Red Flags: Frenemies, Underminers, and Ruthless People

Red Flags is a fascinating book on many levels. Wendy Patrick, herself, is an amazing person. Not only was she named 2014 Public Lawyer of the Year by the California State Bar, she is a business ethics professor and a rock violinist. She brings all of her years of experience onto the page and takes us deep into workings of the criminal justice system and into the minds of some of the worst of society.Ms. Patrick is an engaging and accomplished writer. Her book is fast-paced, clear, and well-organized, but with a light tone, considering some of the subjects she describes. It has the readability of a memoir while giving the reader practical advice.Red Flags works on two levels: she gives us a fascinating peek into the darkness of her professional world, and then shows us how to apply what she knows to better understand the people in our own lives. Thankfully, most of us don’t run into the people Wendy sees, so learning from her experience is a real and uncommon opportunity. We want to know what she knows. What is she looking at when she sees a potential juror or defendant? What does she see when she meets someone new? What unspoken signals are WE communicating?I highly recommend this book for anyone who has an interest in learning how to assess and understand others—which means everyone!

This book about how to spot people who might not have your best interests at heart, is primarily a telling of the author's personal experiences. There are some helpful tips about spotting the bad guys but too much of the same info and too subjective to be really useful. Yes, using personal examples is great, but not to the exclusion of more succinct tips. The author is or was an attorney with court experience but there was far too much relating to that alone and not enough about what to watch out for and how to spot it.

...for all! I wish this wonderful book had been available to me earlier in my life--there's no doubt in my mind that it would have saved me from kissing a few frogs! Dr. Wendy puts complex psychological concepts into plain, simple language and tells us what we all need to know to help us recognize and protect ourselves from those who might do us harm, as well as be able to identify those who would further enhance our lives. Her helpful mnemonic (FLAG) makes it easy for us to remember how to apply the wealth of information that she has acquired throughout her career and life and so graciously and generously shares with us now. Thank you, Dr. Wendy, I look forward to your next great read!

You'll love the way the book is presented. She gives an outline of what she is going to write in the beginning of the book and provides many citations and resources for further research. What I love most about the book is how simple it is to read. I might buy her other book in the future.

As an open hearted person who sees only the best in people, I have been used and abused like the rest of the people like me and it has caused a lot of pain in my life. I feel like I can now identify and protect myself easily from users and people who do not have my best interests at heart without fear and resentment and blow ups. Great book.

Very well researched and organized in a practical and approachable style. I really found value in this book and want to thank the author for it, and all her work as well. People of character are growing scarce these days.

This book was fairly interesting. Read it because a friend of mine was raving on it; how it made her really stop and evaluate the behavior of others.

I am happy with my purchase. Thank you Amazon !!!

A great book for those who have been pampered, helicopter parented, or just lacking in life experience. I don't date without being upfront with the person about my red flags and compare them to hers. A good icebreaker in itself.

Review of Red Flags How to Spot Frenemies, Underminers, and Toxic People in Your Life by Wendy L PatrickI wrote my first blog on corporate psychopaths in early 2012: How do you recognise a corporate psychopath? Part 1. My ability to recognise corporate psychopaths stems from my knowledge of the 7MTF/Humm model of people profiling which is one of the few systems that incorporates psychopathic behaviour. My experience with psychopaths is limited having worked for several and fired by one.This book takes the opposite approach. The author, Wendy Patrick, uses her decades of personal expertise as a district attorney and public defender in the sex crimes division of San Diego County to provide an amazing range of case studies of how psychopaths work and play in all walks of life.The sub-title of the book is misleading. You do not learn how to spot Frenemies, Underminers, and Toxic People in Your Life. The book is a series of multiple story sessions where you discover just how people with a lot of the Dark Triad in their personality actually work. The author has identified four criteria: Focus, Lifestyle, Associations, and Goals (FLAGs) to help you separate good intentioned people from those who have ulterior and self-serving motives. While FLAGs is a helpful acronym you would have to spend some time with a psychopath before you would discover any Dark Triad tendencies. In the meantime, she or he would be using their charm and guile to spin you into their web.What I did find interesting was how the book analyses ten sources of attraction that draw people together like magnets. Patrick, who has a PhD in human psychology, shows how these sources can be used by good people to bond together and deepen relationships, or by bad people to manipulate, seduce, and harm their would-be victims.The attraction source that really resonated with me was number 6: The Seduction of Similarity. One of my core messages in my training courses on Emotional Intelligence is that we like those who are like ourselves. What we must do work out what are the dominant EQ components in a person’s temperament and that adapt our behaviour to appeal to these components. This chapter in the book describes this technique to a T. Even more impressive is that she uses extensive psychological research to demonstrate how effectively similarity breeds connection. She describes how “Cyberspace Chameleons” use these techniques on the Internet and then in personal interactions. As I read this chapter I thought she was talking about me.However after the author has run through the ten sources of attraction and how they are can be misused, she then in final chapter Green Light describes how a positive relationship can develop. It was very heart-warming but I could not help but notice how Clare used the techniques in Chapter 6 to attract Ben.This is a useful book to read because of the very wide range of case studies. On the other hand the author is to be congratulated on the extensive use of endnotes and a full bibliography. Unlike most self-help books her case studies are generally backed by academic research.

Great book