You Can Read Anyone By David J. Lieberman, Ph.D.

Intro:

Happy Valentines Day! Before I start this week’s review, I just wanted to check in with you guys and ask a simple question: ‘Have you ever been in an awkward situation with someone special and if so, was it your fault?’ To deny the first part would be a lie. Everyone been in some awkward encounter with another person or a group of people. May that be because you said something that came across wrong or you misread the person and said something that didn’t sit well with them. We all wish we could escape these uncomfortable circumstances but after all that’s what makes us human. But we can take steps and strides to better understand people and make each conversation memorable and encounter unforgettable. But what steps can you take to perfect your people skills? Well, that would simply be reading this book.

Why Read The Book:

Just to be clear: This book does not spout wildly ambiguous generalities about people based on intuition or gut instincts. This book contains specific, proven psychological techniques that can be applied instantly to any person in just about any situation. Lots of people would assume this book contains the secrets of the universe and will allow them to magically peer into someone’s mind regardless of the circumstances of the conversation or whether they know the person. But people are very confusing to understand and to compensate for that Dr Lieberman has listed multiple strategies so that you have an arsenal of questions to get to the know the psychology of the person you are talking to. This then allows you to use personalised questions to get their thoughts, opinions and motives on certain matters.

The first chapter is solely about how to draw the truth from a person who you suspect to be the culprit of a crime. You could do this by: asking them to help you find who is responsible, informing them about a matter instead of accusing them or by asking them how they would commit the crime. If they become defensive at any point, then you can likely suspect guilt, while an innocent person will become offensive because you accused them. And if instead of giving a straightforward answer they use out-of-the-box thinking you have reason to strengthen your accusation, allowing you to confront them later.

The second chapter is more for getting someone’s true feelings about a person or issue. This could be by the use of positive/negative markers to do with an event e.g. if there were solely blue chairs in a meeting and you call someone back after a meeting and ask them to sit on either a blue or black chair, their choice will tell you about their thoughts on the meeting. Sitting on a blue chair, gives you reason to suspect that the meeting went well for them, while sitting on a black chair suggests a negative perception of the meeting. Note I am using suggestive language instead of objective language because they might not be thinking too hard about the chair they sit on or might base their choice off colour preference, design, closeness and comfort. But ideally, the unconscious part of their brain makes the choice and therefore it is based on recent events. In fact, the meeting might have gone so good or so bad for a party that their perception of dominant features in their environment might have permeant positive or negative connotations in their mind.

But after this point, the book delves into whether a person has self-esteem or is confident or is neither. The book defines self-esteem as ‘a reflection of how he treats himself and others’. Dr Lieberman believes that self-esteem has the most important effect on someone’s personality and that a lack of it is responsible for negative traits such as ego, which leads to negative emotions such as anger. His opinions on self-esteem are vast and the book is solely based on techniques and facts with no story in between so it is impossible to write it all down for you but there is one lesson you need to know.

A person with a diminished ego and high self-esteem is humble. A person with an inflated but dented ego and low self-esteem has a doormat personality. A person with a large ego and low self-esteem is arrogant. Arrogant people are dangerous to others because of their nature to different anger outwards, while doormats are dangerous to themselves because of their tendency to direct anger inwards. So, it is important to identify where you stand so that you can change before your personality consumes you or the people around you.

Conclusion:

The book contains a lot of information, so I will suggest you note down the techniques listed in the book and all pay close attention to the examples. I chose to read this book because elections are coming up at my school, so I could use these lessons to network within the school community and understand people so that I can build lasting relationships with them. And I have indeed learnt a lot but I could say he has put too much information in this book and maybe if he would have structured the content in a more even way then I could have been more focused and engaged in the lessons.

I hope you enjoyed that review of You Can Read Anyone by David J. Lieberman, Ph.D. And if you are intrigued by his work, you can always follow him on Instagram. Please tell me if you found my newsletter informative and helpful and please recommend any books you want me to review. See you in the next one.