Ways To Make People Like You

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

Six Ways To Make People Like You

I am currently reading How To Wind Friends & Influence People, by Dale Carnegie. That is where I got the idea for today’s post.

Part two of the book is the title that is above, I think there might be more ways but I will just list what he has and give some examples to each.

1) Become genuinely interested in people; this one  will need more than one example.  I highlighted this one, You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people, than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you. That is profound because as he says people are interested in themselves more.

Remember this book was first published in 1936. This statement is profound to me and after reading the first chapter you can also understand why I say that. He told of how the New York Telephone Company did a study on telephone conversations to find out which word is most frequently used. It is the personal pronoun “I”.

So basically when you show an interest in them and let them see you as someone who cares they will show an interest in you.

2) Smile; Actions speak louder than words, and a smile says, “I like you. You make me happy, and I am glad to see you.”  That is the simplest way to make a good first impression. Besides a smile is a very good way to make people like you.

3) Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language; most people don’t remember names, mostly for the simple reason that they don’t take the time or energy to concentrate and repeat and fix names indelibly in their minds. They make excuses such as they are too busy.

Nobody is busier than a President such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, he took the time to remember and recall even the names of mechanics with whom he came in contact with.

4) Be a good listener, encourage others to talk about themselves; this is going to sound strange but he equates this to an easy way to become a good conversationalist. An example of this is of a young boy named Edward Bok, he never had more than six years of school and yet he made himself one of the most successful magazine editors in the history of American journalism.

He left school at thirteen and became an office boy, but he never gave up on the idea of an education he started to educate himself. He saved by going without a lunch or paying for carfare till he had enough money to purchase an encyclopedia of American biography. He read the lives of famous people and wrote to them asking for additional information about their childhoods. He was a good listener.

So to aspire to be a good conversationalist, be an attentive listener, you gain more and if you want to be interesting, be interested.

5) Talk in terms of the other person’s interests; Everyone who was ever a guest of Theodore Roosevelt could not believe the range and diversity of his knowledge. No matter who the guest may have been he knew what to say. He did this with every visitor, he sat up late the night before, reading up on the subject in which his guest was most interested.

Roosevelt knew that the road to a person’s heart is to talk about the things they treasured most, what they were interested in.

6) Make the other person feel important….and do it sincerely; or ways to make people like you instantly. He states their is an all important human law of human conduct. If you obey this law you will almost never get into trouble. In fact that law if obeyed can bring you countless friends and constant happiness.

The law is this: Always make the other person feel important. John Dewey said that the desire to be important is the deepest urge in human nature. William James said: “The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.

Ways to make people like you today

You have to remember that these ideas came from the year 1936. Today you can apply the same principles although it might be said differently.

There are no guarantees in these principles some people just won’t like you no matter what you do. However if you try and make the effort to reach out to someone you never know.

The ways to make people like you could be completely different than what I have stated here. However you see or state a way to make someone like you is first and foremost up to you.

Marion Groff