How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale CarnegieMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book is an essential read that works as as tool to refine your skills of persuasion, manners, message delivery, and far most importantly, manipulation.
The last part may seem like a cynical take, but it's tough to deny that the book preaches that getting your way is paramount, and the means to an end, no matter how seemingly virtuous are nothing more than your "Art of War"-like stratagems.
Most of the advice centers around detachment and empathy. By separating yourself from the task at hand and seeing things from your adversary's perspective, you can design gambits that get them to drop their inhibitions and shift to your manner of thinking.
The examples given of the success of such tactics often seem exaggerated, but there's little debate that in most cases, underplaying your hand works far better than intensity and pressure.
Recommendations include softening bad news or criticism with compliments, ignoring the objective of your conversation in order to forge a connection that will make the person you're speaking to more agreeable.
Timeless, reliable and still ahead of its time decades after publication, Dale Carnegie's book provides crucial words to live by. I recommend it to all, as well as to myself to reinforce the stark, beneficial truths within.
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