Talking with Confidence for the Painfully Shy

Rating:
Summary: You Don't Learn It From A Book (Or Tape)
Review: A painfully shy friend let me listen to part of this, and it's not worth the tape it's recorded on. I was "painfully shy" until my 22nd year (oh, boo hoo hoo!), when I moved into a place of my own and, after awhile, realized that other people simply were not thinking about me as much as I thought they were. After I quit caring what others thought, I completely lost all shyness. Life is short, get out and have fun!

If you always worry about what others think of you, you would be astounded to realize how infrequently they DO think of you! Shyness is the result of your own inflated self-importance. You are NOT the center of the world, princess. Get over it.

Rating:
Summary: You Don't Learn It From A Book (Or Tape)
Review: A painfully shy friend let me listen to part of this, and it's not worth the tape it's recorded on. I was "painfully shy" until my 22nd year (oh, boo hoo hoo!), when I moved into a place of my own and, after awhile, realized that other people simply were not thinking about me as much as I thought they were. After I quit caring what others thought, I completely lost all shyness. Life is short, get out and have fun!

If you always worry about what others think of you, you would be astounded to realize how infrequently they DO think of you! Shyness is the result of your own inflated self-importance. You are NOT the center of the world, princess. Get over it.

Rating:
Summary: Talking with Confidence
Review: Have you ever wondered how some people can walk into a roomful of strangers and start conversations with just about anyone there? Since talking to people has always seemed easy for me, I had never thought much about it. Then, in 1980, when I was asked to teach a "How to Start a Conversation" workshop for a New York City adult-education program, I did some research on the subject. I was surprised to find that for shy people, making small talk with strangers was a painful experience and that the problems affected men and women of all ages and professions. That's when I started my writing and speaking career as the "small talk" expert.

Recent studies have shown that shyness is on the increase, and I am often asked if the reason behind this trend is due to faxes, E-mail, chat rooms, cell phones, and other electronic tools of the information age. While in many ways these devices increase our access to information, I believe they do tend to give people less of an opportunity to practice their face-to-face communication skills. And because so much of our interaction is now electronic, more than ever, people are starved for human contact. I don't know about you, but when I call a company about something, I want to talk to a real person, not a computer with a menu of options.

You might be asking yourself, is face-to-face communication as important as it used to be? Well, if you've ever been tongue-tied on a job interview, a first date, or at a holiday party, I'm sure you know the answer. Plus, even more important, I believe your ability to communicate in professional, social and personal situations define much of your self-image, confidence and level of success.

Here are three proven tips to get you started. First and foremost, show receptivity and a willingness to talk to others. Second, be interested in others in a positive way by asking questions and being an active listener. Finally, be willing to take some risks by sharing something about yourself that allows you to connect with the people you meet and talk with.

After teaching and writing about conversation skills for nearly twenty years, I know that practically anyone can learn how to be a good conversationalist. Thousands of people have told me that they wished they had learned these simple skills years ago. But even if you are still shy, don't think that it's too late for you to learn. Not long ago, a man in his eighties asked for my advice because he was tired of being shy! He improved, and so can you. You'll be amazed at how fast you can learn just by listening to my tapes, reading my books, and practicing the skills with everyone you come in contact with at work, the store, in your neighborhood--everywhere! Just think how much more confident, poised and successful you'll feel when you can walk into a roomful of strangers and strike up a conversation with anyone there.

Rating:
Summary: Unrealistic and too brief
Review: I agree that the situations and phrases described and prescribed in this book are tacky and unrealistic. Some of the advice would push someone further into their shyness shell because of the reactions they would get. Not recommended. So many of these self-help books are so unrealistic as applied to real life situations. Why is that?

Rating:
Summary: Information-packed tape; get the book
Review: I am a teenager and I listened to the audio tape of this book. I thought that it was helpful but confusing. If you are thinking of buying the book on audio, you may want to also buy the printed book because Don Gabor gives a lot of steps for everything he talks about, so it gets confusing sometimes. Other than that, I thought this book is helpful for everyone, not just business people, because the situations in a business meeting can be related to, for younger people, making a presentation in front of a class. Overall, this book has really helped me out to have confidence when I am speaking.

Rating:
Summary: disappointing
Review: I was eagerly looking forward to this book, but am very disappointed by it. I just received it today, and though admittedly I haven't had time to read it fully, I have skimmed the topics and several dozen pages, and I'm not even going to bother reading it. This book would seem to be useless to anyone but a yuppie business executive holding million-dollar meetings and having power lunches. And obtaining such a position would seem to me to require a reasonably outgoing, aggressive personality, not the painfully shy person to which this book is allegedly directed. Oh, there's also sections on how to meet with difficult clients, and how to become a master salesman. All topics of great interest to a painfully shy person (I'm being sarcastic, of course). If you want a book by this author, buy his other book, How to Start a Conversation and Make Friends. It's much better, and has lots of halfway amusing cartoons. Gabor has completely missed the mark with Talking With Confidence For the Painfully Shy. Avoid it.

Rating:
Summary: Unrealistic approach to overcoming shyness.
Review: I was extremely disappointed in this book. More than half of it applies to interviews and business situations, and the section on social situations is extremely short and only took about a half an hour to read. I found that the language and situations used were very unrealistic to the point of being phony. Overall I found this book to be very unhelpful and I would suggest to people looking for help on this subject matter to look elsewhere. I think the author should try updating his ideas and try to apply them to more modern situations.

Rating:
Summary: Seems out of touch with the painfully shy
Review: The book has a few tips for what to say in various situations. Maybe they would be useful (or at least good for a laugh) for a person who doesn't have shyness problems. But the book doesn't address anything at all about overcoming the problem of shyness. Shy people experience pain and sometimes even panic in social situations. Simply telling them to "have a positive attitude" doesn't solve the problem - we need to know how!

So I'm still looking for a good book on the subject.

Rating:
Summary: Very bad
Review: This audiobook was definitely a waste of time to listen to. Everything is commonsense, and not inspiring at all. Personally, I like books and tapes that pump you up, but in an intelligent way. This has none of that, and the ideas contained in this tape aren't worth spending your time on (ie. everybody already knows them, and it doesn't take a person with a university degree or PHD to explain them to you).

Rating:
Summary: good book
Review: well worth a read...helped me a lot