Customer Reviews

Charisma: Seven Keys to Developing the Magnetism that Leads to Success

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is a solid introduction to the subject of having more influence that will help those who feel challenged by social situations. Self-diagnostic questions and simple examples combine to give you a good sense of what you need to work on.

The author provides a number of definitions of charisma (including the one in the title of this review), and seems to focus on "the ability to influence others positively by connecting with them physically, emotionally, and intellectually."

Daniel Goleman has written a great deal about emotional intelligence (see his books, Emotional Intelligence and Working with Emotional Intelligence), and has noted that many people lack skill in this area. For those who have little of this capability, Charisma will provide a useful toolkit for assessing and adapting successfully in social situations.

The book is organized around a few key ideas: making a good first impression, making a good impression when you speak, being an effective listener, becoming more persuasive, using physical surroundings to your advantage, maximizing adaptability to the situation, and expanding your vision and ideas. These are all good areas to focus on, and few will find that they are equally strong in each one. Once you find your weaker points, the author provides you will simple, effective suggestions for improvement.

He sums up all his thinking in a Platinum Rule: Do unto others as they would like done unto them.

If you want more advanced help in this area, you will find Goleman, Cialdini (Influence), and books on neuro-linguistic programming to be helpful.

The main point is that we should all work on our social effectiveness and comfort. All of us know more than any one of us, and we can accomplish much more together. Enjoy this stallbusting book and have more joy in your life!

I think charges could be brought against Alessandra for this offering. He banks heavily on the statistical knowledge that very few people who buy this kind of book ever read beyond the second chapter. Therefore, the first two chapters and the cover are merely razzle-dazzle fluff constantly mentioning "charisma," but rarely saying much about it. He then offers a weak thesis that charisma is related to communication then proceeds to stuff the rest of the book with what is obviously old material on the subject of communication occasionally tying it to charisma. This "filler" material, I will say, is solid stuff, but, overall, this book, as well as Mr. Alessandra, are very disappointing.

Tony Alessandra focuses on how to build your charisma by analyzing the seven elements that comprise it: your "silent message," speaking ability, listening skills, persuasive talent, use of time and space, adaptability, and vision. He provides a short quiz you can complete at the beginning of each chapter to identify easily which areas of your charisma need work. Allessandra believes that you don't have to be born with charisma, that anyone can increase his or her level of charisma. He demystifies it in this clearly focused, very readable book. Alessandra probably could write complete books on each of charisma's seven keys. In fact, the section on adaptability is essentially a summary of a book he co-authored, The Platinum Rule. But instead of seven volumes, here is one well-edited book packed full of content. We at getAbstract recommend this book to people who want to improve their charisma, or to understand the tangible aspects of this intangible quality.

Over the years, I have read countless books and articles, listened to tapes, and watched videos to learn the secrets to success. I've sat through seminars, workshops, speeches, and classes hoping to pick up one more little gem of an idea to improve my effectiveness.

In Charisma, Tony Alessandra has pulled all of that knowledge together in one place. After many years in business, and a whole lot of learning about how to be successful in sales, management, and life, I recognized quite a bit of the contents of this volume. I really enjoyed the refresher and reinforcement . . . and I picked up some new advice that I'd missed along the way.

The book starts, appropriately with an introduction to Charisma: "the ability to positively influence others by connecting with them physically, emotionally, and intellectually." From the introductory chapters, Alessandra takes us on a journey through seven fully-loaded chapters spilling over with the secrets of how to fashion and hone that influencing ability.

To enable you to see the framework of this tool kit, I'll list the chapters. Sending Out Your Best Silent Message, Speaking with Authority, Listening Attentively, Becoming More Persuasive, Using Space and Time to Your Advantage, Maximizing Your Adaptability, and Expanding Your Vision and Ideas. As a reader, you'll find yourself asking your author-mentor how he learned all this stuff! Wow! Your respect and admiration will grow, followed by appreciation as you put the many principles to work and start seeing results.

This book should be required reading for every salesperson, every high school senior, every young person starting out on a career. People who have been around for a while, but who have not yet achieved the success they desire, will also benefit greatly from this guidebook. The continual flow of advice and wisdom is interrupted by a self-test in every chapter. You'll be able to see yourself grow page by page.

Hint to make this a better world: Parents, buy this book for your kids.

PS: Alessandra is also author of The Platinum Rule. Read that one next!

The book's approach to this illusive phenomenon is built around what the author sees as the seven main components of charisma: body language, ability to speak well, active listening, persuasiveness, use of space and time, understanding and relating to others, and vision or ideas. Succinct guidelines, quizzes and lively writing make this a highly energizing and useful book.

This book was very informative on ways to work on portraying oneself as being a outgoing, energetic, and charismatic person. I have read many books on Charisma and this is a very good book to start with. It looks at each aspect of Charisma separately, gives you a quiz to take to rate yourself on that aspect, and then goes about explaining how to become more magnetic in each of those aspects. If you're looking for ways to become more outgoing and charismatic then this would be a good book to start with.

There is a lot of information packed within these pages. More in fact than I could get from one reading. I found this book to be better than any I've read yet on the subject... yet, it still seems that there is an elusive, magical aspect of charisma that each author seems to miss. This may just be my personal viewpoint. Who knows, maybe I need to find the magical gem, insert it into the puzzle, and write the book myself. I have listened to tapes; watched videos; and read books by Tony Alessandra, and this guy rocks. Read this book by all means and add to your own charisma.

This would be an excellent book on how to make an effective presentation.The problem is that the author fails to deliver the big promise of imparting charisma to the reader,which is what the book is supposed to accomplish.The author would like you to believe that anyone can have charisma,which is like saying that anyone can be a mathematician.Despite what the author says,not anyone can develop reasonable charisma,but if he had been honest he wouldn't have sold nearly as many books.People would be much better off if they better developed the tremendous abilities that they had rather than try to cultivate qualities that are hard to reach or don't exist at all.Another big lie in this genre.

Charisma by Tony Alesandra is is a very friendly book, with down-to-earth, practical information. It explains how anyone, if they're willing to follow the author's guidelines, can be more charismatic. The question, of course, is, "are you willing to follow the guidelines?" With the author's encouragement, many readers will. This is well written and I feel that anyone could get a lot of practical ideas and sound advice from this book.

Since I ordinarily despise "self-help" books, it took me a while to get around to opening this one up...but when I did, I was surprised at the thoughtfulness and clarity of the content. The author (or writer) is down-to-earth and a lot of the advice is actually useful. I thought the approach was a bit westernized in that the definition of "charisma" was definitely rooted in our own culture, but that part wasn't a surprise. Overall, I think there is valuable advice in this book, particularly in the area of communication. If you're in a business where image projection and communication are important, you'll probably find this book valuable.