Dale Carnegie's How To Win Friends And Influence People

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“By becoming interested in the cause, we are less likely to dislike the effect.” Dale Carnegie uses these words in his book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. Humans don’t come with a manual, but if they did, this quote would be included in the chapter about making connections. Social interactions have always been difficult for me to navigate, being a naturally shy person, but daily interactions were nothing compared to the challenge I was about to face during my junior year of high school concerning a girl named Katie. On the first day of my junior year, I wasn’t nervous at all. Starting a new year at school had become more of a mandatory routine than a milestone, so I wasn’t terribly excited to be a Junior, however; I was excited For the next few days, that is where she was when I arrived in homeroom, residing in the exact same spot and coloring every type of dinosaur known to man. One day, some of the other Panther Pals and I decided to decorate the door to our classroom. This was an activity I normally partook in, and it was a fun way for buddies to get to know each other. From what I had witnessed in the past few classes, Katie was an artist, so I assumed she would enjoy participating. After homeroom announcements, I walked over to where Katie was sitting and asked, “Would you like to come over here and help us decorate the door?” Katie Looked up at me as if I had just asked her to burn the dinosaur coloring book she highly cherished, and then she simply replied, “No.” As I cut out ghosts and bats for our Halloween themed door, I pondered Katie’s questionable behavior. She never seemed to want to talk to me, play games with me, do anything with me. Thoughts began swarming in my head. “I’m a likeable person right? Why can’t I get through to this girl? Does she hate By placing myself in Katie’s head, I found creative ways to help her enjoy math assignments while completing them and learning. Though I wasn’t well versed in the video games she was interested in, that didn’t stop me from helping her make a pie chart of the popularity of each character from a game called “Five Nights at Freddy’s” that she plays. I started focusing more on Katie’s interests and tried to think like she did, and soon, being with Katie didn’t feel like a struggle; it was fun. That’s when I knew we weren’t put together by

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