How to Stop Worrying and Start Living

How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (by Dale Carnegie)

*** Seven Ways to Peace and Happiness ***

1.Find Yourself and Be Yourself: Remember, there is no one else on earth like you.

• Let's not imitate others. Let's find ourselves and be ourselves.

2. Four Good Working Habits that will help prevent fatigue and worry.

• Clear your desk of all papers except those relating to the immediate problem at hand.
• Do things in the order of their importance
• When you face a problem, solve it then and there if you have the facts necessary to make a decision. Don't keep putting off decisions.
• Learn to organize, deputize, and supervise.

3. What makes you tired - and what you can do about it

• Psychiatrists delcare that most of our fatigue derives from our mental and emotional attitudes.
• Relax in odd moments. Let your body go limp like an old sock.
• Work, as much as possible, in a comfortable position. Remember that tensions on the body produce aching shoulders and nervous fatigue.

4. How to Banish the boredom that produces fatigue, worry, and resentment.

• Give yourself a pep talk every day. "Our life is what our thoughts make it!"
• By talking to yourself about the things you have to be grateful for, you can fill your mind with thoughts that soar and sign.

5. Would you take a million dollars for what you have?

• count your blessings - not your troubles!

6. Remember that no one ever kicks a dead dog

• Remember that unjust criticism is often a disguised compliment. Remember that no one ever kicks a dead dog.

7. Do this - and criticism cant' hurt you

• When you and I are unjustly criticized, let's remember to:
• Do the very best you can; and then put up your old umbrella and keep the rain of criticism from running down the back of your neck.

Good Quotes:

1)Douglas Malloch:

If you can't be a pine on the top of the hill,

Be a scrub in the valley - but be

The best little scrub by the side of the rill;

Be a bush, if you can't be a tree.

If you can't be a bush, be a bit of the grass,

And some highway happier make;

If you can't be a muskie, then just be a bass -

But the liveliest bass in the lake!

We can't all be captains, we've got to be crew,

There's something for all of us here.

There's big work to do and there's lesser to do

And the task we must do is the near.

If you can't be a highway, then just be a trail,

If you can't be the sun, be a star;

If isn't by size that you win or you fail -

Be the best of whatever you are!

I hand the blues because I had no shoes, 

Until upon the street, I met a man who had no feet.

2) Lincoln (about criticism:

"If I were to try to read, much less to answer all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, then what is said against me won't matter. If the end brings me out wrong, then ten angels swearing was right would make no difference." 

How to Win Friends & Influence People

How to Win Friends & Influence People
by Dale Carnegie

Key Summary and Quotes extracted from the book for reference:

(A) Fundamental Techniques in Handling People
Principle 1: Don't critcize, condemn or complain.
Principle 2: Give honest and sincere appreciation
Principle 3: Arouse in the other person an eager want.

(B) Six Ways to Make People Like You
Principle 1: Become genuinely interested in other people.
Principle 2: Simile
Principle 3: Remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
Principle 4: Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
Principle 5: Talk in terms of the other person's interests.
Principle 6: Make the other person feel important - and do it sincerely.

(C) Win People to the Way of Your Thinking
Principle 1: The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.
Principle 2: Show respect for the other person's opinions. Never say, "You're wrong."
Principle 3: If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
Principle 4: Begin in a friendly way.
Principle 5: Get the other person saying "yes, yes" immediately.
Principle 6: Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.
Principle 7: Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.
Principle 8:  Try honestly to see things from the other person's point of view.
Principle 9: Be sympathetic with the other person's ideas and desires.
Principle 10: Appeal to the nobler motives.
Principle 11: Dramatize your ideas.
Principle 12: Throw down a challenge.

(D) Be a Leader
A leader's job often includes changing your people's attitudes and behavior. Some suggestions to accomplish this:
Principle 1: Begin with praise and honest appreciation.
Principle 2: Call attention to people's mistakes indirectly.
Principle 3: Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.
Principle 4: Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.
Principle 5: Let the other person save face.
Principle 6: Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be "hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise."
Principle 7: Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.
Principle 8: Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.
Principle 9: Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.

(E) Seven Rules for Making Your Home Life Happier
Rule 1: Don't nag.
Rule 2: Don't try to make your partner over.
Rule 3: Don't criticize.
Rule 4: Give honest appreciation.
Rule 5: Pay little attentions.
Rule 6: Be courteous.



Good Quotes from the book:
(1) Ben Franklin : If you agree and rankle and contradict, you may achieve a victory sometimes; but it will be an empty victory because you will never get your opponent's good will.
(2) Better give your path to a dog than be bitten by him in contesting for the right. Even killing the dog would not cure the bite.
(3) Antoine de Saint-Expuery: I have no right to say or do anything that diminishes a man in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him, but what he things of himself. Hurting a man in his dignity is a crime.
(4) Trivialities not love is going hurts my days. But that it went in little ways.
(5) Opera tenor Jan Peerce, after he was married nearly fifty years, once said: "My wife and I made a pact a long time ago, and we've kept it no matter how angry we've grown with each other. When one yells, the other should listen - because when two people yell, there is no communication, just noise and bad vibrations."
(6) From article "Bits and Pieces", published by the Economics Press Fairfield, N.J.:

• Welcome the disagreement. Remember the slogan, "When two partners alwaysa agree, one of them is not necessary." If there is some point you haven't thought about, be thankful if it is brought to your attention. Perhaps this disagreement is your opportunity to be corrected before you make a serious mistake. 
• Distrust your first instinctive impression. Our first natural reaction in a disagreement situation is to be defensive. Be careful. Keep calm and watch out for your first reaction. It may be you at your worst, not your best.
• Control your temper. Remember, you can measure the size of a person by what makes him or her angry.
• Listen first. Give your opponents a chance to talk. Let them finish. Do not resist, defend or debate. This only raises barriers. Try to build bridges of understanding. Don't build higher barriers of misunderstanding.
• Look for areas of agreement. When you have heard your opponents out, dwell first on the points and areas on which you agree.
• Be honest, Look for areas where you can admit error and say so. Apologize for your mistakes. It will help disarm your opponents and reduce defensiveness.
• Promise to think over your opponents' ideas and study them carefully. And mean it. Your opponents may be right. It is a lot easier at the stage to agree to think about their points than to move rapidly ahead and find yourself in a position where your opponents can say: "We tried to tell you, but you wouldn't listen."
• Thank your opponents sincerely for their interest. Anyone who takes the time to disagree with you is interested in the same things you are. Think of them as people who really want to help you, and you may turn your opponents into friends.
• Postpone action to give both sides time to think through the problem. Sugest that a new meeting be held later that day or the next day, when all the facts may be brought to bear. In preparation for this meeting, ask yourself some hard questions:
• Could my opponents be right? Pratly right?
• Is there truth or merit in their position or argument?
• Is my reaction one that will relieve the problem, or will it just relieve any frustration?
• Will my reaction drive my opponents further away or draw them close to me?
• Will my reaction elevate the estimation good people have of me?
• Will I win or lose?
• What price will I have to pay if I win?
• If I am quite about it, will the disagreement blow over?
• Is this difficult situation an opportunity for me?

(7) "Father Forgets", by W. Livingston Larned