To be interesting or be interested?

Zee Shan
Zee Shan
Jul 28, 2017 · 2 min read

If you’ve ever heard me speak you will know that I mention Dale Carnegie’s book “How to win friends and influence people” quite a lot. It is one of the best selling book published in 1936.

In the first chapter “Do This And You’ll Be Welcome Anywhere”

The author tells several stories about people who genuinely took an interest in the other person, even though that interest wasn’t remotely related to what they needed from them. You will often find that if you simply take an interest in the other person, they will often give you what you need, and frequently more, without you even asking.

It’s not so much about us getting others to like us as much as it’s about us coming to like them. For example, if I interact with someone, I can do things to try to make him like me and he’ll probably see right through it. Maybe he felt bored and will try to avoid me next time. But if you start talking about them then they will take an interest because it’s the psyche of human beings that they loved to listen to themselves. As the author says “People are not interested in you. They are not interested in me. They are interested in themselves–morning, noon and after dinner.”

After reading the first chapter I was really curious about it so I performed an experiment on myself where for 24 hours I would talk about others and see what happened.

After a whole day what I have found was the persons whom I talked had suddenly changed. When I started to take interest in them then automatically I became interesting to them. It was a great day, listening to their stories and chit chat was one of the best feeling ever. Now I truly believe. If you want others to like you, if you want to develop real friendships, if you want to help others at the same time as you help yourself, keep this principle in mind Become genuinely interested in other people. As “You can make more friends in two months by becoming genuinely interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”

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