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Comment by bradbatt | Hacker News Reader

"How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie, because it changed my understanding of people for the better.

Absolutely everyone should read this book. I wish it had a better title. "Understanding People" would be an excellent one.

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I've seen this book recommended many times. I read a few chapters and don't feel like it was useful. Some of the stuff is obvious common sense like smile don't criticize others, be a good listener etc. Then it tells you to be genuinely interested in someone. How can you force yourself to be interested in someone?

Does the book go into anything actually useful later on?

Some people are born communicators and find interaction with others completely intuitive.

Others are born with a brain more ready to understand math, or writing screenplays, or software engineering, or business management - and bumble their way through communication, getting a lot wrong, not knowing where the lines are between their successes and failures, and generally having a miserable time.

Books like these define specific scopes to focus on as worth investing time and energy in, with the promise that understanding in these areas will definitely bring reward, as unintuitive as this may seem [to these people].

I wouldn't mind similar ones that explain learning how to learn, on a related note.

You imply that emotional intelligence and reasoning ability are a tradeoff. They aren't.

Woops, that was unintentional.

Although... now I think about it... when I'm anxious (I have reasonably mild but fairly broadly scoped anxiety), I can become more emotional/instinctive/reactive to things, and my ability to reason can be greatly impacted as well.

So I do think there is some indirect correlation, in practice.

Emotional intelligence does not imply that you are driven by emotions. It imply that you understand them, which makes it easier to control how you react.

Someone who is emotional is not displaying emotional intelligence at that moment.

I definitely agree with you there.

Often when I feel certain ways, I don't have reference points to mentally articulate how I'm feeling - if I even have the ability to consciously distinguish the feeling and highlight it. That shuts down a lot of internal dialog and analysis before it has the chance to take place.

When I'm anxious, my thinking is clouded across the board, which makes this weakness all the more apparent.

I wonder if there are any books out there that specifically help to instil an understanding of the nuances in emotional processing.

Even if they are orthogonal, they are less likely to occur in the same person than either apart.

> learning how to learn

Look at the writings of Dr. Barbara Oakley or at https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn.

Thanks so much, this is now on my todo list :)

I found someone uploaded all of the videos to YouTube!

Unfortunately I don't have the disk space to download them at this exact moment (been saving for several months for a couple new disks, not quite there yet) so I've base64-encoded the following YouTube playlist URL to heighten the chances the videos stay up til I can grab them (both to archive them and also because I download videos to watch them - old computer).

data:text/plain;base64,aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cueW91dHViZS5jb20vcGxheWxpc3Q/bGlzdD1QTFcxcDdMZkhNTW5ERVQxcjh2Ymo4a1FENHNndXM1dnFZCg==

I also found https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCojOYrwehhFpaJfYG3DziHA/vid..., which has some related videos (that I think were placed on YouTube explicitly).

No, It doesn't. I've read it a few times trying to glean similar understanding and I just cannot for the life of me see anything beyond a basic human social communications and behavior. Perhaps if you knew absolutely nothing about communicating with others it would be beneficial.

I find the little bit I read helpful because it helps you be more deliberate about these things. Though I stopped because I had a strong "yeah i get it" feeling after a few chapters.

Yes, it reads like common sense. But then even major politicians could learn a lot by reading it. Bill Clinton followed its principles. Hillary did not.

The book helped me a lot.

You're lucky if this is common sense for you. Sadly, for me, coming from a family where bad mood and malice is daily fare, this book was an eye opener.

For someone who was socially awkward growing up, it wasn't all common sense for me either.

I once had a neighbour tell me "I have a name, you know" and it seemed a crazy thing to say, of course they have a name! It wasn't until reading the book that I understood they were offended that I never used their name in conversation.

I don't use people's names during conversations and no one has ever pointed it out. Maybe I should read that book

It's worth reading, even if just to understand why others are recommending it. Sometimes they're not really recommending the book, but just "this book was the first to get me thinking about people skills".

The section on names is Chapter 3, ending with the principle "Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language."

The chapter itself rambles on a bit and claims the success of US presidents & Andrew Carnegie is their ability to memorize thousands of first names... I think that's an exaggeration. But there's an element of truth to it, if you keep it in the back of your mind and try it yourself, memorizing people's names & using their name when you next meet them. (Especially at nightclubs, which is where I probably learned/used it most.)

Think of it as the difference between a letter addressed "Dear Ozovehe" vs "To Whom It May Concern". The latter shows they haven't even tried to get to know you personally. And now you'll notice when email / internet marketers try to use your name for just that reason....

It doesn't necessarily mean during conversations (which can be and sound weird), but could simply mean when greeting them.

As an example, do you have a normal bar, restaurant, or coffee shop that you go to? When you go in, I'm sure that they greet you as most places do, and you probably toss of a "Hi" or a "Hey" and that's about it, even if you know their name. Try this next time. When you walk in and they greet you, give them a big smile like you're happy to see a friend and actually address them by name with a "Hey Mark! Can I get a Miller Lite" or "Hey Deb, table for four tonight". It doesn't really take much effort, but it really builds a connection.

WARNING: I'll toss this in as a warning. Don't fake knowing their name if you don't. A sincere "Hi" with a smile is still good. An "Oh hey...(looks at name tag) Jill..." comes off as fake. However, if they go ahead and give you their name ("Hi, I'm Jill and I'll be your waitress this evening") then by all means go ahead and say "Hi Jill" and address her by name throughout the evening.

> Then it tells you to be genuinely interested in someone. How can you force yourself to be interested in someone?

I truly believe you can. I feel the issue is most of the time that we don't want to care. That we value our own ideas and issues higher than those of others. For me the practice of deep listening [1] really helped me to better relate with people with whom I didn't really relate beforehand. Yes, it's exhausting and yes, I fail still often enough but it shows me that we have a choice.

[1] https://www.mindful.org/deep-listening/

I started reading it recently and while most of the topics are pretty obvious. But we tend to forget those. For example the very first topic - don't criticize. With the advent of internet things have turned into black and white. The more you point someone the more ardently they will defend. For example Trump supporters. Pushed to brink, they now don't even care for his near impeachment behavior because now defending has become about pride.

I mostly concur with your sentiment. I have read it my summary is maybe "common sense meets idyllic 1950s TV show". Maybe I'm conflating manners and superficially "nice" behaviour and a few other things, but I found many pieces of advice borderline cringeworthy.

Then again I do know I am being too honest, but that's mostly a deliberate choice and not lack of empathy. I can refrain if needed.

Added to clarify: I'm German and so some of my (our) attributed directness and terseness is apparently at odds to some American forms of communication, and if you look at the book in this light it makes more sense. Also, I'd still encourage everyone to read it, I just don't buy the awesomeness :)

I like the story of the factory manager who sees some workers breaking the rules and smoking in in the factory.

He gives each of them an expensive cigar and says something like "I'd appreciate it if you guys smoked these outside."

Meanwhile on Google:

  Twelve Things This Book Will Do For You

    Get you out of a mental rut, give you new thoughts, new visions, new ambitions.
    Enable you to make friends quickly and easily.
    Increase your popularity.
    Help you to win people to your way of thinking.
    Increase your influence, your prestige, your ability to get things done.

This actually happens to be a Wikipedia excerpt which Google shows in a big frame in front of real search results. Either somebody did an impressive SEO job or Skynet is getting out of hand.

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