Category Archives: Conversation Skills

What Lies Beneath Word Power

This morning I was out for my daily walk. I usually try to leave my apartment before six thirty. It’s a great time to walk. The sun is still low enough so you get that “sunrise” feeling. The air is calm and still. Whatever weather has been going on during the night is in transition to whatever the weather will be like for the day. It’s like a shift change in the weather factory. The people that make the nighttime weather have clocked out, and the daytime weather people are just getting started. Kind of like they are looking over the report from the night crew to see what they are supposed to be doing. Sometimes they night crew has to work overtime, and daybreak doesn’t have much effect on the weather.

But this morning, it did. Last night was terribly windy, and was making a huge racket. Swirling sounds making all kinds of weird noises that don’t normally occur. This morning was quite different. Still. Calm. The clouds that had rained a little bit last night were still up there, big and dark and threatening, but they had a kind of strange peace to them. When I walked through the rice fields I couldn’t help but notice the largeness of the sky. The mountains off in the distance. The flat fields that the farmers have been getting ready for the spring rice planting. Beautiful.

Then I passed by the stream where the carp live. There is an elementary school nearby, and the children love to feed the fish. And because carp can pretty much eat anything, they grow pretty big. The carp are conditioned to swim to the bank of the stream whenever they see a person stop. Even though it is just a simple condition/response mechanisms, as fish aren’t know for their high intellect, but it’s cool nonetheless. You could almost imagine their fish conversations interrupted by the presence of a human, as they break out of their normal fish cliques and congregate on the bank, hoping for some food. Of course I didn’t have any. Even though I know, deep in my psyche, that they are just fish, and cannot think, cannot plan, cannot communicate, I felt the need to at apologize for not having any food for them. (Of course I looked around to make sure nobody saw me talking to the fish.)

I’ve seen other people doing that as well. Talking to animals, as if the animal could understand, and respond. Many people who keep pets that have become part of the family will tell you that they do indeed understand them. And I’m sure they do. When I was kid, my brother had a red lab. He could understand several words, and what they meant. There was (is?) that gorilla, Koko, who could (can?) supposedly use sign language to express complex “human” emotions.

Where is the difference between simple training, and pure communication? Under what circumstances would a human be able to communicate with an animal that he/she has never met before? Is human/animal communication purely a stimulus/response mechanism, and the animal really doesn’t know what is going on?

I was reading an article about human communication. Only seven percent of our face-to-face communication is based on the words we use. The rest is based on voice tone, body language, facial expressions and about a million other things that they probably don’t even know how to measure yet.

I don’t disagree that words are incredibly important. Without words we wouldn’t have much of a civilization. The use of words and language is likely what powered human evolution to become as cerebral as we are. So we can write blogs and read novels and create beautiful music instead of sitting around eating bananas all day. But words aren’t the only thing. Not by a long shot. There is much more going on in our communication that just words. You’ll be amazed what you will learn when you really pay attention to things. It kind of gives “reading between the lines” a whole new meaning, doesn’t it?

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How to Speak with Powerful Authority

You stand up, ready to speak. You pause. Slowly you turn your head, calmly scanning the crowd. You notice the look of attention and fascination on the faces of the crowd. Because you are such a powerful speaker, whatever conversations people had been engrossed in have automatically taken a backseat to their high expectations of your coming words. You are a powerful speaker. You speak with authority. When you speak, you command the room.

Ok, maybe not, but you’ll be more than halfway there after you finish reading this article, because I’m going to show you three quick and easy to learn techniques that will make your words more captivating than you’ve ever imagined. Some of the other techniques I write about on my blog can help as well. But before you go and read that, make sure to finish reading this, because despite these tips being incredibly easy, they are just as incredibly powerful. And the coolest thing about these techniques is you can use them anytime you are speaking to anybody about anything. Job interview, date, toastmasters speech. Ready? Let’s go.

Technique Number One.

Speak with authority. Ok that sounds a little vague. Speak in downward tones. You can end your sentences in three tones. Up, neutral, or down. You want neutral, but down is much better. If your sentences end on upward tone, you’ll sound unsure and without any authority. If you want a fantastic example of this, after you check out my blog, go over to Youtube and watch any clip you can find of President Obama. He has this technique down. (Down, get it?) When he speaks, he sounds as if he not only knows what he is talking about, but he believes it as well. And when you know what you are talking about, and you speak with belief and sincerity, you will easily captivate people.

Technique Number Two.

Create tension. Or a more technical name for this is create response potential. Sounds technical, but its simple. Simply pause in the middle of a sentence. If you can, say the following sentences out loud with the pauses where they are written:

I went to the store. (pause.) I bought an apple. (pause.) The apple tasted good.

Sounds pretty boring, right? Right. Now say it with different pauses, like this:

I went to the …(pause) store. I bought an..(pause) apple. The apple tasted…(pause) good.

Can you hear the difference? The more you practice, the easier it will get. When you master this technique, people will be hanging on your every word.

Technique Number Three.

The head tilt. Simply tilt your head back, just slightly. (Unless you are standing and talking to somebody who is much shorter than you.) Maybe about a centimeter. This will add to your aura of authority. And combined with the first two techniques, you’ll be amazed at how powerful your word will become. And the incredible thing is, people will have no idea that you are using these techniques. They’ll just know that they are totally captivated by your words. As they should, because your words are your power. And the more you cultivate your power, the more powerful you’ll become.

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The Magic of Conversation

I had a friend once who was telling about his brother in law. His brother in law was the kind of guy that didn’t really talk much, but you had this feeling that there was something really deep inside. Like when you were to look at this person, you were to get this feeling that there is something really special here. He never seemed to get upset. Anyways, he said that there was this problem he was having at work. He had noticed a problem on the production line where he worked, and it seemed that he was the only person to notice this. And he was kind of afraid to tell his boss, because she had a reputation for being kind of strict and by the book. He was really afraid to approach her, and start a conversation with her.

I had another friend that was a really good salesman. He worked for some really interesting modeling agency. His job was to go out and walk up to any girl he saw that he thought qualified as a model. He said at first that it was really nerve racking. He thought that he would receive a lot of rejection, approaching attractive women all. He had this imagination that they might misunderstand his motives, and not realize that he was offering them an opportunity rather than taking advantage of them. I loaned him a book of mine that I’d read on the subject.

Which is interesting when you think about it. Everywhere you go; there are all kinds of people walking around. All with different histories, backgrounds, and stories about what they see around them. Some of them can be really interesting, and some can even be fascination. It’s awe-inspiring when you look around you and when you see this person, you can imagine the treasure that is inside them. A friend and I were talking once about this subject. When the topic of being able to approach new people came up, he merely stated what he thought was the obvious. There is treasure! And when you think about it, how many ways can you imagine discovering treasure inside others, and sharing it with them? Imagine how you can make them feel incredibly happy. And the cool thing is they probably won’t even know what’s going on, so they’ll probably think this new happiness is coming from you.

After my friend read the book I loaned him, he was able to go out and approach many women every day. A large percentage said they weren’t interested, but even the ones that said “no thank you,” were polite to him, and thanked him, anyways. Even on days when he went out and didn’t get any contact information for his company to follow up on, he still was able to feel a boost to the ego, just for the experience.

So when he finally approached his boss to tell her about the problem on the production line, she was amazed at his perception. She was so happy, that he got a promotion, and at their semi-annual meeting, she gave him additional thanks in front of all his coworkers, because he’d saved the company so much money. Amazing things happen when you use your ability to communicate.

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Speak Your Mind – And Achieve Your Desires

I was waiting downtown in the hospital recently. It wasn’t the emergency section of the hospital, it was the place where people needed to see a doctor for things that weren’t life threatening. I was holding a number, one of those numbers that you grab like when you go to the post office. There was a big electronic board up and it showed the numbers changing as people went into the office. The peculiar thing was that the numbers weren’t really changing according to how many people went into the room where the doctor was. It didn’t take me long to figure out that people were just crowding their way in, instead of patiently waiting for their numbers to be called. I wanted to speak up, but for some reason I didn’t. Maybe because I was sick, or maybe because I was new in town and didn’t really know anybody there.

It reminded me once when I was in first grade. I used to be really shy. Once I had to go to the bathroom really bad. Back in first grade, you were always supposed to do what the teachers said. It wasn’t recess, so I was afraid I’d get in trouble if I asked to go to the bathroom. So I sat there with my hand on my crotch, I don’t even know if I knew when recess came. I was just a kid, I hadn’t realized that the most general rule in life yet.

It’s interesting when you look at some kids. They just scream out whenever they want something. They haven’t learned to be shy when asking for what they want. i was studying a book on persuasion, and it said the most natural persuaders and manipulators there are little kids. They scream and people ten times their own size scramble to take care of them. It’s like if you are a little kid, you when you want something, you just ask for it. You don’t wait for permission. When you are hungry, you scream for food. When you want something, you don’t rest until you get it. And when you are a kid, the only rule in life is keep screaming until you get what you want.

Finally the teacher saw me and told me to go to the bathroom. When I came back, she told me that it’s ok to ask for things that you want, it’s ok to ask somebody in authority to let you do something. Because if you wait until they notice you need something, it might be too late. I thought that was a particularly nice lesson for a first grade teacher to teach a little kid.

So finally I stood, and walked over to the door. I noticed the people sitting next to the door, and I asked them in a fairly loud voice if there was some kind of line, or do you just push your way in. And maybe it was because I was a little impatient, but I said it loud enough so that most people heard me. And after I said it, I noticed that people started looking at their own numbers and obeying the rules. As it turns out, the nurse that was supposed to be taking care of the number system had a last minute emergency, and wasn’t able to come in until later. I’m glad I spoke up when I did, I might have been waiting there all day.

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How to be a Powerful Communicator

I remember I used to have this sales job. It was based on multi level marketing kind of structure. I don’t remember exactly what it was that they sold, some kind of paper products. It was a pure commissioned sales job, meaning that you only made money if you sold something. And if you recruited one of your friends, and they sold something, you got a piece of the profit. The job entailed going out and “cold calling” small business owners. If you have never experienced cold calling, I recommend you try it at least once. Basically it entails waking up to strangers and trying to sell them something. It’s a great way to force yourself out of shyness, and increase your self confidence. I’ll be honest, though, it’s incredibly difficult and can cause a lot of stress, if you are totally focussed on a need to make a lot of money. If you do it just for the experience, it can be a positive eye opener. You can learn a lot about yourself.

Because it was so high stress, at this company we would meet in the morning, have a kind of cheer leading type meeting, where we’d get all pumped up. Then we’d go out in pairs and cold call all day. We’d hit up about 60 businesses, and if we were lucky we’d get about three or four sales. That mean about fifty five rejections a day, ranging from polite to “GET THE HELL OUT OF MY SHOP! CAN’T YOU READ THE SIGN THAT SAYS NO SOLICITORS!” It really can be a way to develop thick skin, which can be useful in today’s climate.

After we’d head back to the office, we would have a breakdown meeting. I guess we would try and cheer each other up after getting rejected all day long. I discovered one very interesting thing during one of these meetings. One senior sales person asked how my day went. I said it was difficult, but it helped to be persistent. I remember that I used the word ‘persistent.’ And he responded with “Oh, so it helps to be diligent?” I kind of nodded, because it was late and I wanted to go home. Now it seems like a trivial difference “persistent” versus “diligent.” After all, if you look the two words up in the thesaurus, you’ll find the two listed as synonyms. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. When I used the word “persistent,” I specifically chose that word, because based on my own experience, that was the best word to describe my own personal experience for that particular day. When he reflected back my description of the experience back to me, he chose a different word. In my mind, that word didn’t describe at all the day I had. So the end result of his “coaching,” was that he didn’t appear to understand AT ALL what I experienced that day.

It reminded me of a seminar I went to once on communication. We were all asked to think of a duck. When we shared our ducks, they were all different. Small ducks, rubber ducks, even the AFLAC duck. A simple four letter noun yielded many different ideas of a duck. Is it any wonder that a abstract word like “persistent” can have such different meanings from person to person?

In some communication models, people are taught to paraphrase what people say back to them. I disagree with this. In the above example, the salesperson tried to paraphrase my words, which were a description of my own personal subjective experience, and failed miserably. In a split second, he became somebody that didn’t understand what I had gone through that day, simply by choosing one single word incorrectly.

How to get around this? How do you communicate to somebody that is telling you about an emotionally charged experience? Simple. Repeat back their exact words to them. I’ve heard this technique referred in some places as “parrot-phrasing” rather than paraphrasing, and I think the term is accurate. If the person in the example above had reflected back to me the same word, I would have felt respected and understood, rather than otherwise. It’s simple, and all that it requires is for you to pay attention to the person talking to you, and pay attention to the words they seem to put emphasis on. They might pause a litter bit before these words, they might say them with a different tonality. Be aware that these particular words have special significance to the person using them. When you treat the other persons word with respect, you will be treating them with respect. And it not only make you appear to be really a sincere, intuitive communicator, but it will make them feel safe in talking with you and sharing their experience.

How many situations can you imagine where this would be useful?

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Step Back – – – Contemplate

I was flipping through the channels recently, and I came across one of those medical dramas. You know the kind, where they shift between the tension between the doctors and nurses, orderlies, and patients. It’s interesting how no matter what jobs people find themselves in, they will always come up with the same kinds of conflicts. But the thing the struck me was that it reminded me of once when I was sitting in the waiting room of the emergency room at the hospital. A friend of mine was suffering from extreme side cramps with what would later be determined to be a burst appendix. Because it was so crowded had been waiting for almost an hour by the time they wheeled her in for emergency surgery.  Probably the most disturbing thing was a man who had been waiting there with his kid, who was having some kinds of troubles. And he got into a pretty heated argument with the receptionist, as he had been waiting longer than any of us. Because he was speaking in broken English, and it was apparent the receptionist only spoke English they were having a difficult time communicating. And it didn’t help matters that he was distraught because of his sick daughter, she was distraught because of the many people waiting for more medical care than was available, and there really was nothing she could do. It’s horrible when you find yourself with a communication problem like that.

It reminds me when I was on the beach once, waiting for a friend. I was kind of learning against a wall they had separating the boardwalk from the actual sand. I was standing in the sand area, leaning against the wall, facing the ocean. It was really beautiful. The sun was off to the left, and was going to be setting soon. I was hoping my friend would arrive so we could enjoy the sunset together. But then again, it was one of those times where you are just relaxed and content to sit and let whatever happens happen.  Which is probably why I became so curious about the guy who started talking to me. It seems he was some kind of a performer, and would walk up and down the beach until he found a large crowd, and put on his show, and accept whatever donations they felt were appropriate. He started talking in sentences that didn’t really make much sense, but there was something intriguing about him, so I just listened, wondering where exactly he was going with all of this.

He sorted of reminded me from my friend from Australia, that I see every once in a while. This guy is a philosophy major, who is always going off on weird tangents, but he usually makes a lot of sense when you look below the surface. It’s like you have to take a step back to and figure out how to look at the broader concept of what he is talking about to make sense of it all. Sometimes you really need to pay attention to what is being said so you can really understand it. And many times he doesn’t make any sense then and there, it’s only when you begin to think about this that you can later find ways to apply it to your own life. He also likes to surf, which is probably why I started daydreaming about him while this guy was talking about whatever it was he was talking about.

Which ended up being that he was a fire eater, among other things. He had a bag with him, and while we were talking, or rather while he was talking and I was listening, enough people showed up. He kind of just broke off right in the middle of his story and then put on his fire eating show. And also he walked on fire, and rolled around on broken glass, and all kinds of cool stuff. All in all I think he collected a couple hundred dollars from the crowd. Not a bad take.

After my friend was wheeled into the emergency room, someone finally was able to summon the courage to intervene as a translator for the poor guy with the sick daughter. Turned out she just had diarrhea, and was dehydrated. That’s why she wouldn’t stop crying. Another person in the waiting room offered a solution that calmed his daughter down enough so the poor man was able to enjoy some peace until he finally saw a doctor. While we were waiting for my friend to come out of surgery (from which she fully recovered) he left and gave a gracious thanks to all that helped him.

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Increase Confidence and Shed Shyness

I had a friend that used to be really, really shy. Like he wasn’t even able to make eye contact with other people. Not even for a split second. I don’t know if you’ve ever known a friend like that, but it kind of makes it hard to plan to do things. People that are incredibly shy find it difficult to relax over a few beers.  His girlfriend always shared with me how difficult it was when she had work parties,where it was kind of expected to bring your significant other.

I’ve seen a couple of funny youtube videos where people are at Christmas parties, and they are recorded saying things about their boss that they will likely later regret. But they are pretty funny. The thing about those parties, is that you have to behave kind of differently. It’s like you are in a party atmosphere, complete with food, alcohol, and music, but you still have to behave like you are at work. It’s almost as if you are supposed to pretend to have fun. Pretending can be good sometimes, but many people have said that the biggest trouble with telling lie is keeping everything straight.

This book I was reading on evolution was talking about the reason peoples brains became so big. This guy in the book was quoting this other guy who did a bunch of research at this university, along with a team of anthropologists. He said that one of the driving forces in the development of the human brain was the ability to not only detect deception in other people, but to deceive others and ourselves as well. Because you can’t very well catch others in deception of you don’t know hot to imagine what it would be like to be in the other persons shoes who is doing the deceiving. It is all somehow tied into the importance of knowing your place in the social structure. Of course there is no evidence for any of this, but it’s is an interesting theory nonetheless. It’s funny when think about things that you are only beginning to understand. It’s like you have an idea of what is going, but until you play different scenarios in your mind, you really can’t start to appreciate the complexity that is under all human life.

There was this one youtube video, where a girl that was apparently really drunk started telling her boss off. She said some pretty mean things. And her boss was standing right behind her. She turned around at the end of her tirade, and he said something like “I want to see you in my office first thing on Monday.” But it turned out to be a joke. Everybody was in on it, and it was all staged. Except the drunk part. I’m pretty sure that part was real.

And my friend eventually overcame his shyness with his girlfriend, because she finally coaxed him into attending a few assertiveness workshops together. Not only did he shed his shyness, and develop a really outgoing personality, but their relationship really improved. They’ve been married for six years, I think, with at least a couple of kids last I checked. And a large part of his job involves public speaking, so he really did develop strong confidence, which is always good.

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How To Make New Friends Anywhere, Anytime

One of the things I find most fascinating is how quickly you can get to know some people. Most people, it generally takes a while. You need to share experiences, become comfortable enough to talk about things until you can feel you know this person. Maybe you only see them for a little a couple times a day. Maybe you only see them once a week. And then you feel you know them in this particular context, you begin to share other things. Your family, funny stories about your childhood. The teacher you had a crush on in second grade. That thing that your partner or significant other did (and hopefully still does) that drives you insane with desire.

I remember once I was talking to this lady. We’d only been acquainted for a total of about two hours. It was the third time I’d seen her. Either she is a really outgoing person, who is able to feel really comfortable with almost anybody, or she just felt she really trusted me. She started telling me things about her daughter that I thought were kind of personal, but interesting. Nothing too terrible, just typical mother daughter stuff that people talk about sometimes. It’s funny when you feel really comfortable with somebody you’ve first met, so that you can experience.

I remember once I was by myself in a foreign country. And most people didn’t speak much English. I was feeling brave enough to venture out of my hotel room. My hotel was a large international one, and some of the staff spoke English, so I was comfortable enough while in the hotel. But once I left the hotel, it was a totally different ballgame. It was a totally different sport. I started walking around, figuring that I’d be ok, as long as I could make a beeline back to my hotel if I ran into trouble. I saw what looked like a large shopping mall. I decided I’d have a look around, and see if I could find something interesting. Who knows, maybe I would feel brave enough to go and try to buy something.

Suddenly I spotted something interesting. Across the mall, was a guy that looked to be about the same age as me. He was wearing a sweatshirt from my alma mater. Suddenly feeling courageous at the sight of those big black letters which evoked many fond memories, I decided to go and talk to him.
I asked him if he spoke English, and he replied that he did. I asked him about his sweatshirt, and it turns out he graduated the same year as I did! We had an amazing time chatting over a meal at a small restaurant that he showed me where they serve the local cuisine. It was fantastic.

The funny thing was, I would have never have guessed that this person was so interesting, and that we share so many things in common. Had he not been wearing that sweatshirt which immediately caused me to remember good memories and feelings, I never would have been able to develop the courage to go and talk to him. It made me wonder. How many other people am I missing out on meeting simply because I don’t allow myself to feel the feelings that will make a chance meeting turn into a great afternoon?

And it turns out that the lady was preparing me to meet her daughter. She was telling me the bad things about her up front, because she was planning on introducing me later. I guess her strategy was to respect me enough to give me a fair idea of her. Because when I finally did meet her, she was absolutely stunning. Had I not heard the stories about her from her mother, I might have fallen into the trap of thinking, merely because of her looks, that she was a stunning angel devoid of any human frailties. As it turns out, she wasn’t my type, and I wasn’t hers, so everything worked out.

I think a great idea when meeting new people is to always look for similarities. Because we are more alike than we are different, you can’t go wrong, and you’ll always be able to make new friends wherever you go.

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The Ancient Power of Idle Gossip

One of the things that I find really fascinating about talking to as many people as I do on a daily basis is that despite how anxious or chaotic their lives are, or how many things they have on their plates, they can always find time to talk about seemingly inconsequential things. I say seemingly inconsequential only because it appears that way on the surface. If you didn’t know any better, you might think that peoples day to day lives, as reflected in their conversations are rather mundane. The more you think about this, the more you can’t help but realize that language itself is one of the most least understood yet most fascinating things that you can begin to understand.

I was reading this book on evolutionary psychology. Some of it was kind of out there. Because of course, despite the commonly held belief that evolution is a scientific fact, it is still largely an unproven theory that people mistakenly believe as fact simply because it is accepted as such. It’s amazing when you study the history of scientific belief.  There are wild things that people believed that seem foolish in retrospect, but when you consider that it really wasn’t too long ago that most scientists believed the world was flat, you can’t help but to take currently held ‘truths’ with a grain of salt.

The purpose of language, for example, is a hotly contested topic among evolutionary biologists. Some believe that the same forces that drove spoken language in humans are the of the same reason that chimps groom each other. Both are thought to server the purpose of a way to determine where people are with respect to the current social hierarchy. According to that theory, the purpose of language is for gossip, to determine who is doing what with who and for what reason. While that may not be the specific reason, it is no stretch to look around and see that idle gossip is strongly compelling to most people.

One of the questions I get emailed to me the most often from people who read this blog on a regular basis is where I get all my ideas from. Although I admit that some people claim that I make this up as I go along, if you read some of my earlier posts, you’ll find that I have been interested in human development and maximizing my own achievement for quite some time now. When you think about it, communicating is a lot more complicated that just idle gossip, even if the surface structure of the conversation only seems to be concerned with daily events and relationships. Your individual history, your beliefs about the world, and your outlook on your own future all play a huge, unconscious role in shaping the language that you use. When you decide let go and release any fears that you may have, you can really begin to communicate more congruently. And when you do that, you can’t help but to be breath of fresh air to all who you come in contact with. One of the ways to become fully human is to stop looking for somebody that has the answers, and simply be that person that can help others find their own answers within.

Of course, there are many other theories of the origins of language. God made us the way we are, complete with our language ability. Or God had hand in guiding our evolution, so he was there helping us out along the way. Or if you don’t believe in God, there are other, more scientifically believable theories. Ancient tribes needed to communicate with each other so they could collectively remember where the dangerous animals lived. They had to communicate in order to organize effective hunting parties. They had to communicate well to plan for the coming winter.

It’s amazing the different theories that they come up with over time. Which is really fascinating. The more they begin to develop ways and machines that can peak inside our brains to see exactly how they work, they will begin to come up with even more abstract and wonderful ideas. And coming up with abstract and wonderful ideas is a fantastic sign of our humanity, which is alwasy driven to learn new things. 

I’m not saying you should keep all this in mind next time your are talking about who is dating who, or who is thinking of breaking up with who. I think a better idea would just be to become aware that there is a level of complexity that is just below the surface of the everyday sentences and nouns and verbs that people throw at each other without much thought, and to let these ideas come up whenever you are ready to think about them.

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Overcome Shyness Through Friendly Conversation

I ran into a friend the other day on the train. I didn’t notice her at first, because she looked different. You know when you see somebody you are pretty sure that you know, but it takes a few moments for you to remember exactly where you know them from? This was one of those times. She was sitting directly across from me, and was reading some book. It didn’t look like a novel, rather it looked like some kind of trade paperback or something. It was actually her that recognized me, as I was craning my neck around to try and see the title she was reading.

She said my name, and could tell by my expression that I couldn’t remember exactly who she was. I think it is fascinating that women are much better at this kind of thing that men are. I played a game once with a group of people called ‘liars.’ People got into groups of three, and then decided amongst themselves which one would tell a true story, and which would tell a lie. There was always one liar and two truth tellers. The game was to keep asking questions until you could catch the liar in a lie. The women are almost always better at this than men.

I read an interesting book once that I think explained it. It said that this was a leftover trait of our hunter/gatherer past. Men would generally go out and look for things to kill (hunt) and women would stay home at the caves, and take care of the kids and collect fruit and stuff (gather.) And this book was saying that women were able to develop a skill that allowed them to really be able to read peoples emotions a lot better than men. I guess this is a lot easier when you can understand your own emotions. And since women are much better at this than men, they are better at being able to read facial expressions much better.

And as it turns out, my friend was reading the classic book “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie. She said that she was enrolled in a public speaking class through her company, and the book was required reading. She said that she decided to read this book a long time ago, and did, but since she forgot a lot of the important stuff, she made the decision to read this again. She told me that when you find something that is of value, it’s important to read this over and over to make sure you can squeeze every useful thing out of it.

And it turns out that is why I didn’t recognize her. She used to be a really shy person. When she walked, she never really was ever able to make eye contact with people, and usually had her shoulders slumped. You had to get to know her before she was comfortable in expressing herself. It was only then that you could discover what a great person she was. Now she is really enthusiastic about public speaking. She says that when you don’t express your true self to others, you really are doing yourself and others a disservice. Because when you can really feel comfortable to be able to express yourself without any fear or anxiety, people can have a chance to get to know you for who you really are. Which is likely a pretty cool person when you think of all the good stuff you’ve done in your life.

Come to think of it, she’s always been a pretty supportive person. And now she’s happy that she doesn’t have to wade through her shyness to let people discover her. Kind of cool when you think about it.

Unfortunately, she was getting off at the next stop, and I had a few stops to go. But it was good that I saw her. We’ll have to get together sometime in the future.

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