After finished “How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big”, I kind of liked the author, and searched for others book by him. “Win Bigly” certainly did not disappoint me. If I have to summarize the book, I will vaguely borrow the author’s words: “‘How to Fail’ is about persuading yourself; ‘Win Bigly’ is about persuading the others”. I can recall that analogy is not an effective way of persuasion, but damn it anyway.

“Win Bigly” is split into five parts. The topics then follow a simple structure on irrational mind of human beings, recognize it, and use it. The author mentions Trump a lot on the man’s business skills, and did well convincing me on that. I am not too well-versed in America’s politics, so I will refrain on commenting the correctness, however.

An important theme of the book is on human’s irrational mind, how we “make our decisions first, and rationalize it later”. We then are not as rational as we make out to be. There is a million “small” tweaks that are used to persuade us on life. Physical attractiveness and wording are the two most brought up in the book.

There is another subject that is frequently referred at. It was “filters”, or in my own word, “lenses”. I am strongly resonated with the author’s view: people are not right nor wrong with their own filters/lenses on the world. Understanding that helps a lot with our ability to attune, and sympathize, and… persuade.

In the end, I still have the same conclusion as another review on another book of the author

I highly recommend the book to anyone, as long as they are open enough for some “small” profanities […].

(a profanity here is his praise of President Trump, which does not matter to an average Vietnamese dude like me, but bothers lots of Americans)