Christian Carter begins Catch Him and Keep Him with two apparently simple questions: what is a man and how does a man differ from you as a woman? If you think about them, the answer to these questions contains the secrets to attract a man and make him committed.

Like most women reading this, you want a real man; not a childish boy. Carter says a woman can attract the wrong man for many reasons, but a major reason is she doesn’t understand the principles of attraction. Books on love and relationships can fill libraries, yet Catch Him and Keep Him covers those subjects and more by also helping women in the initial stages of a relationship when man and woman are strangers to each other. This is where I believe the book is most powerful – that and learning what it takes to keep a man interested.

What he calls “selfish love”, Carter says women fall into a form of vanity believing a man wants the same as she. He teaches women of all ages both single and in a relationship to give a man what he wants (which he often cannot verbalize) by seeking to understand than be understood through three simple steps:

1. Grounding stage
2. Understanding stage
3. Feeling stage

The reader is taken step-by-step from unattractive emotional immaturity into a woman who has her psychology and emotional life together to naturally attract men.

After this, you discover advice on how to qualify men. You learn to be the selectee instead of the selected. Carter shows women how to regain the power in a relationship, feel in control, and avoid dangerous relationships. No unattractiveness forms from this, however. Men who see a woman exude these in-control qualities view her as someone to spend time with in the future. You’re shown how to spot a player, how men want more than physical qualities, and what you must do to be seen as “relationship material”.

Rarely will you know Mr Right is seated on the other side of the room. A spiritual force is unlikely to make you feel he is the one. Such perceptual awareness requires intense judgment, leaving you vulnerable to misinterpretation and mistaking a feeling of chemistry for a great guy.

Put judgments and blame aside. Start fresh and grow. Carter makes the most important point of self-improvement to get the relationship you want and become the woman men desire. A lot of what he shares helps women develop their emotional and logical lives. To me, growth and personal development to become more than you were yesterday, instead of blame and victimization, is extremely attractive.

Coming to the seventh chapter of the ebook’s nine chapters, I think this will most interest you! Here’s a sample of what’s in the chapter:

• Thirteen personality traits that attract men
• How to naturally attract men
• The curse of physically attractive women
• Six behaviors to avoid like the plague or men will avoid you
• Body language tips and nonverbal habits that repel men
• How to trigger a deeper level of attraction in men to make a guy stick around
• Art of being unique and unpredictable (two seductive qualities that attract men)
• …and more

The ebook is designed to help you attract men even if you’re not beautiful. Men want women in the long-term who give them pleasurable feelings associated with non-physical attraction. Catch Him and Keep Him teaches the logical and emotional methods of attraction vital for happy, ongoing relationships that any woman can learn. Logical and emotional ways to attract men are key for any stage of a happy relationship.

A lesson Carter teaches that is more applicable to keeping Mr Right that I liked is to avoid criticism, having “the talk”, and divulging how you feel about a man. Such logical arguments create resistance in men to repel them fast! You cannot convince men to love and attend to you. Attraction, love, and commitment occur at a level deeper than conversation. It’s an internal decision men make in response to their feelings even if they cannot describe it that way.

One major problem that needs emphasis here in this review is that women sooner than later cannot get a man to open up. Men fail to articulate the state of the relationship and how they feel with statements like “Umm… I’m not sure” due to society, according to Carter. It becomes unmanly to express emotions. Women can learn from Catch Him and Keep Him to express their beliefs and feelings in an open, rare pressure-free way that connects to a man who reciprocates her open intimacy. Yes, we’re not rocks. I’ve seen that it is possible!

Catch Him And Keep Him is a must for any woman who is single or frustrated with her current relationship. It’s written in very easy-to-understand language any woman can use in her life. It’s the number one book I recommend to a woman who wants to attract and keep a quality man.

Sign up to Christian’s eLetter by clicking here. Once you sign up, you will be taken to a page where you can download his ebook Catch Him And Keep Him: A Woman’s Guide To Finding Mr. Right… And Keeping Him Hooked For Good!. (If you’re already signed up to his newsletter, just enter a fake name and email to continue to the next step so you can get your copy of his recommended ebook.)

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. Review of Double Your Dating by David DeAngelo
2. Review of Magic Bullets by Savoy
3. Review of The Game by Neil Strauss
4. Review of Elite Social Control by Hamilton Miller
5. What Men Want in Women

I purchased Miller’s ebook. Upon opening it, I was surprised to see it was only 95 pages. I got a little angry, expecting more, because so many ebooks on persuasion, conversations, and communication- related subjects are small and contain little value. After finishing the ebook, however, I had received more techniques than some 300-page books I’ve read. Do not judge Miller’s book by its size like I did because you will get many mind control techniques to improve your conversations.

The Elite Social Control system shifts self-focused individuals to their conversational partner to improve the connection. This means the system will specifically help you if you suffer from self-consciousness, nervousness, or generally want people to like you more in conversations for better negotiations, dating, and general social situations.

It is not all mystical mumbo-jumbo. There are mind control techniques you can use that make better use of verbal and nonverbal messages. Your nonverbal communication influences people in the most unusual ways, which Elite Social Control will show you to dominate.

I particularly liked the eight secrets of magnetic statements. Miller teaches you how to make your words hook people into having a great conversation with you. His 13 pieces of advice to avoid repelling statements is just as good. You will learn good conversational etiquette that many people ignore, which I have not read elsewhere. Also, the advice he offers to relax your body language, change your voice, and improve your general image will help you become confident, comfortable, and likable.

While there are many conversation techniques I liked and never knew about, there was the occasional technique I hated because it leads into psychic material. Some people will like this, though I don’t. Regardless of your attitude towards such material, most of the book focuses on proven mind techniques and communication tricks. Many other techniques in the ebook are valuable tools to win people to your way of thinking, have positive conversations, and build solid rapport.

Hamilton also provides 10 magnetic moves and a few nonverbal tricks. As is true for most of the book, you’re given quick-fire techniques that attract people in conversations. “The Non-Analytical Look”, “Elite Gaze”, and “Four Steps to Chain Rapport” are solid tricks to help you in any conversation.

Overall, though it is short, it is concise and powerful. Its size is even beneficial because you can read it within 2-3 hours and quickly refer to it when you need to. If you are interested Hamilton Miller’s Elite Social Control to improve your conversations – for whatever reason – you can download your copy right now and be reading it within minutes by clicking here.

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. 14 Social Skills Resources for an Amazing Social Life
2. The Only “Cure” for Social Anxiety Disorder and Achieving Social Freedom
3. Review of Social Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
4. Review of How to Talk to Anyone by Leil Lowndes
5. Review of Frogs Into Princes by Richard Bandler and John Grinder

Covey’s book has sold over 15 million copies for a reason: It ignores trends and popular psychology, and sticks with enduring principles of lasting change. His seven principles build a lasting foundation for truth, openness, and integrity. The principles are timeless – unchanging to events – which has made the book the personal development favorite of many self-help experts.

The first three principles are: 1) be proactive, 2) begin with the end in mind, and 3) put first things first. These first three principles deal with dependence as the author moves the reader through new paradigms.

The first principle moves people from blame and victimization to responsibility. The second principle moves people from destructive centeredness and obsessions to a healthy focus and clear values. While the third principles deals with the “fourth generation” of time management where you will learn to do what matters most instead of following to-do lists and doing frivolous tasks that contribute little to your life and other people’s lives.

The second lot of three principles (four to six) deal with interdependency. The second triplet of principles are self-explanatory: 4) think win/win, 5) seek first to understand, then to be understood, and 6) synergize. These three principles are more like communication skills as the first three principles provide you with the foundation to use them.

It is sad to see many people ignore these principles. As a result, their relationships suffer and people resent them. Any success they get is short-term, unsatisfactory, and often lonely.

Covey emphasizes that effective people are interdependent on others. While they are independent and strong in their own right, when they use the three principles for interdependence, the sum of people’s work is more than the individual parts.

The last principle is called “sharpen the saw”. It deals with renewal in the physical, mental, social/emotional, and spiritual dimensions. Just as a blunt saw becomes tiresome for a woodcutter, so does a failure to renew in these four dimensions result in unproductive – and sometimes destructive – living for the exasperated individual. When these four dimensions are renewed, the seventh principle of “sharpen the saw” is followed to encapsulate the other six principles. It is in such ways that all the principles feed off one another.

The last point I want to emphasize to encourage you to invest in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People if you have not already done so is the character ethic Covey focuses on. Most books these days focus on the personality ethic. A personality ethic deals with attitudes, behaviors, skills, and the techniques for human interaction. While the personality ethic is important, without the character ethic that offers courage, patience, and integrity, long-term success is inhibited. The establishment of a strong character ethic creates change from the inside-out.

Overall, you must get the book. I have heard so many personal development public speakers, authors, life coaches, and organizational trainers say the book is the best they have ever read. I highly encourage you to grab your copy of Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People now from Amazon right now by clicking here today.

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. The Heart of Effective Communication: How to Love People
2. Review of The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking by Dale Carnegie
3. Review of Winning with People by John Maxwell
4. The Decision Tree of Effective Leadership to Create Freedom and Independence
5. Review of How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

David DeAngelo starts off by letting readers know that his Double Your Dating ebook is not an encyclopedia, but a reference to being successful with women. It is not intended to be a complete resource on how men can attract women. It is, however, a mighty fine start. He provides strong foundations that any guy must know in order to become successful with women and dating.

After a decade’s experience in learning how to attract women, DeAngelo knows how guys approach the subject of learning how to be successful with women. Too often he has seen guys take a mental standpoint where they mistake themselves for knowing the information while they don’t put the skills to use. He mentions the need for guys to go out and practice the attraction skills he teaches. Many guys seeking advice from him are intelligent, but smart can be dumb. The skills he teaches, like any other, require practice. No great skill or canned pick-up lines will make a guy succeed with women and dating if they are not practiced, adapted, and understood.

There are many canned lines given in the ebook, which give you a strong frame of reference for creating your own lines, but “what to say” is not the basis behind the ebook. The ebook is not filled with lines; it is a holistic reference to become successful with women. The given lines act like the framework for tough situations, such as the complete guide on what to do and say to get a woman’s phone number. The ebook is a powerful reference to create the whole mindset a guy must have if he wants to start dating physically and emotionally attractive women.

This touches on another topic where guys complain about these attraction skills not being their natural self. The author says the majority of guys have no idea how to attract women because their natural self is bottled inside of fear, anxiety, and placing women on a pedestal. Once guys practice and internalize the information, they are then given the privilege to behave as their natural self. Being yourself is an earned privilege and not a right.

DeAngelo’s teachings come from his own experience, and years of studying experts. He has slashed through the loads of dating and psychology advice for men, most of which is useless or harmful, so you can be certain his guidance and tips work. (I have heard him describe his learning experience from the loads of information as walking through a jungle with a machete slashing through the crap that gets in the way of men being successful with women.)

Theory of Attraction and Dating Women

In traditional DeAngelo fashion, he begins Double Your Dating with theory. He briefly goes back a few thousand years to identify the psychological factors of women that remain unchanged to this day. There are inherit differences between the way women and men think, feel, and behave. By taking advantage of these differences – instead of letting them confuse you, like most guys who are unaware of gender differences in dating and attraction – you become more successful with women.

Most men new to attraction and the whole “pick-up scene” make the mistake of assuming women are only interested in handsome, tall, wealthy, and powerful men. These guys may also mistake women as wanting similar characteristics in men that guys want in women. DeAngelo teaches that women are naturally attracted to handsome, tall, wealthy, or powerful men. Though these characteristics instinctively trigger a woman’s natural feelings of attractiveness towards a guy, a man who develops his confidence, social skills, and attraction triggers can elicit more powerful sexual feelings from within her. What matters most is how a man makes a woman feel through his personality and communication. There are plenty of wealthy, tall, good looking men who get women’s attention, but cannot keep it because they disobey the principles in DeAngelo’s ebook.

Helping Men Transform

Two general principles I loved, which stood out from Double Your Dating, is the mindset you must have to become good at something and the need to constantly improve yourself. Though the ebook provides quick, short-term tips to be successful with women, the guys who make the commitment and effort to practice the advice get greater success with women than the guys after quick canned lines. Making a commitment to yourself with persistent effort is a sure way to get the most out of any goal you desire. The second principle of constantly improving yourself will do all guys a miracle in becoming more emotionally and physically attractive.

DeAngelo teaches guys many skills in the ebook that I recommend to people to improve their social skills and feelings about themselves. He shows you how to adjust your attitude, change negative beliefs to empowering beliefs, boost your self-esteem, become a man women know is sexually attractive, and general psychological betterment. The exercises he provides improves many areas of anyone’s life – they are not limited to helping guys become more successful with women.

Become a True Man

One point I think you will love most in the ebook are the strategies and exercises to overcome your fears of approaching women. Too many guys let their fear of approaching stop them from success with women. I felt DeAngelo was speaking directly to me with my past fears of going up to girl and getting rejected.

Another interesting point worth noting is “ass kissing” behavior, like buying a woman’s affection, is to be avoided at all times. In any situation where the motive behind complimenting is manipulative, you can expect a poor response. The basis of the ebook transforms these natural tendencies guys have into challenging behaviors. A guy in control of his life who can playfully tease women communicates sexually attractive qualities.

The personality styles that turn women on is, by itself, enough reason to check out the ebook. These personality styles go beyond personalities that women love – they are an entire life-changing mindset. One particular personality style of many I’ll share with you to demonstrate what I’m talking about is the “aggressive” personality. This personality is not about beating up women or being a jerk; it refers to pursuing a goal with passion, persistence, and determination. Women attract to men that work aggressively towards their passionate goals. It communicates energy, protection, security, and a future outlook, which ties in with the traits that instinctively attract women.

Quite possibly the greatest thing about Double Your Dating, which was added in the second edition, is the action exercises after every chapter. I cannot stress enough the need to practice any skill. Practicing is especially important in the dating world because fear unnecessarily prevents both men and women from dating success. A lot of people develop their fears from thinking too much. The action exercises act like little steps to get guys where they want to be in the dating world. These steps backed by a lot of real-world advice from the author means guys can go from not even being able to approach a girl, to having a great long-term relationship.

Overall, I was very pleased with the ebook. David DeAngelo’s style of writing was casual. I’ve observed his company and products for over three years. It is great to see the success they have given many thousands of men around the world in diverse cultures.

I know readers of the ebook that have more than doubled their dating – they have gone from never having a girlfriend to dating ten women a month. It’s crazy how much success some men now have with women after reading Double Your Dating. These men are now the selectee instead of the selected.

If you’re a guy wondering how you can be more successful with women, DeAngelo’s ebook shows you how. I believe all men, if they practice hard, can “mold with their hands” the kind of success with women they want. If only every man could read it, they would not experience years of frustration, loneliness, and fear that controls their lives.

Double Your Dating has my recommendations behind it! Sign up to David’s newsletter by clicking here. Once you sign up, you will be taken to a page where you can download his ebook Double Your Dating: What Every Man Should Know About How To Be Successful With Women (Second Edition). (If you’re already signed up to his newsletter, just enter a fake name and email to continue to the next step so you can get your copy of his ebook.)

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. Review of Magic Bullets by Savoy
2. Review of The Game by Neil Strauss
3. Review of Catch Him and Keep Him by Christian Carter
4. Review of Elite Social Control by Hamilton Miller
5. Review of Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers

Author Leil Lowndes gives 92 tricks to become a better conversationalist and improve your social relationships. From body language tricks and words to say, to telephone techniques and social tactics, it’s all in Lowndes’ How to Talk to Anyone, an attention-grabbing book on human conversations.

The 92 tips are spread throughout the following 9 parts:

1. How to intrigue everyone without saying a word: You only have ten seconds to show you’re a somebody
2. How to know what you say after “Hi”
3. How to talk like a VIP
4. How to be an insider in any crowd: What are they all talking about?
5. How to sound like you’re a peas in a pod: “Why, we’re just alike!”
6. How to differentiate the power of praise from the folly of flattery
7. How to direct dial their hearts
8. How to work a party like a politician works a room: The politician’s six-point party checklist
9. How to break the most treacherous glass ceiling of all: Sometimes people are tigers

As you can tell from the nine parts above, the book is pretty irresistible. Of course, a few of the 92 tricks won’t revolutionize your life, but even if you are a great conversationalist, you are bound to discover a few techniques to throw in your communication bag of tricks. Little techniques like the “big baby pivot”, “little strokes”, and “swiveling spotlight” add up to make you a conversationalist who can talk to anyone. If you don’t know what to say in a conversation or you generally struggle to talk to strangers, How to Talk to Anyone is bound to save you from drowning in conversations.

Part four titled “How to be an insider in any crowd” was the best part of the book for me. Some great tips were given on the topic of how to dial up a stranger’s hot buttons by talking about their topics of interest (Hint: It’s not asking them what they’re into). The advice is strongly applicable for all types of conversations. Whether talking to a celebrity or a stranger of the opposite sex, the gems shared in this part will be your go-to guide.

In each tip, Lowndes shares a story of her own or a friend’s story to demonstrate how the tip can be applied in real conversations. This makes the book a quick and practical read. The gray box at the end of each tip summarizes what you need to know and makes for a quick reviser to easily remember the flood of tips given to you. When combined with her amazing ability to write in an interesting manner – as she paints images in your mind with picturesque words – Lowndes will have you finish the book in no time and talking to anyone. I’ve been in contact with Leil after reading the book and she is as nice in person as her beautiful writing style.

How to Talk to Anyone is really a conversation skills book and not a relationship skills book. The relationship aspect of this book is about having the skills to initiate and keep a conversation going so you can start a relationship. There is, however, some good tips for maintaining strong relationships that can also be applied to improving your conversations.

To begin improving your conversation skills with 92 killer tips and never be left in the cold during a conversation, get your copy of How to Talk to Anyone from Amazon right now by clicking here today.

UPDATE: Leil has released a new book titled How to Instantly Connect with Anyone, which contains even more little tricks to talk and make friends with people. I’ve read it and it’s just as good as How to Talk to Anyone! I encourage you to get both books.

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. Review of Elite Social Control by Hamilton Miller
2. Review of Conversationally Speaking by Alan Garner
3. Review of How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
4. Review of Comedy Writing Secrets by Mel Helitzer
5. Review of Think and Grow Rich! by Napoleon Hill

Robert Cialdini is currently Regent’s Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University. His book Influence is a fantastic classic on persuasion as he transforms what most people took as hidden and unknown variables in decision-making into clear principles that you can use to influence people.

The book discusses the following six principles of influence, which have a chapter dedicated to each:

1. Reciprocation – people have an inherent desire to return favors
2. Commitment and Consistency – people’s past decisions guide their future decisions
3. Social Proof – people look to others then follow what they are doing
4. Liking – people are more persuaded by those they like
5. Authority – people are more persuaded by those seen as holding authority
6. Scarcity – people are more persuaded when the resource at hand is perceived to be limited

These six principles I have briefly described are simple definitions that do not fully explain their respective principle of influence. Influence provides an in-depth look into the various situations each principle can be applied, when it is most effective, why it works, why it won’t work, and other variables that modify the principle.

Each of the chapters is split into two parts. The first part teaches you how to apply the persuasive principle. The second part teaches you how to defend yourself from the principle when it is used against you. While all the principles are naturally desirable to us, the second part makes you aware of when the influential principles cause you to make a decision you otherwise would avoid had the persuasive principle been absent.

Cialdini’s involvement in academic psychology has given him numerous and insightful research findings that he shares in Influence. The research shared within this book is what by far stood out for me.

One real example I’d like to quickly highlight for you to give you an idea of its fascination is how 1 leader, in the year 1978, managed to get 910 people to kill themselves with no coercive tactics – only by using the principle of social proof. The leader firstly influenced the individuals most likely to commit suicide and, from there, others began to follow simply because in times of uncertainty we look to see what others are doing. The lesson out of this example was that no leader can persuade every member of a group and, therefore, must create an environment that maximizes social proof. This ultimately lets the leader influence the entire group.

You may think research is only good for discoveries. The research in Influence is the author’s way of revealing, explaining, and investigating the principles of influence. I would go as far to say that every page of its 280 pages has at least 1 research experiment or real-life example of the relevant persuasive principle. You won’t get bogged down in details though as Cialdini gives you only what you need to know.

Influence is a leader in the business world. It is the default book of persuasion I hear recommended by experts in all fields, from seduction and business, to marketing and power. I feel it is a must-read for anyone who wants to improve his or her negotiation skills, leadership, parenting, sales skills, marketing communication, or business. I highly recommend this book to anyone, nonetheless, because we all use persuasion in someway to achieve our goals. You can grab your copy of Influence from Amazon right now by clicking here.

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. Review of How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
2. Review of The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene
3. Review of The Path of Least Resistance by Robert Fritz
4. Review of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
5. Review of Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath

Straight off, you must follow Brain Tracy, bestselling author of Create Your Own Future. Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life needs to be in your personal library. It has been hailed by many people as one of Tracy’s top books (he has published over 30 books), if not his best book.

The basis of the book is about improving the way you think to get stronger relationships, become better at your career, increase your happiness, and generally achieve more success. From having role models, goals, dreams, and developing excellence in your chosen field, to listening, strategic thinking, time management, getting “the edge”, and earning more, it all stems from changing the way you think. This is all covered in the book.

One characteristic about this book that makes it better than Tracy’s other books are the references to several university studies and other types of research that back up the principles he provides and to explain his lessons. The research gives great insight and sets the book apart from the others he has written.

People with personal development experience will know most of the principles mentioned in this book. Nonetheless, if you know the principles and have not achieved the goals you want in life, then you don’t really “know” them because knowing is doing. Therefore, you need to read this book and follow it up with action. Reading and rereading this book yearly will remind you of the principles you may already know, but you have yet to implement.

Like his other books, this book is one with simple, easy to understand, and to-the-point lessons. You will find yourself constantly reading powerful lessons instead of stories that slightly relate to the lessons that many other authors provide in their books.

Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life is the first personal development book I read after I picked up my father’s copy of it around the year 2000. I don’t know if the book hooked me into becoming more than I am, but it at least put me on the path where I now teach thousands of people worldwide. It is a significant book in my life because of its impact on me. Who knows the impact it could have on you? I highly recommend it. You can grab your copy from Amazon right now by clicking here.

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. Review of Create Your Own Future by Brian Tracy
2. Change Your Words to Change People: Persuasive Power Words
3. 10 Almost Guaranteed Ways to Fail in Life
4. How to Not Care What People Are Thinking About You – and Release Your People-Magnetic Self Into the Conversation
5. Neuro-Linguistic Programming Presuppositions – 12 Rules to Change Your Reality

Brian Tracy is known for his simple, concise, easy to understand books based on self-help classics. Create Your Own Future is no exception. Tracy has included materials from his other works and the likes of Napoleon Hill and Dale Carnegie for one reason, it works. I know several people who have read this book and experienced a wonderful life-change.

There are five chapters of interest to people who want to improve their communication: chapter 1 (Success Is Predictable), chapter 5 (Attitude Is Everything), chapter 7 (Relationships Are Essential), and chapter 13 (Fortune Favors the Brave). This isn’t to say that these are the only relevant chapters to communication, but they are the most powerful.

In chapter 7, Tracy shares effective principles on how you can successfully network with the big players in your career and industry. He shares the secrets of how you can get influential people on your side to help you succeed in your chosen career path. If you don’t already know, networking is the key to most people’s success. Having the people and resources available to you at your request helps you overcome problems they have already solved.

The focus of Create Your Own Future appears to focus on succeeding in your career; though the principles like attitude, clarity, and knowledge are adapted to many situations. Tracy provides interesting insight into the conscious, subconscious, and superconscious mind and how you can use each mind to improve various areas of your life.

If you have read several of Brian Tracy’s books on personal development, you’ll find a lot of teachings in this book overlap with his other books. Nonetheless, you’re bound to learn a few life-changing principles from the many in this book.

With the many easy to understand and concise personal development principles in Create Your Own Future, it is a book worth reading to improve yourself. A simple principle like transforming your car into a mobile university by listening to CDs, instead of wasting hundreds of hours listening to the radio, is extremely valuable. You can grab your copy of Create Your Own Future from Amazon by
clicking here today.

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. Review of Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life by Brian Tracy
2. The Decision Tree of Effective Leadership to Create Freedom and Independence
3. Review of Winning with People by John Maxwell
4. Review of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
5. Review of Fierce Conversations by Susan Scott

Richard Bandler and John Grinder are co-founders of NLP. 30 years ago they were making discoveries on human communication still being realized by today’s public. Their knowledge and understanding on the topic comes from decades of experience and modeling expert communicators so you can expect an in-depth discussion on human communication and behavior within the book.

Frogs Into Princes is a transcript from a live seminar conducted by the Bandler and Grinder. Because the seminar was for therapists, most of the techniques’ applications are discussed in a therapist-patient scenario. Therapists and psychologists will find the applications of the techniques extremely useful for improving therapeutic communication with patients.

The book is divided into three main sections, which were presented on three separate days at the seminar:

1. Sensory Experience: Representational Systems and Accessing Cues
2. Changing Personal History and Organization: Anchoring
3. Finding New Ways: Reframing

The first section was possibly the first ever discussion on accessing cues. If you’ve seen a movie where an investigator knows the suspect is lying because of the suspect’s eye movements, you’ve seen the basics of accessing cues. It is more complex than simply observing eye movements because the way we access information is dependent on the questions asked, but the first section reveals this fascinating aspect of human communication.

Representational systems involves the language used in communication and matching the person’s representational system to build rapport. It involves amazing awareness of someone’s body language and appropriately adjusting your own body language to create rapport with people. Matching a person’s representational system is an effective, underused technique to migitate conflict.

The anchoring section deals with classical conditioning and learning to associate certain actions, mostly kinesthetic, to evoke specific emotions and thoughts. The extreme basics of the technique involves touching someone while getting him or her to elicit specific emotions. When you touch the person in the same manner at a later time, they will experience the same emotions when you first touched the person. (That is a very brief description of anchoring. If you try it based on what I told you, it will likely be ineffective.) The section mostly discusses anchoring in the context of overcoming fear in therapy, but it can be easily used in relationships, healing painful memories, negotiations, sales, leadership, and seduction. The application for every technique discussed is diverse.

The last section of Frogs Into Princes gives an exact formula for reframing. The neuro-linguistic technique of reframing involves changing the way you see an event to change its meaning. I have found it to be one of the greatest techniques for overcoming fears and having unstoppable confidence for myself and other people I’ve helped. I feel reframing is a must-have technique for any person who is interested in getting past problems and obtaining the most out of life.

You would think that because the book is a transcript, the language used would be easy to understand, like the simple language used in face-to-face communication, but it isn’t. This is the greatest downfall of the book. Most parts of the book are difficult to understand because of the terminology used so a lot of “newbie” communicators will struggle to get the most out of the book. (This is true for just about all books on NLP. Nonetheless, Frogs Into Princes successfully covers the foundations of NLP if you can get past its complex terminology.)

Even I found myself rereading some sections five times to understand what was being said. I found the sections to loop into each other, however, where the understanding of certain parts were clearly understood in later sections. Don’t get caught up in understanding everything immediately because you’ll likely figure it out later on while reading the rest of the book.

If you don’t mind more “complex” reads or you think your communication skills are pretty advanced, then you’re sure to get a lot out of this book and I recommend it for you. The last time I checked, the book was out of print, but fortunately it is still made available to you in quality second-hand copies via Amazon. Once you get your copy, hold on to it. You’ll see it as a valuable addition to your personal development and communication library. You can grab your copy of Richard Bandler and John Grinder’s Frogs Into Princes from Amazon by clicking here today.

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. Review of Winning with People by John Maxwell
2. Review of Elite Social Control by Hamilton Miller
3. Review of Awaken the Giant Within by Anthony Robbins
4. Review of Mind-Lines by Michael Hall and Bobby Bodenhamer
5. Review of Comedy Writing Secrets by Mel Helitzer

Mel Helitzer is a professor at the Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. Though a humorous professor seems to be an oxymoron, he has been described as the “funniest professor in the country” by Rolling Stone magazine. After reading this great book, I can see why because I found myself laughing on many occasions. The material he teaches works!

I purchased this book because I had heard great things about it and I wanted to be able to teach others how they can be more humorous in conversations. The book’s title doesn’t do it justice as it isn’t just good for writing funny. It’s also a good door stop. (Okay, I’ll have to work on my understatements in humor.) It is a great book to become a funnier person. If you’d like to be able to write a few funny jokes for your speeches, have funny conversations, cheer up your spouse, or make your team at work laugh, then you’re bound to find this book a great read.

Some people will be skeptical of this book and any book that teaches people to be funny. These people say things like, “You can’t teach people to be funny” and “You’re either naturally funny or not”. If humor can’t be learned, it would be impossible for comedians to improve their acts as they wouldn’t be able to become funnier. Humor is a communication skill that can be learned like any other. It is also valuable like any other.

Comedy Writing Secrets starts off by addressing these issues people have with comedy and humor in the first section plus a few other issues commonly related to humor, like uncovering why we laugh. The reader is given many techniques in the second section to be funny like understatements, exaggerations, play on words, paired elements, triples, and realism to name a few. The third and last section deals with creating humor for specific situations like speeches, cartoons, cards, salesperson, radio, television, newspaper columns, sitcoms, and stand-up comedy. People not interested in comedy writing can skip the third section of the book. The meat and potatoes of learning how to be funny is in the powerful second section.

It is said to be the number one book on learning to write funny so it is a quality book that primarily deals with content. There a few tips on how to deliver humor, such as not giving away the surprise part of your joke away with your body language and using silence to build tension, but the book is mostly about constructing the right words to be funny.

The book is filled with hundreds and hundreds of classic examples from comedians like Woody Allen, Bill Cosby, and Chris Rock, plus many lesser known persons. The examples are well fitted with techniques described by the author so you’re sure to clearly understand why humor works while getting plenty of laughs.

The power behind this book is in the exercises you do at the end of each chapter. The exercises provide a step-by-step guide to write funny jokes. If you do the given exercises, which can take anywhere from 1 to 30 minutes per exercise, I can nearly guarantee you will be developing your own original jokes. Keep in mind that the book isn’t just about developing jokes, but learning how to construct humor so you become more natural at it. Once you do the exercises, you’ll find yourself naturally using the techniques in conversations.

For your laughter, or lack of it, here’s one I made myself in an exercise from an early chapter:

My wife always complains about the two of us not having luxurious meals. We sit down at the dinner table and she’ll nag me about wanting to have a nice meal in a restaurant. One angry night she told me, “Come on! Take me out!” I finally had enough of her nagging so I agreed and took her out… with a shotgun.

It ain’t the best joke, but like all humor, some people will find it hilarious while others will think it’s stupid. I never made up a joke before and can’t even remember more than 10 jokes. If I could do it with the step-by-step exercises, so can you.

Overall, I was impressed by the book. This is my first book I’ve read on becoming funny as I’ve always naturally been a funny person (humor must be the only communication skill I’m naturally good at!), but now I understand why things are funny and how to be funnier. It is a great book that I recommend you get if you’d like to have a laugh, feel good, and become a funnier person. You can grab your copy of Comedy Writing Secrets from Amazon by clicking here today.

(If you want to be funnier around friends and in general conversations with people, get my Big Talk program then once you download the course, you’ll have a rare one-time opportunity unavailable anywhere else to download a report that’ll show you how to make people laugh without telling jokes or being a clown.)

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. Review of The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking by Dale Carnegie
2. Review of Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
3. Review of Conversationally Speaking by Alan Garner
4. Review of How to Talk to Anyone by Leil Lowndes
5. Review of How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie