One of the first true ‘self-discovery’ books I read was Rebecca Zhafir’s, The Zen of Listening.  Like Carnegie, her soft cadence helped the reader feel under solid control when listening to another’s story.

Best Quote

“And so I had him thinking of me as a good conversationalist when, in reality, I had been merely a good listener and had encouraged him to talk.”

The stories where Carnegie uses himself in the persuasion lessons are always interesting – in this seventh chapter we open with him describing a socialite who opens politely, but really wants to tell her own stories.

Page by Page

110

Dale Carnegie doesn’t play bridge? He does not play bridge!?! Sad.

“Oh, Mr. Carnegie, I do want you to tell me about all the wonderful places you have visited and the sights you have seen.”

…

“I was this and I was that, and he ended by saying I was a “most interesting conversationalist.” An interesting conversationalist? Why, I had said hardly anything at all.”

“All she wanted was an interested listener, so she could expand her ego and tell about where she had been.“

111

“And so I had him thinking of me as a good conversationalist when, in reality, I had been merely a good listener and had encouraged him to talk.”

“Harvard president Charles W. Eliot, “There is no mystery about successful business intercourse. … Exclusive attention to the person who is speaking to you…””

112

“… He listened with his mind and attentively considered what you had to say while you said it. … At the end of an interview the person who had talked to him felt that he had had his say.”

113

Carnegie’s persuasive writing has a pattern.  Parenting is a common topic and point of view.

“Robert responded: “No, but I really know you love me because whenever I want to talk to you about something you stop whatever you are doing and listen to me.””

114

One of Carnegie’s vignettes calls back to a common topic – the modern telephone. 

“He got this feeling of importance at first by kicking and complaining.“

115

“I listened patiently to all he had to say.“

116

“Later, when his wife presented him with a baby boy, he gave his son the middle name of Detmer, and he remained a friend and customer of the house until his death twenty-two years afterwards.”

Carnegie is so convincing in his persuasiveness, it is almost as if he went a step to far just to get the reader to say, “there is now this happened.”  Whoever has heard of an angry customer pivoting hard and naming their child after a vendor?

117

“He wrote General Grant asking about a certain battle, and Grant drew a map for him and invited this fourteen-year-old boy to dinner and spent the evening talking to him.”

Lincoln drapes the $5 bill, Grant adorns the $50.

118

As the Reader’s Digest once said: “Many persons call a doctor when all they want is an audience.”

119

Even Lincoln needed a listener.

“Lincoln had done all the talking himself. That seemed to clarify his mind. “He seemed to feel easier after that talk,” the old friend said.”

“In describing Freud, “You’ve no idea what it meant to be listened to like that.””

“A person’s toothache means more to that person than a famine in China which kills a million people.”

120

PRINCIPLE 4 Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.