Product Description

This is a book for anyone who has ever encountered an explosive boss, an uncooperative civil servant, hostile clients, arrogant salespeople, or an argumentative family member. This book advises how to recognize when people are attacking you verbally, how to adapt your defence to different types of attack, and how to remain calm and confident and avoid getting upset. Tests, questionnaires and personal development exercises are included.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #268879 in Books
• Published on: 1997-03-20
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 122 pages

Customer Reviews

A Very useful and practical book
I read this book in the hope of improving my social skills. Having already read many books based around self-help psychology that didn't really help much, my expectations were not very high. I found that this book helped me a lot more than I could have expected. I have often wondered how some people managed to achieve the respect of most of the people they encounter and how they achieved that. This book has the answers to that question. It showed me the dynamics of how people reject each other, based on the idea that humans automatically reject people when they pigeon hole them and group them into categories, the book goes a step further than most and gives suggestions on how to influence the way other people see you, so you won't be pigeon-holed by their automatic rejection mechanism. Most self-help books I've read tell you how to cope with peoples'rejection, but not how to try and stop it. This book does both, because by telling you the basis of rejection (which is when people overlook most of your qualities and traits and focus on one or two things they don't like {pigeon holing you}) it helps you deal with it because you realise people are rejecting a small part of what they observe about you, not your whole worth as a human. It also teaches you how to behave assertively and take control of situations that could lead to physical violence if not handled properly. The book contains a lot more helpful information than I can describe here, but if there's one general thing that reading this book has helped me to realise is that all people are basically the same. We are all unique individuals with our own idiosyncrasies, but we all follow the same general patterns of behaviour. Anyone can learn to successfully communicate with all types of people, gain more respect, make more friends, and to handle potentially violent situations. By becoming more aware of what drives people's aggression, what drives their love, and understanding why people behave in certain ways and what to do about it, you will find your confidence in life increasing. On a negative point, this book does contain a few exercises that I found pointless, but if you look for the key ideas in each chapter then it's a lot more helpful. If you only read one book this year, make it this one.

Great book
A book that actually discusses what to say and what to do when... you meet difficult people. Not just flim-flam, I would have given the book five stars only I think that its too short (122 pages).