Do not criticize one guest to another là gì năm 2024

Seventy-eight per cent admitted that they would be more empathetic towards patients, with greater sensitivity to their psychological distress, in the future.

This case admits a specially simple normal form in which the low degree terms of the normal form can be replaced by coordinate functions.

Thus, by admitting these more general continuation expressions we get a considerable simplification of the equational presentation of -calculus.

A chapter on hybrid peas seems superfluous when, as the author admits, hybrid varieties are extremely unlikely!

The functor syntax admits functors of many variables, and functor composition.

A 56-year-old man was admitted to a psychiatric clinic for treatment of alcoholism known for the last 25 years.

Management options will be discussed again after cardiac catheterisation, and then when the child is admitted for surgery.

Seventeen of the 99 patients were admitted with a feeding tube in place and half received a new feeding tube.

The transplant team directs the care of its patients regardless of the unit to which they are admitted.

Two sequences are equivalent if and only if they admit contractions which have a common dilation.

These differences contributed to the formation of a great ideological divide that admitted no compromise, and that soon generated a spiral of political violence.

Rather, we should admit that the ties are somewhat different in different contexts.

For stationary propagation, these equations admit solitontype localized solutions.

The community may have reached more than 10,000 men at its height; as a rule, no women were admitted.

The remainder did not admit to receiving help from anyone.

These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

The woman who wrote this may have social skills, but she is also an idiot. The book is unfortunately so shoddily and offensively written, I often found myself needing to take breathers between chapters. At least 150 pages of this tome needn't exist. Like a true conversationalist, Landes makes sure every single "trick" is accompanied by one or two vapid anecdotes. She has some good tips, but far from 92 of them. Some just make you a stupid jerk -- instructions on how to trap someone else into speaking with a bore so you can walk away? Really?

Favorite idiotic quote-

"Most Big Apple subway riders know only two things about the subway: where they get on and where they get off. They know nothing about the rest of the system. Most people are like NYC strap-hangers when it comes to their hobbies and interests. They know their own pastimes, but all the others are like unvisited stations."

You like this? By all means, grab a copy and dig in.

1,129 reviews1,035 followers

November 18, 2016

A useful collection of tips for social interactions, mostly for business networking. They emphasize nonverbal communication such as body language and vocal tone. This book definitely increased my awareness of my social behavior, and I’ll keep several of the tips in mind.

If you’ve read How to Win Friends and Influence People (my review) or other books about winning people over, you won’t find much new here. However, there are a few tips that countered common wisdom, such as waiting until after a caller announces their name to sound excited (rather than sounding excited as soon as you answer). Some tips seem disingenuous and manipulative, such as timing your smile, crafting your compliments, and altering your behavior, but most are sound.

I listened to the audiobook, which is energetically read by the author. She comes across as overconfident, but she’s also funny at times. The 3.5-hour recording contains 62 tips instead of the book’s 92.

By the way, besides How to Win Friends, I highly recommend Never Eat Alone (my review).

My favorite tips • When introduced to someone, pivot 100% towards them. • When asked what you do, give an explanation along with your job title. • Listen for the other person to drop clues about their interests, then ask about them. • Keep turning the “spotlight” of conversation on the other person. • Parrot the other person’s last few words, in the form of a question, to keep the conversation going. • Ask “How do you spend most of your time?” not “What do you do?” • Mimic the motions and manners of the other person. • Mimic the words and phrases of the other person. • Use the words “we”, “us”, and “our” to imply camaraderie. • The killer compliment: privately and sincerely compliment the other person on a specific, attractive quality or trait. Don't do this more than twice a year per person, or you'll dilute its effect. • On the phone, replace gestures with words. • On the phone, use a person’s name much more often than when face-to-face.

business marketing non-fiction

18 reviews7 followers

January 31, 2012

The first impulse is to rip this book to shreds in my review because of how many times it made me cringe and cover my face with my palm. I have honestly never read anything quite so...bombastic. It gets extremely laughable and pitiful. I shall elaborate.

The author of this book, Leil Lowndes, has divided the book into 92 "mini-essays" for each of her "little tricks". Each mini-essay comes with some kind of anecdote. You can guarantee these anecdotes will tell us all about Leil's very very high powered "Big Winner" or "Big Cat" friends, or her scorning and mocking one of her "little cat" friends who made some kind of gaffe. You can also find ridiculous analogies like "when a pack of wolves is chasing a jackrabbit through the jungle"...then what, Leil? They're all ridiculously lost? It tries so hard to reinforce her own inflated sense of self-importance it's almost like you're reading a pep talk from the author to herself. Half of it sounds like invented garbage and...to no real end.

But to be fair, there are some decent tips in the book. Perhaps not mind-blowing tips you would never have thought of, but certainly some communication strategies that are useful to read and draw your attention to. There's also a few - I would say a minority - which seem like such a hilariously bad idea I can't imagine anyone with an ounce of sense even thinking about following them. It should be noted however that almost every tip in the book is aimed towards people looking to make business contacts, sell things and network, rather than making real friends or improving personal relationships. One can certainly read between the lines and see places you could implement the tips in other ways, but do not expect them to be presented as such.

Overall, the book isn't terrible if we purely look at the content, but you're going to struggle your way through all of Leil's garbage boasting and Big Cat little cat talk. I feel like patting myself on the back for getting through it, to be honest!

115 reviews

January 2, 2015

I read this book because the title was appealing to me, an awkward turtle. But it wasn't helpful at all. I'm not good at small talk even when I know what I should say, I probably have ADD and I don't like looking people in the eyes for too long. Nearly all these tips are so phony and about basically being a fake person for other people so they like you. The tips are all fairly obvious (if not contradictory) but it doesn't help anyone like me who already knows the lot of it but has severe trouble in actually applying them! I need a book that can give me a perspective of someone with limitations and how to work with them to my benefit, because surely there is one. This one is not that book. Also don't listen to the audiobook, oh my bananas, I couldn't stand the phoniness and fakeness that drips from the voice of author.

nope what-the-fuck

April 28, 2016

There's a (likely apocryphal) story about Groucho Marx being interviewed, where the interviewer asked him what the key to success as an actor was. Marx responded, "Sincerity is the key. Once you can fake that, you've got it made."

Leil Lowndes apparently feels the same way, but she appears not to catch the irony in it.

There's a difference between advice that helps bring out the real you, enabling you to put your best foot forward, and advice that helps hide the real you, enabling you to convince people you're better than you are. This book falls squarely in the latter camp. Not worth reading.

May 16, 2008

This lady probably has some good social skills herself, but she's a god damn idiot.

135 reviews29 followers

November 28, 2011

I'm on a mission of self-improvement. I found many of the tips in this book to be very helpful (especially those focused on conversations), and I'm already putting some of them into practice. What I liked was the practical advice and clear examples and anecdotes for each tip.

I docked a star because I while I understand where Lowndes was going with the "Big Cat" vs "Little Cat" comparison (or "Big Winners" vs "Losers"), at times I felt she took it too far. For example, it came across in the book that you're either a Big Cat communicator, or you're a Little Cat. That's too black-and-white for me. I think it's OK to be a "Medium Cat", because we're humans, not robots. I think it's best to strike a healthy balance. Too much of either thing is no good, in my humble opinion.

Also, near the end of the book, I felt that it was unnecessary for her to list which one of the friends she mentioned in her anecdotes were successful and which ones weren't. She made it sound as though all of her friends who made a single social faux pas were suddenly failures in life. Having good social skills is important, I get it, but c'mon, we're going to make mistakes along the way, too and we shouldn't be deemed permanent failures as a result. Mistakes are a part of learning.

But overall, great book, and as I mentioned earlier, I did leave with some good tips to put into practice, so that's a bonus.

kindle-read

755 reviews68 followers

December 27, 2023

The author starts by saying that Dale Carnegie's book of How to Win Friends and Influence People is not applicable for the 21st century any more. However, the author did nothing but copying the same lame ideas from his book and attached her name on the cover. I real time waster. Nevertheless, I listened to it through as an audiobook, however it keeps to be waste my valuable moments of peace. I really have to stop giving a chance to this sort of self-development books and keep in mind that they are nothing but turning you into a nasty doormat to people in order to be accepted. Just be yourself and everything is gonna be terrifically fine!

self-development

140 reviews73 followers

June 19, 2018

بعضی از مطالبش مفید بود که خیلی از وقتها از ذهنمون دور میمونه و بهش توجه نمیکنیم ولی کلکها و دروغهایی که به خواننده یاد می داد اصلا اخلاقی نبود. حتی به نظرم مخاطب حتما تفاوت فیلم بازی کردن و توجه واقعی به بعضی اصول و آداب معاشرت رو میفهمه و اگر اونجوری که توی کتاب میگه کسی فیلم بازی کنه بازخورد منفی هم خواهد داشت. بهتر بود و میشد بسیاری از همین مطالب رو افراد از صمیم دل انجام بدن نه اینکه دائم توی کتاب یادآوری کنه که کافی هست نقشش رو بازی کنی و دروغ بگی

257 reviews19 followers

March 5, 2016

I can see why this received such mixed reviews. On one hand, some of these tips make sense. For example, when giving appreciation it's more meaningful to the recipient to hear why you're grateful, so you should always say, "Thank you for (something)." For some of her tips, she includes suggestions by experts in social sciences.

On the other hand, she sometimes offers advice and examples without ample research. For example, she suggests using a tradesperson's lingo to get a better deal. Then, she proceeds to give an example of her painter's advice on how the other painters might try to cheat her. First, this is clearly a biased source. He wants her business and he wants to look more honest and affordable than his competition. Secondly, she did not gain the required knowledge that she thinks she has. She thinks she can save hundreds of dollars by telling a painter that the spackle looks good to prevent the painter from marking up the prep work, which she thinks is the most lucrative part of a painter's job. Also, she clearly didn't understand the term "cut in." She suggests also telling painters that they don't need to cut in since there's only one color. She doesn't realize that the painter still needs to cut in the ceiling, floor, windows, doorframes, and any other edge that a paint roller can't reach. If the parts I’m knowledgeable in poke holes in her assertions, how can I trust anything else she says?

She also doesn’t follow her own advice. She advises to avoid clichés, yet her book is filled with them.

Perhaps my final complaint is not directly the author’s fault, but hearing about how people had to kowtow to “the big cats” was nauseating. At a certain point, many of these tips start sounding like a caste system. The message I began to hear was to play the game, stroke others’ egos so the people you consider important like being around you, and then you can become someone important, too. This message implies that some people are better than others, just due to corporate success. It also implies that your authentic self is not good enough. I found myself wanting to reach for a spiritual book that talks about how to be more genuinely show people affection and attention, regardless of where they stand on the corporate ladder.

30 reviews25 followers

May 13, 2016

از کتاباییه که هر کسی باید بخونه به نظرم یک بار خوندن واسه اظهار نظر کافی نیست وقتی بار دوم خوندم دوباره ادیت میکنم

29 reviews6 followers

August 14, 2021

If you have read and liked How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie, most likely you are going to like this book. In most cases, the author even goes a step further to make Carnegie’s timeless principles more bite sized & actionable.

The author outlines 92 techniques that’ll tune anyone into a smooth talker & an expert communicator. You will most likely not find all 92 techniques useful. However you’ll for sure pick up quite a few useful ones.

Word of caution though: if you get too excited & inspired after reading the book and want to start using all of these techniques all the time, step a step back! Moderation is the key in communication. Understand the context & use the techniques appropriately. In the pursuit of becoming an expert communicator, you don’t want to come across as tacky. Moderation is the key!

People often criticize this genre of communication books as clichéd & manipulative. However I still invite you to read this. Set aside your reservations & give it a go. Lots of basic communication etiquettes, that we expect to be common sense, are not really so common. So, no harm no foul in polishing up the basics. Just have the right intentions when you’re using the techniques.

Final pro tip: at the end of each chapter, there is a summary of the technique outlined within a box. Read those first & then read the rest of the chapter in full if that particular technique resonates with you. This will save you a lot of time otherwise wasted reading unnecessary explanation & anecdotes.

Happy reading & happy communicating!

110 reviews116 followers

January 10, 2021

When i read this kind of books, i focus on 3 things that are important to me as a reader: 1- writing style 2- things that i can gain 3- research. This book had non of the above, it focused to telling people not only to be artificial but to lose the essence of themselves in order to impress people.

43 reviews1 follower

January 30, 2022

"Every smile, every frown, every syllable, you utter, every arbitrary choice of word that passes between your lips, can draw others towards you, or make them want to run away."

+ good tips here and there + increased my awareness of social behaviours a tiny bit maybe - too many anecdotes and WAY TOO MUCH WAFFLING - It just felt as if this whole socialising thing was a game of manipulation to be liked - no research

71 reviews15 followers

August 17, 2017

Phải công nhận đây là một cuốn sách rất thực tế, rất cuốn hút và thuyết phục. Tác giả Leil Lowndes đã tìm được một chỗ đứng cho riêng mình trong các thể loại sách giao tiếp khi bà đã cụ thể hóa, "chỉ tận nơi" cách để đắc nhân tâm. Không nằm ngoài những quy luật quan trọng của cuốn sách kinh điển "Đắc nhân tâm", đó là luôn hướng giao tiếp đến người khác, nhưng nếu như DNT chỉ dừng lại ở mức "principle" thì Leil đào sâu vào những ví dụ cụ thể, những thủ thuật tưởng chừng như đơn giản nhưng lại đủ để làm tan chảy trái tim người khác.Gọi là 92 thủ thuật nhưng thật ra chẳng thể nào dùng hết chúng đâu, hơn nữa mình thấy có nhiều thứ có thể gộp lại cho dễ nhớ. Nói chung theo mình là nên chia như thế này: Phần 1: Tạo ấn tượng lần đầu không lời: không nên cười quá sớm, tạo nhiều điệu cười khác nhau, tạo cho mắt mình có một chiều sâu. Phần 2: Cách bắt chuyện phiếm: đây là phần thực sự không đơn giản đối vs những người ham học ham lamf^^. Căn bản vì ham học quá nên có bao giờ để ý đến mấy thứ linh tinh vớ vẩn đâu. Nhưng Leil đã giúp tìm ra giải pháp bằng cách tạo điểm nhấn cho bản thân, tạo những câu trả lời mở, "nghe lén" để tìm ra điểm thích hợp hòa nhập vào đám đông, đọc qua tin tức để tạo chủ đề thảo luận,... Phần 3+4+5: Cách giao tiếp uy lực: Phần này yêu cầu người đọc phải xây dựng thành thói quen mới có thể thuần thục được. Tựu chung lại những thứ nổi bật nhất theo mình đó là phải xây dựng được một vốn sống phong phú, hệ thống ngôn từ rộng, biết sử dụng thuật ngữ của người trong cuộc để tạo cảm giác gần gũi, lấy lòng người nghe. Ngôn từ giao tiếp là một vũ khí tối thượng để lấy lòng người nghe, đòi hỏi phải có sự tinh tế và tập luyện rất nhiều lần. Phần 6: cách khen: khen là cả một nghệ thuật đó. Không phải cứ khen nhiều là người đối diện thấy thích và không phải ai cũng biết đáp lại lời khem một cách tài tình. Một lời khen gián tiếp, nhẹ nhàng, thông qua khâu trung gian và hơi kín đáo, đúng lúc, đúng chỗ chính cách tốt nhất để người nghe cảm thấy phấn khích. Khi mình là người được khen, thủ thuật boomerang chính là cách đáp khéo léo nhất mang cả niềm vui cho người khen. Phần 7: Cách nói chuyện qua điện thoại:Toàn bộ cảm xúc chỉ được thể hiện qua lời nói nên phải thể hiện làm sao cho thật truyền cảm. Hơn nữa, cần phải tinh tế nhận ra thời điểm thích hợp "đèn xanh"để nói chuyện, đâu phải cứ nói lúc nào là được đâu :) Phần 8: Dự tiệc: Cũng là cả một kỳ công chuẩn bị Phần 9: Phá bỏ trở ngại lớn nhất: Đây là phần cực kỳ hữu hiệu cho những ai đang muốn giảm độ "vô duyên" của mình nhất. Không thể tóm gọn lại được, vì mỗi thủ thuật là mỗi một trường hợp riêng biệt.

Nói chung, những thủ thuật của Leil Lowndes không thể chê vào đâu được cả. Ngòi bút viết rất "trôi", hài hước, lách sâu đến mức người đọc phải trầm trồ vì sự khéo léo và tinh tế của tác giả. Từ những cử chỉ rất nhỏ nhặt thôi nhưng đào sâu trong đó lại là cả một nghệ thuật "đốn tim" người nhận kể cả người khó tính nhất. Bản dịch của alpha book thì khỏi phải nói rồi, dịch rất tốt, có chăng chỉ là đoạn tác giả phân tích sâu về sắc thái ngôn ngữ nên nhiều khi tiếng Việt không thể nào thể hiện được. Nhưng lý thuyết vẫn chỉ là lý thuyết, chẳng bao giờ mình dùng hết được, nhưng cũng chẳng bao giờ mình quên nó được, chỉ có thực hành+chiêm nghiệm+ đọc lại mới tạo nên thói quen và độ thuần thục mà thôi.

communication

17 reviews3 followers

September 30, 2019

~✿✿~ ••Writing alot of notes while reading this made me realize how much i enjoyed this book ,And it's my first time ever to give a book 5 stars . ••The techniques are really simple and useful , and i should say it already made me better at socializing . ••It explain how to be a good listener as it says in the book " open your ears like a detector searching for clue "

••also it makes you have awareness of the way you talk , choose your words , the way you react to your surroundings , and the way you respond to people. it gave me a reason why i couldn't communicate or get friends easily in the past . ••I wish i'd read this book before starting college .

••Some tips that i liked :

~ ✿ never make the phrase "Thank you " naked and alone , add something to it like ••((thank you for coming , thank you for waiting , thank you for being so loving , than you for understanding , thank you for getting us here , thank you for asking ))•• .

~ your smile is the best communication weapon .

~ while talking The more you keep the lights away from you the more he or she will be interested at you .

~ do humanity a favor and never answer "where are you from ? " with one sentence .

~you should always avoid " what do you do ? " question , because people are alot more than their jobs , the right question is How do you spend most of your time ?

~ some people will ask you "What do you do ? " question so make sure not to give just one word answer For example if you're a hair dresser Say i help people fine the perfect hair style matching their looks and personality and so on.

~ never give the same compliment , although in the book it says this tip is just for man , but i think about it as a tip for both , male likes to get unrepeated compliments too .

~ kill the metoo . Whenever someone tell you something that is in common with you don't stop their talking for giving a quick METOO! . The longer you wait the more that person will be affected by you.

~ usig the broken record technique , To avoid answering questions .

~✿✿~

151 reviews452 followers

October 2, 2023

it’s an incredible collection of tips! the book is jam-packed with advice on mastering nonverbal communication like body language.

i was blown away by the insights in this book and can't wait to put them into practice in my own interactions. they sound interesting and fun. a must-read for anyone looking to up their social game. don't miss out on the opportunity to transform your communication skills!

BUT let me spill the tea on the issues i have with this book!

when it comes to mastering the art of social interaction, we stumble upon a few tips that strike as duplicitous and manipulative. you know, those sneaky tactics like strategically timing your smile, carefully crafting your compliments, or even altering your behavior to fit the situation.

Author 12 books27 followers

June 1, 2012

Having scoured Amazon for days, I finally narrowed my selection to three books on social skills, one of which was this book.

I was looking for advice on honing my conversational skills to the level of a social butterfly. Having some experience as a management trainer, I look at self-help books critically and here is my analysis.

First the positives. This book does teach you some important and overlooked facts that are helpful for all of us, as they may be our blind spots. It also gives you real life examples to support the points. There are quite a few very helpful tips in there. It is especially good for people who are socially challenged.

On the downside, the book traverses social and professional settings, zigzagging its path, which becomes a tad confusing. The format of the book is such that it overlaps the two. However, my preference would have been two separate sections on social and professional settings. Afterall a date is dealt with differently than a prospective client. Partying skills are presented at the end, while first impressions are presented upfront. This formatting is focused on producing 92 separate tips and relating social situations to conform to them. It would have been better to classify social situations with their progression and then offer tips accordingly, which would have made the book more coherent and pragmatic.

The book borrows from Dale Carnegie and yet dismisses his tips as dated, this was a put off for me. Dale did not stretch his book to over 300 pages, he just wrote the basic idea and let the reader apply it intelligently.

Despite its shortcomings, its still a useful book for picking up some good pointers.

381 reviews17 followers

August 18, 2017

I'm a big fan of clear communication and speaking up and representing yourself. I am also a big fan of relevant and concise information, without wasting anyone's time, especially my own and that of my clients'. This book is too long, it is badly read in the audio version AND it is dated. Very very dated. I lost track of moments I was embarrassed for the author because it would be so easy to revise and update this resource. And her self-aggrandizement got old after the first time she did it, but the entire book is full of examples of her own superior knowing to that of her friends and colleagues, about whom she shares entirely too much detail for me to feel comfortable for them being publicly shamed for their gaffes. My big takeaway from the book was this nugget: Instead of asking, "What do you do?", ask, "How do you spend most of your time?" Bypass this book and have a meaningful conversation with a stranger instead.

2017 audio-book business

153 reviews3 followers

August 29, 2022

eh, this book was not great, also v dramatic haha. wouldn’t recommend. most of the tips seemed like tricks on how to fool someone into thinking you care about them. IMO, i feel ppl can see through superficial/fake moves that “show” you’re listening. instead of focusing on when to smile or how to make eye contact, i think the most important focus is ACTUALLY listening. eye contact and well-placed smiles can never make up for genuine care and seeking to understand. pass on this book.

if you like the idea of this book, read 7 habits of highly effective ppl or never split the difference instead.

33 reviews3 followers

November 2, 2010

This book delivered what it advertised in that there were 92 tips in it. 'How to talk to anyone', however, didn't seem to come across as much as 'how to talk to someone who's potentially hiring you and/or someone who you're sexually interested in.' Then again, maybe that IS anyone. Either way, this book had a couple truly good, insightful tips (all at the beginning), and the rest was either common sense or something that a socially observant person would have already picked up on in the course of their life. An example of a good tip was at the beginning- when greeting/meeting someone, wait a second before smiling, considering them, finally letting the corners of your mouth slowly creep up into a full smile, communicating to the other person that your smile is just for them. However, a good tip like that is offset by things like the tip 'always be in the know in a conversation by reading something about any job that exists, preparing you for any eventuality.' Well, duh, I guess I'd be prepared, but that's not really a 'little trick'. This book isn't as much a communication tool as a how-to manual to get hired. Not exactly what I was looking for, but it did have its merits.

908 reviews850 followers

September 28, 2021

Some of the tricks are basic and good to keep in mind to practice regularly, like making eye contact (not staring at your computer while you're speaking to colleagues) and trying new activities once a month so you'll be exposed to the experience and know the lingo (hence be able to talk about the activity like an insider). A few tricks were surprising, like being slow to smile. When you're introduced to a person, take in the situation and then smile - you're giving the impression that you're pleased to meet the person; you're viewed as more authentic. If, on the other hand, you quickly smile when you're introduced to a new person, the recipient doesn't feel special. Your smile is viewed as an automatic response, not an expression of the emotion of being pleased. I expect I'll be practicing a handful of the tricks. After mastering those techniques, I'll refer back to the book to select another set of tricks to practice.

127 reviews26 followers

December 2, 2020

توی این کتاب ۹۲ تا درس برای چگونه ارتباط برقرار کردن چه در کار چه در روابط شخصی در قالب یه داستان کوتاه گفته میشه. آخر هر درس توی کادر نکته ی اصلی دوباره تاکید شده که توی کتاب های self-help به نظرم خیلی موثره. قطعا هر ۹۲ تا درس قرار نیست به کارمون بیان و بتونیم ازشون استفاده کنیم. اما اگه حتی ۱۰ مورد رو هم پس ذهنمون نگه داریم ارتباطمون با بقیه ۱۰ برابر بهتر میشه.چی از این بهتر!

2020 influential

1,122 reviews133 followers

October 9, 2013

The content of Leil Lowndes's How to Talk to Anyone is much better described by its subtitle: 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships. Some of the book is about talking to people, but quite a bit is about other aspects of relationships. I read this just after reading How to Make People Like You in 90 Seconds or Less by Nicholas Boothman (reviewed here). Both books are on similar topics, but written by very different authors. While Boothman's book is short and less thorough than I would have liked, I really enjoyed his personality. He seems like someone who genuinely likes meeting people, someone who finds joy in everyday life. His friendliness and enthusiasm were contagious.

And then there's Leil Lowndes. She seems like a shallow, petty, artificial person (which I assume is not true, but it's the image I'm left with having read her book). A number of her "Little Tricks for Big Success" seem to me phony. Rather than cultivating a "bag of tricks" to make people around feel better about themselves and me, why not cultivate an attitude of genuine interest and care for others around me? As Boothman repeats throughout his book, it is only out of a genuine attitude that people will feel loved and appreciated. I agree with this, and I think I would feel slightly used to be treated with some of Lowndes's techniques for getting ahead. The end result of this self-improvement ought to be that I am a better person, regardless of whether I am (to use Lowndes's terminology) a "Big Cat" or "Little Cat." I should be giving my best to everyone, not just successful people who can give me something that benefits me.

Consider Lowndes's story of her friend who, apparently, completely messed up the chances for success when she didn't handle a business phone call with 100% perfection. Afterwards, Lowndes says, "I still like Laura. She's still my friend. But will I introduce her to any other Big Winners who might help her? I can't take the chance." Goodness.

I also find it difficult to understand what, in Lowndes's opinion, constitutes proper, caring behavior, and what is shallow and false. A prime example is her pride in a form letter that she sends to supervisors of employees who have given her good service (Technique 90). To me, a form letter just doesn't seem the height of caring.

However, there are some really good techniques in the book, too. "Hang by Your Teeth" (Technique 4) is a fantastic tip for improving posture. And there are many other pieces of advice that are very good. It's just the overall odd tone from the author that leaves a bad taste in my mouth from the book as a whole. Also, it seems that the pinnacle of Lowndes's career was being a hostess on a cruise ship; she's not married; her anecdotes are mostly about "friends." A book like this would be more authoritative from someone who has achieved the success that Lowndes is so obviously desperate for.

leadership-vocation non-fiction

63 reviews5 followers

November 10, 2017

The author starts this book explaining how anecdotes are a memorable way to carry a message. The author then continues to anecdote you to death. For every would be sentence of wisdom there is 2 pages of useless anecdote.

The wisdom in this book is essentially the notes taken from reading good books of the same genre, then separating them with anecdotes. No research. no studies. no tests... just anecdotes. Anecdotes that you instantly do not believe as the author has told you already they serve the purpose of helping you remember.