Dale Carnegie
Dale Breckenridge Carnegie (originally
Carnagey until 1922 and possibly somewhat later) (November 24, 1888 –
November 1, 1955) was an American writer and lecturer and the developer
of famous courses in self-improvement, salesmanship, corporate training,
public speaking and interpersonal skills. Born in poverty on a farm in
Missouri, he was the author of How to Win Friends and Influence People,
first published in 1936, a massive bestseller that remains popular
today. He also wrote a biography of Abraham Lincoln, titled Lincoln the
Unknown, as well as several other books.
Dale Carnegie was an early proponent of what is now called
responsibility assumption, although this only appears minutely in his
written work. One of the core ideas in his books is that it is possible
to change other Dale people's behavior by changing one's reaction to
them.
Biography of Dale Carnegie
Born in 1888 in Maryville, Missouri,
Carnegie was a poor farmer's boy, the second son of James William
Carnagey (b. Indiana, February 1852 – living 1910) and wife Amanda
Elizabeth Harbison (b. Missouri, February 1858 – living 1910). In his
teens, though still having to get up at 4 a.m. every day to milk his
parents' cows, he managed to get educated at the State Teacher's College
in Warrensburg. His first job after college was selling correspondence
courses to ranchers; then he moved on to selling bacon, soap and lard
for Armour & Company. He was successful to the point of making his sales
territory, southern Omaha, the national leader for the firm.
After saving $500, Carnegie quit sales in 1911 in order to pursue a
lifelong dream of becoming a Chautauqua lecturer. He ended up instead
attending the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, but found
little success as an actor, though it is written that he played the role
of Dr. Hartley in a road show of Polly of the Circus. When the
production ended, he returned to New York, unemployed, nearly broke, and
living at the YMCA on 125th Street. It was there that he got the idea to
teach public speaking, and he persuaded the "Y" manager to allow him to
instruct a class in return for 80% of the net proceeds. In his first
session, he had run out of material; improvising, he suggested that
students speak about "something that made them angry", and discovered
that the technique made speakers unafraid to address a public audience.
From this 1912 debut, the Dale Carnegie Course evolved. Carnegie had
tapped into the average American's desire to have more self-confidence,
and by 1914, he was earning $500 - the equivalent of nearly $10,000 now
- every week.
Perhaps one of Carnegie’s most successful marketing moves was to change
the spelling of his last name from “Carnegey” to Carnegie, at a time
when unrelated Andrew Carnegie was a widely revered and recognized name.
By 1916, Dale was able to rent Carnegie Hall itself for a lecture to a
packed house. Carnegie's first collection of his writings was Public
Speaking: a Practical Course for Business Men (1926), later entitled
Public Speaking and Influencing Men in Business (1932). His crowning
achievement, however, was when Simon & Schuster published How to Win
Friends and Influence People. The book was a bestseller from its debut
in 1937, in its 17th printing within a few months. By the time of
Carnegie's death, the book had sold five million copies in 31 languages,
and there had been 450,000 graduates of his Dale Carnegie Institute It
has been stated in the book that he has criticized over 150,000 speeches
in his participation of the adult education movement of the time.
His first marriage ended in divorce in 1931. On November 5, 1944, in
Tulsa, Oklahoma, he married Dorothy Price Vanderpool, who also had been
divorced. Vanderpool had two daughters; Rosemary, from her first
marriage, and Donna Dale from their marriage together.
Though it has been stated that Dale Carnegie died of uremia, it is
widely rumored that he died at age 66 by committing suicide. The rumor
began because another author, Irving Tressler, wrote “How to Lose
Friends and Alienate People” as an unauthorized parody of the classic
Dale Carnegie book. Mr. Tressler later committed suicide and was
confused with Dale Carnegie himself. The official biography from Dale
Carnegie & Associates, Inc. states that he died of Hodgkin's disease on
November 1, 1955. He died at Forest Hills, New York, and was buried in
the Belton, Cass County, Missouri cemetery.
Books of Dale Carnegie
* Public Speaking and Influencing
Men In Business. Association Press.
* How to Win Friends and Influence People. A self-help book about
interpersonal relations. Simon and Schuster.
* How to Stop Worrying and Start Living. A self-help book about
stress management. Simon & Schuster.
* Lincoln the Unknown by Dale Carnegie. A biography of Abraham
Lincoln. Dale Carnegie & Associates, Inc.
* The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking. Principles and
practical implementation of expressing oneself before groups of people.
Dale Carnegie & Associates, Inc.
* The Leader In You. How to Win Friends, Influence People, and
Succeed in a Changing World
* The Dale Carnegie Scrapbook, edited by Dorothy Carnegie. A
collection of quotations that Dale Carnegie found inspirational
interspersed with excerpts from his own writings. Simon and Schuster.
* How To Develop Self-Confidence and Influence Others Through Public
Speaking.
* Managing Through People. The application of Dale Carnegie's
principles of human relations to management. Simon and Schuster.
* Enrich Your Life, The Dale Carnegie Way by Arthur R. Pell. A book
describing how a variety of people have applied the principles that Dale
Carnegie and his successors have taught. Dale Carnegie & Associates,
Inc.
* Dale Carnegie: The Man Who Influenced Millions,
Dale Carnegie
Dale Carnegie was born in 1888 in
Missouri, USA, and was educated at Warrensburg State Teachers College.
As a salesman and aspiring actor, he traveled to New York and began
teaching communications classes to adults at the YMCA. In 1912, the
world-famous Dale Carnegie Course was born. By the 1930s, Dale Carnegie
was recruiting licensees throughout the United States.
Dale Carnegie wrote his now-renowned book How to Win Friends and
Influence People in 1936. This milestone cemented the rapid spread of
his core values across the United States. In addition, Carnegie
developed his first sales training courses during this time which would
later become our current Sales Advantage course. He began offering this
new sales training along with his effective speaking and human relations
courses.
Dale Carnegie’s company became incorporated as Dale Carnegie &
Associates, Inc. in 1954. Dale Carnegie passed away soon after in 1955,
leaving his legacy and set of core principles to be disseminated for
decades to come.
The 1950s also marked a period of international expansion in Europe,
Asia, South America, and Australia. It was also during the 1950s that
the foundations of Dale Carnegie Training® as it exists today began to
take form. A group of professional managers were hired and specialized
departments for instruction, distribution, purchasing, finance, and
advertising were created.
Responding to contemporary needs, the first Dale Carnegie Training
leadership courses were created in 1967. These would eventually grow
into our current core program, Leadership Training for Managers.
In 1975, the Dale Carnegie Training’s courses and seminars were awarded
accreditation by Continuing Education Council, today known as the
Accrediting Council for Continuing Education and Training.
Dale Carnegie Strategic Presentations Workshop (now known as High Impact
Presentations) was developed in 1985. This grew out of a need in the
market for intense presentations training designed for professionals.
Dale Carnegie Training began offering corporate solutions worldwide in
1992. This expansion of our business allowed courses and seminars to be
tailored to meet the specific needs of businesses with the experience of
our corporate solutions team.
All Dale Carnegie Training local sponsoring organizations in the U.S.
were approved through the GSA Federal Supply Schedule #GS-10F-0329K to
offer their products and services to federal government agencies in
2001.
Dale Carnegie Training celebrated its 90th anniversary in 2002.
With a roster of over 7 million graduates, Dale Carnegie Training is
dedicated to serving the business community worldwide. Currently, there
are over 2,700 professional instructors that offer Dale Carnegie
Training in more than 75 countries in 25 languages.
References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dale_Carnegie
http://www.dalecarnegie.com/about_us/history.jsp
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