me. So I have this book to thank for that.
The book is also fairly boring and repetitive, as you might imagine given my description of its structure, and it’s something like eighty years old, which should make it a little suspicious, because times have changed since then. (Although it does have a sort of old-fashioned charm which makes it entertaining.)
My social skills have improved since about three months ago when I read this book.
I would not recommend this book, unless you have a tendency to act arrogant or self-absorbed and need to give yourself messages to act in the opposite direction. Or if you just want to act nicer in general.
I think this book is well worth reading (and then rereading every few years). Robin’s take.
I think this is evidence for Carnegie’s thesis- cool jocks enjoy exerting dominance over nerds, because exerting dominance makes them feel important. They don’t enjoy hanging around nerds because that doesn’t make them feel important, because nerds are (generally) not good at making other people feel important.
That is true and a partial explanation. It is also significant that nerds make people feel important based on different criteria and in response to different stimulus. This makes some of the dominance asserting skills that the jocks have less useful.
How to Talk to Anyone by Leil Lowndes is written as a sort of spiritual sequel to HtWF. It goes a lot farther in breaking things down to a simpler level. HtWF often assumes you know how to do certain things. I would strongly recommend it to anyone reading HtWF who thinks “okay, so what should I actually do?”
Thanks to my previous employer, I actually went a step further and took a Dale Carnegie class called Effective Communications & Human Relations / Skills for Success Course. I think it was $1600 or so a couple years ago. My manager thought that I was doing a good job but that I was not particularly nice to people, which was accurate. So, thankfully, he paid for me to take the course and, as far as I can tell, it had a strong influence on me in a positive way.
The course was geared towards professionals of all flavors—engineers, salesman, executives, etc. And, while they teach technical-ish stuff about remembering names, giving presentations and the like, the essential elements of the course were positivity and high energy. The primary instructors never said a single negative thing and they never let their high energy levels dip. The classes were each three hours and held on like Tuesdays after work. So they were charged with keeping 40-50 people who just finished a full day of work interested. They succeeded each night. It was quite an accomplishment. They were probably the friendliest people I’ve ever met.
As for me, while I was never particular friendly, I’ve always had a knack for public speaking. Not only do I not get nerves when speaking to a group, but I feel energized by it. IIRC, every class each student had to speak to a small group and then most of the time we all had to speak to everyone. I did very well and won a couple awards including the highest achievement award, which all my fellow students voted on. I was pretty surprised to win that but it was cool. The experience instilled in me a lot of confidence. So much so that I eventually switched careers to sales.
My favorite memory of the course occurred the night that we each had to get up in succession and give a 3 minute speech on something or other. I was to go about half way through. There was a stage in the room that everyone so far had stood on while giving their speeches. I thought standing on the stage was too impersonal, as the stage was set back and not very well lit. Ever the contrarian, I stood in front of the stage and gave my speech when it was my turn. Everyone after me stood in front of the stage.