12 Carnegie Principles That Win People to Your Way of Thinking

Welcome back to the Daily Mastermind. My name is George Wright III with your daily dose of inspiration, motivation, and education. I'm your host today and welcome back to day three of our five-day series on how to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie, one of the all-time best-selling books of all time. And we're covering a high-level review of the principles and strategies that he taught in this book. And I want to remind you to pick up a copy and dive into the stories and case studies because this is an all-time bestseller, 30 million copies sold for a reason. Now, I mentioned before that there are four parts to this book, techniques for handling people. The first day we actually talked about what the book can do for you, but then we have techniques for handling people, ways to make people like you, which is the two sections we covered yesterday. And then today we're going to cover winning people over to your way of thinking. There's 12 strategies there. and tomorrow we'll talk about becoming a leader. So part three we're going to cover today and this is win people to your way of thinking. And I want to really emphasize this section because many people in business work on manipulation or sales or persuasion from a different angle. What Dale Carnegie talks about here is winning people over to your way of thinking, not selling and manipulating people to your way of thinking. So let's dig in for a minute to these 12 principles. The first one is the only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it. The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it. We all know that no one wins an argument. Even when you win, you lose. Even when you lose, you lose, right? You need to learn to take a minute, process the facts of what's going on, and maybe change your perspective even a little because the only way to win an argument is to avoid it and you do that by showing more self and more character in every situation The second strategy is to show respect for the other person opinions Never say you're wrong. Telling somebody that they're wrong only causes negative feelings, you know, bad blood. And in the end of the day, even when they are wrong, you're going to gain more ground by being persuasive, by being indirect about hitting it. Especially if you criticize in public, it's just a really bad idea. I've learned over time that you do that in private and you can do that in a much more persuasive way than to say you're wrong. So show respect and never say you're wrong. The third principle is if you're wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically. Because here's the thing. We talk about this with prosperity pillars. When you take accountability and responsibility for your life and you're willing to do that quickly and you're willing to admit when you're wrong and be decisive about it, the bottom line is you're going to have far more influence over people and you'll have much more trust with individuals. I've had situations like that happen even recently where I've had a bad day and I've overreacted or I've done something that I knew I probably shouldn't have done and immediately, you know, I would own up to it. And the reason I want to do that is because I want to maintain a relationship and influence and trust. And the best way to do that is if you're wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically. Okay, number four, begin in a friendly way. People are always more open and responsive when you are beginning your conversations, your negotiations, your business in a friendly way. Even if you're upset or you're having a bad day we're gonna gain more ground and we're gonna have much more influence over others when we begin in a friendly way and so that's a very strong point I want to make to bring into every aspect of your communication the fifth principle is get the other person saying yes yes immediately Now this is going to be a great one for us to cover in further episodes because it's a great sales technique. When you get people saying yes, they get into a pattern of affirmation, not negativity, but positivity. You're going to get more ground with them. You're going to get more results. So start with questions that you know the answer is going to be yes to. Start with, you know, obvious questions that someone can feel comfortable and easy saying yes to. And the more yes they say, the easier it will be. The easier it will be for you to lead them to your decisions that you want them to make. So that's the fifth principle, getting other people to say yes, yes. The sixth one is let the other person do a great deal of talking. You know, you've heard you have two ears and one mouth for a reason, right? But people do like to talk about themselves. and they really want to know someone's going to listen. And when you listen, you're going to get far more clues as to how you can work with someone and help them to achieve what they desire. So ask questions rather than telling people what you want to tell them. Ask questions and listen carefully and you're going to be far more effective at what you're doing in business and life and relationships. Principle number seven is let the other person feel that the idea is theirs. This is something I've learned in leadership as well as, you know, from being a leader as well as being in conversation with my leaders, right? Let the other person feel the ideas there because people are far more committed to their own ideas than to your idea. And with proper questions and good communication, you can lead people to the conclusion you want them to be led to. And when they come to that conclusion on their own, they're going to be far more bought in and they're going to feel much more comfortable with it. So let other people feel that the idea is theirs Number eight principle number eight is try honestly to see things from the other person point of view And you know this is a great Stephen Covey principle right Seek first to understand, then to be understood. Because people don't listen until they know you've been listening. So adopt that sympathetic grasp of someone else's viewpoint and try to understand them before you want them to understand you. They're going to be far more receptive to doing that. Okay. Number nine, principle nine, be sympathetic with the other person's ideas and desires. You know, people want to get sympathy, right? They want to get empathy. They want someone to understand and listen to their problems. And there's a lot of great ways to do this. One of the ways that I've done this, and it's a technique we use in sales a lot called the feel felt found technique. You know, a really quick way to be able to transition from what someone's thinking, but not do that in a way that they don't feel that you're being sincere, is you can say, listen, I understand how you feel. I felt the same way. What I've found is this to be the case. And I've used that with customers, with sales, with all kinds of things. You know, someone might have this massive issue and they just want to be heard. They just want you to listen to what they're saying. And a nice way to deal with that is to say, I understand how you feel. I'd feel the same way, or I felt the same way. But this is what I found. I can help you through your problem. I can help you with what you need. But people want you to be sympathetic to their ideas and needs. And that's number nine. Number 10 is appeal to the nobler motives. Now, this is one that, you know, may or may not be applicable to certain things you're doing in your business. But the bottom line is people want to do things for what they believe are good reasons. And people are usually acting and driven by their motives and their desires, right? And they want their motives and desires to be good. So keep that in mind and appeal to what their ideal or their nobler motives are, and you'll get a lot accomplished for sure.