How to Win Friends and Influence People summary

Picture this. You've come home from a long day at work, and as soon as you open the door, you see your puppy bounding toward you. Her tail is wagging, and she's jumping up in excitement. You can’t help but smile at your cute, furry friend.

If you have a dog, then you understand why people keep them as pets: it's because of how they make us feel. Dogs make such great companions because they simply can't hide their affection for us.

In the midst of the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln summoned an old neighbor to the White House, seeking advice. When he arrived, Lincoln spent hours discussing the emancipation of the enslaved people in the South. Was it a good idea? Would the country as a whole react positively?

Lincoln went back and forth all evening, examining the pros and cons of every possible move. Then, without receiving a word of advice from his old friend, he finished up, thanked his neighbor, and sent him home.

How do you win an argument? By tangling your opponent in argumentative knots? By showing that your facts and figures are indeed correct? Or by cleverly exposing some logical fallacy in your opponent’s way of thinking?

None of these is a good idea. If you “win” an argument like that, your opponent will come to resent you – and if your opponent resents you, you can be sure he’ll never agree with you. 

Socrates, the ancient Greek philosopher, understood the fine art of persuasion. By asking the right questions in the right way, he convinced people to affirm things they’d never believed before.

How did he do it? Well, he made sure to get them in an affirmative state of mind. That means he got them into the habit of saying yes.

Jay Mangum was in a difficult situation. He represented an elevator maintenance company, and he needed to schedule some repairs at a hotel.

Jay knew the work would take a full day, but the hotel manager didn’t want to shut the elevator down for longer than two hours. So what did Jay do? Did he say that the repairs were impossible to rush?

Ruth Hopkins, a fourth-grade teacher from Brooklyn, New York, got a surprise on the first day of school. She’d been assigned a new class for the year and realized that Tommy, the biggest troublemaker in the school, was now among her students.

Though he was smart, Tommy was very disobedient – his previous teacher had complained about him day in, day out. How would Ruth cope?