Customer Reviews

You Say More Than You Think: Use the New Body Language to Get What You Want!, the 7-day Plan

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book rocks with it's content and what it's teaching. I learned how to norm my boss and already asked for some great stuff! I love that. The Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes idea is great. She really breaks it down pretty well.

The BIG downside is she seems to have little respect for the readers time and finances. The first chapter says you need about 2 hours a day, for 7 days. I thought that was doable. But what I didn't expect was all the crazy suggestions: Buy a Nintendo, Go Skydiving, Sign up for Belly Dancing Lessons, Sign up for Salsa dancing, etc... Also if you were going to do this in 7 days and go to work, how would you get into any of the classes for find the time to go skydiving all within your "7 day makeover/"

She also mixes it up with home alone exercises and wome work out in public. I thought it would be more observation inside and out. But it requires: Staring at a painting at a museum for 30 Minutes for example... this takes at least an hour and I'm supposed to read and do 2-3 more exercises? Get a friend to come over and rollplay while you videotape, this one would take at least an hour... SO I find it's just not realisic or well thought out so I find that frusterating.

Bottom Line though, the content is good, just don't expect to be able to do her exercises the way she suggests unless you have a lot of extra cash and tons of free time...Oh and a video camera and friends that are available at the drop of a hat.

Janine was the keynote at my organization's conference a few years back. After seeing her speak, I've started gain a real interest in body language. Out of all the books and information I have read or seen, this is definitely one of the best. After purchasing it a few days ago and reading through it, I've found a large amount of simple but surprising tips and tricks. One of my favorites is the the belly button rule, it helps me read other people im interacting with, while at the same time helping me focus my attention on the person I'm talking to. After reading the book, I have come to find that I may have been sending a lot of the wrong signals with my body position, the rules and other information gathered from the book has started to change my interactions with people.

Let me begin by saying I have no skin in this game, as I am not hyping ANY OTHER book or Communication Improvement Skill course; I am merely giving a personal reaction to my interpretation of the written material as a mental health profession with over 35 years experience in the field.

The author makes many good points and the book is easy to read and follow with a fair number of black and white photos showing the before and after effect of each newly analyzed body language characteristic, but most disturbing is the continual encouragement to visit her official website [...]. I buy every book simply to be informed or entertained but not solicited. I am unsure how many agencies or companies would put great credence in a for-profit corporation issuing certifications. It has been my experience that most companies want job candidates and consultants to have degrees from established colleges/universities which are appropriately accredited. The book is full of first person testimonials from graduates of her course who proclaim miraculous reincarnations into far superior beings after taking the advertised course and after which they can lead their own groups, hopefully garnering some speaking engagements, as well. For an original and similar pep talk one can read Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People originally published many decades ago. It also has the same authoritarian flavor and doctrinaire game plan.

Many of the author's suggestion make a great deal of sense and are worth following, but in one instance she makes a great faux pas in stating that women wearing heels leads to an improvement in their posture. I would defy anyone to find an orthopedist, acting in his profession capacity, who would agree with that view, although as a male he would most likely approve of the arrow-pointed calves and the accentuated and protruding female derriere. At the same time it causes the stomach to protrude and causes an unnatural sway to the lower back known as LORDOSIS [medically described as an anteroposterior curvature of the spine] and less technically and less euphemistically as saddle back - think equestrian in this regard. Women wearing heels is the biggest cause of this. This last point is the only one I found of an inaccurate and misleading nature. As I have stated earlier in this assessment the book makes many good points, but I find it incomprehensible that a person can have a personality transformation in a mere seven days [as her course promises] of following pop culture dogma, although I am sure some proteges of the program will give anecdotal testimony to the contrary. My intention is to merely explain what you will be getting with this book. Your personality is the result of your entire lifetime experiences, be they good or bad, and a make-over in a week is simply not possible, unless one truly believes in reality TV shows. It's not a bad book, it is simply not a great book nor a must read.

Well written, concise, well organised book detailing body language in seven sections with some exercises and personal anecdotes added in.

This book has a section on facial body language but mainly focuses on whole-body language. There are other books out there that focus on facial expressions more thoroughly but don't focus on whole-body language much or at all on.

For those interested in body language this is one of the must-have books, along with perhaps something from Paul Ekman who focuses more on facial expressions (Emotions Revealed or Unmasking the Face are good suggestions). The author of this book is less academic and perhaps covers less overall ground than Ekman but is arguably more readable for beginners, given how information is presented in a clear, easy to understand manner.

After reading several other body language books, I kind of threw in the towel, so to speak, mainly because I just didn't get much out of them. However, this one was different. It was very definitive and thorough. It does involve a plan, too, and something anyone can utilize into their day to day lives in order to understand what signals everyone is giving out. I thought the author did a stand-up job on this book and the seven day plan is something I can defintely use and not be too rushed to complete. I would most definitely recommend this one.

I came across this book while perusing the self-help section and purchased it out of pure curiosity. Little did I know that I would have a hard time putting it down! The book itself is literally a 7-Day plan, which I can only assume meant that it should be read in about 7 days time. However, my fiending curiosity would not allow me to put it down after only a chapter. I finished it in 3 days (unfortunate it took me so long, but I did have work). This book is total mind candy and you'll wonder how you never knew about the skills that you will aquire from it. I would recommend it to anyone who is curious about a whole new world that most of us never knew about, anyone who is frequenting the dating scene, or even to anyone who is just looking for a good read. You won't regre it!

In writing Leadership Charisma I studied a lot about body language and how it impacts one's charisma.

I was so fascinated by the power of this topic that a short while ago I decided that I'd aim to become an expert - and I've been focused upon body language and nonverbal communication as applied to business.

So far I've read several tomes on the topic - by Allan Pease, Mark Bowden, Joe Navarro - and just recently this one by Janine Driver and Mariska van Aalst.

All of these books have their merits - but this is definitely the best one I've read to date.

What I liked about it is how the authors put their lessons into a real-world content - so, instead of providing a dictionary of various body language and gestures they provide a way of applying what they present in everyday situations.

For example, whereas many other books provide hard and fast defintions of what various body language forms and gestures mean, these authors continually point out just how important it is view any body language in the context of the normal body language of the person you're observing: the importance of observing people with a view to 'norming' their body language, so that you can then interpret any departure from their norms and only then consider the implications of the nonverbal signals they're sending.

They introduce a couple of critical concepts like 'The Belly Button Rule' and the 'Right Side Rule' - some very practical and powerful tools I didn't read about elsewhere.

However, with books like these the question is always: is what they teach practically implementable in real-life situations? Well, I have applied both of these principles daily over the last few weeks - and they work extremely well in helping to build trust and enhance communication. I'm sold.

Janine Driver is a former body language expert with the ATF and her expertise screams out from the book's chapters. The only problem I had, and one that made me squirm at times, was the way the authors occasionally seemed to lose the plot when it came to some of the exercises they suggest: take Salsa Dancing lessons, go skydiving, buy a Nintendo, and go belly dancing. (Seriously ladies - what were you thinking?!).

Worth every cent.

I watched Janine Driver on Oprah, where she gave many excellent examples of body language that we are not aware of. The book elaborates on her examples and so much more. For parents raising teenagers, and those in the business world, or even every day experiences, it is an excellent resource for being in tune with understanding both your own and body language of others. The author used to be a stand up comic, and she entertains us with many aspects of her subjects. They call her the "Lyin Tamer". Very clever and well written.

Game. Changer. Definitely recommended - with one caveat (shared with the author). You MUST do the exercises. Much like Dale Carnegie stated in his book on effective speaking, you can read all of the books on language you can handle - not a lick of 'em will bring you to the level of proficiency you desire without doing the work. (okay, so I paraphrased...) Read all the books you want on lifting weights - if you never pick up a weight, then you'll not have a rippling, heaving bosom - sorry.

I honestly do look at the world differently now. It's as if that 50%+ of the communication we do (without saying a word) is finally starting to make some sense to me. It's all about awareness. You can look around a room full of stuff and not really notice a thing, but if I ask you to look around and only notice red things... well... try it. :)

This book definitely needs to be practiced (and probably re-read when we're feeling rusty), but think about it... once you have attuned your awareness to this "new language", you'll be practicing every single time you talk to someone. Just get all up on it, own it, and go with it.

I've been exposed to the "old style" body language, and some of the influence from NLP materials, and have to say this level of body language material has not been expressed in any other book I've seen. This also brings up my only real beef with the book: Mrs. Driver seems to downplay NLP information in the first portion of the book, but then sprinkles surface-level applications of it throughout the rest of her book without attribution. I don't quite understand this tactic - it's a minor point at best.

Buy it, read it, do it, have fun with it. How can you afford to miss out on so much of the conversations that go on in your life? Thank you Janine for helping me out.

PS) I enjoyed the fun Mrs. Driver had with her language... I mean come on... "naval intelligence"... lol... will you forget that term and application? Don't think so.

I really enjoyed reading this book. It makes you more aware of the "signals" you are semding people and just as important, makes you aware of the nonverbal messages people are sending you. I am always concerned about being single and the threat of violence - this book tells you to pay attention to your gut on people. Sometimes we are reading their "signals" and we don't even realize it but our gut does - pay attention to your gut. A good book to re-read years later or pass down to others. The information is always revelant. Seller sent new book and was shipped very quick.