If you want to get into manipulating people, read The 48 Laws of Power and Influence by Robert Cialdini. ;)

Yeah dude, if you’re ever in town, drop me a mail. It’s on!

Knowing that you are trustworthy when it comes to books, I bought all 3 books and started out with Overachievement.
After a few pages I put it aside, simply because I wasn’t in the mood for ‘Either you’re a geek and good at what you’re doing, or you have a social life’ – because that’s what’s it about, from what I’ve seen so far.

THEN I started How to Win Friends an Influece People…
HEAVEN!!!
This book is divine!
I my god!
It’s so reasonable – of course being genuine and nice will make people like you – but Carnegie really knows how to flesh this out through so many ‘real-life-examples’!
EVERYBODY MUST READ THIS BOOK
Thing cool thing is: from the outside it might look like it will teach you to manipulate people, but infact it will turn it’s reader into a better person.

Jon, if I ever come over to Austin, we should kill a couple of beers, while philosophizing about human nature, meditation and computer graphics. ;)

Professionally, it showed me what an asset it can be to thrive on pressure. As I was going through the book, an important surprise global art review came up. I’d never done one before and I’d heard that the person doing it is notoriously critical — but always right. Theoretically, I probably could have lost my job over it if it went poorly enough.

So I spent a week working 12 to 16 hours a day getting everything together for him and preparing. In any other time of my life, I would have been stressing out and worrying and falling apart, but Overachievement helped me start thinking of it as a challenge. I welcomed every bit of pressure and laughed the whole way through.

Yeah, it was hard, but I completely let go of worry, and let the incredible pressure fuel me to work harder and do better. Everyone around me was wondering why I was so happy when so much was [potentially] at stake. I knew I’d do great, I didn’t doubt myself, and I embraced the incredibl pressure and never felt stress.

In the end, I got a damned good presentation set up, I organized a LOT of data that needed organizing anyway, I established a lot of new presentation and style standards that had been fuzzy before, and I saw how well I could perform under pressure if I had a good attitude about it.

Now, on a daily basis, I’ve almost totally eliminated stress and worry, and I dive headfirst after pressure and high-intensity situations for the sheer pleasure of it. I feel like a much better human being because of it. Simply being willing to do what most people won’t (embrace and seek pressure) positions me even better for success than before. And I’m all about increasing the odds of that happening. :)

So, unfortunately, the art review ended up getting cancelled and wasn’t rescheduled, and no one ever saw any of my work. I might get a second chance to do it soon, but I’m not sure yet. Oh well.

Jeff: The 48 Laws of Power and How to Win Friends and Influence People.

They’re basically the same book, except 48 Laws is written from the standpoint of complete amorality, and How to Win Friends is very friendly, socially acceptable, and moral. Seeing the two approaches to the same problem (social interaction + influence) is absolutely fascinating, and pretty important for anyone.