Last night my wife and I had dinner with friends.  They were telling us about a new couple they had met.

The couple they met were very well travelled.  Stories of great hotels.  Had a deer problem on their 8-acre property in the Hamptons.

“OK, I get it, they’re rich,” I said.  “What did you tell them about you?”

“Nothing,” my friends answered.   “Why?” I asked (already knowing the answer).

“They didn’t ask,” my friends responded.

“Did that bother you?” I pressed.

“Not too much … they are nice people and we were happy to hear about them.”

“OK, let me guess … inherited wealth?”  I pushed.

“Yes, that’s true … his father owned a major retail chain.  How did you know?”

I knew because of my long-time rule:  the great majority of people who make significant wealth from the ground up either have a natural curiosity about people or, develop the ability to fake it.  When I meet or hear of a rich person who has neither, I figure he did not make his/her money himself/herself.

I am not always right, of course, but here is my logic:  anyone who has gone from nothing to a big something has had to win over a lot of people along the way – customers, lenders, suppliers, bosses, regulators and/or investors.  In order to do that, a person has to have the ability to make people like and trust him.  And, one of the best ways to do that is to ask about others’ interests, family, hometown, opinions – whatever.

Anyone who has no real interest in other people and/or hasn’t learned how to pretend is, in my view, unlikely to make it big in almost any endeavor.

Dale Carnegie wrote one of the best selling books ever (in 1936!), How to Win Friends and Influence People.  Here are five of his principles for success:

1. Become genuinely interested in other people.
2. Smile.
3. Be a good listener.
4. Talk about the other person’s interest.
5. Make the other person feel important.

Recently I read about a financial analyst who bases her investment decisions on the number of times the word “I” appears in CEO letters/reports to shareholders.   She stays away from companies with too many “I’s” – a thinking I agree with.

Jim Randel is the founder of book series The Skinny On™.  His new book, The Skinny on Achievement, will be available in July.