Reddit reviews How to Win Friends and Influence People

If your relationship skill was an inherent trait then logically you'd never be able to get better at it. But I'm sure you know many people in your life that have gotten better at relationships, I know I do.

If you want to improve I can recommend a couple of extremely useful books:

• How to Win Friends and Influence People
  
  
• 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
  
  There are a ridiculous number of so called "self help" books out there but these two are full of genuinely useful ideas. They can't teach you everything, you've gotta put this stuff into practice to truly understand it, but them books have had more of an impact on my life than probably anything else I've experienced.
  
  Hope this helps ya mate :) and good luck for the future.

If you haven't already then I can totally recommend you read "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie, it's an old book but brilliant, easy to read, and helped me a lot with understanding people and how they think.


 

Edit: A version of this book appears to be shared under Public Domain on archive.org, and is free to download in EPUB format if you are interested in checking it out.

Check out How To Win Friends And Influence People, by Dale Carnegie. Although it's an old book (oiriginally published in 1937), much of it is still very relevant today.

While you're at it, check out Clark Kegley's Youtube channel.

Personally, though, I would bear in mind the following:

• If you're doing a presentation in a room with 500 people in it, you're not talking to 500 people - you're talking to one person, 500 times, simultaneously. That sounds stupid, but talking to a crowd isn't hugely different from talking to a single person - you do that almost every day, you know you can do that.
  
  
• Fear, biochemically, is no different from excitement. I don't recall the researcher's name, but there was a study in which participants were injected with Adrenalin and put in a room with another "participant" (actually an actor), who was displaying body-language consistent with either fear or excitement. Participants reported feeling the same thing as the actor portrayed, despite there being no difference in injection from one case to the next.
  
  
• Know your subject matter well. If you do, it'll show as confidence in your presentation.

Check out groups on http://www.meetup.com/cities/ie/dublin/

Also I strongly advise you to get some foreign friends as you get a whole new perspective on life.

There is tons of new people who have moved to Dublin who would love to get to know a local.

They may sound incredibly cheesy but dale Carnegie books are well worth a read for your situation. http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0091906814

Oldies are the goodies here... How to win friends and influence people, Dale Carnegie

> I cannot fit in because I'm not going to lie to you to be polite.


You know who says things like this? Assholes.

I'm sorry to break it to you, but in taking a quick glance at some of your Reddit posts, you're not being impolite because you're lying. You're simply being unnecessarily rude. It's not about fitting in. There's a certain level of social awareness and tact in interpersonal relationships.


> I guess i don't care enough to do anything.

Therein lies the rub. If you don't care enough to do anything, why are you asking this question? Are you actually looking for advice? Or making a statement that you're happy disguising impoliteness as "truth telling"?

If you're actually looking for advice, start by reading up on social skills. How to Win Friends and Influence People is a great book to begin with.

Here's a great video from Ramit Sethi about "Being Honest without being a Jerk"

I hope this is useful and if you have more specific questions, I'm happy to help.

There are a few thread in the Red Pill about reading lists:

Red Pill Reading List

Further red pill reading.

Personally, I would recommend How to Make Friends and Influence People

Not too late at all, I'm so pleased you have decided to participate this year.

Sometimes accomplishments aren't big or memorable, even if you didn't do anything life changing this year I'm sure you accomplished things in your daily life - getting good grades for example, making your parents proud, being there for a friend, facing a fear, overcoming a hardship, and so on.

I think it can be helpful to plan out how you are going to achieve your goals. So...

1. For goal 1, you'd like to gain weight and get stronger. How much weight would you like to gain? How are you going to get stronger? Maybe you could go to the gym x times per week? Or do x amount of deadlifts/bench press (or whatever it is, I don't know anything about lifting haha).
   
   
2. Goal 2 is to be more confident. There's loads of threads and subreddits about confidence, as well as Youtube channels such as Elliot Hulse and Robin Sharma, and books such as How to Win Friends and Influence People.
   
   
3. I think if you achieve goals 1 and 2 you will stand a better chance of achieving goal 3 (to get into a relationship). And goal 4 (getting your life together) will be a combination of all of your goals.
   
   
4. Find out what you really want. So I assume since you said A-Levels you are from the UK (me too) and it seems that you're either in the last year of college or in year 11?
   
   What subjects have you chosen to study in college? What decisions are people trying to push you towards? Maybe writing it out here will help to organise your thoughts. I recommend taking a few of those online 'career decider' quizzes, I think Ucas do one. They're surprisingly helpful!
   
   It's great that you are travelling to Indonesia and will get to experience new cultures, but I recommend that you don't go there with an expectation to 'find out what you really want'. It's just that I've seen many, many people my age (22) do the same sort of thing and they come back with more confidence and lots of great stories and memories from their trip, but it didn't really help them in deciding on a career path. I think it would be beneficial to speak to a careers advisor at college or spend lots of time researching possible careers online.
   
   Well, that's all for now! Hope it helped :)

>Furthermore I just don't know what my purpose is. I don't have anything to work towards, I don't know what I want in life.

Welcome to adult life, the realisation that this is it. You have to make your own entertainment, set your own goals.

There is a massive difference between depression which is an illness and a general disillusionment with life. The first should seek medical help the second is just life, get on with it.

I can't answer to the first but the second, well I have some experience. Get a hobby, preferable both physical and social.

You have three beasts to satisfy.
The intellectual, the social and the physical.

Intellectual is easy, read a book. You were a student reading should come naturally. This time do it for entertainment and enlightenment. (I find that they are often the same thing)

Physical is so very important, we are intelligent animals but we are still animals. We need exercise! it's good for our health and mental wellbeing. Go for a walk!

Social is more tricky, picking up a book is easy, going for a walk is easy. Finding a social group is way harder. Those lucky people that have large social groups just seem to fall into them and don't appreciate their good fortune.

The good news is that it's just a skill and skills can be learnt. You learn them from reading books, see that's the first thing I mentioned.

Welcome to the world of self-help books. There is a lot of dross in this world but there are gems to be harvested from the shitpile.

First on the list is a classic. How to win friends and influence people. LINK if you find it useful, then there are several others from the same author.

TLDR: Read more, talk to people and go for a walk.

The last time I saw someone on reddit have this problem, this was linked: http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0091906814

I've never had a chance to read it (I might do soon), but I've heard it's very good.

Also, here's a summary if you're super lazy: http://sameffect.com/how-to-win-friends-and-influence-people-summary/

If I were you I would start training Social and Positive Thinking. A few points in each should do.

Here is a skill book that gives you free points in Social when you read it.

Here is a skill book which gives you a free point Positive Thinking.

These are also known to give a temporary boost to the related skills if you take one every day.

Goodluck and don't worry, it gets much easier in the later levels.

[Yes you can](
https://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0091906814)

I think many people experience this feeling to a greater or lesser degree.

Social norms change from group to group and with age and for a lot of other reasons, and just when you think you have got it right someone changes them again.

There is a fine line between trying to fit in and trying to have a mind of your own and be your own person.

Personally I prefer being me, not what someone else wants me to be. The people I attract are those with a bigger view of the world. Those that I put off are generally the ones I would want to steer clear of (in my mind insincere and shallow).

A good book to look at is How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.

You need this

Obligatory book : http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0091906814

I used to consider myself practically autistic, but I'm a bit better with practise. If you can manage groups, I'm surprised you have trouble one on one. I guess you're good at banter?

Talk about how they feel about things. Hows it going? Good weekend? Doing much this weekend? What do you do for fun?

People prefer people who make them feel interesting, rather than people who are interesting. So be curious about them. Pay attention to them when you talk to them.

Find out what they like talking about, and let them talk about it. People are often an expert at something. See if there's anything you find interesting about that.

But don't repeat the same overly specific question every day. That gets tedious or weird.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0091906814

> And your edit means jack shit. You haven't sent this laptop in so bitching about service for this laptop shows you are a fucktard cunt.

I don't usually respond to things like this, but I'm going to recommend a book that you should read: http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0091906814/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1417227968&sr=1-1&keywords=how+to+win+friends+and+influence+people

I think you'd find in general people would take you more seriously if you weren't so abrasive.

strange no one mentioned this book.. "the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip

for anyone lacking social skills this book is important. The first 3 chapters alone will help your career a lot.

I really enjoyed reading "The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck"
It taught me about giving a fuck only for the things that deserve it.

I also enjoyed "How To Win Friends and Influence People" which taught me that it's not about me - it's about being genuine with, and interested in, other people. My pride? Who gives a fuck! I'm embarrassed? Who gives a fuck!

I then read "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" which talks a lot about how to identify what it is you want, and what you care about, and how to align yourself and your life with that. It's a really positive book that I highly recommend reading!

Edit: I also absolutely loved "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelious which is generally about stoicism. The version I read was all "thou shalt", but I've seen somebody on Reddit quote a modern one which made for much easier reading! But Marcus Aurelious basically kept a journal of things he wanted to remind himself of, about his place in the world and his duty. I really, highly recommend it.

> should I stop trying?

Absolutely not, this is reason to keep trying. You just haven't met your true friends yet, but you will eventually.

If people aren't returning the invites or hanging out, drop them and move onto other people. It's pretty much like dating in that regard, you'll get time wasters and flaky people however if you rummage through enough shit you'll eventually find some treasure worth keeping!


On a side note, I keep hearing people recommending the book How to Win Friends and Influence People. I'm not sure if it is any use to you (I haven't got round to reading it yet, procrastination..) but thought i'd mention it anyway.

I want to help, but because of lack of time, i will give you an incomplete answer

I have recently written an MSc thesis related to Social Engineering, where i had to review a number of books / papers / articles. One starting point for you would be to start by looking at the reference section of the thesis [here] (http://pure.ltu.se/portal/en/studentthesis/social-engineering-and-influence\(0d61b8aa-30ad-4cb0-9039-e04832f250a7\).html).

In general, anything from Kevin Mitnick is a good start, together with Chris Hadnagy's book

If you are to read only one book, start with Carnegie's book.

If you need more information information, let me know

Buy this book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0091906814/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1465925874&sr=8-1&keywords=how+to+win+friends+and+influence+people

Read it end to end. If you have to ask a question like that, this book will be a massive eye opener for you. Hope it helps.

Four good ones:

The Art of the Deal by Donald Trump & Tony Schwartz
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
The Big Short by Michael Lewis
With Liberty and Justice for Some by Glen Greenwald

Two shitty ones (edit: yet still important to read):

The Rage Against God by Peter Hitchens
The Portable Atheist by Christopher Hitchens