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Captivate cover art

Captivate

Written by: Vanessa Van Edwards
Narrated by: Vanessa Van Edwards
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Publisher's Summary

Do you wish you could decode people? Do you want a formula for charisma? Do you want to know exactly what to say to your boss, your date, or your networking partner? You need to know how people work.

As a human behavior investigator, Vanessa Van Edwards studies the hidden forces that drive our behavior patterns in her lab—and she's cracked the code. In Captivate she shares a wealth of valuable shortcuts, systems, and behavior hacks for taking charge of interactions at work, at home, and in any social situation. These aren't the people skills you learned in school. This is the first comprehensive, science-backed, real-life manual on human behavior and a completely new approach to building connections.

Just like knowing the right formulas to use in chemistry or the right programming language to write code, the hacks in this book are simple ways to solve for people. For example:

The Social Game Plan: every party, networking event, and social situation has a predictable map—discover how to work a room and the sweet spot for making the most connections.

The Seven Microexpressions: learn how to speed-read the seven universal facial expressions and how they can be used to predict people's emotions.

Conversation Sparks: all conversations can be hacked—if you know how certain words generate dopamine in the people you meet.

When you understand the laws of human behavior, you can get along with anyone, and your influence, impact, and income will increase as a result. What's more, you will improve your interpersonal intelligence, make a killer first impression, and build rapport quickly and authentically in any situation—negotiations, interviews, parties, and pitches. You will never interact in the same way again.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2017 Vanessa Van Edwards (P)2017 Penguin Audio

What the critics say

“Everything Vanessa does is captivating, but this book is her masterpiece. Nearly every page contains surprising insights and practical tips to help you succeed more in life.” (Chris Guillebeau, author of The Happiness of Pursuit and host of Side Hustle School)

“If you’ve ever thought ‘I hope they have a dog at this dinner party so that I don’t have to talk to anyone,' read this book. Hello Captivate, good-bye awkward moments.” (Jon Acuff, author of Do Over)

“There is a big difference between faking your way into building relationships and deeply un­derstanding the science of what makes people tick so that you can naturally and effectively connect with them. Captivate teaches this science in a fun and accessible way, so that you apply the learning in your everyday life, growing your network, influence, and impact.” (Pamela Slim, author of Body of Work)

What listeners say about Captivate

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good information here for people who have problem

there's some good tips in this book that helps you to understand tricks and tips on how to socialize with other people to get the desired outcome that you would like

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Great tips and tricks for socializing

Not only is Vanessa Van Edwards enjoyable and easy to listen to she offers an insightful book filled with tips and tricks for reading people you meet or already know, how to have more interesting and meaningful conversations, and more. Not only would I recommend, but I plan on listening to it again.

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Absolutely Amazing

Great book, lots of interesting tidbits of information!
Many little things are easily missed but this book has all your behavior hacking needs covered, from facial expressions to body language, this book has it all!

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It’s pretty good

This book is a good listen IF you are free. IF you are stressed out this won’t be the best read. She has practice advice.

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introvert gold

geared towards introverts, but very enjoyable and informative for an extrovert as well. great book and an engaging read :)

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fantastic!

This book made my day every time I listened to it. Vanessa is clear, informative, and an absolute joy to listen to! I learned so much and realized that she's able to put a name to things I had already been doing. To understand the science behind it has been a marvalous experience. I'm excited to put to use what I have learned and to continue this path I now realize I'm on. Thank you to everyone involved, this is exactly what I have been needing in my life!

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Great book

Great book with practical tips for better communication and interpersonal skills. I would definitely recommend

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Loved this book!

The cover page can be misleading. This is not about acting in certain ways to manipulate people. It's about helping you being better with people and staying true to yourself.

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Loved it

This book had been on my wishlist for a long time. I loved how the book is written in such a way that it's easy to apply every day and practice with specific exercises. I love how she gives examples for each of the hacks she suggests. The only thing is, I listened to the audio version, in which case I think it's better to have the paper version so we can go back and reread the principles, as research in the audio format is a bit more arduous.

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Fantastic book! Better in type font.

The content and narration of the book is really well done; however, the book contains checklists, loads of checklists, which I prefer in type font as listening to checklists is painful for me. I will buy the kindle version as the content, while not necessarily new, is definately presented in a new fresh way, puts loads of great hacks together in one place. For some books I wish I can buy the audible and kindle versions bundled together, this is one of those books.

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3 people found this helpful