One-Sentence Description
My Client is the Devil (And Other Myths), Revisited is a field guide to the psychology of better client relationships, and to how the people responsible for clients, teams, and outcomes they cannot fully control can manage the damage and thrive, not just survive.
One-Paragraph Description
The lifeblood of any services business is its clients, and the task of keeping demanding, vague, or unpleasant clients coming back falls to the Account Lead, the person caught between what the client wants and what the organization can deliver. In My Client is the Devil (And Other Myths), Revisited, Paul M. Drew, Dr. Steve Fedorko, and Dr. Mark McKinney set aside techniques for making the client happy and focus instead on how to help the Account Lead thrive: managing their own emotions first, then building communication and trust, and finally becoming the psychologically hardy professional who welcomes challenge and drives change. First published in 2015 from forty years of Fedorko and McKinney's work in psychology and business, the revisited edition was rewritten with Drew, who carried the original through a decade and seven companies, for a workplace reshaped by remote work, global teams, the gig economy, and AI.
Sample Interview Questions
- The title says "the client is the devil" is a myth, so who is the real villain in most broken client relationships?
- You argue people should manage themselves before managing the client. What does that actually look like on a bad day?
- What is the one play from the book someone can run on their very next client call?
- What is Relationship Capital, and why do you call it the most important addition to the original?
- The Obsolescence Myth says "my value is whether I can keep up with the machines." How are you seeing AI change what an Account Lead is actually for?
- Remote work, global teams, AI: which has done the most damage to client relationships, and which is the opportunity?
- Paul, you used this book inside your own companies before joining as a co-author. What made it stick where other business books didn't?
- "Everyone has clients." Who did you write this for who might not think it's about them?
Book Facts
- Title
- My Client is the Devil (And Other Myths), Revisited
- Authors
- Paul M. Drew, Steve Fedorko, Ph.D., and Mark McKinney, Ph.D.
- Publisher
- Vino Veritas Media, Dallas, Texas
- Release
- October 12, 2026. Ebook, paperback, and hardcover
- Hardback ISBN
- 978-0-9906518-4-0
- Softcover ISBN
- 978-0-9906518-5-7
- Ebook ISBN
- 978-0-9906518-6-4
- Audio ISBN
- 978-0-9906518-7-1 (audiobook to follow)
- Length
- 264 pages of narrative plus a 60-page field-guide appendix. 344 pages in print
Downloadable Assets
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