How to Make More Friends

Life Lesson #18: The More Friends You Have The Better

Today’s lesson was inspired by King Solomon who said, “Two people are better than one because they have a good return for their work; if one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!” (Eccl 4: 9-11)

four hands pulling on a rope in one direction

What This Means to YOU…

Do you have trouble making friends? If so, this wisdom can help you.

Are you somebody who makes friends easily but would like to find a way to better influence people to get them to help you reach your goals? If so, this wisdom can help you.

Do you want to learn how to make the right friends – people who can change your life for the better? If so, this wisdom can help you too.

Are you ready to learn more? Good. Let’s get started.

 

Choose Your Friends Wisely

Let’s tackle the problem in reverse – before we get to the ‘making friends’ part, let’s first discuss the right people to target for your friends. There’s an old Greek philosopher name Isocrates (and yes he’s a different person than Socrates) who said “Be gracious to all men, but choose the best to be your friends. “ That wisdom is important to understand because unfortunately not everybody in the world makes for a good friend. The trick is to know who will make a good friend and who will not?

We can begin to answer that last question by applying the wisdom of another old saying that goes something like this “you are who you hang out with.” What that means is that if you hang out with a bunch of potheads, that what’s you’ll eventually become a pothead yourself; same goes if you hang out with overachievers, jocks, math nuts, etc.. It’s all the same — you become what your friends are if you hang out with them long enough. This is no joke and it seriously does work.

It’s not always easy and it takes effort sometimes to get in with a new crowd (keep reading to learn how to make people like you) but if you want to put yourself on a path to success (however YOU define success), then find other people who have what you want and hang out with them. So if you want to be a good student, hang out with other smart kids. If you want to get on the baseball team – join that crowd, practice a lot, and go for it. It really doesn’t matter what you want to do, the point here is that I want you to recognize that your friends are probably going to be the biggest influence on you in your life because peer pressure is hard to fight, so make it easy on yourself and put yourself in a situation in which you won’t have to fight against peer pressure telling you to do something you don’t want to do, instead find a group of people who will be encouraging you with a positive peer pressure to accomplish goals that are important to you (because they will also be important to them). Does that make sense?

 

 How to Make People Like You…

Now that you know who to target for your friends, let’s talk about how to make them like you. This is one of the most important pieces of wisdom I could ever hope to teach you and I hope you take it to heart because this wisdom will seriously change your life. Because space is limited here I can only give you a few tidbits (but even this small amount of wisdom is valuable if you use it). In addition, if what I teach you here inspires you to learn more, I’ll show you one of my favorite books on the subject so you can get it for yourself.

Have you ever heard of a guy named “Dale Carnegie?” Mr. Cargenie was born back in 1888 and he was a little kid without any money or friends, yet amazingly he made himself into a grand success (with lots of money and lots of friends). How did he do it? He found a way to help other people make friends easier and thereby changed the world. He wrote a book on the subject called “How to Win Friends and Influence People” and that book is filled with lots of great wisdom that can help you too. Here is just a brief example of some of Mr. Carnegie’s wisdom…

Six Ways to Make People Like You

  1. Show INTEREST in other people – ask about their day/life/family/etc
  2. Be the first to SMILE – when someone looks you in the eye, smile at them – it shows you accept them as a person and like them
  3. Remember that a person’s NAME is, to that person, the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
  4. Be a good LISTENER. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
  5. Talk in terms of the OTHER person’s interest.
  6. Make the other person feel IMPORTANT– and do it sincerely.

Obviously each of these items is a mere tidbit and there’s a lot more to each technique that I have the space to write about here, but I promise you, if you read this book it will improve your life because it will improve your ability to not only make friends but to also cooperate better with other people (you’ll learn how to INFLUENCE others to help you as well and that’s an extremely valuable skill to have). So please do yourself a favor and TAKE ACTION by getting a copy today of Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People” – it will be at your library, possibly already on your family’s bookshelf at home, or definitely on Amazon. Seriously, go look for it now!

 

Don’t Wait, Use This Wisdom Today.

It’s simple really – get a copy of Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends…” book today, start reading the book today, start using the lessons he teaches today, and start making more friends today!

 

Did You Know?

Today’s lesson was adapted from a book Jax and I wrote called Diary of a Minecraft Dad

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