Category Archives: Charisma

Covert Charisma For Influence, Sales, And Seduction

Here’s a neat trick that you can use to covertly create really good feelings in other people. When you can do this covertly, people will feel good without knowing that you are consciously trying to do this. All they will realize is that whenever you are around, they feel really good about themselves. They will start to see you as a really charismatic person. Whenever they hear your voice, or see your face, they will immediately begin to think happy thoughts.

When you aren’t around, and they start to think about you, they will begin to automatically think and feel happy thoughts and feelings. Is this something you think you might have some uses for?

The trick is to make some really positive assumptions about them, and then allow them to prove you correct. There is something strange about this; the mechanism is something deep and subconscious. When you assigning a positive trait to another person, and really assign it in a deep and meaningful way, they have an almost unconscious drive to live up to that label, so long as it is a good and positive one.

Of course, if you do this with manipulative attempt, people will see your fakeness from a mile away. Do this genuinely and people will be their best around you.

For example, if your boss comes in and starts telling you what a great and hard worker you are, on a Friday afternoon, you know something is up. You will naturally feel some resistance, but he’s your boss, so you can’t really tell him how you really feel.

If on the other hand, if you are sitting in a meeting, and they are discussing who to send to meet with a potential client that could mean big money for your company, and after a few moments thought, he looks at you and says”

“You’re the best we’ve got. If anybody can land this contract, you can. If you can’t do it, then it just wasn’t meant to be.”

Then you know she’s being totally honest, and you will feel inspired beyond belief to land that contract, whatever it is.

When you speak to people on a social level, you can still inspire those same good feelings in others. The trick is to assume positive things about them, and then talk to them as if those positive things you assume about them are already obvious to everyone.

Linguistic presuppositions can come in really handy here. Linguistic presuppositions are sentence structures that assume one or more things to be true in order for the sentence to make sense.

If I say that my cat is really smart because she can run to the door two minutes before the mailman comes, that presupposes many things:

I have a cat.
My cat can run.
It’s possible to measure the intelligence of a cat.
My cat is really smart.
My cat can predict when the mailman will come.

Another example based on making people feel good about themselves. Say you are talking to somebody you’ve just met. You’ve talked to them for a few minutes, and learn that they are a kindergarten teacher. If you say:

Wow, kids must really like you. How long have you been able to use your communication skills to inspire people to learn?

What does this presuppose?

They have good communication skills.
They inspire people.
They help people learn.
They have been doing it for a while.

Now, the specific structure of the above example is a question that starts off with “How long…” The important thing to remember is that any answer they give, even if they shrug their shoulders, indicates that they’ve accepted your presuppositions as true. They would have to be extremely suspicious, or have extremely low self-esteem, if they took each element of the sentence and overtly disagreed with it.

When you can take some good assumptions about another person, hide them inside a sentence that only requires a yes, no, or one word answer, you are doing pretty good.

Another sneaky way to do this is to give them a quick, sly compliment, and then follow it up with an easy to answer, and seemingly obvious question.

Example:

Wow, you must be really good with kids. I think that people that are good with kids are the most important people in society. We would be completely lost without them. When did you know that you wanted to be a kindergarten teacher?

The important part is to not allow him or her any time to respond to your compliment, and then ask a question that most people would ask by itself.

The problem many people have with giving compliments is that they have an ulterior motive, and they give the compliment, and then wait for the thank you. This is an indication that on some level, they are really fishing for a “Thank you,” rather than giving an honest compliment.

When you give somebody a compliment like this, without giving them a chance to respond, then quickly focus their attention on some normal, often asked and easy to answer question, the compliment really sinks down deep, and makes them feel really good.

These are just two techniques you can use in your daily conversation that will really boost your charisma, and your ability to make people around you feel really good about themselves. And when you have high charisma, and are surrounded by people that feel good about themselves, you’re doing pretty good.

Why Deep Rapport is Much Easier Than You Think

Couple of weeks ago, I went to an aquarium. It wasn’t a very large aquarium, it was a “traveling aquarium” if you can believe that. It wasn’t really anything more than an oversized tropical fish store, and it seemed to be set up mostly for kids. I’m not sure if it was something that travels around the country, or if it just a local thing that might have been on loan from the local zoo.

One thing they did have that was surprising was four penguins. On the advertisement it had pictures of all kinds of exotic sea creatures, and it had a picture of a penguin in the middle. I was certain that the penguin was only for advertising, so I was surprised to see actual penguins at the exhibit.

The were in a relatively small room, maybe twenty or thirty square meters at most. In the center was a make shift pool, the surface was maybe four or five square meters. It was only half a meter deep or so. When I arrived, there were many people pushing up against the Plexiglas with their cell phone snapping away. When I got there the penguins were swimming around in a circle in their small pool.

Shortly after I made my way to the Plexiglas, they had climbed out of the pool and were walking around it. They were incredibly cute, I have to admit. Following each other, as if they were afraid to make a decision on their own. Every time one would pause and look at the water, the rest would copy him. When one started walking, they others started as well. When one veered off form their path from around the pool, the rest followed.

Pretty soon you could tell the crowd was hoping for them to dive back into the water, as watching them walking around in circles was getting a little bit boring. Every time they would pause, an almost jump in, but hold back, you feel the small crowd express its disappointment.

Finally, one of them slipped, and fell into the pool. Before he even had broken the surface of the water, his three friends immediatley followed suit, to the immediate pleasure of the crowd.

It reminded me of a sales seminar I went to a few years ago. The speaker was talking about how important it was to develop rapport before trying to persuade anybody of anything. Rapport is that unconscious feeling you get when you feel comfortable with somebody.

For example, if you were in a strange city, and you saw somebody in shopping mall wearing a t-shirt the bore symbol identifying them as part of a small group that you belonged to, like a high school, or a hometown charity group, you would immediately feel a connection to this person. If you went up and introduced yourself, and identified yourself a as member of the same group of them, you would immediately feel a connection.

Another example. Imagine you are taking a long flight home from somewhere. You finally get to your airport; get off the go down to the baggage claim. As you are waiting, you notice somebody the same gender and age as you. And pretty soon you realize that both of your bags have not come out of the shoot yet. You both finally go to the service desk, only to find that both of your bags have been accidentally transferred to Miami. They are safe, and they will be returned within one week. You share a unique experience with this person, and you suddenly feel a certain connection. You have developed rapport.

There are many ways to develop rapport. The easiest is to match body langue, match the rate of speech, the words that they use. Another way that people try is to find as many shared past experiences, or shared likes and dislikes. Like you both played baseball as a kid, or you both hate the Bee Gees, or anything else you can find.

What the guy at this seminar said, was interesting. He said it’s much easier to develop rapport than most people think. The reason behind this is that people, from a biological perspective, are pack animals. We move in herds, or large groups. It’s almost automatic for us to get into rapport with people. It’s as if we are always subconsciously on the lookout for people that are similar to us, to get clues on how to behave.

This guys said that the easiest way to get rapport with anybody, be it a potential boss during a job interview, a client or a potential lover, is to simply relax, and allow the inevitable similarities to come to the surface. We have in us wonderful mechanism given to us by God or Evolution (whichever you believe) which makes this natural if you just relax and allow it to happen. Of course, if you look for differences, you will find them. But when you relax and allow the similarities to surface naturally, you’ll be amazed how easy it is to develop bonds with people that you don’t even know.

How to maintain those bonds is a subject of another article.

Tap The Power of Feelings For Incredible Success

If you’ve ever felt a strange sensation, and weren’t exactly sure what it was or where it was coming from, or even if it existed at all outside of your imagination, then this article is for you.

The human mind/body system is a fantastically complex organism that defies and will continue to defy understanding of anything other than it’s basic operation. On the scale of human history, successful surgery, of even the basic kind, is still in its infancy.

Many mistakenly believe that simply because there is not any direct hard evidence of unexplainable phenomenon, then it can’t exist. The easies retreat of people who dare not face the idea of something beyond comprehension is the easy question “Is there any documented proof?”

The human system has evolved over hundreds of thousands of years in unending and changing environments. And we have prevailed. We have grown to be the dominant species on the planet. No other animal uses language or tools, or planning or abstract thought like humans do. And that is just scratching the surface.

The thrust of necessity behind the size and intellect of the human brain may never be fully understood. That there even exists a “subconscious” mind is still debated, even today among psychologists. Those that don’t like the idea that part of their brain is operating outside of their conscious awareness will ask for “proof” or “case studies” that show conclusively of it’s existence.

One of the theories behind the development of the subconscious brain is the idea of saving conscious bandwidth. Of course, on a parallel universe, humans may evolve to always be consciously monitoring their heart rate, breathing rate, skin temperature, and keeping all of their memories and imaginations of the possible future in their conscious awareness at all times, but it is not likely.

A much more likely explanation was that only a small bandwidth of mental processing power was given to the conscious mind, and the vast remainder is given over to the unconscious mind. Eating, breathing, fear, love, excitement all of these are the results of massive computations by the unconscious, and delivered to the conscious in the form of feelings.

Sadly, we are taught in the west, especially the males among us, to disregard our feelings and use only our logical, or conscious computing power to make decisions that can affect our livelihoods for a lifetime.

Imagine this scenario. You have a desire to buy a car. You go to a car dealership. The salesperson is setting of alarm bells in your system, danger, danger, danger. But you really want a car, so you ignore them. You allow him to dazzle you with colorful brochures, and statistics about safety and miles per gallon, and how many hundreds of thousands of people have already bought this car. By the time he is done with his sales pitch, you have effectively shut down your initial warning system that has been fine tuned over hundreds of thousands of years of evolution.

The result? Maybe you get lucky and the car works out for you. Maybe you don’t, and the car is a lemon that quickly depreciates in value, and you are stuck with it for three or four years. The salesman knew this, and tried his best to cover it up. Had you paid attention to your subconscious processor warning system (AKA your intuition) you could have avoided the whole scenario and gone someplace else.

The more you learn to listen to your feelings, and understand that they are natures best and most effective design that is the result of hundreds of thousand of years of testing and improvement (AKA evolution), the sooner you will able to cut through all the crap that surrounds us in our daily lives, and go straight to the truth. The truth that is there, but elusive if you rely on logic to find it.

This is not metaphysics, or supernatural phenomenon, only misunderstood science. And when you use your feelings and intuition the way nature intended, you will be incredibly surprised how much personal power and choice you will gain in life.

Quotes Pattern – A Jedi Mind Trick of Persuasion

The quotes pattern is a powerful and very useful and sneaky tool from NLP that you can use in many situations to help you covertly gauge the interest level of a client, customer, or potential lover.

If you are a salesperson, and you have a potential customer sitting in front of you, wouldn’t it be fantastic to be able to find out exactly what their interest is in the product you are trying to sell? Of course, if you blatantly ask them, like “So, Mr. Customer, are you ready to buy this product yet?” You’ll likely scare them off, never to return.

Similarly, if you are in a bar talking to a potential date, and you ask them “So are you interested in me enough to go out on date?” you’ll likely come across as creepy, or needy. Even if you don’t, and they answer negatively, it can be a serious blow to your ego, not to mention putting all the power in their hands, as they now are absolutely clear of your intentions.

There is a better, sneakier way. It’s called the quotes pattern. What you do is take the question you’d like to ask them, and quote somebody else saying the same thing. Then just sit back and watch their response. If they give you some good buying signals, your good. If they don’t, that just means you need to do a little bit more work in promoting yourself or your product.

Example.

Lets say you are a car salesperson. You have a client sitting in front of you. You’ve been on a test drive, and you’ve managed to get them inside. It’d be great if you could just say, “Ok, now you should buy the car.” And have them passively agree. But you can’t. Here’s what you do. Start talking about a friend or colleague of yours that works at another dealership. His sales method is much more direct, and you give the client an example.

“I have this friend, and he works at a dealership on the other side of town, and he is probably the most aggressive salesperson I know. He’ll look a customer right in the eyes, and tell them that they really should buy this car today. That if they don’t buy this car today, they are going to lose this opportunity, and they might not get it back. And the funny thing is, this guy sells a lot of cars this way. I could never be that direct to a customer.” And then share a laugh about how direct your friend is.

In this story, when you say “buy this car today,” say it directly to the client. Because you are quoting some other person, they won’t react to you as if you’ve said it. But if they are interested in buying the car, you’ll know. You’ll also know if they think the car is a piece of junk, or it’s too expensive by their reaction. If that happens, just continue to demonstrate the value of the car.

You can also use this technique during job interviews, and during seduction attempts. For example, if you are in a bar talking to somebody you might be romantically interested in, tell a story about a friend that is absolutely fearless with the opposite sex. Describe how they will ask a person right after meeting them if they want to go someplace quieter. For example:

After you’ve broken the ice, and started talking about how people meet in bars, try something like this:

“I know this guy (or girl) who has absolutely no fear. He’ll start talking to somebody in a bar, and after only a few minutes, look them in the eye (as you are looking them in the eye) and say I think you are really beautiful/handsome. Lets go someplace where we can be alone. (Pause.) Do you believe that? I could never say something like that.”

Of course, when you say the “you are really beautiful/handsome…” part, say it directly to them without breaking eye contact. Pay close attention how they react. If they smile, or if their pupils dilate, or if they take a deep breath, you’re in. Proceed accordingly.

Have fun with this.

Two Tips To Quickly and Easily Eliminate Public Speaking Fear

If you’ve ever had to give a public speech, you know how incredibly nerve wracking it can get. I remember I once had to give a best man speech/toast at my brothers wedding. I kept drinking glass after glass of wine with seemingly no effect.

Even worse is when you get tapped all of a sudden to say a few words when you aren’t expecting it. If you aren’t prepared, standing there with everybody looking at you can be tremendously terrifying.

Luckily, there are two approaches to easily overcome this fear so that next time you give a speech, you’ll not only be confident but also will feel secure knowing that the people hearing your speech will actually benefit from.

I remember reading an interview with actor George Clooney several years ago. He was recalling his early days as an anchor, having to go to audition after audition. He said that he finally discovered the secret of confidence. He found that confidence was the most important thing when giving an audition. More important than acting skills, and more important than remembering the lines.

The same is true in public speaking. Something happens to people when they see a person giving a speech who is extremely confident. It’s like their logic circuit shut off completely, and they take whatever the person says as true and sound, despite how crazy it may sound.

Its no wonder politicians have been able to lead people with such crazy ideas for so long. When they stand up and speak as though they believe in what they are saying, everybody else believes them as well.

So that is the first secret. Confidence. The best way is to simply “fake it till you make it.” You’ll be surprised how faking just the first few seconds of your speech will give you an incredible boost of real confidence. Once you set the tone, you’ll notice the audience looking at you with much less scrutiny, and much more openness and acceptance.

Which leads us to the second secret. The liberal use of pauses during your speech. Especially when used near or at the very beginning of your speech, pauses can have a profound effect on your air of authority. When you pause in the middle of a sentence, where people least expect it, it creates tension and a strong desire to find out what your important message is. Experts call this “building response potential.”

For example, instead of saying this:

“Today I want to talk to you about the importance of dental hygiene.”
(pause)
“Dental hygiene is important because without dental hygiene, your teeth will rot.”
(pause)
“And if your teeth rot you can’t eat candy.”

Try this:

“Today”
(pause)
“I want to talk to you about…”
(pause)
“Dental…”
(pause)
“Hygiene. Dental hygiene is important because…”
(pause)
“Without dental hygiene…”
(pause)
“Your teeth will rot. And if your teeth rot, you can’t…”

You get the idea. The first pause may be terrifying, as you’ll be standing there with everybody staring at you, and the silence can be extremely intimidating.

But you’ll soon notice that the interest you generate with your silence will literally destroy any thoughts of criticism in your audience’s mind. And quickly give you authority and confidence.

The best way to practice this would be to go and join a local toastmasters group. They are filled with kind people who are learning to give public speeches just like you, and are very supportive and helpful.

Of course, these techniques are also very powerful in one on one conversations or conversations in small groups. When you do this people will quickly be hanging on your every word.

Instantly Remove Stress With Ancient Breathing Techniques

Stress is a huge problem in today’s society. Stress is a huge problem in any society. A growing number of doctors attribute stress to as much seventy percent of all illnesses. Stress can also cause a host of other problems. Problems at work, problems in relationships. It quickly becomes obvious that finding a way to reduce stress can go a long, long way to not only improving the quality of your life, but also to improve the length as well.

The biggest cause of stress is the idea that you have lost power, and something outside of you, be it your job, your financial circumstances, your relationships, and has control over you. You have lost choice.

Researches have determined through experiments that losing choice and a sense of power leads to immediate increases in blood pressure, heart rate, and breathing rate. It would appear that maintain control of your own choices is a simple way to immediatley reduce stress.

The good news is that although the above mentioned experiments were done in such a way that the test subject really did lose control, in normal every day there is a simple way to maintain that control through some simple and quick exercise that combine breath and thought, causing them to be deceptively powerful.

First is the way to breath. Breath in slowly, through the nose. Take a long, slow, deep breath. Hold it just for a moment, and then release it through your mouth. Make the exhale a little bit longer than the inhale. And while you are inhaling and exhaling, keep the tip of your tongue firmly planted against the roof of your mouth, just behind your teeth, as if you are preparing to make a “la” sound.

Next is thought. Take three breaths, as described above, and think three different thoughts for each breath. You’ll want to break each thought in half, and think the first half during the inhale, and the second half during the exhale. Here are the thoughts.

First: “I release…the past.”

Second: “I release… the future.”

Third: “I choose…now.”

By releasing the past, you remove all guilt and anxiety associated with things that happened before, either by your choice or not. And by releasing the future, you effectively remove any worry or doubt regarding anything. By choosing to exist only right here, right now, and asserting your choice in the present, you will gain an enormous amount of centeredness and personal power.

You can do this as often as you like, as your desk at work, at a red light, even sitting in a meeting while your boss is droning on about something. The more you do this, the more it will become a natural part of who you are, and it won’t be long until your stress levels are significantly lower, giving you the peace of mind you deserve.

How To Ace a Job Interview Even if There is Tough Competition

If you’ve ever had a job interview, you know now incredibly nerve wracking it can be. Suddenly you are sitting there, feeling completely under the microscope, as the interviewer looks over your resume with a passive look on his or her face. You have no idea what he or she is thinking, but you can’t help but wonder.

The good news is that interviewing is a skill, and like any other skill you can improve with practice. Of course, some people are fortunate enough not to have to go on many interviews, but many others have to go through several to land an even mediocre job.

So what is the secret? A mixture of self-confidence and criteria.

You need to be confident enough to give an honest assessment of your skills and how you can help the company’s bottom line. You do yourself no service whatsoever by being shy or reserved. If you have skills you need to make sure the interviewer knows about them, and believes you. If you don’t have skills, don’t say you do, otherwise you might find yourself in a difficult situation.

I was once in an interview for a technical position that was over my head. The interviewer asked me a question that required a specific knowledge of statistics to answer correctly. He asked the question, and without hesitation, I confidently said “fifteen.”

He paused, looked at me and asked: “Is that based on your knowledge and experience, or did you just make that up?”

Busted.

You’d be surprised how many people go into an interview with a “please hire me I’ll do anything for you” mentality. Employers don’t like this. They are in business to make money, and they need skills, not somebody looking for an opportunity.

That is where criteria come in. This is an almost magical technique that you can apply in areas much wider than job seeking. And the less technical the position, and the more “people skill” oriented it is, the easier you can leverage criteria, even if you don’t have any particular experience in the field.

Here’s how it works. Once you establish some rapport in the interview, and you get past the “tell me about yourself” part. You’ll likely come to a part where the interviewer asks if you have any questions. Most people ask things like “when are the holidays,” or “what are the health benefits,” or “do you have dental,” or other things.

What most people don’t realize is that this part of the interview is a near perfect opportunity to leverage the employers criteria to almost guarantee you the position.

When it’s your turn to ask questions, as the employer to describe exactly what they are looking for in an employee. Make sure to really listen, and pay attention to words and phrases that he or she puts extra emphasis on. Especially vague phrases like “people skills,” or “dedication,” or “focused on the final product.”

Then simply ask follow up questions about those particular words or phrases that they “lean on,” so to speak. The more they talk about their ideal employ, with you sitting there in front of them, they will start to subconsciously imagine you as the ideal employee. Especially when almost every other prospective employee is asking what’s in it for them.

The longer you can draw out that part of the conversation, the better. And any time you feel an opportunity to work in a person story or anecdote about yourself, try and use some of those phrases mentioned above. It will go along way to putting you at the to of the list.

Express Yourself and Increase Self Confidence and Self Esteem

The other day I had the opportunity to visit an author in a local bookstore. He wasn’t that famous of an author, which was good for me, and the rest of the people that went to see him, but probably not particularly good for him. Nevertheless, he was really outgoing and friendly, and took the time to sign everybody’s books, and answer any and all questions that people had, in a lot of detail.

I asked him what made him decide to write a book on his chosen subject. It’s is not really a particularly popular subject, I would classify it as a kind of self-help or self-development. He seemed really enthusiastic about answering, and lot of other people became interested as well.

He said it all started with a teacher he had in Junior High School. This teacher was kind of different from the rest, sort of like a rebel. He didn’t last very long, because he was always getting into disagreements with the administration on the proper teaching methods. It seems that is the case more often than not. You’ll get a really good teacher, like this one, and he’ll really have an impact on you, but because these methods are not “proper” or “accepted,” the administration doesn’t really like them very much, so they fire him.

I remember a teacher like that I had in elementary school. He was really interested in each student, and made sure that each individual student was taken care of, as far as being able to not only understand the stuff we were supposed to be learning, but be able to understand everyday stuff as well. One of things he had us do was a lot of oral reports, or show and tell, or mini-plays. Anything to get us talking in front of class. I guess he figured that being able to express yourself in front of a group was a skill they didn’t teach much in public schools.

But unfortunately, despite how much the kids liked him and how much our self-esteem was raised through experience, he didn’t stick to the “proper” curriculum, and was let go only after one year.

That was what this author’s teacher taught him as well. He said that everybody has something important that they need to share with other people, no matter how unimportant you think it is. And when you find that, and figure out a way to share that with others in a congruent way, not only will you benefit many other people, but also you can really increase your self-confidence to the point where you can discover all other kinds of cool stuff.

And this guy kept answering questions and talking to people well after the bookstore closed. The manager of the bookstore was nice enough to let us hang around. And he even gave everybody his own personal email in case we had other questions that came up.

I think I was really lucky to meet this person. When you find somebody like this, you can really feel good knowing that this is an example of all the good things that can happen when you open up yourself to others.

Lead By Example

Once upon a time there was a baby alligator. He was born like other alligators are born, first in an egg, and then hatched by time and his mother. He had several brothers and sisters. If he knew how to count, he would have counted at least sixteen alligator brothers and sisters.

The alligators lived in a very large alligator community, which had been established for several generations. They lived in a swampy place, just outside of several cotton field that were run by a few cotton farmers, that had been there for just as may generations.

Despite speaking different languages, the alligators and the farmers had a mutual understanding. The alligators wouldn’t wander on to the farmer’s fields, and they wouldn’t get shot. The farmers (or more likely their curious kids) wouldn’t wander on the alligator’s neighborhood, and wouldn’t be eaten.

Shortly after this young alligator was born, or hatched, there was a terrible storm. It hadn’t rained in quite a while, and both the farmers and the alligators were getting worried, for different reasons.

The farmers, of course, were overjoyed when the rains came, because it meant that years cotton crop would be particularly lush, which would get them quite a lot of money at the cotton marketplace.

The alligators weren’t so lucky. The rains came at a particular bad time of year. Baby alligator hatching season is a particularly precarious time on the alligator life cycle. The nests are especially vulnerable at this time, as the alligators are too weak to defend themselves, but the mother alligator has to leave them from time to time to get food. If the floods come during this time, it is all too easy for the baby alligators to get swept away and plucked by hungry birds.

Because of the extraordinarily heavy rains, the adult alligators didn’t fare much better. Before long, over half of the entire alligator community was wiped out by the floods, leaving many young orphans.

This young alligator suddenly found himself without a mother, and several siblings that he felt responsible for. He didn’t know how to hunt yet, and he was worried that he wouldn’t be able to provide for them.

One day he was out wandering around, wondering if he would even survive, let alone care adequately for his siblings. He came across a very old alligator, and asked him what he should do.

Young boy. Many have come before you that have faced much harsher conditions. They survived, and so shall you. You must not focus giving food to your siblings and your neighbors, for they must also learn how to fend for themselves. Fate has chosen you to be the next leader in the alligator community. And to do that you must not only provide, but also lead. Your actions will be an example to others. As you show others that you can get your needs met, they will also learn that they, too, can get their own needs met. As you show them that you can survive, they too, will realize they can as well. As you prosper, so shall they.

The young alligator, uplifted by this strange old alligator’s words, walked back to his nest, and rousted his siblings and his neighbors.

“Come!” he shouted.
“We have much work to do!” he turned and began to work. Everybody else followed, certain of their future.

How to Remove Public Speaking Fear and Skyrocket Your Sales Skills

If you are in sales, any kind of sales, there is one skill you can learn that will have a powerful effect on all your other skills for selling. And when you realize in almost every interaction you have with others, you are selling something at some level. An idea, your point of view, a behavior that you want others to perform. Whether you are going to convince that gorgeous woman to come over to your place for dinner, or persuade your kids to finish their homework before watching TV, you are selling something.

And there is one powerful skill that can dramatically help you in all aspects of this. That, of course, is public speaking. I’m sure you know that public speaking is the number one fear of people today. Almost everybody dreads the idea of being called up to speak. If you’ve ever had to give a toast, or even introduce somebody to large group of people, you know how nerve wracking it can be. Overcoming public speaking fear can be the singularly most beneficial decision you can make. It will increase your self-confidence, increase your self-esteem, and give you much more clarity of thought when choosing your words during normal, every day conversations.

And if you are in an honest to goodness sales job, where you have to put yourself in front of people day in and day out, overcoming the anxiety of public speaking can do wonders for your closing ratio. It’s a well-known fact that giving talks on a regular basis, regardless of what business you are in can do wonders for your income.

So how does one go about reducing public speaking fears? How can you banish public speaking anxiety once and for all? There are two ways to approach this. One is through various forms of mental imagery and visualization, training your brain to think of speaking in a different way, so it doesn’t cause you the anxiety that it might have before. These can be a wonderful way to make it feel easy and natural to not only feel comfortable giving public speeches, but to look forward to doing them as well.

One way to do this is to imagine the feeling you will get when you finish your speech, and you can hear the applause of the audience. Really get a good picture in your mind of what that looks like, sounds like, and feels like. Practice imagining that on a regular basis, until that thought becomes second nature, and not whatever thought you used to think that gave you the problems.

Another mental trick is to imagine the benefit the audience will receive from your speech. How will it help them? How can they use the information? When you think in terms of this, you will be less likely to imagine them judging and scrutinizing you, and more likely to imagine them thankful to you for doing them favor by sharing your unique information with them.

The second way of extinguishing your public speaking anxiety once and for all is to simply speak as often as possible. Every time you think of speaking, and grow anxious, and then get out of speaking, it reinforces the thought that public speaking is dangerous. When you begin to speak in public as often as possible, anywhere were there are people within earshot that don’t know you, you will gain confidence. Anywhere you can do this will work. Talking to strangers in line at the supermarket, making an announcement at the dinner table at home, if you have a large family, volunteering at your church. Toastmaster is a great place to practice these skills in a friendly, supportive environment.

When you combine the mental tricks outlined above, and the habit of speaking as often as possible, any fear or anxiety you have associated with public speaking will quickly vanish, and your skills of selling and persuading will skyrocket, not to mention your self-confidence and self-esteem. Learning to feel comfortable while speaking in public can very well be one of the greatest, and cheapest, self improvement and self-development programs at your disposal.