The following contains excerpts from the book, How to Win Friends and Influence People (Dale Carnegie).
At our music school in Odessa, Texas we believe that making music is about much more than singing, playing and instrument, reading sheet-music, or understanding music theory. While all of these things are important skills in learning music, we teach students that music, in its essence is relationships.
One of the most important skills a student in our music school in Odessa, Texas can learn is how to relate successfully with people. In the arts, which are a means of communication, a musician must interface successfully with their community, influencing and being influenced by those relationships. The following thoughts are time-tested and will provide invaluable to the student with a listening ear.
Perhaps the most famous book by the most renowned author on the subject of Leadership within the past century, this book offers concise wisdom in time-tested principles in how to deal successfully with people.
The book is divided into four parts, 1) Fundamental Techniques in Handling People, 2) Six Ways to Make People Like You, 3) How to Win People to Your Way of Thinking, and 4) How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment.
Fundamental Techniques in Handling People
Principle 1- Don’t criticize, condemn, or complain. Criticizing others doesn’t yield anything positive. We aren’t able to make real changes by criticizing people, and we’re instead often met with resentment. It’s important to remember that when dealing with people, we’re dealing not with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion, who are motivated by pride and ego. Criticism is futile because it puts a person on the defensive and usually makes them strive to justify themselves.
Principle 2- Give honest and sincere appreciation. The only way we can get a person to do anything is by giving them what they want most: the desire to be important.
One of the most important things we give our students at our music school in Odessa, Texas is honest feedback, yet always with encouragement for future growth.
“The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.” (William James)
We tend to take the people in our lives for granted so often that we neglect to let them know that we appreciate them. ‘Flattery comes from the tongue; appreciation comes from the heart.’ With words of true appreciation, we have the power to completely change another person’s perception of themselves, improve their motivation, and be a driving force behind their success.
Principle 3- Arouse in the other person an eager want. Lloyd George, Great Britain’s Prime Minister during World War I, who stayed in power long after the other wartime leaders had been forgotten, was asked how he managed to remain on top. His response: He had learned that it is necessary to “bait the hook to suit the fish.” In other words, give people what they want, not what you want. Of course, you are interested in what you want. But no one else is. The rest of us are just like you: we are interested in what we want.
To convince someone to do something, we have to frame it in terms of what motivates them. And in order to do that, we have to be able to see things from their point of view as well as our own. If we can put aside our own thoughts, opinions, and wants, and truly see things from another person’s perspective, we will be able to convince them that it is in their best interest to do whatever it is we’re after.
The world is full of people who are grabbing and self-seeking. So the rare individual who unselfishly tries to serve others has an enormous advantage. He has little competition.
We endeavor to instill in students at our music school in Odessa, Texas an attitude of serving others, bringing joy and beauty into their lives through musical expression.
Six Ways to Make People Like You
Principle 1- Become genuinely interested in other people. “It is the individual who is not interested in his fellow men,” wrote Alfred Adler, the famous Austrian psychotherapist, “who has the greatest difficulties in life and provides the greatest injury to others. It is from such individuals that all human failures spring.” The bottom line is that you must become genuinely interested in others before you can ever expect anyone to be interested in you.
Principle 2- Smile. When we smile, we are letting people know we are happy to be with them, happy to meet them, happy to be interacting with them. They in turn feel happier to be dealing with us.
Principle 3- Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language. Calling someone by their name is like paying them a very subtle compliment. Conversely, forgetting or misspelling someone’s name can have the opposite effect and make it feel as though we are distant and disinterested in them. Remembering and using people’s names is also a critical component of good leadership. The executive who can’t remember his employees’ names can’t remember a significant part of his business, and is operating on quicksand. The information we are imparting or the request we are making takes on a special importance when we approach the situation with the name of the individual. From the waitress to the senior executive, the name will work magic as we deal with others.
Principle 4- Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves. Even the most ill-tempered person, the most violent critic, will often be subdued in the presence of a patient, sympathetic listener. Most of us are so concerned with what we are going to say next that we don’t truly listen when someone else is speaking. Yet, most people would prefer a good listener to a good talker. If you want to know how to make people shun you and laugh at you behind your back and even despise you, here is the recipe: Never listen to anyone for long. Talk incessantly about yourself. If you have an idea while the other person is talking, don’t wait for him or her to finish: bust right in and interrupt in the middle of a sentence. Aim to do 75% listening and 25% talking.
In music, as in life, one of the most important skills to learn is that of being a good listener. We hope to instill this priority into the students of our music school in Odessa, Texas.
Principle 5- Talk in terms of the other person’s interests. Whenever Theodore Roosevelt expected a visitor, he would stay up late the night before, reading up on whatever subject he knew particularly interested his guest. And that is because Roosevelt was keenly aware of the following idea: The royal road to a person’s heart is to talk about the things he or she treasures most.
Principle 6- Make the other person feel important. If we are so contemptibly selfish that we can’t radiate a little happiness and pass on a bit of honest appreciation without trying to get something out of the other person in return – if our souls are no bigger than sour crab apples, we shall meet with the failure we so richly deserve. The one all-important law of human conduct is to always make the other person feel important.
And just as the Golden Rule states, “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.”
The golden rule is successful in all of life and is no less important in the arts and musical expression. We encourage our students in our music school in Odessa, Texas to live a life that puts others first, and seeks to leave a legacy of beauty and joy in all those who are touched by our lives and music.