'Perks of Being a Wallflower', Stephen Chbosky

Rating: 6/10

Overall Thoughts

Second time reading this book and I still don't get what the hype was about back when the book was  first released/published.  Whilst the author addresses a number of pressing issues such as suicide, rape, abortion, death, drugs, homosexuality and etc in the book, none of these were dealt with in depth. The story line's average, characters are likable but not really relatable, ending was pretty good but somewhat predictable.   The story is written in a plain and simple language, making it an easy read. 

Chbosky has written the novel in the form of letters which Charlie writes to a 'friend' whose identity remains a mystery.  The story follows Charlie through his experiences in school, in making new friends, dating for the first time, his first kiss, his first love, his experiments with alcohol and drugs, and him remembering a family secret which he has repressed. 

Overall, the movie was definitely better than the book.  And that says a lot..

Favourites from 'Perks of Being a Wallflower'

"... I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be."

"... we accept the love we think we deserve."  

"I feel infinite."  

"You see things.  You keep quiet about them.  And you understand."  

"I don't know if  you've ever felt like that.  That you wanted to sleep for a thousand years.  Or just not exist.  Or just not be aware that you do exist."

"Something really is wrong with me.  And I don't know what it is."  

"I don't know how much longer I can keep going without a friend.  I used to be able to do it very easily, but that was before I knew what having a friend was like.  It's much easier not to know things sometimes."  

"I would die for you.  But I won't live for you."  

'"I couldn't really tell if she was happy or sad, but it was enough just to see her and know that she was there."  

"She held me a little closer.  I held her a little closer.  And we kept dancing.  It was the one time all day that I really wanted the clock to stop.  And just be there for a long time."  

"If somebody likes me, I want them to like the real me, not what they think I am.  And I don't want them to carry it around inside.  I want them to show me, so I can feel it, too.  I want them to be able to do whatever they want around me."  

"... even if we don't have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there.  We can still do things.  And we can try to feel okay about them."  

'The First 90 Days', Michael Watkins

Rating: 7/10

Overall Thoughts

Leaders, regardless of their level, are most vulnerable in their first few months in a new position because they lack detailed knowledge of the challenges they will face and what it will take to succeed in meeting them.  They also have not yet developed a network of relationships to sustain them.

This book is suitable for individuals who are in their critical career transition periods.  I personally do not think that this book introduces groundbreaking new ideas, but it does lay out useful strategies and tactics for successful leadership.  'The First 90 Days' affords some clarity on how to secure early wins, align goals up and down the chain, anticipate surprises, build coalitions, stay balanced, and avoid vicious downward spirals.

Summary of 'The First 90 Days'

1. Promote Yourself

• Prepare yourself mentally to move into your new role by letting go of the past and embracing the imperatives of the new situation to give yourself a running start.  A related mistake is to believe that you will be successful in your new job by continuing to do what you did in your previous job, only more so.  
• Because you may not get a clean transition in terms of job responsibilities, it is essential to discipline yourself to make the transition mentally.  Do whatever it takes to get into the transition state of mind.  
• Your transition begins the moment you learn you are being considered for a new job.  It ends roughly 90 days after you begin the job.  Regardless of how much preparation time you get, start planning what you hope to accomplish by specific milestones.  
• Your weaknesses can make you vulnerable, but so can your strengths.  The qualities that have made you successful so far can prove to be weaknesses in your new role.  
• As you are progressively promoted, it becomes increasingly important to get good political counsel and personal advice.  Political counselors help you understand the politics of the organization, which is especially important when you plan to implement change.  Personal advisers help you keep perspective and equilibrium in times of stress.  
• Watch out for people who want to hold you back.  Be realistic about what you can accomplish.  There is always more that you could do, so keep in mind that time to learn and plan before you enter a new job is a very precious commodity.  
• Friends may not want their relationships with you to change.  But change they must, and the sooner you accept that (and help others to accept it too), the better.  Others in your organization will be looking for signs of favoritism and will judge you accordingly.  If you don't establish limits early, you will live to regret it.  Getting others to accept your promotion is an essential part of promoting yourself.  

2. Accelerate Your Learning

• It is essential to figure out what you need to know about your new organization and then to learn it as rapidly as you can.  Why?  Because efficient and effective learning reduces your window of vulnerability: You can identify potential problems that might erupt and take you off track.  It equips you to begin making good business decisions earlier.  
• Effective learning calls for figuring out what you need to learn so you can focus your efforts.  Devote some time to defining your learning agenda as early as possible, and return to it periodically to refine and supplement it.  
• Efficient learning means identifying the best available sources of insight and then figuring out how to extract maximum insight with the least possible outlay of your precious time.  
• Define your learning agenda, ideally before you even formally enter the organization.  A learning agenda crystallizes your learning priorities: What do you most need to learn?  Start by generating questions about the past, questions about the present, and questions about the future.  Why are things done the way they are?  Are the reasons why something was done still valid today?  Are conditions changing such that something different should be done in the future?  
• Identify the best sources of insight.  To make effective decisions, you also need "soft" information about the organization's strategy, technical capabilities, culture. and politics.  You need to listen to key people both inside and outside the organization.  
• Adopt structured learning methods.  When diagnosing a new organization, start by meeting with your direct reports one-to-one.  Ask them essentially the same five questions: (1) What are the biggest challenges the organization is facing (or will face) in the near future?  (2) Why is the organization facing (or going to face) these challenges?  (3) What are the most promising unexploited opportunities for growth?  (4) What would need to happen for the organization to exploit the potential of these opportunities?  (5) If you were me, what would you focus attention on?  By asking everyone the same set of questions, you can identify prevalent and divergent views, and thus avoid being swayed by the first or most forceful or articulate person you talk to.   How people answer can also tell you a lot about your new tea, and its politics: Who answers directly and who is evasive or prone to going on tangents?  Who takes responsibility and who points fingers?  Who has a broad view of the business and who seems stuck in a silo?  
• Create a learning plan.  Learning should be a primary focus of your plan for your first 30 days on the job.  
• Learn about culture.  Because cultural habits and norms operate powerfully to reinforce the status quo, it is vital to diagnose problems in the existing culture and to figure out how to begin to address them.  Do people seem most concerned with individual accomplishment and reward, or are they more focused on group accomplishment?  Does the group seem more casual, or more formal?  More aggressive and hard-driving, or more laid-back?  

3. Match Strategy to Situation

• The four types of business situations that new leaders must contend with are start-up, turn around, realignment, and sustaining success (STARS model).  
• Identify challenges and opportunities.  If you are succeeding the leader of a high-performing business, the challenge will be to take charge in your own way while preserving what is good about the organization.  If you are in a start-up situation, you will be responsible for creating the organization.  If you are in a  realignment situation, you will have to build awareness of the need for change.  Each situation also presents characteristic opportunities that you can leverage to build momentum.  
• Transform organizational psychology.  In start-ups, the prevailing mood is often of excited confusion, and your job is to channel that energy into productive directions, in part by deciding what not to do.  In turnarounds, you may be dealing with a group of people who are close to despair; it is your job to provide a light at the end of the tunnel.  In realignments, you will likely have to pierce through the veil of denial that is preventing people from confronting the need to reinvent the business.  In sustaining success situations, you have to "invent the challenge" by finding ways to keep people motivated, to combat complacency, and to find new direction for growth - both organizational and personal.  
• Focus your energy.  Clarity about the type of situation you are confronting helps you make three fundamental early choices: (1) How much emphasis will you place on learning as opposed to doing?  (2) How much emphasis will you place on offense as opposed to defense?  (3) What should you do to get some early wins?  

4. Secure Early Wins

• Avoid common traps: (1) failing to focus, (2) not taking the business situation into account, (3) not adjusting for the culture, (4) failing to get wins that matter to your boss, (5) letting your means undermine your ends.  
• Plan to make successive waves of change.  The goal of the first wave of change is to secure early wins: the new leader tailors each early initiatives to build personal credibility, establish key relationships, and identify and harvest low-hanging fruit - the highest potential opportunities for short term improvements in organization performance.  The second wave of change addresses more fundamental issues of strategy, structure, systems, and skills to reshape the organization.  
• Establish long term goals.  Plan your early wins so they help you build credibility in the short run and lay a foundation for your longer-term goals.  Your efforts to secure early wins should (1) be consistent with your A-item business priorities, and (2) introduce the new patterns of behavior you want to instill in the organization.  
• Focus on business priorities and behavioral changes.  Your longer term goals should consist of A-item business priorities and desired changes in the behavior of people in your organization.  A-item priorities constitute the destination you are striving to reach in terms of measurable business objectives.  
• Build personal credibility.  When you arrive, people will rapidly begin to assess you and your capabilities.  Your early actions, good and bad, will shape perceptions.  Once opinions about you has begun to harden, it is difficult to change.  In general, new leaders are perceived as more credible when they are: demanding but able to be satisfied, accessible but not too familiar, decisive but judicious, focused but flexible, active without casing commotion, willing to make tough calls but humane.  
• Secure tangible results.  Identify two or three key areas, at most, where you will seek to achieve rapid improvement.  If you take on too many initiatives, you risk losing focus.  But don't put all your eggs in one basket.  
• To translate your goals into specific initiatives to secure early wins, work through the following guidelines: (1) keep your long term goals in mind, (2) identify a few promising focal points, (3) concentrate on the most promising focal points, (4) launch pilot projects, (5) elevate change agents, (6) leverage the pilot projects to introduce new behaviors.  
• Avoid predictable surprises.  

5. Negotiate Success

• Proactively engage by negotiating with your boss to establish realistic expectations, reach consensus on the situation, and secure enough resources.  
• Focus on the fundamentals: (1) Don't trash the past; (2) Don't stay away from your boss; (3) Don't approach your boss only with problems; (4) Don't try to change the boss; (5) Take 100% responsibility for making the relationship work; (6) Clarify mutual expectations early and often; (7) Negotiate timelines for diagnosis and action planning; (8) Aim for early wins in areas important to the boss; (9) Pursue good marks from those whose opinions your boss respects.  
• Educate your boss.  Shape your boss's perception of what you can and should achieve.  You may find your boss's expectations unrealistic, or simply at odds with your own beliefs about what needs to be done.  If so, you will have to work hard to make your views converge.  
• Underpromise and overdeliver.  Whether you and your boss agree on expectations, try to bias yourself somewhat toward underpromising achievements and overdelivering results.  Be conservative in what you promise.  If you promise too much and fail to deliver, you risk undermining your credibility.  
• Clarify, clarify, clarify.  Even if you are sure you know that your boss expects, you should go back regularly to confirm and clarify.  Try asking the same questions in different ways to gain more insight.  Work at reading between the lines accurately and developing good hypotheses about what your boss is likely to want.  Try to put yourself in your boss's shoes and understand how you fit into the larger picture.  Don't let key issues remain ambiguous; ambiguity about goals and expectations is dangerous.  
• Diagnose your boss's style of communication.  How does your boss like to communicate?  How often?  What kinds of decisions does your boss want to be involved in, and when can you make calls on your own?  Does your boss arrive at the office early and work late?  Does he or she expect others to do the same?  You may find it helpful to talk to other who have worked with your boss in the past.  Be careful not to be perceived as eliciting criticism of how the boss manages.  Listen to others' perspectives, but base your evolving strategy chiefly on your own experience.  

6. Achieve Alignment

• To equip your group to achieve its goals, 5 elements of organizational architecture all need to work together: (1) Strategy, (2) Structure, (3) Systems, (4) Skills, (5) Culture.  
• Your goal during your first 90 days should be to identify potential misalignments and then design a plan for correcting them.  
• Avoid: (1) Trying to restructure your way out of deeper problems; (2) Creating structures that are too complex; (3) Automating problem processes; (4) Making changes for change's sake; (5) Overestimating your group's capacity to absorb strategic shifts.  
• Getting started: (1) Start with strategy: take a hard look at how your unit is positioned with respect to the larger organization's goals and your A-item priorities; (2) Look at supporting structures, systems and skills; (3) Decide how and when you will introduce the new strategy; (4) Reshape structure, systems and skills simultaneously; (5) Close the loop: as you learn more about your group's structure, systems and skills, you will gain insight into the team's capabilities and its cultural capacity for change, which will in turn deepen your understanding of what changes in strategic positioning are possible over what time period.  
• Improve core processes.  Do not try to introduce radical changes in more than a couple of core processes at a time.  Your group will not be able to absorb so much change.  

7. Build Your Team

• Finding the right people is essential, but it is not enough.  Begin by assessing existing team members to decide who will stay and who will have to go.  Then devise a plan for getting new people and moving the people you retain into the right positions.  You still need to put in place goals, incentives, and performance measures that will propel your team in the desired directions.  You must establish new processes to promote teamwork.  
• Avoid: (1) Keeping the existing team too long: a good rule of thumb is that you should decide by the end of your first 90 days who will remain and who will go; (2) Not working organizational alignment and team restructuring issues in parallel; (3) Not holding onto the good people; (4) Undertaking team building before the core team is in place; (5) Making implementation-dependent decisions too early; (5) Trying to do it all yourself.  
• Assess your existing team.  During your first 30 to 60 days, you need to sort out what roles each individual plays, and how the group has worked in the past.  Consider these 6 criteria when evaluating people who report to you: (1) Competence, (2) Judgment, (3) Energy, (4) Focus, (5) Relationships, (6) Trust.  
• Assess your people.  The first test is whether any of them fail to meet your threshold requirements.  If so, begin planning to replace them.  Go on to the next step: evaluate their strengths and weaknesses.  One way to assess judgment is to work with a person for an extended time and observe whether he or she is able to (1) make sound predictions and (2) develop good strategies for avoiding problems.  
• Restructure your team.  Assign each team member to one of the following categories: (1) keep in place; (2) keep and develop; (3) move to another position; (4) observe for a while; (5) replace (low priority); (6) replace (high priority).  
• Consider alternative to outright termination.  Letting an employee go can be difficult and time-consuming.  You can work with HR to shift the person to a more suitable position.  
• Establish new team processes.  (1) Assess your team's existing processes; (2) Target processes for change; (3) Alter who participates; (4) Manage decision making.   
• You will know you have been successful in building your team when you reach the breakeven point - when the energy the team creates is greater than the energy you need to put into it.   

8. Create Coalitions

• One common mistake of new leaders is to devote too much of their transition time to the vertical dimension of influence - upward to bosses and downward to direct reports - and not enough to the horizontal dimension, namely, peers and external constituencies.  
• It is never a good idea to approach people for the first time when you need something from them.  Discipline yourself in building relationship capital with people you anticipate needing to work with later.  
• Identify the key players.  Try to identify the sources of power that give particular people influence in the organization.  If you can convince these vital individuals that your A-item priorities and other goals have merit, broader acceptance of your ideas is likely to follow.  
• Identify supporters, opponents, and convincibles.  Whatever supporters' reason for backing you, do not take their support for granted.  It is never enough merely to identify support; you have to solidify and nurture it.  When you meet resistance, try to grasp the reasons behind it before labeling people as implacable opponents.  When you have identified convincibles, look into what motivates them.  
• If you approach the right people first, you can set in motion a virtuous cycle.  Focus on approaching (1) people with whom you already have supportive relationships, (2) individuals whose interests are strongly compatible with yours, (3) people who have the critical resources you need to make your agenda succeed, and (4) people with important connections who can recruit more supporters.  
• To consolidate existing support, call on established social and political relationships and strengthen them through regular conversations.  Make sure you keep your allies up to date.  Pay attention to how they react to changing conditions.  You want to affirm the importance of existing relationships and leverage them into support for your new effort.  

9. Keep Your Balance

• If you fail to establish solid boundaries defining what you are willing and not willing to do, the people around you - bosses, peers, and direct reports - will take whatever you have to give.  The more you give, the less they will respect you and the more they will ask of you.  Eventually you will feel angry and resentful that you are being nibbled to death, but you will have no one to blame but yourself.  
• To be effective, you have to be connected to the people who make action happen and to the subterranean flow of information.  Isolation breeds uninformed decision making, which damages your credibility and further reinforces your isolation.  
• 1st pillar of self-efficacy: Adopt success strategies presented in the previous 8 chapters.  
• 2nd pillar of self-efficacy: Enforce personal disciplines.  Success or failure emerges from the accumulation of daily choices that propel you in productive directions or push you off a cliff.
• 3rd pillar of self-efficacy: Build your support systems.    

10. Expedite Everyone

• Begin by working locally; focus on the people who work for you, both new direct reports and people who have been around for a while.  Press them to create their own 90-day acceleration plan.  Help them identify and reach out to people whose support they are likely to need.  Press them on their A-item priorities and plans for securing early wins.  Once you get them up to speed, press them to use the transition acceleration framework with their own people.  
• If you are building a team, consider using the framework to accelerate the team-building process.  Push them to clarify the key challenges and opportunities.  Then move onto alignment issues - strategy, structure, systems, and skills.  Next, focus on how the team will define its A-item priorities and secure early wins.  Finally, explore the kinds of coalitions you and the team will have to marshal the support you need.  

'The Power of Women', Dr Susan Nolen-Hoeksema

Rating: 7.5/10

Overall Thoughts

A book which truly celebrates women.  Suitable read for women of all ages, particularly those who are discovering themselves and seeking self-improvement.  Insightful, practical and inspiring; this book is the perfect reminder that every woman deserves to recognize and claim her many strengths so that she can capitalize on the power that is within her.

Summary of 'The Power of Women'

1. The Self-Help Revolution: What Women Do Right

• Women have mental strengths - they focus on getting things done, not just on doing things their way.  
• Women have identity strengths that allow them to maintain a strong sense of themselves and their values in whatever situations they find themselves.  They can deal with change and uncertainty, because their sense of themselves is not dependent on what they do or have, but who they are.  
• Women have emotional strengths - the ability to understand their own feelings and those of others, and to use this understanding to cope with distressing circumstances.  
• Women have relational strengths - understanding others' perspectives, which then helps women create strong social networks that support them during stressful times.  

2. Genius Redefined: Understanding Women's Mental Strengths

• Women find many pathways to accomplish their goals; they are neither conformist nor rigid.  They take whatever resources are at their disposal and use them to solve problems and create a fulfilling life.  
• Women are goal-oriented.  They work toward getting a job done, rather than getting their way.  
• Women tend to enlist other people's help, expertise and ingenuity rather than insisting on doing everything themselves.  
• Women never say never - they remain optimistic that obstacles can be overcome.  

3. Resilient Selves: Understanding Women's Identity Strengths

• Women exhibit a strong, stable sense of self that isn't dependent on the circumstances in which they find themselves.  Instead, women maintain a core sense of self, even when the external circumstances of their lives change drastically.  
• Women create identities based on social context rather than social status, connecting to others in ways that bring meaning to their lives, expand their knowledge base and perspectives, and foster a broad network of care in times of need.  
• Women build lives made of multiple roles.  They recognize the importance of balancing relationships and work  As a result, they find myriad avenues for self-expression and social support, making them less vulnerable when things go wrong in one part of their life.  

4. Emotions as Tools: Understanding Women's Emotional Strengths

• Women are excellent readers of others' emotions.  They tune in to how others are feeling and respond with care.  
• Women understand how they are feeling and what triggers their emotions.  They are aware of their moods and how they affect their behaviours and actions.  
• Women know how to express their emotions, choosing the right time to approach and assert to others how they are feeling.  
• Women are able to "hang in" during times of distress, giving others the room to express their emotions and then finding ways to turn those feelings into productive actions.  
• Women are experts at stepping back from upsetting situations, managing their emotional responses in order to pursue the outcome they want.  

5. Valuable Links: Understanding Women's Relational Strengths

• Women are able to deeply understand the perspective of others, their viewpoints, concerns and feelings.  As a result, they are able to respond emphatically to others, anticipate their needs and desires, and reveal a forgiving attitude toward those who have wronged them.  
• Women listen to others, letting them express their point of view, trying to hear and understand them instead of drowning out others with their own opinions.  
• Women are patient and tolerant, able to wait while others find a way to get where they want to be (or should be).  
• Women know when to put others' needs first, and are altruistic in understated as well as daring way.  

6. Building Your Personal Fitness Program

• Ask yourself 3 simple questions anytime you are not feeling strong: (1) When and where do I run into trouble? (2) What is my positive image for change? (3) What small steps can I take toward that change?
• Imagining a positive outcome to the change you want to make is a great motivator.  It's also important to make that positive outcome realistic.  

7. Cultivating Genius: Building Your Mental Strengths

• To overcome obstacles, break them down into their smaller parts then generate small actions you could take to overcome those small components of the obstacle.  
• If you are having trouble seeing ways to accomplish your goal, step back and ask yourself, "What's really important to me in this situation?"  
• Use the following questions to evaluate whether you are good at focusing on getting the job done even if you don't get your way, or you get stuck wanting people to see that your way is the best way: How easy or difficult was it for you to cooperate with others?  How easy was it to accept that your idea didn't get chosen?  How much conflict was there between you and the other people involved?  
• Commit yourself to being a person who builds other people's skills and builds cooperative teams rather than a person focused on getting her own way.  
• For those who don't ask for the help you need because you don't want to impose on others, do it anyway.  You need to force yourself to ask for help, first in small ways, then in increasingly large ways.  By doing so, you will discover that the consequences are not as terrible as you imagined.  
• As you think about a discouraging situation you face, imagine yourself behaving as if you are optimistic about the outcome.  Play through the scenario in as much detail as possible.  When you have a picture of yourself as the "optimistic you", answer the following questions: (1) How would you act?  What would you do first, then next, and so on?  Be as specific as possible.  (2) What choices would you make?  (3) Whom would you choose to interact with?  Is there anyone in your life you would avoid, perhaps because he or she is a source of discouragement?  (4) What would you tell yourself to remain optimistic?  

8. Multiplying Adaptability: Building Your Identity Strengths

• Women have a core sense of self that is stable but adaptable to various circumstances.  You need to uncover an independent core sense of self so that your identity is not left to the whims of external circumstances. 
• Women define themselves in relation to their social connections with other people that they don't have a separate identity outside those relationships.  By ensuring that your identity is defined by yourself rather than your loved ones, you will likely improve your relationship with them.  
• Women's identities are multifaceted, based on several roles rather than one fixed role.  Do you have intellectual, artistic or humanitarian interests that are not being expressed in any of your roles?  Are there new kinds or relationships you would like to have?  If you haven't pursued a role that appeals to you because you haven't felt you had the time, think about how you might be able to cut down on the things you are currently doing to open up the time you need.  

9. Sharpening Emotional Attunement: Building Your Emotional Strengths

• Learn to perceive others' feelings.  Women are expert at perceiving and tuning into other people's feelings.  
• Learn to understand your own emotions.  Women understand their own emotions and the sources of these emotions.  
• Learn to express your emotions.  Women know how and when to express their emotions.  By holding your emotions inside, you may cause the other person to misunderstand you or prevent him or her from knowing that a situation is edging to the point of distress.  When you do try to express your feelings, use assertive language.  If possible, tell the other person how you would like things to change.  
• Learn to tolerate distress.  Women can tolerate distress and are thus better equipped to alleviate it.  Accept that you are upset by the stressful situation and that this is a normal reaction to stress.  Now you must choose to deal with that distress rather than flee from it.  Finally, try to switch your focus from your body and its reactions to what is happening in your environment.  Often we get so consumed by our feelings and thoughts of distress that we become unaware of what other people are saying or what is going on.  
• Learn to manage your feelings.  Women excel at managing their feelings.    Get into the habit of asking yourself, when you are feeling upset, "how am I interpreting this situation?"  Then ask yourself, "what is another way of looking at this situation?"  Another powerful tool for managing your feelings is to learn to take a problem-solving approach.  If you can keep focused on solving the crisis rather than on how upsetting it is, you will be able to draw out people's creativity and cooperation to address the situation.  

10. Connecting More Effectively: Building Your Relational Strengths

• Learn to be emphatic.  People who are able to put aside their own perspective momentarily, who do not assume that others see things the way they do, are better able to anticipate and respond to others' needs and concerns.  Was he driven by some outside constraints that caused him to act has he did?  What goals might he have had that led him to act as he did?  Being able to to take another's perspective does not mean you have to allow that person to "win" or accept how the person has acted toward you.  Instead, it allows you to respond more consciously and effectively to that behaviour, for your own benefit.  
• Learn to listen to others.  Try to find out in what situations you tend to listen well and in what situations you don't listen well.  If you are constantly forcing your opinion or just talking over others, there can be negative consequences to your relationship with others, to their desire to listen to anything you say, and to their development of independence and confidence.  
• Learn to be patient.  Why are you always in such a hurry?  This is the question you should ask yourself if you find you are an impatient person.  If you simply want everything to be done faster than it tends to get done, then you need to check your own priorities and expectations.  
• Learn to put others first, when appropriate.  Ask yourself, is there anything I would like to be doing in my life right now that I'm not doing because I am putting others' needs first?  How much do I value my interests that I am giving up?  How much do I value what I am doing instead of pursuing my interests?  If these valuations are equal, or you value what you are doing even more than what you are giving up, your values appear to be in balance and you probably are appropriately putting others' needs first.  If it pains you greatly to think about what you are giving up relative to what you are getting in return, then you may be putting others' needs before your own to an unhealthy degree.  

11. Leading Like a Woman

• If you are not optimistic about your leadership abilities, start by identifying ways you are discouraging yourself with the thoughts that run in the back of your mind.  Then counter those thoughts by banishing them or generating alternatives to them.  
• Every woman has the right to choose not to be a leader, but no woman should feel she doesn't have the right to be a leader.  
• If a new role as leader is creating an imbalance in your life by taking up all your time and energy, evaluate which of your other roles you aren't willing to give up and make a concrete plan for creating more balance in your life.  If there is imbalance between how much you are putting your own needs first or others' needs first, reaffirm the values and goals that led you to this leadership position, and then make a plan for how you are going to balance those values and goals with others' needs.  
• Building your own emotional strengths to become a good leader primarily involves first tuning in.  You can tune in to the emotions that others are expressing by being quiet and attentive more often, and learn the links between subtle cues such as facial expressions and body postures and the emotions they convey.  You can tune into your own emotions by keeping track of the thoughts that run behind them.  This will give you a better understanding of why you overreact or underreact in certain situations.  
• You need to make choices about how you are going to respond to the emotions of others and your own emotions.  Learning assertive ways of expressing your emotions and responding to the emotions of others builds honesty and trust in organizations.  Developing new strategies for managing when you are upset makes you feel more in control in any situation in life, including leadership situations.  

12. Parenting Like a Woman

• By being emotionally expressive, tuning into their children's emotions and channeling these emotions in appropriate ways, mothers help their children grow to be emotionally intelligent themselves.  
• When children see their parents making positive changes in themselves by improving their mental, identity, emotional and relational strengths, children can be inspired to make positive changes as well.  

13. Loving Like a Woman

• We're more likely to bring out our partners best self, his ideal form, if we have a vision of his best self that corresponds to his vision for himself.  
• Too often when we want to change our relationships, we focus only on what's wrong with them, specifically what is wrong with the other person.  We think that by complaining about his or her behaviour, or punishing it in some way, we will stop it.  But most often our complaining and hostility only creates resistance and resentment.  We are much more likely to change our relationships, and bring our the best in our partners, if we commit to using and improving our mental, identity, emotional, and relational strengths to change our own behaviour in the relationship.  

14. Aging Like a Woman

• Women's many strengths are the reason they can go through many hardships and tragedies that aging can bring, and not only maintain a positive sense of themselves and their lives, but often grow and blossom as a result of the experience.  

'How to Enjoy Your Life and Your Job', Dale Carnegie

Rating: 6.5/10

Overall Thoughts

Part One is essentially from Carnegie's book 'How to Stop Worrying and Start Living' whilst Parts Two, Three and Four are from 'How to Win Friends and Influence People'.  So if you have read either one of those books, this book will be relatively useless.  It is basically a condensed version of both books.  However if you have read neither, I do recommend picking up a copy of this book.

As I mentioned in one of my previous reviews, while 'How to Win Friends and Influence People' is well-researched and documented, some of the advice/tactics may come across as too manipulative to be applied ethically.  Religiously following the advice/tactics in Parts Two, Three and Four may possibly do more harm than good in the long run.   

Summary of 'How to Enjoy Your Life and Your Job'

Part One: Seven Ways to Peace and Happiness

1) Find Yourself and Be Yourself: Remember, There Is No One Else on Earth like You

• To cultivate a mental attitude that will bring us peace and freedom, remember not to imitate others.  

2) Four Good Working Habits That Will Help Prevent Fatigue and Worry

• Clear your desk of all papers except those relating to the immediate problem at hand.  
• Do things in the order of their importance.  
• When you face a problem, solve it then and there if you have the facts necessary to make a decision.  Don't keep putting off decisions.  
• Learn to organize, deputize, and supervise.  

3) What Makes You Tired and What You Can Do About It

• Worry, tenseness and emotional upsets are three of the biggest causes of fatigue.  Learn to relax while you are doing your work.  
• Work, as much as possible, in a comfortable position.  Remember that tensions on the body produces aching shoulders and nervous fatigue.  
• Check yourself four or five times a day, and say to yourself, "Am I making my work harder than it actually is?  Am I using muscles that have nothing to do with the work that I am doing?" 
• Test yourself at the end of the day, by asking yourself, "Just how tired am I?  If I am tired, it is not because of the mental work I have done but the way I have done it."  

4) How to Banish the Boredom That Produces Fatigue, Worry, and Resentment

• Our fatigue is often caused not by work, but by worry, frustration, and resentment.  We rarely get tired when we are doing something interesting and exciting.  
• If you act "as if" you are interested in your job, that bit of acting will tend to make your interest real.  It will also tend to decrease your fatigue, your tensions, and your worries.  
• By talking to yourself every hour of the day, you can direct yourself to think thoughts of courage and happiness, thoughts of power and peace.  
• By thinking the right thoughts, you can make any job less distasteful.  Keep reminding yourself that getting interested in your job will take your mind off your worries, and, in the long run, will probably bring promotion and increased pay.  Even if it doesn't do that, it will reduce fatigue to a minimum and help you enjoy your hours of leisure.  

5) Would You Take a Million Dollars for What You Have?

• About 90 per cent of the things in our lives are right and about 10 per cent are wrong.  If we want to be happy, all we have to do is concentrate on the 90 per cent that are right and ignore the 10 per cent that are wrong.  
• There are two things to aim at in life: first, to get what you want; and, after that, to enjoy it.  Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second.  
• Count you blessings, not your troubles.  

6) Remember That No One Ever Kicks a Dead Dog

• When you are kicked and criticized, remember that it is often done because it gives the kicker a feeling of importance.  It often means you are accomplishing something and are worthy of attention.  Many people get a sense of savage satisfaction out of denouncing those who are better educated than they are or more successful.  
• Remember that unjust criticism is often a disguised compliment.  

7) Do This and Criticism Can't Hurt You

• Never be bothered by what people say, as long as you know in your heart you are right.  

Part Two: Fundamental Techniques in Handling People

8) "If You Want to Gather Honey, Don't Kick Over the Beehive"

• 99 times out of 100, people don't criticize themselves for anything, no matter how wrong it may be.  Criticism is dangerous because it wounds a person's precious pride, hurts his sense of importance and arouses resentment.  
• Instead of condemning people, let's try to understand them.  Let's try to figure out why they do what they do.  That's a lot more profitable and intriguing than criticism; and it breeds sympathy, tolerance, and kindness.  

9) The Big Secret of Dealing with People

• Give honest and sincere appreciation.  
• Appreciation is sincere whilst flattery is insincere.  One comes from the heart out; the other from the teeth out.  One is unselfish; the other selfish.  One is universally admired; the other universally condemned.  
• In the long run, flattery will do you more harm than good.  Flattery is counterfeit, and like counterfeit money, it will eventually get you into trouble if you pass it to someone else.  

10) "He Who Can Do This Has the Whole World with Him.  He Who Cannot Walks a Lonely Way."

• Arouse in the other person an eager want.  
• Before you want to persuade somebody to do something, pause and ask yourself: "How can I make this person want to do it?"  
• If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person's point of view and see things from that person's angle as well as from your own.  

11) Do This and You'll Be Welcome Anywhere

• Become genuinely interested in other people.  
• If we want to make friends, let's put ourselves out to do things for other people - things that require time, energy, unselfishness and thoughtfulness.  
• If you want others to like you, if you want to develop real friendships, if you want to help others at the same time as you help yourself, keep this principle in mind.  

12) How to Make People Like You Instantly

• Make the other person feel important and do it sincerely.  
• How? When? Where?  The answer is: All the time, everywhere.  
• The unvarnished truth is that almost all the people you meet feel themselves superior to you in some way, and a sure way to their hearts is to let them realize in a subtle way that you recognize their importance, and recognize it sincerely.  

Part Three: Ways to Win People to Your Way of Thinking

13) A Sure Way of Making Enemies and How to Avoid It

• Show respect for the other person's opinions; never begin by announcing "I am going to prove so-and-so to you."  That's tantamount to saying "I'm smarter than you are.  I'm going to tell you a thing or two and make you change your mind."  It arouses opposition and makes the listener want to battle with you before you even start.  
• If you are going to prove anything, don't let anybody know it.  Do it so subtly, so adroitly, that no one will feel you are doing it.  
• You will never get into trouble by admitting that you may be wrong.  That will stop all argument and inspire your opponent to be just and fair and open and broad-minded as you are.  It will make him want to admit that, he, too, may be wrong.  

14) The High Road to Reason

• Begin in a friendly way. 
• Scolding parents and domineering bosses and husbands and nagging wives ought to realize that people don't want to change their minds.  They can't be forced or driven to agree with you or me.  But they may possibly be led to, if we are gentle and friendly, ever so gentle and ever so friendly.  

15) The Secret of Socrates

• In talking with people, don't begin by discussing the things on which you differ.  Begin by emphasizing - and keep on emphasizing - the things on which you agree.  Keep emphasizing, if possible, that you are both striving for the same end and that your only difference is one of method and not of purpose.  
• The more "Yeses" we can, at the very outset, induce, the more likely we are to succeed in capturing the attention for our ultimate proposal.  
• It doesn't pay to argue; it is much more profitable and much more interesting to look at things from the other person's viewpoint and try to get that person saying 'yes, yes'.  

16) How to Get Cooperation

• Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.  
• It is wiser to make suggestions and let the other person think about the conclusion, rather than trying to ram your opinions down the throats of other people.  

17) An Appeal That Everybody Likes

• All people you meet have a high regard for themselves and like to be fine and unselfish in their own estimation.  
• All of us, being idealists at heart, like to think of motives that sound good.  So, in order to change people, appeal to the nobler motives.  

Part Four: Ways to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment

18) How to Criticize and Not Be Hated for It

• Calling attention to one's mistakes indirectly works wonders with sensitive people who may resent bitterly any direct criticism.  

19) Talk About Your Own Mistakes First

• Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.  Admitting one's own mistakes - even when one hasn't corrected them - can help convince somebody to change his behaviour.  

20) No One Likes to Take Orders

• Asking questions not only makes an order more palatable; it often stimulates the creativity of the persons whom you ask.  People are more likely to accept an order if they have had a part in the decision that caused the order to be issued.

21) Let the Other Person Save Face

• Even if we are right and the other person is definitely wrong, we only destroy ego by causing someone to lose face.  

'The Art of Thinking Clearly', Rolf Dobelli

Rating: 3/10

Overall Thoughts

The Art of Thinking Clearly?  International bestseller?  I don't think so.  Alas, I fell victim to the phrase 'never judge a book by its cover'; clearly the seemingly attractive front cover gave this book an aura of credibility it does not deserve.  The title itself is misleading since this is not a self-help book containing advise on 'clear thinking'.

This book consists of 99 short chapters which mainly discusses psychological findings of other individuals/sources and comprises of illustrations which are primarily related to the medical or investment/business industry, which is clearly not relatable to most people, myself included.   Further, 3 pages per chapter is barely sufficient to critically discuss a concept/subject.  This book lacks  central argument, and is essentially a list of cognitive biases with bare descriptions.

Instead of helping me shape my thinking and decision-making process, this book has done the exact opposite.  Truth be told, I did not take away any useful information/tips from this book.  It was a definite struggle to actually finish the entire book.

Summary of 'The Art of Thinking Clearly'

• In daily life, because triumph is made more visible than failure, people systematically overestimate their chances of succeeding.  Guard against it by frequently visiting the graves of once promising projects, investments and careers.  
• Rational decision making requires you to forget about the costs incurred to date.  No matter how much you have already invested, only your assessment of the future costs and benefits counts.  
• Whenever you hear a story, ask yourself: Who is the sender, what are his intentions, and what did he hide under the rug?  The real issue with stories: They give us a false sense of understanding, which inevitably leads us to take bigger risks and urges us to take a stroll on thin ice.  
• Do you have everything under control?  Probably less than you think.  Focus on the few things of importance that you can really influence.  For everything else: Que sera, sera.  
• If you want to convince someone about something, don't focus on the advantages; instead highlight how it helps them dodge the disadvantages.  
• Forget trying to amass all the data.  Do your best to get by with the bare facts.  It will help you make better decisions.  Superfluous knowledge is worthless, whether you know it or not.  
• Raise expectations for yourself and for the people you love.  This increases motivation.  At the same time, lower expectations for things you cannot control.  
• We make complex decisions by consulting our feelings, not our thoughts.  Against our best intentions, we substitute the question. "What do I think about this?" with "How do I feel about this?"  
• First and last impressions dominate, meaning the content sandwiched between has only a weak influence.  Try to avoid evaluations based on first impressions.  Try to assess all aspects impartially.  
• When do you listen to your head and when do you heed your gut?  A rule of thumb might be: If it is something to do with practical activities, such as motor skills or questions you've answered a thousand times, it's better not to reflect to the last detail.  It undermines your intuitive ability to solve problems.  

'Kafka on the Shore', Haruki Murakami

Rating: 7/10

Overall Thoughts

'Kafka on the Shore' hinges on the boundaries of what exists around the characters versus what exists in their minds.  The story follows a damaged fifteen year-old boy named Kafka Tamura who runs away from home and eventually finds shelter in a privately owned public library in Takamatsu, as well as an illiterate old-man named Nakata whose mind was entirely erased as a child due to a mysterious event which occurred during World War II.  One person is running away from something, the other searching; one looking forward, the other looking back; one with a bright future, the other with a dark past.  Two very different individuals, yet their fates are somehow intertwined in their journey of self-discovery.  

Murakami definitely has a wonderfully strange and unique storytelling ability.  Reading this novel left me with a lot of unanswered questions (in a good way).  The flow of the storyline is made up of a patchwork of unrelated scenes and conversations - some brutal, some chaotic, and others beautiful -  which is loosely tied together at the end.  You would have to read one of his novels to fully appreciate his talent. 

Favourites from 'Kafka on the Shore'

"I felt utterly alone, like I was the last person alive on Earth.  I can't describe that feeling of total loneliness.  I just wanted to disappear into thin air and not think about anything."  

"You're going to be okay, I tell myself, taking a deep breath.  All you can do is forge on ahead."  

"All I know is I'm totally alone.  Alone in an unfamiliar place, like some solitary explorer who's lost his compass and his map.  Is this what it means to be free?"

"I remember her smell, her touch, but not her face."  

"... it feels like everything's been decided in advance - that I'm following a path somebody else has already mapped out for me.  It doesn't matter how much I think things over, how much effort I put into it.  In fact, the harder I try, the more I lose sense of who I am."  

"Man doesn't choose fate.  Fate chooses man."  

"She's so perfect I know she can't be real.  She's like a person who stepped right out of a dream."  

"The darkness in the outside world has vanished, but the darkness in our hearts remains, virtually unchanged.  Just like an iceberg, what we label the ego or consciousness is, for the most part, sunk in darkness."  

"As long as there's such a thing as time, everybody's damaged in the end, changed into something else."  

"If she never came back everything would be lost to me forever.  All meaning, all direction.  Everything.  I know this, but I go ahead and risk it anyway, and call her name."  

"There's a void inside me, a blank that's slowly expanding, devouring what's left of who I am.  I can hear it happening.  I'm totally lost, my identity dying,"  

"Memories warm you up from the inside.  But they also tear you apart."  

"If you remember me, then I don't care if anyone else forgets."  

"Time weighs down on you like an old, ambiguous dream.  You keep on moving, trying to slip through it.  But even if you go to the ends of the earth, you won't be able to escape it.  Still, you have to go there - to the edge of the world.  There's something you can't do unless you get there."  

'How to Win Friends and Influence People', Dale Carnegie

Rating: 7/10

Overall Thoughts

This book is not just for socially awkward individuals.  The content of this book is aimed at helping  readers increase skills in human relations by changing our perception towards the people around us, whilst teaching us how to see and judge others.  'How to Win Friends and Influence People' is packed with advice that has carried numerous famous and successful people throughout history up the ladder of success in their personal and business lives.

While this book is well-researched and documented, some of the advice/tactics may come across as too manipulative to be applied ethically.  Majority of the examples and stories included in the book are essentially illustrating how to apply these advice/tactics for financial and political gain, instead of teaching us to become better human beings and foster real friendships with others.  In that sense, I personally think that religiously following these advice/tactics may possibly do more harm than good in the long run.

Summary of 'How to Win Friends and Influence People'

Part One: Fundamental Techniques in Handling People

Principle 1: Don't criticize, condemn or complain 

• By criticizing, we do not make lasting changes and often incur resentment.  
• When dealing with people, remember we are not dealing with creative creatures of logic.  We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity.  
• Instead of condemning people, let's try to understand them.  Lets try to figure out why they do what they do.  That's a lot more profitable and intriguing than criticism; and it breeds sympathy, tolerance and kindness.  

Principle 2: Give honest and sincere appreciation

• Appreciation is sincere whilst flattery is insincere.  One comes from the heart out; the other from the teeth out.  One is unselfish; the other selfish.  One is universally admired; the other universally condemned.  
• In the long run, flattery will do you more harm than good.  Flattery is counterfeit, and like counterfeit money, it will eventually get you into trouble if you pass it to someone else.  

Principle 3: Arouse in the other person an eager want

• Before you want to persuade somebody to do something, pause and ask yourself: "How can I make this person want to do it?"  
• If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person's point of view and see things from that person's angle as well as from your own.  

Part Two: Six Ways to Make People Like You

Principle 1: Become genuinely interested in other people

• If we want to make friends, let's put ourselves out to do things for other people - things that require time, energy, unselfishness and thoughtfulness.  
• If you want others to like you, if you want to develop real friendships, if you want to help others at the same time as you help yourself, keep this principle in mind.  

Principle 2: Smile

• Actions speak louder than words, and a smile says, "I like you.  You make me happy.  I am glad to see you."  
• Everybody in the world is seeking happiness - and there is one sure way to find it.  That is by controlling your thoughts.  Happiness doesn't depend on outward conditions.  It depends on inward conditions.  It isn't what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy.  It is what you think about it.  

Principle 3: Remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language

• Remember that name and call it easily, and you have paid a subtle and very effective compliment.  But forget it or misspell it, and you have placed yourself at a sharp disadvantage.  

Principle 4: Be a good listener, encourage others to talk about themselves

• People who talk about themselves think only of themselves.  
• If you aspire to be a good conversationalist, be an attentive listener.  To be interesting, be interested.  Ask questions that other persons will enjoy answering.  Encourage them to talk about themselves and their accomplishments.  

Principle 5: Talk in terms of the other person's interests

Principle 6: Make the other person feel important and do it sincerely

• How? When? Where?  The answer is: All the time, everywhere.  
• The unvarnished truth is that almost all the people you meet feel themselves superior to you in some way, and a sure way to their hearts is to let them realize in a subtle way that you recognize their importance, and recognize it sincerely.  

Part Three: How to Win People to Your Way of Thinking

Principle 1: The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it

• Welcome the disagreement.  Perhaps this disagreement is your opportunity to be corrected before you make a serious mistake.  
• Distrust your first instinctive impression, which is to be defensive.  Keep calm and watch out for your first reaction.  It may be you at your worst, not your best.  
• Control your temper.  
• Listen first.  Give your opponents a chance to talk.  Let them finish.  Do not resist, defend or debate.  Try to build bridges of understanding.  Don't build high barriers of misunderstanding.  
• Look for areas of agreement.  
• Be honest.  Apologize for your mistakes.  
• Promise to think over your opponents' ideas and study them carefully.  And mean it.  Your opponents may be right.  
• Thank your opponents sincerely for their interest.  Think of them as people who really want to help you, and you may turn your opponents into friends.  
• Postpone action to give both sides time to think through the problem.  

Principle 2: Show respect for the other person's opinions; never say, "you're wrong"

• Never begin by announcing "I am going to prove so-and-so to you."  That's tantamount to saying "I'm smarter than you are.  I'm going to tell you a thing or two and make you change your mind."  It arouses opposition and makes the listener want to battle with you before you even start.  
• If you are going to prove anything, don't let anybody know it.  Do it so subtly, so adroitly, that no one will feel you are doing it.  
• You will never get into trouble by admitting that you may be wrong.  That will stop all argument and inspire your opponent to be just and fair and open and broad-minded as you are.  It will make him want to admit that, he, too, may be wrong.  

Principle 3: If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically 

• There is a certain degree of satisfaction in having the courage to admit one's errors.  It not only clears the air of guilt and defensiveness, but often helps solve the problem created by the error.  
• When we are right, let's try to win people gently and tactfully to our way of thinking, and when we are wrong - and that will be surprisingly often, if we are honest with ourselves - let's admit our mistakes quickly and with enthusiasm.  

Principle 4: Begin in a friendly way

• Scolding parents and domineering bosses and husbands and nagging wives ought to realize that people don't want to change their minds.  They can't be forced or driven to agree with you or me.  But they may possibly be led to, if we are gentle and friendly, ever so gentle and ever so friendly.  

Principle 5: Get the other person saying "yes, yes" immediately

• In talking with people, don't begin by discussing the things on which you differ.  Begin by emphasizing - and keep on emphasizing - the things on which you agree.  Keep emphasizing, if possible, that you are both striving for the same end and that your only difference is one of method and not of purpose.  
• The more "Yeses" we can, at the very outset, induce, the more likely we are to succeed in capturing the attention for our ultimate proposal.  
• It doesn't pay to argue; it is much more profitable and much more interesting to look at things from the other person's viewpoint and try to get that person saying 'yes, yes'.  

Principle 6: Let the other person do a great deal of the talking

• Let the other person talk themselves out.  They know more about their business and problems than you do.  Ask them questions and let them tell you a few things.  If you disagree with them you may be tempted to interrupt.  But don't.  They won't pay attention to you while they still have a lot of ideas of their own crying for expression.  So listen patiently and with an open mind.  Be sincere about it.  Encourage them to express their ideas fully.  

Principle 7: Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers

• It is wiser to make suggestions and let the other person think about the conclusion, rather than trying to ram your opinions down the throats of other people.  

Principle 8: Try honestly to see things from the other person's point of view

• Other people may be totally wrong, but they don't think so.  Don't condemn them.  Try to understand them.  Only wise, tolerant, exceptional people even try to do that.  
• If you say to yourself, "How would I feel,  how would I react if I were in his shoes?" you will save yourself time and irritation, for "by becoming interested in the cause, we are less likely to dislike the effect."  

Principle 9: Be sympathetic with the other person's ideas and desires

Principle 10: Appeal to the nobler motives

• All people you meet have a high regard for themselves and like to be fine and unselfish  in their own estimation.  
• All of us, being idealists at heart, like to think of motives that sound good.  So, in order to change people, appeal to the nobler motives.  

Principle 11: Dramatize your ideas

• Merely stating a truth isn't enough.  The truth has to be made vivid, interesting, dramatic.  You have to use showmanship.  The movies do it.  Television does it.  And you will have to do it  if you want attention.  

Principle 12: Throw down a challenge

• The way to get things done is to stimulate competition, that is, the desire to excel.  
• That is what every successful person loves: the game.  The chance for self-expression.  The chance to prove his or her worth, to excel, to win.  The desire for a feeling of importance.  

Part Four: Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment

Principle 1: Begin with praise and honest appreciation

Principle 2: Call attention to people's mistakes indirectly

• Calling attention to one's mistakes indirectly works wonders with sensitive people who may resent bitterly any direct criticism.  

Principle 3: Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person

• Admitting one's own mistakes - even when one hasn't corrected them - can help convince somebody to change his behaviour.  

Principle 4: Ask questions instead of giving direct orders

• Asking questions not only makes an order more palatable; it often stimulates the creativity of the persons whom you ask.  People are more likely to accept an order if they have had a part in the decision that caused the order to be issued.  

Principle 5: Let the other person save face

• Even if we are right and the other person is definitely wrong, we only destroy ego by causing someone to lose face.  

Principle 6: Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement; be "hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise"

• Everybody likes to be praised, but when praise is specific, it comes across as sincere - not something the other person may be saying just to make one feel good.  
• We all crave appreciation and recognition, and will do almost anything to get it.  But nobody wants insincerity.  Nobody wants flattery.  

Principle 7: Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to

• If you want to improve a person in a certain respect, act as though that particular trait were already one of his or her outstanding characteristics.  

Principle 8: Use encouragement; make the fault seem easy to correct

• Be liberal with your encouragement, make the thing seem easy to do, let the other person know that you have faith in his ability to do it, that he has an underdeveloped flair for it.  

Principle 9: Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest

• Be sincere.  Don't promise anything that you cannot deliver.  Forget about the benefits to yourself and concentrate on the benefits to the other person.  
• Know exactly what it is you want the other person to do.  
• Be empathetic.  Ask yourself what it is the other person really wants.  
• Consider the benefits that person will receive from doing what you suggest.  
• Match those benefits to the other person's wants.  
• When you make your request, put it in a form that will convey to the other person the idea that he personally will benefit.