many of us are attached to the misconception that we need to be someone else to be liked. This is the implicit message in the mega-bestseller How to Win Friends and Influence People. The author, Dale Carnegie, encourages us to ingratiate. Smile at people, use their name, get people to talk about themselves, make them feel important. This isn’t bad advice per se, but it is manipulative. Instead of ingratiating, we must do the internal work of building security so warm behaviors flow from us naturally.
