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Reading People

I got this book at the airport in Cincinnati on my way back to BWI. I got it because I have been thinking that people skills are where the cash is at in this day and age.

Anyhow, the book was a fairly interesting nonfiction read for the airplane. However, I found I had already intuited most of the strategies they gave. Basically, if you boiled down the advice it would be "look around carefully and make judgments based on what you see." Of course, the authors were careful to point out that certain things were not good indicators of personality, and that exceptions to these rules are often called for. Most high-functioning people are pretty good at doing this kind of thing as a matter of course.

Here's an interesting quote that I liked, though: "Truly kind, thoughtful, and confident people do not treat others in dramatically different ways depending on their mood or their perception of what someone can do for them. As a result, watching how someone acts toward 'everyday people' can give you a pretty good idea how he or she will act toward you once the bloom is off the rose of your relationship."

By Jo-Ellan Dimitrius and Mark Mazzarella
ISBN# 0345425871

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