Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in How to Win Friends and Influence People, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Self-Interest vs. Selflessness
Importance and Humility
Positivity vs. Negativity
Sincerity and Appreciation vs. Insincerity and Flattery
Summary
Analysis
Jim Farley grew up without a father and never saw the inside of a high school. But he had a flair for making people like him, and as a result, he became chairman of the Democratic National Committee and Postmaster General of the United States. He helped elect President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932. Farley attributes his success to the fact that he calls people by their first names.
Carnegie uses Farley as an example of how a person can grow up in the face of adversity, without an education, and still become influential and successful. By following Carnegie’s principles (like making other people feel important by using their names), people can find success regardless of their backgrounds.
Themes
Whenever Farley met a new acquaintance, he made a point of memorizing their name and facts about them. On the campaign, he would travel all over the country and attend events, and when he returned, he wrote to one person in each town he visited and asked for a list of all the guests he spoke with. The final list contained thousands of names, but each one would get a personal letter from him with their name on it. He recognized that the average person is more interested in their own name than all other names combined.
As Carnegie notes here, using people’s names plays into their natural self-interest, because they are more interested in their own names than other people’s. The example with Farley shows how using names was valuable, because he was able to recognize people whom he only met briefly and make them feel uniquely attended to.
Themes
Sometimes it is difficult to remember names, particularly if they are hard to pronounce. But making that extra effort is always met with deep gratitude. Andrew Carnegie discovered as a child how dearly people hang onto their names. He had a nest of rabbits, and he told the boys and girls in the neighborhood that if they pulled clovers and dandelions for the bunnies, he would name one in their honor. Later, Carnegie did the same thing with his steel mills, naming one after the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad so that he would feel compelled to buy from Carnegie. He was also proud of the fact that he could call many of his factory workers by their first names.
Again, Carnegie illustrates how interested people are in their own names. Thus, using their names makes people feel important, because it shows that one cares enough to make the effort to remember who they are. This story illustrates another aspect of why people love their names, because it is a way to carry on their legacy and make them feel important even after they have stopped working in a given field or have died.
Themes
Most people don’t remember names because they don’t take the time and energy necessary. They make excuses for themselves. But they are no busier than Franklin D. Roosevelt, who took the time to remember even the names of the mechanics he came into contact with, which helped him garner support from anyone he encountered.
Carnegie emphasizes that remembering others’ names is usually just a matter of prioritizing them and taking the time to be selfless. He invokes FDR, the 32nd U.S. president, to illustrate how people who do take the time to prioritize others tend to be more successful.
Themes
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Napoleon the Third boasted that he could remember the name of every person he met—he tried to use the person’s name several times during their conversation and wrote it down afterwards. This tactic doesn’t just work for kings and presidents—it works for people ordering sandwiches and greeting the person who works behind the counter. There is magic in a name—it makes a person unique, and thus using a name gives the situation an equally unique importance.
Carnegie concludes the chapter by underscoring how using people’s names helps them feel important. But he also notes that there is an added benefit to doing so—it makes others believe that you are important, because your interactions are more personal and make the other person feel better as a result. As such, Carnegie highlights again how prioritizing others and making them feel important has the added benefit of reflecting well on you.
Themes
