How to Influence People

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1. cladopaMar 2026
   First thing: No it is not normal thing to be alone. We humans are social animals. Once we are isolated we usually die soon, so take that seriously.

   Being isolated from your tribe used to be a worse punishment than death. The greeks called that punishment ostracism. El mio Cid was the Spanish representative case.

   In the US there is an epidemy of loneliness.

   So, what to do? First recognise that this is a problem and do not dig deeper. Do not isolate yourself more. Do not play vdeogames, do not read books until you fix it.

   My main advice is to stop thinking too much about yourself, think about others.

   I was into religious(Cristian catholic) orgs and I helped old people(something I did not like), I helped poor people on the streets(liked it more) and I helped drug addicts and war refugees.

   Helping drug addicts were a pain on the aßß, but once you make someone get out, he or she becomes a friend for life. It is like the friendships that are done in fighters of a war. Once you have put your life on the hands of someone else and trusted someone else so much, nothing can break that friendship.

   If you think about that in a meta way, I was helping people that were marginalised, that were alone, and in the process I could not be alone. I did it in a religious group(a tribe in itself)

   Thanks to this experience I can make friends very fast in a new place, something few adults know how to do.

   If you are going to read, read a book called "How to influence people and make friends", but do not read the new book that is a badly revised book by the incompetent descendants of the writer, read the old original book.

   But reading books is not going to help because you need action first, not reflection, and action is going to be painful for a while, and you have to endure the pain until it becomes easy. The best advise is to get out there, try hard, fail spectacularly and only then read the book.

   Stop thinking about yourself, me, me and me. We are not wired to work for us alone. We are worked for working for others: Our tribe, our children, our family.

   Instead of not trying to be alone, focusing on yourself (me, me and me) start thinking on helping other people that are alone. Start thinking on creating your own tribe or joining a new tribe. It can be a maker space, a group for hiking or helping or teaching kids.

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2. mindcrimeJun 2010
   Well, it can help you, but it's not "self-help." Just a lot of information on how persuasion works and how to influence people. It's considered one of the classics in that area and is - IMO - definitely worth a read.
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3. ZambyteMar 2026
   I've seen people mention "How to influence people and make friends" before. I finally decided I'll read it. The PDF is available here for anyone else interested in following along :)

   https://dn720004.ca.archive.org/0/items/english-collections-...

   Edit: though this seems like it may not be the edition you meant? The cover says "the original is still the best", but this seems to be a revised edition.

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4. mejutocoDec 2022
   There is already a name for that: good books. Good books are not ultra, meta or uberbooks.

   I know this sounds snob, but… After reading all kind of books, a lot of them often recommended here, If you want to actually find challenging books I recommend sticking with essay, textbooks (go to a university page and buy the textbooks listed for a course), and classics (stuff like Hume, not How to influence people), and avoid anything you can find in an airport bookshop. But careful, they are actually challenging, and won’t be as satisfying as reading some divulgation or self-help book, and will require actual effort.

   I love to read books like How we sleep, or black swan, etc. but personally I think they make me feel good/smart, more than they challenge me.

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5. ArcMexSep 2022
   I believe it’s better if they are.

   I once reported to a CTO whose bible was How To Influence People and Make Friends.

   He ordered a migration of 4 million records to be done in a weekend because he had promised the CEO “everything would be fine by Monday” but I had told him that that plan would require 5 days to put everything in place, even a rollback.

   The fact that he refused to hear me out when I pointed out the infrastructure capacity and the SQL scripts tested beforehand to arrive at my estimate made me wary of management that doesn’t understand even the basics of the technology we use.

   So I think it goes a long way when CTOs are technical. They can give more realistic deadlines to reports while being able to be reasonably honest to their colleagues about estimates and progress.

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6. dagwSep 2022
   I once reported to a CTO whose bible was How To Influence People and Make Friends.

   On the flip side, I once worked with a CTO who was technical, but couldn't make friends or influence people. End result was that he couldn't get senior managers behind his ideas or plans and nothing he tried to do went anywhere.

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