How to Win Friends and Influence People : Real life application.

How to Win Friends and Influence People : Real life application.
Ever since the year 1912, Dale Carnegie has held a lot of adult education seminars in public speaking that has an application in both the informal as well as the business settings. It later dawned on him after the United YMCA organization and University of Chicago did a survey where it was discovered that the second desire in almost every adult is to persuade, understand and make other individuals like them. On the realization of this, Dale Carnegie embarked to create a fresh book without any known reference book. In 1936, the book, “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” was published by Dale Carnegie. The book’s sales skyrocketed, and it became one of the first best-selling books that deal with self-help. For a very long time, my father advised me to read this book to help my networking skills in college. The coincidence is that my course required me to read the book too, and after reading it, I now know why my father insisted that I should read this book; it has substantially improved my leadership and networking skills.
In the chapter, “A simple way to make…” the author’s primary principle is the importance of smiling when interacting with other individuals. He states that happiness is not dependent on an individual’s outward condition or what an individual has or who an individual is or where a person is at; rather, it is what a person thinks about it that makes him/her happy or sad (Carnegie, 67). The message Carnegie passes here resonates with me because I often experience a lot of problems opening myself up to things that are new to me and I also have a sense of learned helplessness.

Accordingly, when I read this chapter, I made a decision to change the way I think about my situation, my success and even myself. This exercise helped me become happier as I realized that life was not as bad as I might have thought it was. I made a decision always to try and look at things in a positive manner.
There was another scenario where I had a gig that required me to advertise the micro job app for my company through networking to the school faculty, recruiting employers and students during a Job Fair in my region. The fair was formal and smaller than I had anticipated and there were some tables where around 15 different employers would discuss matters on the opening positions of the student. For a good portion of the time, the companies inquired about the organization that I worked for as well as asked about my student career. Through the knowledge I had acquired from Carnegie’s book, I successfully made the organization I used to work for and myself more memorable. I discussed the things that I saw they had a genuine interest in. An individual can deduce the topics that interest a person. Carnegie (91) stated that after studying the relationship between human beings, he decided to shift tact and decided to discover the thing that interested the man (customers in this case). Later on, I decided to go around the employers’ tables (not sitting) handing them pamphlets and telling them of the experience I had working with the organization and application while downing the organization’s t-short. For the first three tables, this was not successful as people looked at me in an awkward manner. Consequently, I decided to switch tactics and went and sat at the tables at this point without the t-shirt and just as a student. This tactic surprisingly reaped more benefits since I was able to tune into my student side, being genuinely interested in the stories and positions the students and employers had to offer and displaying active listening skills. Having discussions founded on the basis of the other individual’s interest made it easier for me to relay the idea that I wanted to deliver. I mirrored this after reading the fourth chapter of the book, where Carnegie elaborates a somehow similar scenario at a dinner party where he tuned up to a botanist who spoke for hours about plants. After the party, as the two left, the botanist complimented Carnegie a lot by stating that he was an excellent conversationalist (Carnegie 81). The dinner party became very memorable even if Carnegie did not play bridge. The reason behind this turn out of events is that a lot of people like talking about themselves. Having the attribute of an active listener as well as encouraging the people you are having a conversation with to tell you more about themselves is something that I found very handy in my field. I am relieved of the fact that I don’t need to have the best stories to be an interesting individual. On the contrary, I need to become an active listener. A statement from Henry James, a novelist that gave his speech on Dr. Charles Eliot, Harvard President, goes, “…Listening is not a mere silence but an activity” (Carnegie 82).
On the other hand, Aesop Slave Greek, who was a teacher of human nature in Greece stated that when an individual has a coat, the sun can take it off much quicker as compared to the wind. He also added that the friendly and kind approach can make individuals change their minds quicker as compared to all the bluster and storming in the universe (Carnegie 142). In a nut shell, an introduction that is friendly leaves a lasting impression as compared to one that is cold. After learning this, I realized that I have a face that is very strong structured and when I am straight faced, I appear quite cold. A lot of my friends often say that I have a stone face. I applied this technique in two scenarios that I can recall. The first scenario was when I was called for an interview for an internship position in a reputable company. Before the interview, I prepared myself and decided that I would use the techniques that I had learnt from Dale Carnegie’s book. One of these techniques was to approach the people in interview panel in a much friendlier manner. Accordingly, when I walked into the interview room, I smiled, hand shook every interviewer while wishing them a good morning. I noticed that the interviewers smiled back and were much more receptive of me when I did this. This technique even set the tone for the entire interview as every interviewer was much more relaxed and they interviewed me in a much friendly manner in comparison to other interviews that I had attended in the past.
Another way that I utilized Carnegie’s theory of smiling and being friendly was when making friends in college. As most college students might be aware, in a school setting, there are different students; rich, poor, smart, responsible, spoilt, brilliant, sharp, hardworking, and lazy among other attributes. Others are a combination of more than one character. As a result, there are differences experienced among the students. These differences lead to difficulties in establishing relationships among the students. In most cases, the rich kids will hang out together and they will despise the other students especially not of their status. This leads continued separation of students through the formation of social groups in the schools. This occurs whereby a group of students who consider themselves as of a certain similarity or belonging disintegrates themselves from the rest. They form a group, whereby, they will always hang out together and move in groups, they vow to protect each other. For one to join the group, he or she ought to be ‘initiated’ through the group’s formalities. Accordingly, being the type of person that was not very social, I experienced some difficulties meeting new friends. Most of the people were already arranged in their groups and joining one seemed a hard task. Every time I walked around the campus, I would be in awe of the number of students travelling in groups of five to seven people. Moreover, in the college setting, the lives of students are structured based on race, gender, and class. In terms of race, students get separated based on whether they are white, black, and Hispanic among other races. It is not uncommon to see white, black or Hispanic people forming their social group solely based on their race. This might be due to the fact that they have much more in common and feel more at home in their respective groups. Nonetheless, this social differentiation based on race tends to have a negative effect on the participants since they do not have the opportunity to interact on a more personal level with a person of a different race thereby in a way contributing to racism over time. These types of groups have been of a lesser merit than the demerits since they have brought about conflicts such as fights which have been the source of adverse problems in the institutions. These groups have resulted in poor performance by students owing to the much concentration they accord to their groups rather than the class work. Suffice to conclude that these groups are not safe havens for the groupies rather they are their academic graves. They are build and necessitated by nothing else other than peer pressure ); students will think that belonging to a certain group is an achievement little do they know of the atrocities coming their way. There is a huge difficulty while trying to exit the group since one is characterized by loneliness and feeling of betrayal or regret towards the group. Moreover, the society and specifically, school administrators have always stereotyped students. They have dabbed some students are lazy, cruel, among other things without asking specific questions and the reasons behind the actions of the student. Accordingly, with this knowledge at hand, I embarked on a mission to utilize the skills that I learned from Carnegie’s book to see if I can use them to penetrate these ‘groups.’ To my surprise, I realized that when one uses the techniques outlined in Carnegie’s book such as smiling, having a genuine interest in other individuals, being a good listener, and sincerely making the other individual feel important, it is very easy to make friends in different groups or with different personalities.
In a nut shell, through the utilization of the techniques in Carnegie’s book, my leadership and networking skills have substantially increased in my personal, professional and school life.

Work Cited.
Carnegie, Dale. How to Win Friends and Influence People. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981. Print.