Improve Your Social Skills

by Daniel Wendler

Improve Your Social Skills is a comprehensive, practical guide to social skills.It contains 200+ pages of step-by-step, easy-to-understand explanations of social interaction, written by a psychologist whose TEDx talks on overcoming the social challenges of Asperger's Syndrome have been viewed over 500,000 timesYou'll learn how Conversation(and keep conversation flowing smoothly!)Read Body Language(and send positive signals with your own body language!)Meet New People(and make friends with them!)Tell Stories In Conversation(that don't bore your audience!)Combat Shyness And Social Anxiety(A little courage every day adds up!)Date Successfully(without manipulation or sneaky tricks!)And More!(seriously -- this book is 222 pages!)Ok, enough with the bullet points. I'm Dan Wendler, and I wrote the book. I wrote it because I believe everyone deserves a place to belong and I didn't want poor social skills to hold anyone back from friendship and community. even if they struggle with social skills. I know firsthand how hard it is to struggle socially. Growing up, I was bullied, harassed, and excluded -- no matter how hard I tried to fit in. It wasn't until I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome that I put the puzzle pieces together. I realized I struggled socially because I didn't have any social skills -- and just like any other skill, social skills can be learned. So I started to learn them. It took hard work, but I soon started to see improvement in my ability to interact with others. Eventually I was able to start making wonderful friends and today I feel comfortable and confident in all sorts of social interactions. On January 1st, 2012, I launched ImproveYourSocialSkills.com to share what I'd learned with the world. Hundreds of thousands of people visit the site every year, and I'm excited to help even more with the Improve Your Social Skills Kindle guide. The guide you're about to read is a compilation of the social principles I've learned during my lifetime of personal social skills study, as well as the techniques I developed while offering hundreds of hours of social skills coaching. These principles led me to a life full of close friendship, satisfying connection, and tender romance.I believe that with these principles, you can live a life full to the brim with friendship, connection, and love.I hope that after reading Improve Your Social Skills, you'll believe that too.

Genres: Self Help, Nonfiction, Communication, Psychology, Social, Relationships, Personal Development

219 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 12, 2014

About the author

Hi everyone! I'm Daniel Wendler, the author of www.ImproveYourSocialSkills.com and the Improve Your Social Skills ebook. I wrote Improve Your Social Skills to share what I'd learned after my own journey of social skills improvement.

This is my story: http://bit.ly/tedxdan
This is what I believe: www.improveyoursocialskills.com/manif...
And this is where you can connect with me: www.danielwendler.com :)

Reviews

[Bobbify9 · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sometimes I really wish this website gave 0 stars.

Synopsis:

A sociopath, who doesn't understand how humans work, tries to make a quick buck by googling "top 10 social skills" and packaging the results into a book. Then, he uses some fake Aspergers diagnosis as a marketing gimmick. All while shamelessly plugging this online blog every other page.

This book offers nothing of value whatsoever. You would get better advice from a random click-bait website in 5 minutes than you'd get from reading this nonsense for 5 hours.

[Veracity · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was a pretty decent book about social skills that was well organized and an easy read. It was definitely worth the 5 dollars. I personally dislike self-help-like books, but this was just a very solid guide to understanding the foundation of the social world. It doesn't cover everything in detail (like when to obtain people's phone numbers and how to tell if someone is shy or just doesn't want to talk to you), but it did significantly affect the way I view the social environment and encouraged me to make more progress, and it gave me a sense of confidence and courage. So far I've fixed my relationship problems and have been getting closer to my friends while successfully meeting new people. This book was great.

P.S. I suggest taking notes while you're reading and writing stuff down because while the book is short, it's very dense and may take a while to digest.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good guide to the basics

A lot in this book might seem overly basic to people. However, if you feel like you struggle with the basics of social interactions, as many of us do, this book is a great guide.

[SurDiablo · Rating 2 out of 5]

I respect the author's attempt and his positivity, but unless you are a neurodivergent person who doesn't know the first thing about having a conversation with someone, don't bother with this one. Most of the things explained in this book will sound like common sense and if you are expecting something like How to win friends and influence people, you will most likely be disappointed.
I didn't gain much from reading it, but it was okay overall.

[Abdoulmoulah]

It contains many useful tips. If you are very introvert this book could be your push toward socializing and succeeding in one's social life.

[Muhip Tezcan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Good Guide for Neuodivergents

If you are neurotypical and leading
a relatively normal life, then this book might bore you because most of the stuff it talks about will sound ridiculously obvious to you.

However, if you are struggling with a neurological difference such as autism, adhd, social pragmatic communication disorder etc and you want a simple, basic guide to improve your social skills then this is the book for you.

It can also be beneficial for people who didn't have enough experience socialising due to other problems such as social anxiety, ptsd etc.

It talks about making friends, supporting your friends, dating, small talk, eye contact etc. I especially like the part about supporting friends and how to protect yourself from being emotionally overwhelmed while doing so. I think that part might be relevant for neurotypicals as well, if they have friends who they have very deep connections to.

I gave 4 stars because the audio book has a couple places where they just repeat the same sentence. It's as if they did a take two but didn't edit out take one. Also I think it would be better if the book stated what I said above: it's not really for neurotypical people who are leading a normal life.

[Jonasz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Od samego początku podchodziłem do książki z rezerwą. Z doświadczenia wiem, jak podobne twory wyglądają. Dużo powielanych schematów, mało nowych informacji, czasem nawet całkowicie oderwane od rzeczywistości. Lecz tutaj niespodzianka! Całkiem miła. Książka napisana rzeczowo i na temat. Zawiera w sobie informacje w formie łatwej do przyswojenia, a zarazem wyczerpujące temat. Pozycję polecam nawet ekstrawertykom, bądź innym osobom którym kontakt z drugim człowiekiem nie przysparza problemów, bo mimo wszystko znajdą coś dla siebie, by stać się jeszcze lepszym.

[Ramy Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Haven't helped much

[Mandex · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I didn't like that he mostly cited his experience as a reference for improving social skills, I did find a lot of the them to be helpful and applicable in my life. I would've preferred scientific evidence for his claims yet a lot of the tips did make it easier for me to start conversations and friendships. Something I quite liked is that Dan added a few pages where he gives the reader a chance to define his/her goals. This primed my brain to search for the tips I can apply and where they fit in my previous knowledge of social skills (which was very minimal!).
As for the structure of the book I found it easy to follow and an overall easy read.
However I'd like to add that the author puts a lot of "fillers" in his book. These include promises for things he is going to explain and motivational paragraphs. While I have nothing against them, I did feel them hindering my reading and standing in the way of the juicy tips.

[Lloyd Rangiah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wow. The author means well, but unfortunately this book is very underwhelming. The literature is written in a way that is almost demeaning. Almost like the author assumes you are 5 years old or that English is your second language. This book was a real struggle to get through. The advice is very very simplistic and backed by no real science. From my perspective the time i have invested in reading this book has been greatly wasted.

[EJ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just an okay book

Honestly, I had a hard time reading this book. It seems like he kept writing run on sentences and repeating the same thing often. It was really hard for me to get engaged in the book and I had to force myself through this one. Some good points but badly executed in my opinion.

[Cezary Bielecki · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is best for the IT type of guy that is better with logic and science than dealing with people. I am one of them, and this book gives an easy to understand the framework for social interaction. It's worth mentioning that author has Asperger, so his solution is greatly moved toward the scientific approach. Quick and easy read.

Author TED presentation: https://youtu.be/B-xgdqNtcDI

[Daniel Amaya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely Useful

For me, social interaction was an unknown territory. I could hang out at parties but felt socially anxious the whole time. After reading this book, and applying the easy-to-follow advices, I've been more relaxed and enjoying a lot more my interactions.

[Parijat Mishra · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good, no-nonsense read that I would definitely recommend to anyone who feels awkward/inadequate in social situations.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very quick, very simple, pretty applicable. This is no secret key to mastery, and a lot of it is skimmable unless that topic is a particular weakness of yours. But on the weaknesses of mine that I want to improve, I think reading this was more productive than an equivalent time spent brainstorming my own ideas would have been.

Notes:
• Recognizing discomfort body language is of limited use in digital communication, but probably still worth writing down. Fidgeting, withdrawing, blocking, orienting away, little eye contact.
• Conversations stall when there's no clear cue who should speak next or what they should speak about. Asking questions gives partner something to reply to. Asking open-ended questions makes it more likely that their reply will give you something to reply to. When not explicitly asking questions, sharing interesting info can also give partner something to respond to. Just make sure to leave a "rough edge" for them to connect to, not flat end-pieces
• First step to intentional empathy is to explicitly try to think about what the situation looks like from the other person's perspective. Advises that it's often worth the compute time to just simulate your partner's perspective and make sure things are coming across ok
• Posits that doing intentional simulation often enough will make it start happening automatically/intuitively
• Advocates for everyday transient connections with strangers, like farming flashovers
• Signal that you want to be friends is important - typically sent by asking to spend time outside of usual context
• Says that comforting friends in the moment is not about problem-solving, but it's not about trying to make them feel better either. It's about just being there with them. This kind of seems false to me, I doubt "being there" has final value. What's it instrumental for?
• Be specific rather than leaving the load of specifying what'll help them on them. Ask stuff like "do you want to hang out later" or "do you want to talk about it", not just "how do I help"
○ This is supported by quickly simulating other's perspective. Being asked "how do I help" is usually not helpful, unless one has a very specific thing in mind that will make them feel better, which is probably quite rare
• To gauge interest, author recommends explicitly comparing person's actions towards you vs actions towards others of the same gender. Very cleanly dodges false positives (they're nice to everyone) and false negatives (thinking they're just being nice).

[Xzs · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book has been near the bottom of my to-read pile for a very long time. I’ve made a concerted effort to plow through that backlog of books this year, and it was finally time to dust off this short guide! While I think the author of this book was well intentioned, the book just didn’t jive with this extreme introvert. I suppose I was hoping for some pointers on how to navigate small talk and other painful social situations. But the likelihood of this antisocial wallflower joining toastmasters, an improv group or dancing class is in the 0.01% range! Some of the tips in this book were lame. The dating section could be omitted altogether; it came across as awkward and inexperienced. I suppose the eye contact tips are valid, as are some of the recommendations regarding conversational flow. But more often than not I felt that I was reading a self published work that lacked grammatical integrity and possessed minimal literary composition. Although I suppose that wasn’t the purpose behind this guide. I did get the sense that the author is a nice guy and I appreciate his effort and intentions here. The book just wasn’t for me...that’s probably why it sat on the bottom of my to-read pile for so long!

[Ashton · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone who struggles with Autism, Social Anxiety and ADHD. I struggle. This book has helped me a lot and I feel comfortable coming back to it for tips when I reach new points in my life. Daniel is very straight-forward and his metaphors are very visual, which is something I appreciate.

For a lot of people these tips are very basic, they probably won't help people who don't struggle with the basics of conversation or socializing. Such as conversation flow or high energy vs low energy. Things that for people who aren't on some level of socially challenged scale - either with Autism or something else - seems obvious or natural. But for me it truly helped.

So, if you think you could use a run down of some basics. Have trouble keeping a conversation going. Or know someone who does? This book is probably the right one for you.

[Justsomedude · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked the first chapters of this book. It is nice and simply said, author doesn't present you complicated models which are hard to learn and you won't be able to practice them. Instead he is focusing on more simple usually just binary models.

However I didn't like the dating chapter. I know, it is complicated, but that chapter doesn't have same value as first chapters do and I think this chapter wouldn't even need to be included in the book. Following chapters weren't bad, but not as same as first half of the book.

Overall I would recommend this book to everyone who is starting to learn about social skills. The book won't make an master out of you, but it will give you nice foundations.

[Jono · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely little book

I'm not going to sit here and say that Daniel does nothing but state the obvious, because that depends entirely on the reader's level of experience. What I will say is that if you're building a moderately sized reading list on developing your social skills, I would make this your first. Why? Well it's short and sweet, but it also highlights the most important things to remember for any relationship to succeed.

You can tell that the author has a deep passion for helping people succeed in life, and you can tell he's been in your shoes once before. I can't say the same for the authors of previous books I've read on the topic, who consistently remind you how rich and successful they are in every chapter.

Give this book a read, you won't regret it.

[Shhhhh Ahhhhh · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good book for someone. Anyone who has spent some amount of time in social situations from group gatherings to parties to meet-ups and conferences, should already have an intuitive sense for most of the things in this book. Such handy advice as "repeat the person's name so you don't forget it", and "be mindful that your words and nonverbal communication are congruent" are material only for a primer on the subject.

With that said, this works decently as a primer, especially for people on the spectrum.

I did appreciate the advice with regards to telling good stories being about trimming the fat.

[William Tarbush · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good basic guide

Improve Your Social Skills is a good basic guide to forming relationships. It has parts that refer to questions I cannot find and does not get into nuances like sarcasm or sexuality. The lack of sexuality is OK. There are plenty of books on Game. Sarcasm, rather than being honest, is the way of people and should have been addressed. It is readable and a good honest guide.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Socializing Simplified

This book is a great way to get started with socializing. Yo won't find advanced tecniques . What you will find is straight forward and simple tips that seems like would work. No trying to remember a bunch of tech issues. Written by someone who has struggled with social interaction and went through the process of improving. And now has put he he learned into this guide. Great for someone that wants to quickly and easily become better at socializing.

[Rupal Gadkar · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book for those that have great social skills or have social anxiety and difficulty socializing :) People with social anxiety find it difficult forming and establishing relationships and therefore needs the help of a relationship counselor :). I feel that Dan explains the process of making relationships easier for those that aren't so socially adept.

[Shanell Duvall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Learning

I think the book was helpful I learned quite a few things in it that I planned to put to use and I plan to use to continue to Grow and do more research in the future And I'm also going to use some of the skills that I learn in this book I think they may be very helpful to me

[Meaghan Los · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good, simple principles for a quick read

Lots of easy tooltips without too much theorizing.
Writing style was a little too simple at times. Easy to just skim and get the bullet points

[Komi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as bad as some of the other reviews claim. It's really common sense. Sometimes you can't force convos. If it's not working out move on. Convos should flow. Ask open ended questions, but not to the point where it feels like you're interrogating them

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stating the obvious (which is not a bad thing!)

[Shabsough Mrs · Rating 1 out of 5]

personally I found that the book was simple and most of the tips were common sense

[Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book is for people with no social skills whatsoever. Only recommend if you lack any communication skills.

[Isiah Perez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Blew my mind in a number of different ways. Perfect book. Legendary.