Beyond Dale Carnegie: The New Way To Win Friends and Influence People For The Next 100 Years

In 1936, Dale Carnegie’s famous book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, distilled success into simple, relatable stories, offering steps to connect and persuade. Strategy expert and startup advisor Mike Hill has reinvented this idea for the modern world with a powerful, structured methodology that refines your message.

Messaging is at the core of everything we do—it’s the reason we have the written word. Whether in politics, business, or any area of life, helping people understand our point of view is essential.

This blog is for those who strive to go beyond the ordinary. Effective messaging is one of our greatest challenges, and what Mike Hill has created is truly groundbreaking.

How Does This Work?

The Lean Canvas model, which Mike draws from, was created by Ash Maurya as a variation on the Business Model Canvas by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur. Maurya designed the Lean Canvas to focus on startups, emphasizing quick and flexible planning.

Mike has taken this to a whole new level, creating something so highly crafted and refined, so foundational, it belongs in every toolkit; regardless of the field.

It’s a “bento box” approach, a spreadsheet where you separate and organize the core elements of “what you do” into defined boxes. This structured presentation holds the key to differentiating your value for diverse audiences who need to understand—but achieving this clarity requires playing devil’s advocate, pushing you to dig deeper.

This methodology spans politics, business, government, and personal growth —a universal strategy for negotiations, sales calls, and venture pitches. In politics, it helps leaders communicate their simplest vision or slogan; in business, it sharpens the message to investors; in personal growth, it clarifies goals with unmistakable precision.

Cleave & Balance: The "Bento Box"

Psychographics asks the “why”—the emotional core driving the audience’s needs and beliefs. Each box —reflects and reinforces that core, turning every element back to the “why.”

The devil’s advocate pushes, responses shift, and the cycle continues.

Adjusting one piece means rethinking others, aligning each layer until the story resonates on a deep, personal level that is shared by everyone.

This isn’t a pitch; it’s the truth of what matters to your audience. It’s your website, your brochure, your slogan, your motto, your mission statement, your very reason for being.

Key Elements of Mike's Approach

Connected Elements: Pain Point, Solution, and Unfair Advantage are interdependent. Adjusting one affects the others, creating a repeating cycle that builds into the Value Proposition, Customer Segments, Key Metrics, and Channels.

These lead into Early Adopters, Cost, and Revenue structures—forming the idea’s full value exchange: even if dollars are not involved.

Devil’s Advocacy: Each element aligns by questioning it rigorously —asking “Why?” and “Who cares?” Or “I don’t get it” this back and forth process ensures every part resonates and answers the audience’s core needs. This questioning refines elements like the value proposition to emphasize fundamental benefits and forces other responses to change in suit.

Scientific Process: A critical, scientific approach drives this method. Dissecting, discussing refinements, and rearranging ideas lets you apply the timeless lessons of How to Win Friends and Influence People, for today’s world and for the next 100 years.

Psychographic vs. Demographic

The difference here is adopting a psychographic approach. Instead of thinking of roles or titles, age-ranges and the like, we focus on traits such as values, interests, fears, and motivations. The “Why” behind choices, the feelings we experience.

While the Value Proposition Canvas and Lean Canvas are effective tools, they often fall short in capturing the psychological and emotional dimensions of customer needs. These tools tend to rely on demographic and functional criteria, limiting their ability to truly understand and address the deeper motivations of customers.

By combining the strengths of traditional tools with a deeper focus on customer psychology and personal connection, the Smart Canvas process offers a powerful approach to value proposition development.

Mike’s experience as an expert consultant with the government business association has created a unique testbed —a constant cycle of refining every kind of business and messaging scenario imaginable, and many you’d never imagine at all.

This is the new guide to persuasive messaging for the next 100 years, redefining communication in politics, business, and personal interactions.

Correctly identifying audience pain and addressing their motivations is the shortest path to building the trust needed to get your message heard.

What bothers them? What drives their decisions?

Correctly identifying audience pain and addressing their motivations is the shortest path to building the trust needed to get your message heard.

If you falter out of the starting gate, the race is lost —your message won’t be understood.

In startups, there’s a critical message often called an “elevator pitch,” but this concept goes beyond that —it applies to every interaction, whether inside the elevator or out. It’s often the key sentence you use to capture interest in a meeting or casual conversation.

More than words, it’s an idea, even a feeling —a story.

It's the "Why" —it's the struggle, the pain point.

It's the thorn in the lion's foot that only you can remove.

This process of messaging is never complete, but even a few hours spent with a worthy devil's advocate repeating tough questions will help you simplify your message and make it resonate with others.

This strategy is literally for anyone who wants to take off and —Go Beyond!