TOW 11

Dale Carnegie created a new style of literature after his writing of How to Win Friends & Influence People and it is plain to see why.  His writing style conveys simple ways to live your life and improve your personality in a way that it draws them out for understanding.  Ideas that he could easily state in a handful of words he instead extends, adding in anecdotes and other analyses all in an effort to engrain the ideas in his reader.  For example, in one of the early sections of his book Carnegie writes about the importance of making the person who you are talking to feel important, and to talk about something they care about.  He then gives an example that one of his students, of a course with the same name as the book, had a case in which he implemented this idea.  He said that this student was doing landscaping for a judge and that he knew the judge was an avid dog breeder and had won awards.  When the judge was talking with the student the student inquired about this passion.  The judge went on to talk for hours with the man about it even giving him a present of a puppy he had bred, a puppy worth hundreds of dollars, and even drew up all of the paper work and wrote out instructions on feeding it, all because he inquired about the judges passion and made him feel important.  These anecdotes really help Carnegie’s point along.  By helping the reader understand the effects of these tactics the reader is much more likely to believe in them and put them into practice than if they were just some abstract idea.  One thing that is important to remember when reading this book however is that it was written over fifty years ago.  For this reason many of the ideas are dated and much of the side topics he references are hard to understand or know fully.  For example, he talks of politicians at that time who are not known as well now.