EEDA Pod Book Squad: Winning Friends & Influencing People

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Episode artwork for Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice Podcast for the episode titled "EEDA Pod Book Squad: Winning Friends & Influencing People”

Show Notes

In this milestone 50th episode, Patricia and Nicole launch the EEDA Pod Book Club by diving into “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” discussing its historical context, enduring popularity, and problematic aspects. They reflect on the book’s advice, its questionable undertones, and how it shaped the self-help genre, while sharing their own perspectives on giving compliments and social interaction. The episode also features community updates, gratitude for their editor Jen, and personal highlights.

Mentioned on the show:

Find the full show notes and official transcript on our website: eedapod.com

Follow the show on Instagram & find us on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, & Spotify

Sound editing by Jen Zink

Transcript

EEDA Ep 050 – Final

Music: [Intro Music] 

Patricia: Hey there, Jolly Ranchers. Welcome to Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice, the podcast for folks who would rather curl into the fetal position than lean in. I’m your host, Patricia Elzie-Tuttle. 

Nicole: And I’m ready for spiced apple cider. I’m Nicole Elzie-Tuttle. We’re recording this show on September 26th, 2025.

Patricia: Reminder that this podcast is independently run and we are hoping to be supported by listeners. Downloading, sharing, and giving us reviews and ratings are free ways to show us support. If you have a few bucks to donate, our Patreon memberships start at $3 a month. Even if you don’t wanna engage with the content there, it’s a way to donate to the show.

No pressure. There are three tiers to choose from. 

Nicole: And if you’re looking for other ways to support the show, you can pop on over to our page at bookshop.org where you can find a bookshelf full of all of the books we have ever mentioned on this show or the EEDA Newsletter, and they are there for purchase, including now… are they DRM free eBooks? 

Patricia: I think so. 

Nicole: Yeah! 

And if you’re looking for one other way to support the show or you just wanna like show off to everyone that you’re one of our fans, we’ve got a merch shop open with some stickers and stickers. 

Patricia: Just stickers for now. 

Nicole: Stickers and stickers and stickers. We have three to choose from.

Also, you can invite us into your home in the form of a window prism to rainbow-fi, whatever room you put that on the window of. 

Patricia: I think one of our friends and listeners actually put it on their car window. 

Nicole: Ooh! That’s fun! 

Patricia: So there’s rainbows in their car. 

Nicole: That, I hadn’t thought of that. How fun. 

Patricia: You can find a link to our merch shop on our webpage eedapod.com. 

Nicole: Oh, yeah. I guess it helps if I tell people where to go. 

Patricia: Nope, you’re just gonna tell ’em there’s a merch shop and not tell ’em where it is. 

Nicole: It’s a scavenger hunt merch shop. 

Patricia: Um, the amazing thing, everyone, all of this is written down in the script. Nicole just likes to wander. 

Nicole: Oh, I’m supposed to look at that too.

Patricia: Anyway, email us the self-help books you love or hate at eedapod at gmail dot com. We’ve gotten some amazing emails so far, and actually during today’s show, you’re going to learn what those emails are about. But also if you are a paying Patreon subscriber, you already got a sneak peek of what today’s episode is about.

Nicole: And this is just a general reminder for everyone, I guess in the Northern Hemisphere, it is flu shot season and COVID shot season. It is vaccine season, and if you are able to, and I know a lot of places now are just giving them away, 

Patricia: especially in California, it might be harder in some other states where our listeners are. 

Nicole: Yeah, but I, I don’t know what they’re doing there.

Look around, there may be places just giving them away. If you’re able to please go get your flu vaccine and your COVID vaccine. Even if you think you are, you know, strong and healthy and would have no problem, getting these vaccines helps not only protect yourself from serious illness, but also protect those around you from getting serious illness from these bugs.

And then the other thing I wanna tell everyone is thank you to everyone who donated to my fundraiser for UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals Bolt on the Bay. Way past any goal I thought we would achieve. And overall, the general fundraiser doubled their goal as well. So 

Patricia: yeah 

Nicole: thank you to everyone in support of these amazing children’s hospitals here in the Bay Area.

Patricia: And speaking of donations, the beloved third person of this podcast, Jen Zink, has a GoFundMe going right now. She is going through it a bit and we are wishing her well. She’s back to editing this episode, which we’re really excited about. But she has a GoFundMe and we’re gonna post that link in our show notes. We love Jen, not only as an editor, but as a friend. And so if you have a few bucks to spare and you could throw it her way, we would appreciate it. 

Nicole: Yeah. She has been the editor for this show since the beginning. 

Patricia: Absolutely. 

Nicole: So we, we love her and, and please go show her some love. 

Patricia: And as long as the show gets released on time, it is October 1st.

And October’s usually really social for us. We have Apple picking on the calendar. We have a corn maze on the calendar. I don’t know if we’re doing any Litquake things, but if you’re in the San Francisco Bay area Litquake happens during October and it’s a literary festival over like, a couple, a few weeks maybe.

Nicole: And of course pumpkin spice everything season. 

Patricia: Absolutely. 

Nicole: We’ve gotta go, uh, pick our pumpkin spices. 

Patricia: Pick our, pick our pumpkin spices. 

Nicole: Yeah. 

Patricia: I, I don’t think the spices grow here though. 

Nicole: Pumpkin spice jack-o’-lantern. 

Patricia: Actually, I’m like, oh, do I have any pumpkin spice? I dunno. I’ll have to look in the depths of our spice drawer.

Music: [Transition Music] 

Patricia: So we don’t normally tell you what episode number it is, but today’s episode is a monumental one. 

Nicole: It’s a milestone episode. 

Patricia: It’s a milestone episode. This is episode 50! 

Nicole: Fifty!? We’ve done fif- 49. This is the 50th one of these things we’ve done? 

Patricia: Yeah. 

Nicole: Wow. 

Patricia: Yeah. Well, hmm. We’ve had some encores to take breaks. 

Nicole: We’ve had some little, some little repeats. 

Patricia: But still, still, this is the 50th one we’re publishing.

Nicole: Wow. 

Good job us!

Patricia: Go team! 

Nicole: Hey! 

Patricia: And this is, I like to say this is start of phase two, as if there’s some kind of grand plan. But honestly, we’re just winging it. 

Nicole: The, uh, the EEDA Cinematic Universe. 

Patricia: The EEDA

[Laughing] 

Today is the first episode of the EEDAPOD Book Club. This is why we have been asking you to email us the self-help books that you love and the self-help books you love to hate.

We got one email that was so beautiful. Just full of vitriol, uh, cited sources on why the self-help book they’re talking about is so ter- like it was, uh, we need to print that email and frame it. It’s so good. 

Nicole: And it was clearly one of our listeners. 

Patricia: It was, yeah. 

Yeah. 

Nicole: They’re citing their sources. 

Patricia: One of us.

Nicole: Yes. 

Patricia: One of us! One of us! 

And Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice started because of self-help books. And given that I am a book professional, I think it’s time we start talking about self-help books on the show, aside from just mentioning them here and there. 

Nicole: Now to be clear, we are not completely reformatting this show. This is just gonna be like a new feature that happens in and amongst the regular episodes y’all are used to. And that’s because a lot of it depends on how quickly Patricia and I can each read the same book. 

Now, each book we dig into, we’ll be using the framework that we talk about in our episode, Taking What’s Best, a Guide to Self-help.

Patricia: We will be putting on our critical thinking hats as well as applying our rule of taking what’s best and leaving the rest. The truth is there is almost always something worthwhile in a self-help book, even if the majority of the book might be fluff. We are going to kick things off with How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.

And like I said, if you are a subscribing Patreon member on one of the paid tiers, we let you know a few days ago what the book is going to be. 

Nicole: Oh my gosh. Okay. This book was first published in 1936. 

Patricia: What is that? Almost 90 years ago? Yeah. 

Nicole: Yeah. It’s like 89 years ago. 

It has had one major revision that happened in 1981. According to the New York Times, the 1936 version sold over 30 million copies, and it was the number one book on the New York Times bestseller list for 32 weeks in 1937. The Kindle version of this book has over 107,000 reviews with a 4.7 star rating. 

Patricia: That’s wild. 

Nicole: And, this one really gets me, it has over a million reviews on Goodreads.

The other thing about this is, while we were prepping this show last night I went to go get a digital copy from the library to make some references and every copy was waitlisted. And mind you, we have like 10 libraries that we have access to to try. Some of them had wait lists over two months long. 

Patricia: Yeah, that’s bananas to me. 

Nicole: For a book from like 90 years ago.

Patricia: Yeah. 

It’s also been translated into almost every known written language. I want to point out that this book was pretty much the first of its kind in like modern times. Self-help had a long history before How to Win Friends and Influence People, but this book specifically was like rocket fuel for the modern self-help genre.

Nicole: Okay, so let’s start from the beginning here. Who was Dale Carnegie? Was he related to the Carnegies with all the money, the hall, and the, the Mellon University? 

Patricia: Great question. Dale Carnegie was not related to the steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie. Dale Carnegie’s last name was actually spelled differently, but he changed the spelling when he moved to New York.

He was born in Missouri in 1888, and after college he went to a, a teaching school. He had a short career as a salesman. He also went to, like, acting, performing arts school. Which I think is an interesting little tidbit about a person who made his fame mastering the arts of persuasion and extroversion. He actually start, like really started his career as an instructor teaching public speaking, but also he taught along with the public speaking so many of the things included in this book. It wasn’t until he was really successful with his course that an editor at Simon and Schuster recommended he write a book with all the courses contents. 

Nicole: It’s also important to take a look at the context in which something like this becomes popular. This book first came out in 1936. The US was clawing its way out of the Great Depression, and the worst of that was finally behind people. And we had not yet entered the Second World War. People were cautiously optimistic about a better future. And we’ve talked a lot about how hope and optimism can not only be important in life, but they’re also traits we imagine that many readers of self-help have in common.

And so this is the context within which this book got incredibly popular. 

Patricia: Whew, yeah. 

I want to start talking about the contents. I feel like this goes without saying, but I’m going to say it anyway because I am who I am and our show is what it is. This book is not inclusive. There is a lot of ableism, some weird Orientalism. Almost all the references are famous white men, except one story about Stevie Wonder that I’m not going to repeat here. You and I are definitely not the audience. 

Nicole: To be clear, the Stevie Wonder reference came from the 1981 version of the book, not the 1936 version. 

Patricia: Not the 19-. Wow. That would… time traveling. 

Nicole: But no, you’re right. The references are also incredibly outdated. You’re gonna catch this man talking about Abraham Lincoln and Charles Schwab and also ancient Chinese Proverbs. 

Patricia: Yeah, there was a lot like, there was so much of that. 

Nicole: It was so weird. 

Patricia: It was so weird. 

The book is also, and we’re not the only people who have said this, like it’s manipulative. Like it’s right there in the title, like winning friends. It’s not like how to get friends. It’s like how to win friends,

Nicole: how to be a good friend. 

Patricia: um, and how to influence people. In a lot of ways, it has a similar vibe to The Game, that pickup artist book. Except Dale Carnegie would definitely be against negging other people. Like he was only for like negging yourself. There’s an entire section on self-deprecation in this book. 

Nicole: Yeah, there’s there’s a lot of tactics. 

Patricia: Yeah. 

Nicole: Which is a weird way to frame it. 

Patricia: Yeah. 

The thing is, in some parts of this book, he explicitly says that, for instance, a person needs to be sincere in their compliments and not just be nice so they can get things.

But then like 90% of the book is about being nice so you can get what you want. It’s like he uses his own tactics of saying what people want to hear directly on readers. It’s contradictory. 

Nicole: Yeah, and I don’t know. It’s incredibly popular because of this. 

I don’t want people to think we’re just like, I don’t know, negging this book. I do think there is, you know, decent advice in here. Like for, I guess winning friends, like being genuinely interested in other people. 

Patricia: Yeah. One of his pieces of advice is to compliment people, like I mentioned. And I am fully on board with complimenting people. I am not on board for, with doing it for ulterior motives, but I think people need to hand out sincere compliments freely. Absolutely. I try to do it when I can or when I remember, and yeah, of course, most people are more responsive to compliments than critique. But I also, the way I think of compliments are as a gift you need to give them in order for them to have meaning. 

Nicole: Yeah, and I mean this is something I’ve started working on lately.

I, I love giving compliments, especially to strangers. The way people just light up when you give your compliments freely is, it’s really great. 

Patricia: Yeah. We should, we should maybe do at least a part of a show on giving compliments. ‘Cause sometimes compliments can get creepy, but, but there are ways to do it right.

Nicole: Yeah. 

Patricia: We’ll, we’ll scribble that one down. 

One section in this book, anyway, is about smiling more. And as a woman, as a Black woman, as a Black woman in 2025, I had a visceral reaction. At the same time, I get it. Yes. You sound better on the phone when you smile, when you’re talking. And yes, you should be kind to salespeople.

I think there are a lot of Karens out there who could benefit from reading this book. 

Nicole: Wait, can this book just be boiled down to what Aaron Burr was singing about in Hamilton? Talk less, smile more. 

Patricia: I mean, kind of, yeah. 

Nicole: In so many ways though, this is a good guide to interacting with strangers and I think especially people in the service industry.

Is it a little manipulative to just be nice and set the tone for what you’re expecting from others? Sure. But also, of course people are gonna treat you poorly if you go around acting like a jerk all the time. Like if instead of complimenting people you just, like, insult them? You’re not gonna win friends that way.

Patricia: Yeah. Or if you have a problem at a shop or, or someone with the service industry, like you approach this wrong, you’re gonna end up on a TikTok that you don’t wanna be on. 

Nicole: Yeah. 

Patricia: I want to acknowledge that a lot of the advice in this book is probably much easier for people who are already outgoing. That being said, many people, including me, need to heed his advice of listening more than you speak and asking people about themselves and their interests.

Absolutely. You know, uh, again, I see so many videos online of women posting videos of their dates on men, and you just hear the men talking and they aren’t asking the women like any questions or anything about themselves. And I think about this book, and so much of this book is just like general people in skills as a decent member of society. 

Nicole: One, that’s very gender affirming, thank you. 

Patricia: You’re welcome. 

Nicole: But also that, I think that is the part that I like about this book. It’s the other part that’s like, and here’s how you can weaponize this to manipulate people into doing what you want them to, that kind of feels gross. 

Patricia: Absolutely. 

So would. I recommend this book? I think if you’re curious, it’s fairly harmless. But also if you’re listening to this show, you’re probably fine if you never read it.

Nicole: I also think it is interesting from a historical perspective of self-help. I feel like I understand the genre a little bit better after this. Like I’m reading it from an anthropological standpoint. 

Patricia: Yeah. Well, the thing is, because this book is almost 90 years old, there are so many references in pop culture to How to Win Friends and Influence People. Riffs, satires, nods, just books with similar titles. And I think reading this really helped me understand where all the references are from. 

Nicole: Oh yeah. You mention that now so many, like, How to Win Friends and Influence People for Teen Girls. How to Influence it-, How to win Friends and Influence People on the Internet. Like it’s just… 

Patricia: Yeah, but I think like there’s also just completely different authors

Nicole: yeah 

Patricia: writing books that are just like How to Lose Friends and Make Enemies or whatever. I don’t, 

Nicole: yeah 

Patricia: I don’t even know if that’s true, but I’ve seen other books that like, they’re all kind of giving a nod. 

Nicole: Yeah 

Patricia: to Dale Carnegie. 

Nicole: Oh yeah, no. The titles follow the same format. 

Patricia: Yeah.

Music: [Transition music] 

Nicole: Okay. So overall, what do you want people to take away? 

Patricia: You know, I had first read this book in 2019, and I reread it for this episode, and the advice is, at its core is generally benign and it’s widely applicable. And I think that’s what’s contributed to this book’s longevity. Like, I think the advice at its core without added manipulation is, is fair advice.

What’s your takeaway? 

Nicole: I really appreciated the How to Win Friends part of this book. Especially as someone who isn’t always the best and can maybe be a little closed off in social situations. This offers some good advice for that. I am just less sure about the whole and Influence People part of the book.

Patricia: That’s fair. 

Nicole: Well, Patricia, what’s been filling your cup lately? 

Patricia: Let’s see. I have read some great books lately. One I talked about on the recent All the Books episode, which is In Defense of Dabbling by Karen Walrond, and you could, I’ll link to that show. You could hear me talk about the book on that show.

But then I kind of took a break and I got caught up on the graphic novel Lore Olympus, and I’ve read up through volume eight now. It’s actually a web tune and you could read it online, but I don’t like reading comics on a screen so much, especially if I’m reading in bed. I don’t wanna read a screen in bed. 

And it is a Hades Persephone retelling that’s very stylized. Artwork, amazing. Facial expressions, amazing. I’ve laughed out loud multiple times at this book. It is also dramatic and intense. It does deal with heavy subjects because hey, Greek mythology, um, but also it’s like I love how she just roasts Zeus all the time, like all the time, uh, as it should be.

And I think, I don’t know. I really love Lore Olympus. Uh, like I said, I get physical copies. I’ll link volume one in bookshop, but it’s really been like a highlight. I already wanna go back and read ’em all again. And they’re not even done yet. 

Nicole, what’s been filling your cup? 

Nicole: I have been influenced. And so I am now trying to grow some of our plants on moss poles in hopes of making, uh, big leaf house plants.

Patricia: And you have made the moss poles yourself. We didn’t buy pre-made moss poles. 

Nicole: No, I, of course, I made them myself. 

Patricia: Yeah. 

Nicole: Got some wire mesh, some uh, zip ties and some sphagnum moss. And, uh, I repotted our philodendron and, uh, I’ve got some cuttings of our pathos and, uh, I’m gonna see if I can get ’em to grow big.

Patricia: Yeah, I don’t know. I’m pretty impressed, like the philodendron that you’ve, I’m looking at it right now, like it looks like that’s its natural habitat and it’s supposed to be that way and I have a hard time imagining it not with that moss pole now. 

Nicole: It’s been there for like a week. 

Patricia: Yeah. Yeah. And I’m like, no, that’s just how it should be.

Nicole: But like, it also gave me an excuse to be crafty and I guess get moss all over the bathtub for a little bit. 

Patricia: That too. 

Nicole: But, uh, yeah, I’m kind of excited to see what happens. 

Patricia: Well, that’s our show for today. We’d like to thank our awesome audio editor, Jen Zink. You can find her at loopdelou.com. We’ll leave a link to that in our show notes.

Nicole: Also, go pitch in on Jen’s GoFundMe. 

Patricia: Yeah. 

Nicole: You can find the full show notes and transcript at eedapod.com. That’s E-E-D-A-P-O-D dot com. There, you can also find a link to our Patreon, our bookshop link, and a link to the ongoing, Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice newsletter. You can also find us on Instagram and Bluesky at EEDAPOD and email us at EEDAPOD at gmail dot com.

Patricia: We are nothing if not consistent. 

Nicole: We would also appreciate it so much if you would subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts that allow ratings, it really goes far in helping other people find us. And if you would like to leave us a comment, you can do so at any of the places I’ve just named or email us, including email us your favorite or least favorite self-help books. 

Patricia: Yeah. We’re taking suggestions too. If there’s books that you really think we should talk about. 

Nicole: Yeah. 

Patricia: Put ’em on our radar. 

Nicole: Yes. 

Patricia: We would also appreciate anyone who can subscribe to us on Patreon. Support is going to help us keep this show going, especially without ads.

You can find us at patreon.com/eedapod. In the meantime, we hope you find ways to be kind to yourself, drink some water and read a book. We’ll be talking to you soon.

I’m 50! 

Nicole: I was just thinking Zeus is just so roastable though. 

Patricia: Zeus is so roastable. Oh my gosh. 

You have to read Lore Olympus. It’s so good.