I once spent almost two years writing a book on public
speaking and yet I found I had to keep going back over
it from time to time in order to remember what I had
written in my own book. The rapidity with which we
forget is astonishing.
So, if you want to get a real, lasting benefit out of this
book, don’t imagine that skimming through it once will
suffice. After reading it thoroughly, you ought to spend
a few hours reviewing it every month, Keep it on your
desk in front of you every day. Glance through it often.
Keep constantly impressing yourself with the rich possibilities
for improvement that still lie in the offing. Remember
that the use of these principles can be made
habitual only by a constant and vigorous campaign of
review and application. There is no other way.
6. Bernard Shaw once remarked: “If you teach a man
anything, he will never learn.” Shaw was right. Learning
is an active process. We learn by doing. So, if you desire
to master the principles you are studying in this
book, do something about them. Apply these rules at
every opportunity. If you don’t you will forget them
quickly. Only knowledge that is used sticks in your
mind.
You will probably find it difficult to apply these suggestions
all the time. I know because I wrote the book,
and yet frequently I found it difficult to apply everything
I advocated. For example, when you are displeased, it is
much easier to criticize and condemn than it is to try to
understand the other person’s viewpoint. It is frequently
easier to find fault than to find praise. It is more natural
to talk about what vou want than to talk about what the
other person wants. And so on, So, as you read this book,
remember that you are not merely trying to acquire information.
You are attempting to form new habits. Ah
yes, you are attempting a new way of life. That will require
time and persistence and daily application.
So refer to these pages often. Regard this as a working
handbook on human relations; and whenever you are
confronted with some specific problem – such as handling
a child, winning your spouse to your way of thinking,
or satisfying an irritated customer – hesitate about
doing the natural thing, the impulsive thing. This is usually
wrong. Instead, turn to these pages and review the
paragraphs you have underscored. Then try these new
ways and watch them achieve magic for you.
7. Offer your spouse, your child or some business
associate a dime or a dollar every time he or she catches
you violating a certain principle. Make a lively game out
of mastering these rules.
8. The president of an important Wall Street bank
once described, in a talk before one of my classes, a
highly efficient system he used for self-improvement.
This man had little formal schooling; yet he had become
one of the most important financiers in America, and he
confessed that he owed most of his success to the constant
application of his homemade system. This is what
he does, I’ll put it in his own words as accurately as I
can remember.
“For years I have kept an engagement book showing
all the appointments I had during the day. My family
never made any plans for me on Saturday night, for the
family knew that I devoted a part of each Saturday evening
to the illuminating process of self-examination and
review and appraisal. After dinner I went off by myself,
opened my engagement book, and thought over all the
interviews, discussions and meetings that had taken
place during the week. I asked myself:
‘What mistakes did I make that time?’
‘What did I do that was right-and in what way
could I have improved my performance?’
‘What lessons can I learn from that experience?’
“I often found that this weekly review made me very
unhappy. I was frequently astonished at my own blunders.
Of course, as the years passed, these blunders became
less frequent. Sometimes I was inclined to pat
myself on the back a little after one of these sessions.
This system of self-analysis, self-education, continued
year after year, did more for me than any other one thing
I have ever attempted.
“It helped me improve my ability to make decisions
– and it aided me enormously in all my contacts with
people. I cannot recommend it too highly.”
Why not use a similar system to check up on your
application of the principles discussed in this book? If
you do, two things will result.
First, you will find yourself engaged in an educational
process that is both intriguing and priceless.
Second, you will find that your ability to meet and
deal with people will grow enormously.
9. You will find at the end of this book several blank
pages on which you should record your triumphs in the
application of these principles. Be specific. Give names,
dates, results. Keeping such a record will inspire you to
greater efforts; and how fascinating these entries will be
when you chance upon them some evening years from
now!
In order to get the most out of this book:
a. Develop a deep, driving desire to master the principles
of human relations,
b. Read each chapter twice before going on to the next
one.
c. As you read, stop frequently to ask yourself how
you can apply each suggestion.
d. Underscore each important idea.
e. Review this book each month.
f . Apply these principles at every opportunity. Use
this volume as a working handbook to help you
solve your daily problems.
g. Make a lively game out of your learning by offering
some friend a dime or a dollar every time he or she
catches you violating one of these principles.
h. Check up each week on the progress you are mak-ing.
Ask yourself what mistakes you have made,
what improvement, what lessons you have learned
for the future.
i. Keep notes in the back of this book showing how
and when you have applied these principles.
PART O N E
Fundamental Techniques in
Handling People
1
“IF YOU WANT TO GATHER
HONEY, DON’T KICK OVER THE
BEEHIVE”
On May 7, 1931, the most sensational manhunt New
York City had ever known had come to its climax. After
weeks of search, “Two Gun” Crowley – the killer, the
gunman who didn’t smoke or drink – was at bay, trapped
in his sweetheart’s apartment on West End Avenue.
One hundred and fifty policemen and detectives laid
siege to his top-floor hideway. They chopped holes in
the roof; they tried to smoke out Crowley, the “cop
killer,” with teargas. Then they mounted their machine
guns on surrounding buildings, and for more than an
hour one of New York’s fine residential areas reverberated
with the crack of pistol fire and the rut-tat-tat of
machine guns. Crowley, crouching behind an over-
stuffed chair, fired incessantly at the police. Ten thousand
excited people watched the battle. Nothing like it
ever been seen before on the sidewalks of New
York.
When Crowley was captured, Police Commissioner
E. P. Mulrooney declared that the two-gun desperado
was one of the most dangerous criminals ever encountered
in the history of New York. “He will kill,” said the
Commissioner, “at the drop of a feather.”
But how did “Two Gun” Crowley regard himself? We
know, because while the police were firing into his
apartment, he wrote a letter addressed “To whom it may
concern, ” And, as he wrote, the blood flowing from his
wounds left a crimson trail on the paper. In this letter
Crowley said: “Under my coat is a weary heart, but a
kind one – one that would do nobody any harm.”
A short time before this, Crowley had been having a
necking party with his girl friend on a country road out
on Long Island. Suddenly a policeman walked up to the
car and said: “Let me see your license.”
Without saying a word, Crowley drew his gun and cut
the policeman down with a shower of lead. As the dying
officer fell, Crowley leaped out of the car, grabbed the
officer’s revolver, and fired another bullet into the prostrate
body. And that was the killer who said: “Under my
coat is a weary heart, but a kind one – one that would do
nobody any harm.’
Crowley was sentenced to the electric chair. When he
arrived at the death house in Sing Sing, did he say, “This
is what I get for killing people”? No, he said: “This is
what I get for defending myself.”
The point of the story is this: “Two Gun” Crowley
didn’t blame himself for anything.
Is that an unusual attitude among criminals? If you
think so, listen to this:
“I have spent the best years of my life giving people
the lighter pleasures, helping them have a good time,
and all I get is abuse, the existence of a hunted man.”
That’s Al Capone speaking. Yes, America’s most notorious
Public Enemy- the most sinister gang leader who
ever shot up Chicago. Capone didn’t condemn himself.
He actually regarded himself as a public benefactor – an
unappreciated and misunderstood public benefactor.
And so did Dutch Schultz before he crumpled up
under gangster bullets in Newark. Dutch Schultz, one of
New York’s most notorious rats, said in a newspaper interview
that he was a public benefactor. And he believed
it.
I have had some interesting correspondence with
Lewis Lawes, who was warden of New York’s infamous
Sing Sing prison for many years, on this subject, and he
declared that “few of the criminals in Sing Sing regard
themselves as bad men. They are just as human as you
and I. So they rationalize, they explain. They can tell
you why they had to crack a safe or be quick on the
trigger finger. Most of them attempt by a form of reasoning,
fallacious or logical, to justify their antisocial acts
even to themselves, consequently stoutly maintaining
that they should never have been imprisoned at all.”
If Al Capone, “Two Gun” Crowley, Dutch Schultz,