What I’ve Learned From the Inventor of Soft Skills
How to practice and learn these soft skills
On a farm in Missouri, a young man walked three miles each day to go to college. He was a smart boy, had good grades, and aspirations to become a great novelist. There was only one problem — he wasn’t any good.
Nevertheless, the boy would end up writing one of the most influential books ever written. It wasn’t the next big American novel. Instead, he wrote a book about people. More specifically How to Win Friends and Influence People. It sold over 30 million copies.
You could see some signs of Dale Carnegie’s talent in his early years. He could speak well in front of people. Encouraged by his mother he entered the debate club and started helping other students with speaking in front of the class. He then went on to use these skills to work as a salesman, selling bacon, soap, and lard to local farmers. He was very successful at this job and saved enough money to move where every young man in the US wanted to go in the early 20th century — the city of New York.
Carnegie trained as an actor and still chased his dream of becoming a famous novelist during his free hours. But both these pursuits were unsuccessful. All he got was one minor role and a terrible novel, which he himself realized after reading it. At this…
