I remember when I was a socially anxious teenager and googling ways to improve and this book constantly comes up as the holy grail for social skills. I read it, took the lessons on board and what do you know, people seemed to like me a lot more. In fact, nearly everybody seemed to like me.
Fast forward 15+ years later I’m speaking to a therapist about my relationships when she suggests I may have a problem with people pleasing and started describing it. Then it started to click, everything I learnt about socialising from this book is to ensure the other person is happy, it’s literally never about you.
Now I’m not saying it isn’t a good book with useful tips, in fact in the world of business for which it was mainly designed it’s probably extremely useful.
But in the world of people with social anxiety, I really don’t think it should be recommended as it’s not teaching them to build meaningful relationships, it’s teaching them to be a people pleaser.
by Historical_Owl_1635