Tuesday, February 12th, 2019 (
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All parents face the same challenges when it comes to their children's safety: whom to trust, whom to distrust, what to believe, what to doubt, what to fear, and what not to fear. De Becker helps parents find some certainty about parents' highest-stakes questions:
- How can I know a baby-sitter won't turn out to be someone who harms my child?
- What should I ask child-care professionals when I interview them?
- what's the best way to prepare my child for walking to school alone?
- how can my child be safer at school?
- How can I spot sexual predators?
- What should I do if my child is lost in public?
- How can I teach my child about risk without causing too much fear?
- what must my teenage daughter know in order to be safe?
- what must my teenage son know in order to be safe?
- And finally, in the face of all these questions, how can I reduce the worrying?
What this book actually does is teach you how to listen to your intuition and stop living in denial. DeBecker found that many instances of child abuse by neighbors, babysitters, and dare care providers were preventable if the parents had just paid attention to the little signals.
For example what if the old man nextdoor starts giving your young daughter candy, but only if she'll kiss him on the cheek first. You say to yourself, "he's just lonely, it's harmless". But if you have to rationalize a behavior, that means you see something wrong! It's a real eye-opener and something I would highly recommend for all parents.
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Books,
Gift of Fear,
Personal Security,
RPS,
Security
Monday, February 18th, 2019 (
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When you’re ready to scream, "I’ve had it up to here and I’m not going to take it anymore", you’re ready for How to Complain for Fun and Profit, the best guide ever to how to write complaint letters to airlines, hotels, merchants, manufacturers and more. Yes, you’ll learn how to vent your spleen. but much more importantly, Bruce Silverman will teach you how to get something back for your troubles - everything from free airline tickets, luxury hotel suites and south sea cruises to thousands of dollars in cash!
One of the most frustrating situations is when you have been nailed by some company and just don't know what to do about it. The fact is that if you know the simple skill of writing the complaint letter, you can save a lot of frustration and time.
In this book, you learn how to draft your position such that it's a convincing plea for them to make it right rather than ignore you. Venting may be satisfying, but not productive. Getting a lawyer is costly and often isn't necessary.
The main reason I like this book is that I've already discovered some of the techniques in here, but there's several I didn't know. This book is full of actual letters he's written as well as the exact results. Benefit from his experiences and see some results with a minimum amount of your time and attention.
 |  | To read more about the book, go to their page (note that it's an E-Book and you'll just download it rather than receive a hard copy). |
Tags:
Books,
How to Complain For Fun and Profit
Saturday, April 13th, 2019 (
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Here's a new book on my list: "Unscrewed. The Consumer's Guide to Getting What You Paid For".
The Consumerist has a great interview with the author that describes some of the techniques in the book. Check this one out:
BURLEY: As you know, none of the techniques require anyone to scream or yell or spit at great distances. As a matter of fact, those are disqualifiers. There's an old-school belief, yes, walking into the middle of a showroom and screaming at the top of your voice, "They cheated me!" These days that will get you escorted out by the security guard. A lot of the techniques in the book put a twist on the old techniques of being a squeaky wheel. Such as writing a letter. Writing a letter to the president of the company these days is not going to get you anything. They've got legions of people and the president of the company is never going to see that letter. But I have a letter-writing technique that's called "Spokesperson For The Competition." You don't write a letter to the company that's causing you a problem, you write a letter to the president of the company that is their number one competitor, telling your true story and offering to become their number one spokesperson, and giving them permission to give a copy of your letter to every one of their sales people. Now before you send that letter to the competitor, you send a copy of that letter to the president of the corporation that's causing you a problem. And now they do the math. They say, ok, instead of losing just that one customer, our competitor is going to have evidence of just how poorly we treat our customers. And since we're in a highly competitive business, and we're trying to get those business accounts and fleet accounts or whatever, if every one of their sales people have evidence of how badly we treat our customers, how much business will we lose? You see what's happened there, it's the same technique, you're writing one letter, but you have somehow multiplied the effect, because you're not now one individual against the company that is causing you a problem. Using this technique of writing a letter to the competition, and offering to become a spokesperson for the competition, you've now multiplied your impact, your effect, a thousand fold? Ten-thousand fold? And suddenly, once again, it becomes more cost-effective for the company to take care of you than to ignore you.
That's quite brilliant actually. I should definitely get a copy and see what it's like.
Tags:
Books,
Your Rights
