Don’t let the title put you off
I listened to the whole book, and it’s easily one of my favourites.
How to Win Friends and Influence People sounds a bit cringe at first. It’s also a pretty old book, so I wasn’t sure how much I’d get out of it. But within the first few minutes I was hooked, and by the end the title actually made sense.
What I liked is that it doesn’t try to make human relationships unnecessarily complicated. It’s a collection of simple, straightforward ideas about how to treat people. Most of them feel almost obvious once you hear them. The interesting part is realising how often we forget to do them.
These are the things that stuck with me most.
Be genuinely interested in other people
One of the first ideas is that making friends isn’t about trying to make everyone interested in you. It’s about actually becoming interested in them.
There’s a line in the book about making more friends in two months by showing genuine interest than in two years of trying to attract other people’s attention. That idea sums it up nicely.
Ask people about their lives, pay attention to their answers, and actually care. Not as a trick to make them like you, but because everyone has something interesting about them.
Remember people’s names
This is such a small thing, but it can make a big difference.
The book points out how important our own names are to us. I can relate to that. Even when someone I know forgets my name or mispronounces it, I feel a little bad, even if I know they didn’t mean anything by it.
Remembering and using someone’s name is a pretty simple way of showing that they matter.
Make people feel important
Another point I really liked is not deciding how important someone is based on their job title, rank, or position.
Try to approach people with the idea that everyone knows something you don’t, and everyone has something worth learning from. It’s easy to give more attention to someone senior or influential without even noticing you’re doing it.
I think this is worth practising with everyone, regardless of what they do.
Actually listen
This is probably one of the simplest pieces of advice and one of the hardest to practise consistently.
It’s so easy to drift off when someone has been talking for a while. Even at work, I catch myself thinking about something else or preparing what I’m going to say next instead of properly listening.
The book’s advice is to give people your full attention and let them talk.
And that goes along with another idea: talk about what interests the other person. If you know they’re interested in something, spend a little time learning about it. Conversations become much easier when you give people room to talk about things they genuinely care about.
Smile more
Another ridiculously simple one: smile.
It costs nothing, but it can change the way someone feels about an interaction. It doesn’t need much more explanation than that.
Don’t rush to criticise
It’s easy to criticise someone when they do something wrong. Trying to understand why they did it is harder.
One of the things I took from the book is to look at the situation from the other person’s point of view before reacting. If something needs to be corrected, work towards fixing it rather than just making them feel bad about it.
Anyone can point out mistakes. Being understanding and forgiving takes more effort.
Appreciate people, sincerely
People want to feel appreciated. And often we notice the things someone gets wrong much more easily than all the things they do right.
So when someone does something good, say it. It doesn’t have to be a big achievement. Genuine appreciation for small things matters too.
The important word here is genuine. It’s not about flattering people for the sake of it.
Avoid arguments when you can
This one feels especially true from personal experience.
You can present all the facts, prove your point, and technically win an argument. But afterwards you might still wonder whether you made the other person uncomfortable or damaged the relationship.
I notice this more when arguing with people I actually know, rather than with some anonymous person on the internet. Winning the point doesn’t always feel worth it.
The book includes a thought attributed to Benjamin Franklin about an argument being an empty victory if you lose the other person’s goodwill. That stayed with me.
When a discussion starts turning into an argument, I think it’s better to look for something both people can agree on. Even with a tiny thing, like deciding where to eat, there’s usually a way to arrive at a solution without making someone feel like they’ve lost.
Of course, that doesn’t mean agreeing with everything or avoiding every difficult conversation. It’s more about asking whether the argument is actually helping.
Admit your mistakes
This is something I’ve seen work in my own professional life.
When I make a mistake, admitting it clearly and taking ownership usually works much better than making excuses or getting defensive.
Sometimes it even helps to acknowledge the mistake before someone else has to point it out. It takes the tension out of the conversation and lets everyone move on to fixing the problem.
It’s a simple principle, but one I genuinely believe in.
Worth keeping?
Absolutely. One of my favourite books I’ve listened to.
Some of the advice sounds almost too obvious when you put it in a list like this. But that’s what I liked about it. It takes ordinary things we already sort of know and explains why they matter, with examples that make them easier to remember.
The title might make you hesitate, and the book definitely shows its age in places. But I found it surprisingly engaging from the beginning, and there are plenty of things in it I still want to get better at practising.
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