Recently I finished this book by Dale Carnegie and I think it’s one of the most helpful books I’ve read in a long time. Carnegie has grasped the essence of human interactions and the things that cause blockages to that. His principles are so critical to success in life that I wonder whether this is the kind of thing we should be teaching our children. We teach them how to use logic and reasoning but not how to talk to people.

One of the most significant things we can learn to do is to listen without judgement. Listen to understand and learn something. We all have our own preconceived ideas of what’s right and are eager to tell people. So often when we’re listening we’re thinking of what we’re going to say next, or offer a correction to what we’ve heard.

Wouldn’t the world be a different place, if instead of offering correction, we consider what we hear before we speak. I’m not saying we should agree when someone is wrong or that we never correct but that the way we do that should be with kindness, not to win an argument but because you care about the person. That means not publicly putting someone down but taking them aside to question a little further, to understand what they meant.

We forget that all people are ultimately looking for acceptance, security and significance and when we rob someone of any of these things, we’re likely to alienate and hurt them. We don’t make friends this way. Everyone has something good in them, wouldn’t it be lovely to call that out rather than their mistakes.

I’ve learnt a lot from Dale Carnegie, not least that I have a lot to learn still!