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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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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

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

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    2 out of 5 stars
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  • J
  • 2018-02-10

Captivate - It just doesn't do it

First the positive, the narrator is good and has a "Captivating voice", really, but the material just doesn't do the same. To give this a complete review I did only reach the third Chapter before putting it down. I just could not immerse myself in the material and resonate with the scenarios. I never had a "ah ha" moment thinking what I heard was a great idea and I could picture myself using the example. The tips and scenario's seemed very elementary and were not anything that you would say, now that is thinking outside the box.

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2 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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  • Ed
  • 2018-11-21

Best part is that Vanessa Van Edwards narrates it

Interesting and insightful for all aspects of your life, both socially and professionally. Great read!

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1 person found this helpful

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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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Frustrated

Why does this book go back to the start every time I want to resume at the last place I listened to ?
This is Very frustrating!!!

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Awesome book everyone should have

Thank you Vanessa... I really love the book How to -Win Friends and Influence Peopleby- Dale Canegie, your book is similar but with more emphasis and science base. Great tips too. Amazing!

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

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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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

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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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Phenomenal

As a fellow recovering socially awkward person, Vanessa’s story and strategies really hit home. I’ve recently changed careers into a full commission sales/prospecting/relationship management career, and this book is exactly what I was looking for to up my game. I’m into my 3rd time through in the last couple weeks.
Thank you for writing this book, Vanessa.

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Girl next door makes it, sincerely a true story

I would recommend this book to every teenager there first day of high school. We all struggle to fit in and no more a time as puberty and unfortunately we seem to throw our children to the wolves, not even teaching about emotional depth or social skills in there mandatory education which sends us all out into the world easy victims to societal pressure…… as she will tel you though there is hope!

So relating to her is easy and definitely a must read and a easy to digest read; again and again if ur like me

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