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How to Talk to Anyone: 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships
by
"You'll not only break the ice, you'll melt it away with your new skills." -- Larry King
"The lost art of verbal communication may be revitalized by Leil Lowndes." -- Harvey McKay, author of "How to Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive"
What is that magic quality makes some people instantly loved and respected? Everyone wants to be their friend (or, if single, thei ...more
"The lost art of verbal communication may be revitalized by Leil Lowndes." -- Harvey McKay, author of "How to Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive"
What is that magic quality makes some people instantly loved and respected? Everyone wants to be their friend (or, if single, thei ...more
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ebook, 345 pages
Published
October 10th 2003
by Contemporary Books
(first published October 1st 1998)
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Start your review of How to Talk to Anyone: 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships

1. The Flooding Smile – Don’t flash an immediate smile when you greet someone, as though anyone who walked into your line of sight would be the beneficiary. Instead, look at the other person’s face for a second. Pause. Soak in their persona. Then let a big, warm, responsive smile flood over your face and overflow into your eyes. It will engulf the recipient like a warm wave. The split-second delay convinces people your flooding smile is genuine and only for them.
2. Sticky Eyes – Pretend your eye ...more
2. Sticky Eyes – Pretend your eye ...more

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 ...more
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 ...more

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 spe
...more

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 po ...more
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 po ...more

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
...more

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 convinc ...more
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 convinc ...more

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 ...more
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 ...more

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

Sep 08, 2017
Nadin Adel
rated it
did not like it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
self-development
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 a
...more

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 ...more
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 ...more

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 o
...more

my mom made me read it; the "tricks" are totally superficial and many of them are actually rather conniving. i'm not a fan.
...more

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 li ...more
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 li ...more

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
...more

~✿✿~
••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 ...more
••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 ...more

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 t ...more
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 t ...more

Just wanted to read up to improve on persuasion skills
Because... of my work nature
Lately, I've been rather busy trying to adjust to my new job. Thankfully, I am getting into the flow of things and just wanted to seek improvements in my interpersonal skills.
This book definitely provided snippets of useful information as well as anecdotes. Some were relevant, some were easy to grasp while some were a little abstract.
On the whole, a self help book that did deliver its message albeit a few complic ...more
Because... of my work nature
Lately, I've been rather busy trying to adjust to my new job. Thankfully, I am getting into the flow of things and just wanted to seek improvements in my interpersonal skills.
This book definitely provided snippets of useful information as well as anecdotes. Some were relevant, some were easy to grasp while some were a little abstract.
On the whole, a self help book that did deliver its message albeit a few complic ...more

Jul 24, 2013
Neil R. Coulter
rated it
liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
non-fiction,
leadership-vocation
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
...more
Some good tips and some obvious ones. I can, and will, apply parts of this book to my life but the content and tone is heavily geared towards your professional life and creating somewhat artificial relationships to get sales or get ahead. This isn't what I wanted or expected from the title.
For some this book might be more valuable by skipping the talk of big cats and glass ceilings, reading the tips at the end of the chapter and then reading that chapter if they apply. Some of the information f ...more
For some this book might be more valuable by skipping the talk of big cats and glass ceilings, reading the tips at the end of the chapter and then reading that chapter if they apply. Some of the information f ...more

I don't generally go for self-help books. I find that most of them couch painfully common sense in media-ready sound bytes, and it pains me in return to spend money on them. But this one caught my eye, and flipping through it, kept it, so I gave in to the urge (needed something light and fluffy after all that Cambodia/Khmer Rouge reading anyway!). What do you know? This is a fantastic book. I practiced some of the techniques the other day at a gathering of a few new acquaintances, and they worke
...more

good tips, some of which I hadn't thought of before.
...more

Some time ago as a post graduate, i used to go to marketing parties with a big and bold ambition to get to know someone BIG from the marketing field, and to socialize. I would spend hours choosing an outfit to wear or doing a makeup. But i would completely ignore the fact of “preparing anything to say, a topic to discuss, or small talks to mix and mingle with strangers”. Then obviously, i would end up chatting with friends i cAme with and munch on party goodies, ignoring my initial purpose of ge
...more

Communication isn't hard, but we all need reminders. This book helped me pinpoint what I do and don't do correctly. This also gave me help with dealing with the two most dreaded questions, where are you from? and What do you do? The "naked" answers to both usually making people a bit uncomfortable.
...more
...more

Several interesting and helpful tips. Several ridiculous ones. Several straight up, 'fake interest to climb ahead' type ones too.
...more
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“Don’t flash an immediate smile when you greet someone, as though anyone who walked into your line of sight would be the beneficiary. Instead, look at the other person’s face for a second. Pause. Soak in their persona. Then let a big, warm, responsive smile flood over your face and overflow into your eyes. It will engulf the recipient like a warm wave. The split-second delay convinces people your flooding smile is genuine and only for them.”
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“take consolation from the fact that the brighter the individual, the more he or she detests small talk.”
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