How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Dale Carnegie won friends and influenced people he never met. His basic principle to aim for cheerful friendliness and approach things with zero ambiguity. Pushy tactics are not necessary when you carry your own concept of yourself. “Don’t criticize, condemn or complain.” His book has gone the distance on the daily, like our morning coffee, Al Rokers weather report and scrolling through Instagram. Eliminating gossip and judgements leaves time for forwarding junk emails to 10 people as an opportunity to win the lottery. Lol.

 His suggestions served as the prototype for all The Chicken Soup for the Soul publications. Helen Gurley Brown in her Cosmopolitan style, told it like it was as career and love life merged, through red lipstick and panty hose and we paid close attention. We watched, we must confess, early on when Phil Donahue met “That Girl” and interviewed Jean Nidetch (founder of Weight Watchers.) We learned the value of zero point foods and loosing some lbs.

Back to -Oh Dale, how your words resonated loud and clear upon first read and today when we need a reminder or two. That unpleasant look from so and so the other day had everything to do with them and very little to do with us. People project their feelings and own bias when their defending the one side of the story they didn’t hear.

We long for the long ago days when we walked into the candy store and put the new Betty and Veronica, Little Dot and Archie comics on the counter next to our bazooka and twizzler treats. How bout the primordial smells of the gum in the pack of baseball cards that one of the kids on your block shared with you? The very familiar smell of a brand new spalding ball lingers on in our bag of childhood memories. We believe our first art lesson was on Etch a Sketch, and early writing lessons happened through creating stories of where Barbie and Ken will go on their honeymoon. We thought Bermuda would be nice. 

One guilty pleasure we recall was chewing double bubble, piece after piece (not knowing we were helping our dentist enjoy his summer home with each bubble that landed smack across our faces.) Oh the 60’s where art thou now? Our world is bleeding out of control. Shootings on college campuses, in our local grocery stores and our grade schools are coming with rapid fire speed.

Fear when we walk down the block and into our CVS to find shampoo locked up is our new normal. PTSD, insomnia and binge eating a deleterious trifecta too common in our everyday. So Dale- just for today we will “Get busy, keep busy. it’s the cheapest kind of medicine there is on earth- and one of the best.” Thanks, Mr. Carnegie we’re in.