Friday 12 March 2021

How To Win Friends and Influence People

Author: Dale Carnegie

ISBN: 9780207158797


Hi Everyone.

Who else is finding that this year is going extremely fast?  We are heading into Autumn here which I often find quite a relaxing and rewarding time of the year.  It still brings beautiful days of sun shine; cold frosts that seems to bring a clean freshness to the air; and then there are the days of rain that keep me inside and enable me to find an excuse to pick up a book.

I have been reading loads of great books over the summer.  I haven't blogged them all.... why?  Because I have been so tied up teaching my wonderful students! All of which I am extremely grateful to have  breeze in and out of either our Zoom meetings or my tutoring room. 

So what have I been reading?

Interesting enough, this book I picked up by chance.  It popped into my Youtube recommendations and I was reminded of my days working at Whitcoulls (one of NZ's book stores).  When I worked at Whitcoulls it was one of the biggest book store chains in New Zealand.  Now it has changed ownership and is a 'One stop gift shop'.  Not quite like the old days but still a good shop.  Anyway, 'How to Win Friends and Influence People' was a top seller in my days at Whitcoulls and I never actually read it.  I thought the title sounded a little self absorbed.

I was wrong!

I read this in wonder 💭

The principles are actually really good.  They make you look at how you listen and treat others people. How could I have missed this little gem of a read.  Maybe it was the title or maybe I wasn't ready to read it.  Different place and different time; now I pick it up and become so absorbed in the literature and kindness of the author's principles. 

He connected each idea and added a reminder from time to time extremely well throughout the book, which keep me reading and remembering each idea as it built on the the concepts along the way.  I was reminded of the great mentors I've had, who showed me that listening and respecting other people was the greatest gift that we could give to relationships, be they the local dairy assistant or employer, an employee, friend or family member.  We all need to read this book as a reminder of the old 'treat others as you would like to yourself be treated'.  There is the added reminder of how written language communicates in more ways than we often realize - remember when we use to communicate with each other via written mail 😂 the days when we sent a letter rather than an email, text or a Zoom link. Actually, I quite pleased that we can communicate so quickly.... and now I am reminded of the importance of how that communication (or lack of replied communication) may influence or even effect the other persons day.

Interesting!

Even writing this gets me thinking again about how we communicate with each other.

Have you not replied to or simply forgotten (or forgotten on purpose!) to reply to a message lately?  Think about it.... how hard is it to communicate.  Let's all take a simple look at how we influence each situation, for the good or bad, through our communication.  

This book is worth reading.  Look past the title and have a little look inside, there are some great little principles that are worth thinking about.  From time to time we can do with a reminder of how our communications influence even little things in someone else's day and our own.


Happy reading




This was available from: Book Depository and Fishpond



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