How To Stop Worrying And Start Living

When the steward finally got around to handing me the menu, I said: 'The boys back there cooking in that hot kitchen certainly must be suffering today.' The steward began to curse. His tones were bitter. At first, I thought he was angry. 'Good God Almighty,' he exclaimed, 'the people come in here and complain about the food. They kick about the slow service and growl about the heat and the prices. I have listened to their criticisms for nineteen years and you are the first person and the only person that has ever expressed any sympathy for the cooks back there in the boiling kitchen. I wish to God we had more passengers like you.'

"The steward was astounded because I had thought of the coloured cooks as human beings, and not merely as cogs in the organisation of a great railway. What people want," continued Professor Phelps, "is a little attention as human beings. When I meet a man on the street with a beautiful dog, I always comment on the dog's beauty. As I walk on and glance back over my shoulder, I frequently see the man petting and admiring the dog. My appreciation has renewed his appreciation.

"One time in England, I met a shepherd, and expressed my sincere admiration for his big intelligent sheepdog. I asked him to tell me how he trained the dog. As I walked away, I glanced back over my shoulder and saw the dog standing with his paws on the

?How To Stop Worrying And Start Living? By Dale Carnegie 94

shepherd's shoulders and the shepherd was petting him. By taking a little interest in the shepherd and his dog, I made the shepherd happy. I made the dog happy and I made myself happy."

Can you imagine a man who goes around shaking hands with porters and expressing sympathy for the cooks in the hot kitchen-and telling people how much he admires their dogs- can you imagine a man like that being sour and worried and needing the services of a psychiatrist? You can't, can you? No, of course not. A Chinese proverb puts it this way: "A bit of fragrance always clings to the hand that gives you roses."

You didn't have to tell that to Billy Phelps of Yale. He knew it. He lived it.

If you are a man, skip this paragraph. It won't interest you. It tells how a worried, unhappy girl got several men to propose to her. The girl who did that is a grandmother now. A few years ago, I spent the night in her and her husband's home. I had been giving a lecture in her town; and the next morning she drove me about fifty miles to catch a train on the main line to New York Central. We got to talking about winning friends, and she said: "Mr. Carnegie, I am going to tell you something that I have never confessed to anyone before- not even to my husband." (By the way, this story isn't going to be half so interesting as you probably imagine.) She told me that she had been reared in a social-register family in Philadelphia. "The tragedy of my girlhood and young womanhood," she said, "was our poverty. We could never entertain the way the other girls in my social set entertained.

My clothes were never of the best quality. I outgrew them and they didn't fit and they were often out of style. I was so humiliated, so ashamed, that I often cried myself to sleep. Finally, in sheer desperation, I hit upon the idea of always asking my partner at dinner-parties to tell me about his experiences, his ideas, and his plans for the future. I didn't ask these questions because I was especially interested in the answers. I did it solely to keep my partner from looking at my poor clothes. But a strange thing happened: as I listened to these young men talk and learned more about them, I really became interested in listening to what they had to say. I became so interested that I myself sometimes forgot about my clothes. But the astounding thing to me was this: since I was a good listener and encouraged the boys to talk about themselves, I gave them happiness and I gradually became the most popular girl in our social group and three of these men proposed marriage to me."

(There you are, girls: that is the way it is done.)

Some people who read this chapter are going to say: "All this talk about getting interested in others is a lot of damn nonsense! Sheer religious pap! None of that stuff for me! I am going to put money in my purse. I am going to grab all I can get-and grab it now-and to hell with the other dumb clucks!"