My mother recommended Dale Carnegie's 'How to Win Friends and Influence People' to me when I was a teenager and I recall starting to read it but then losing interest... oh how I wish I had persevered. It could have made so much of a difference in my life.
Unfortunately after years of bad habits, it becomes just that much harder to pick up the principles when you are older. I finally read the entire book earlier this year and immediately attempted to put the advice to work. I had been having difficulties at work and thought it may make a difference... and so it did, a few times.
Using the advice in social situations was also helping... however, it was all too easy to drop when I stopped actively trying, assuming I had it in hand. Some of Carnegie's principles sound easy but they require effort and checking in with yourself regularly otherwise you will slip back into old habits without realising.
Being a bit of a chatterbox, one principle I found extra hard to keep up and very easy to forget about was to listen rather than talk. You really just don't know how often you talk about yourself in conversations until you actively prevent yourself from doing so.
Since my life doesn't really leave a lot of time or interest for anything other than work and my kids, when holding myself back from talking for the sake of talking, I really had nothing to add to a conversation, as I had no topics that didn't pertain to me. I can tell you, for a person who loves to talk, it drove me crazy!
I did get a bit of a thrill though each time I managed to get an interesting response from someone else as a result of me enquiring after them instead of the usual blah blah blah from me and hmm hmm's from them.
While I have read it recently, I will be reading back through 'How to Win Friend's and Influence People', chapter by chapter to see if I can prevent myself from dropping the ball this time!
Here is an exerpt from the audio book...
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