Become genuinely interested in other people.

We are on to Part II in Dale Carnegie's How to Make Friends and Influence People. The part about making the friends.

This is where he explains that you will make friends by being genuinely interested in other people, not trying to make them interested in you.

For some reason this also reminded me of Bill Cosby's commencement speech at Drew University, in 2002, which I had the great honour of hearing - my good friend Veronica was graduating. Best commencement speech I have ever heard by the way.

He told a great story, greatly condensed here, about a philosophy class he attended at university taught by a particularly challenging professor. One day said Prof. tasked the students with answering the question "Is the glass half full or half empty".

After Cosby what at his grandmother's house - a woman with a lot more love than education - and seeing something was weighing on his mind she asked what it was. Feeling sure she couldn't understand he avoided replying at first, and only upon her insistence did he tell her that he was troubled over how to answer the question: Is the glass half full or half empty".

Grandma replied: "Well, it depends if you're drinking or pouring".