A little history: Dale Carnegie is the father of self-help books. He wrote the 1936 business communication self-help book “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” which was so popular that it remains in print today.
The title might make the advice inside seem like an oversell, but the book sold so well — 5 million copies in his lifetime — because his techniques really work. Using the power of positive thinking is how Carnegie lived. Worked for him, right? “How to Win Friends and Influence People” is less a “how to” for tricking people into agreeing with you than it is about sharing an argument in favorable way.
One of the core lessons in all of Carnegie’s books is that you can change another person’s mindset by focusing on your behavior toward them (catch more flies with honey, as they say), and I use that mindset at work all the time. Yelling, crying, or pouting never works in a debate.
This quote wraps it up pretty nicely for me. You’ll never get the things you want out of life if you’re always pining for this and that instead of appreciating where you are, who you are, and what you have.
Even though this was written almost a century ago, Carnegie’s writing actually still is extremely sound and applicable today. I found another quote of his on happiness that I’ll leave you with:
“Remember, happiness doesn’t depend upon who you are or what you have, it depends solely upon what you think.”
