The charisma myth

What Hacker News says

1. nicoMay 2026
   That book is very good. However, for some (including me at some point), it can be a bit advanced

   I highly recommend the book The Charisma Myth, it covers a lot of the same topics, including very good exercises, to help understand and develop human interactions in general

   Personally, it helped me be able to get into, the situations that the first book assumes the reader is already in, or comfortable with (like talking to strangers)

   Show morethread
2. nicoMay 2026
   It is a great book. I disagree though that all modern books on this are derivatives. I haven’t read many, but The Charisma Myth is a great book on human interactions, that I believe is very novel in its content and approach

   Maybe a lot of the books do cover some of the same content, but that’s probably because human nature hasn’t changed much since the 30s, when Carnegie published his book

   thread
3. jppopeDec 2025
   I spent the first chunk of my career doing sales (2nd half spent in software engineering). Theres a lot of good books out there but you're going to find a lot of the direct advice to be non-applicable (as I'm sure you can pick up from the comments). Most of the Literature out there is directed at professional sales people, who for the most part are non-technical, have the backing of a marketing org, and are also different than a founder. Anyway, heres a reading list. Most of the trainings I've been a part of were custom built to the org or market, and frankly I learned more from Rules of the Game by Neil Strauss. I did enjoy "the Wedge" training by Randy Schwantz... that one you should do the video not the book. It also sounds like you could use some marketing stuff so I'll throw some of that in there too.

   In no particular order, and please keep in mind this is off the top of my head:

   * Influence (the classic)

   * YC videos (e.g. https://youtu.be/0fKYVl12VTA?si=I9uylXSRyOf1nXRv, https://youtu.be/DH7REvnQ1y4?si=Ke858PmaaBr5ar-e, https://youtu.be/hyYCn_kAngI?si=sO_co6kbDaNn3cql, etc)

   * Thinking Fast and Slow

   * Purple Cow

   * Clayton Christensen stuff

   * Spin Selling

   * Challenger Sale

   * Guerrilla marketing (for the mental muscle)

   * Jeffrey Gitomer (basic but useful)

   * Lean Startup (for positioning)

   * Charisma Myth

   * Minimalist Entrepreneur (bits and pieces)

   * The presentation secrets of steve jobs (just a good book on presentations, framed around Steve Jobs to sell more)

   For what its worth this question comes up fairly often. It seems like technical people would like a "technical people" guide on how to do Sales and marketing. Does that sound useful to anyone?

   Show morethread
4. nicoOct 2025
   This is not a full solution, but it really helped me; the book The Charisma Myth

   Every chapter has exercises that help deal with social anxiety

   Even doing just the 3 basic recommendations in the intro can be very impactful

   thread
5. nicoJul 2025
   It’s pretty good advice

   But the title is misleading. Sure, once you’ve built the habit of breaking bad habits, it will take 3 seconds each time. However, it will take quite a bit to build that habit

   The article references Dale Carnegie. Related to that, and with much better exercises to build habits, I’d recommend the book The Charisma Myth. It addresses the type of situations mentioned in the article and a lot more, all with great step by step, habit-building exercises on each chapter

   Show morethread
6. nicoMar 2025
   > If I'm in a meeting giving a presentation, and I notice people glued to their phones during it, I'm not going to call them out on the spot, but I'll probably do something afterwards

   A tip from the book The Charisma Myth: when you notice someone on their phone, just pause what you were saying, the sudden silence usually brings people back. If you also look at them when pausing, it will be very clear what’s going on without you even saying a word

   This works both during presentations and conversations

   Show morethread