Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

"Today we come across an individual who behaves like an automation, who does not know or understand himself, and the only person that he knows is the person that he is supposed to be, whose meaningless chatter has replaced communicative speech, whose synthetic smile has replaced genuine laughter, and whose sense of dull despair has taken the place of genuine pain...he suffers from defects of spontaneity and individuality..." As I can validate with the man who recommended this book to me, this observation by Erich Fromm is 100% on target with "Win Friends and Influence People". This man, who practiced this book, presented himself as superficial, artificial, irregular, and consequently very annoying. He proved to me that these techniques do not facilitate communication- they stifle it. Instead of being direct, this man would only have the courage to give hints or make indirect statements in the form of questions. If I would attempt to explain something to him he didn't understand, he would immediately light up and go, "Oh! I see what you mean buddy." In my head I would think 'You couldn't possibly understand- I didn't even start explaining!' But that's how this "Win Friends" philosphy made him- he's not willing to go through any difficulty at all to understand and communicate with others. The techniques in this book basically converted this man into a robot. Nobody really knows what kinds of things he's interested in - although at first you think his interests have a lot in common with yours. The man has no sincerity or credibility. When I see him smiling I don't know if he is genuinly happy or just trying to appear pleasant. When he says he agrees with me, it means nothing because he always seems to agree with everyone. I've come to take his liberal and exaggerated complements of me as insults because in doing this, he ignores what is truly worth praise and I know that anything he does for me is really only for his image. I'll sum up this book for you: 1. Fake interest in other people's hobbies to get what you want out of them. 2. Pretend to agree with whatever people tell you so you'll be more popular. 3. Only express positive feelings ; do away with sincerity. 4. Make false excuses for your actions that people would be embarrased to turn down, called "Appealing to the Nobler Motives." 5. Talk your way out of what you behave yourself into (as if this was possible). I witnessed the ineffectiveness of a man who devoted himself to this book; I tried this book myself for a while. My conclusions: It contains nothing more than deceptive, manipulative, superficial techniques that have no use and will lead to the detriment of yourself and your relationships. Instead, I recommend reading the book that made this one obsolete: "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" by Dr. Stephen R. Covey.