Category Archives: Conversation Skills

Essential Skills For Alien Invasions

One of my hobbies is reading doom and gloom economic blogs.

This type of thing has been around since forever.

(not blogs, but doom and gloom ideas)

Go back in time, anywhere, and you’ll find a certain percentage of people thinking that the end is near.

Even in the song, “Roadhouse Blues,” Jim Morrison tells us, “the future’s uncertain and the end is always near…

One thing that modern blogs (of the doom and gloom type) talk about is how to withstand the coming economic collapse. (Or zombie apocalypse or whatever).

And that is to maximize your “human capital” value.

For example, if the world financial system were to collapse (maybe due to an alien invasion or something) all you would have would be what you physically had, AND what you could work with others to produce.

Which would mean you would need a high degree of social confidence.

Even world class entrepreneurs, who have built many businesses from scratch, when asked if they had to start over, what skills would they keep, they ALWAYS answer, “people skills.”

Being able to talk to another human, especially somebody you don’t know that well, and convince them of the validity of your idea is a pretty good skill to have, alien invasion or not.

Even if you think and hope that the economy will keep humming (or limping) along indefinitely, your ability to interact with other people will help you succeed no matter WHAT kind of business you’re in.

Luckily, it’s one of the EASIEST skills to learn, since we humans are VERY social creatures.

And it’s not really a matter of LEARNING what to do, it’s just a matter of UNLEARNING things that aren’t working.

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Resistance Isn’t Futile, It’s Optional

Once a buddy of mine and I went hiking.

We went up a local mountain, and for some reason, we didn’t check the maps before we left.

We followed the trail, but pretty soon we got lost.

We figured if we kept heading uphill, we’d make it eventually.

But soon we found ourselves pushing through very thick brush.

Which meant we had to backtrack until we found the trail.

Kind of embarrassing.

A lot of people plan their future this way. They figure that as long as they keep going forward, they’ll eventually get there.

However, no matter what you’re building in your life, there are easy ways, and there are hard ways.

Obviously, going the easy (or less difficult) way is better. You’ll get their quicker, or build something MUCH bigger in the same amount of time.

Of course, you NEED to go off the beaten path a little bit, otherwise you’ll be following everybody else and getting the same “safe” things that everybody else gets.

But going straight up a hill covered in thick brush (literally or metaphorically) is never a good idea.

One thing that can both hurt you, and help you is other people.

How you think about them, how you interact with them, how you can elicit their help or advice if you need it.

If you choose any goal, and put yourself out in the future after you’ve created it, you can look back and see what helped.

Almost always it will be the relationships you created along the way.

The easier you can do that, the less likely you’ll find yourself stuck.

You can think of your interpersonal or social skills as the ability to go off the beaten path, finding the easiest and quickest way to the top, without getting stuck in a bunch of thick bushes.
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How To Turn Heads

What makes people charismatic?

The kind of quality where they walk into a room, and everybody turns to see them.

This can quickly build, and everybody is soon checking out what everybody is checking out.

It’s usually described as a kind of energy, a kind of magnetism.

But what is it really?

One thing about charismatic people is they rarely worry about what other think about them.

But this can’t be the only reason. Plenty of people aren’t really concerned with the opinion of others, but they aren’t exactly charismatic.

Another ingredient in charisma is genuinely liking yourself. Charismatic people tend to enjoy being who they are.

Think back to a time when you were a kid. And you found something cool, or maybe got at cool toy as a gift.

And you couldn’t wait to show it to your friends.

Charismatic people feel that way about themselves. Not in an egotistical way, but in a genuine way.

And not really themselves, but their experience of themselves.

They like being themselves, they like experiencing the world as themselves, and they like how interacting with others can amplify that.

And one crucial ingredient in that is that they have an equal appreciation for others.

When they look at somebody, they don’t worry about getting rejected, or getting bored, or getting judged.

They look at everybody with a positive expectation. And because of this, they tend to bring out the best in others.

This, of course, creates a self-fulfilling loop.

The more they interact with others, they more they prove to themselves that life, most especially other people, is a fantastic adventure.

How can you develop this trait?

Like anything else, it’s a skill you can learn. In particularly, it’s the skill of holding the right mindset when looking out over a group of people.

Instead of wondering if you’ll get accepted or rejected or judged, purposely wonder what cool things you’ll find out about other people.

At first, you don’t need to interact with others. Just watch people, and purposely hold the question in your mind, “I wonder what treasure they have.”

When you purposely hold this frame in mind when being around others, you’ll be on your way.

Pretty soon YOU’LL be the one who walks in the place and turns everybody’s head.

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Become A Delicious Cake

The human brain is very quick, but often not very accurate.

Otherwise optical illusions (or even movies) wouldn’t work.

We see things that aren’t really the way they are.

There’s even a weird “audio illusion” where if you listen to static long enough, you’ll start to hear sounds that aren’t there.

Unfortunately, some people may think they’re listening to ghosts or demons or something.

One common misunderstanding is when we see two events take place, one after the other, and assume that one caused the other.

In Latin this is referred to as, “post hoc ergo propter hoc.”

Here’s an example. You’re hanging out a bar or club, and you see some guy walk over and talk to a girl or guy you’ve had your eye on.

They have an obviously enjoyable conversation for a few minutes (they are both laughing) and then they leave together.

You think to yourself, “Hmm, I wish I knew what he said to her!”

Here’s another example using the same structure, but it’s obvious how “incorrect” it is.

You go to a friends house for a dinner party. They serve an absolutely delicious cake for desert. You would like very much to bake on just like it.

So you ask them, “Hey, that cake was delicious, what kind of icing did you use?”

And you thought that all you needed to know was the icing.

The words we use are really just the icing on the cake.

They are an outcome of our internal behavior.

Here’s a point to prove it.

Let’s say some absolutely gorgeous person is eyeing you from across the room.

They walk over to introduce themselves.

They closer they get, the more you are attracted. The way they move, the way they carry themselves, their posture.

Now, which thought would be more likely:

“Wow, this is so cool!”

“Hmm. They look gorgeous and are interested in me, but if they say something that isn’t super witty or clever I’m going to tell them to get lost.”

The truth is that the words we actually use are important, but they aren’t the ONLY thing.

Just like the icing is only put on AFTER the cake is made (and in reality the cake will still be pretty good without the icing), the words are only the last bit of information.

In fact, if that metaphorical gorgeous person didn’t even speak English (or your native language) that probably wouldn’t even matter.

So, how do you build up the inner cake?

By building up how much you feel confident and relaxed no matter who you are around.

And just like any other skill, the more you practice, the easier it gets.

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Vampire Bats and Heaven

Isaac Newton was a smart dude.

He came up with a lot of laws of physics, and he also invented calculus.

One of his easy to understand laws are the three rules of motion.

A body at rest tends to stay at rest.

A body in motion tends to stay in motion.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

This last one seems to be true on many levels.

Who knows, many the basic laws of physics are true on EVERY level.

But back to the “action <---> reaction” law.

How can that play in out human nature?

One way is the metaphorical description of heaven and hell.

In hell, everybody has unlimited food, but really, really, long spoons.

They can scoop the food out, but they can’t eat it.

And nobody trusts anybody, and there all scared of each other (it IS hell after all) so they’re always hungry.

Heaven is the opposite.

But the same.

Meaning it’s the same setup, unlimited food and long spoons.

But not only does everybody trust each other, but they are ALL willing to “go first.”

Meaning they KNOW that if they first feed somebody else, it’s only a matter of time before somebody feeds them.

Everybody works together, they’re all fed, and everybody’s happy.

Is this true in nature?

It absolutely is.

Vampire bats (yes, really) do the same thing.

Every night they go out looking for blood (literally).

Some find some, some don’t.

The ones that don’t get fed by their buddies.

They keep a weird “point system.”

Everybody knows who’s been fed, and whose been feeding.

And they ALWAYS pay each other back.

Scientists have been studying them for years.

Now, the animals they steal the blood from probably don’t think they’re a shining example of friendliness.

But in the bat community, they practice the “help others first” strategy, and it keeps their vampire bat community tight.

They know they got each other’s back.

Of course, this works in people as well.

No matter HOW you behave, Newton’s law will prove itself.

If you are shy and worried, people will treat you that way.

Meaning THEY will be shy and worried when they think of interacting with you.

But if you go first, they will reciprocate.

In fact, this “persuasion law” of reciprocation has been proven again and again.

It’s like we CAN’T reciprocate.

Which brings us to the Golden Rule.

Do unto others as you’d like done unto you.

Be friendly, kind and build up their good points.

And they’ll do the same for you.

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How To Make An Awesome Impression On People

We humans tend to make a lot of decisions based on unconscious triggers.

Much more than we’d like to admit.

As an animal, we are self-organizing, hierarchical, pack animals.

Meaning we always either try to be an authority, or defer to an authority.

They put a bunch of people in a room, and soon one guy is the “leader.”

We make a lot of purchasing decisions the same way.

If some guy with TONS of authority is selling something, we don’t usually question the quality of what he’s selling.

This only works with some products, though.

If a famous person was promoting a new burger chain, and the burgers tasted like moldy dirt, we’d only eat their once.

But the HARDER it is to check the quality of something, the MORE we defer to these “triggers” when making decisions.

Take an exercise and diet program for example. The only real way to test if it works or not is to try it out for a couple months.

But since there are so many out there, it’s not logistically possible to try them all.

We’d be dead before we finished!

So we tend to rely on things like Authority, Social Proof, and other triggers.

Most of the time, when something is hard to judge on it’s own merit, we almost always use some kind of shortcut to help us out.

For example, when we meet somebody, we really don’t want to spend a couple weeks getting to know them to see what kind of person they are.

So we look for triggers to help us.

Who they’re with, the clothes they wear, and most importantly, how they carry themselves.

Short of any obvious triggers like Authority (are they famous?) or Social Proof (do they have a huge entourage?), we have to judge them based on the subtle and subconscious behavior.

Which is an outward representation of how they judge themselves.

Meaning if they like and respect themselves, it will come across how they walk and talk.

Which means we’ll like and respect them.

In a sense, it’s kind of like those elections in third grade, where everybody voted for themselves for president.

YOU can instruct other how to feel about YOU.

All you’ve got to do is feel about YOU how you’d like other people to feel about YOU.

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How To Play Both Sides

Once I had to hire somebody for a lab I worked for.

I was co-interviewing with my boss, and we were having trouble filling the position.

One of the applicants looked really good on paper but he came across rather stiff.

He even described himself as a “lone-wolf” kind of guy.

And since working in the lab required talking to a lot of different departments and being proactive, we decided to give this guy a pass.

Sometimes it’s cool to be a “lone wolf.”

I’ve done a lot of backpacking, and generally it’s better to have fewer people than more.

The more people you have, the longer it takes to make a decision.

But with only a couple of guys, you tend to spend less time talking and more time walking.

Whenever you have an objective that doesn’t necessarily involve a lot of people, like fixing your sink or cleaning out your garage, being a lone wolf is generally best.

Get in there, get it done, and then get out.

If you had six of your buddies over while you tried to fix your sink, it’d NEVER get done.

Some people are terrible about playing the “lone wolf.”

Whenever they decide something important, they need to talk to as many people as possible and get all kinds of different opinions.

Clearly, it’s limiting to be either a lone wolf all the time, or a social butterfly all the time.

It’s very effective to be able to shift into either mindset depending on the task at hand.

But some people are much better shifting into one than the other.

If you can only do one, you’re limiting yourself.

But if you can do both, you can be pretty marketable.

You can tell any interviewer, for example, that you can get along with all sorts of people and work well within groups, but you also know when to turn on the tunnel vision and get things done.

Not only can you switch sides when needed, but that will come across in your energy.

You can radiate both intense focus as well as socially powerful energy.

Making you stand out from everybody no matter where you go.

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Create A Group of Admirers

We like it when things make sense.

When something happens that we don’t expect, it can be pretty confusing.

Once I was at a friends house, hanging out after dinner in their living room.

There was five or six of us, and we’d kind of drifted into two separate conversations.

Three in one, three in another.

But one person in each group, in each conversation, said, “No way!”

And everybody stopped for a second, heads spinning.

The two completely different conversations having overlapped in those two words was pretty cool. Then we all laughed and went on with whatever we were talking about.

This is kind of the idea behind the famous “handshake interrupt” from NLP.

Since most people think of a handshake as a single event, when you start talking in the middle it kind of trances people out.

When unexpected things happen that are BETTER than we expect, it’s almost like magic.

Like if you’re sure you failed a test, the teacher hands them back, face down, and you turn it over slowly, and are happily surprised to see you got a 92.

People can be the same way.

I once had this calculus professor. Super serious geek type. But then on Halloween he came in dressed in a goofy outfit and sang part of an Italian opera.

One way to impress people is how you handle the conversation.

Most people go around trying to “compete” with one another. Trying to tell the best stories, trying to be the “wittiest” guy in the conversation.

But when you start asking questions about the other person, and sit back and let them be the “cool one,” something interesting will happen.

If you walk up and tell an awesome story, they’ll remember you. But it will be conscious. They’ll clearly associate you with your stories, and you’re not-so-covert attempt to impress them.

But when you lay back and let them be the star, they’ll feel good, and they’ll SUBCONSCIOUSLY associate that good feeling with you.

If you make this your “go-to” conversation style, pretty soon everybody you know will really feel good when they think about you, and they won’t quite be sure why.

But you’ll know.

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Be A Collector Of Stories

When I was a kid we would organize these scavenger hunts in the neighborhood.

Somebody would organize a list of weird things. Then we’d break into teams and go around the neighborhood and knocked on doors.

Whoever collected all the stuff (yellow clothespin, etc.) would win.

Then later when I was in Boy Scouts, we had a similar game, but it was more like low level “hazing” for new kids.

We’d go to these huge jamborees with hundreds of different troops.

And we’d send kids around looking for things that didn’t exist.

Like left handed smoke shifter, or a bacon stretcher.

Everybody was in on it, and pretty soon the new kids would figure out they’d been had. Most of them would keep going around, because it was pretty fun.

But me and my buddy would purposely go around to all the different troops and ask for the craziest stuff we could think of.

Just to see if they could keep a straight face while telling us another troop (the one that happened to be furthest away) had it.

It was also a good way to stay away from your own troop, because you hung around your own troop, the adults would eventually give you something to do.

Talking to people can be incredibly rewarding.

Even if you don’t have any intention other than passing the time.

Because most people are pretty interesting.

And the more people you talk to, the more stories you’ll pick up.

Sure, a lot of people won’t offer much, but a few will.

You can think of other people’s stories like “resources.”

So when you DO find yourself talking to somebody that you would like to persuade or influence, telling stories is a great way to do it.

Or if all you want to do is develop deep rapport, perhaps to start a relationship, stories can be a good way to do that.

They tell a story, and you relate a story that happened to a friend of yours.

Each story you collect can be a resource to further deepen your relationships with people you’ll later meet.

Think about that next time you see a huge crowd of people roaming about.

Think of how many stories they might have.

Then go and collect them.

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Why People Will Love Talking To You

The Meta Model from NLP is a very powerful but little used tool.

As it’s taught, it’s pretty terrible.

It makes people turn into conversation killers.

Our language is FILLED with vagueness.

And this is nearly always a good thing.

So when you start using the meta model, it can seem really abrasive.

If you are on the receiving end of a meta model barrage it feels like you’re under interrogation.

Because the Meta Model is all about extracting specific information.

Like if somebody says they saw a movie and it was “OK,” then they probably don’t feel like spending twenty minutes defending their position.

Why was it just OK?

What specific part was just OK?

Most people don’t like to go into specific details, especially if it feels like an interrogation.

There are, however, two places where the meta model is pretty useful.

One is when you’re having a deep conversation with a close friend or partner and you’re talking about heavy emotional issues.

You can use the meta model to find out EXACTLY what they mean, so you can understand precisely what they’re experiencing.

Even then it can come across as extremely confrontational if you’re not careful.

Another way to use the meta model is when talking about people’s desires.

Especially in an imaginary, “perfect” future.

Once they understand you’re just playing around, and you’re talking about something they want AND you are careful not to judge in any way, it can be pretty powerful.

Get them talking about their ideal vacation. Get them to describe it to you as specifically as possible.

Actually refer to it as if it’s an object out there between the two of you.

This will get them feeling REALLY good.

And they’ll associate that good feeling with you, since they’re talking to you about it.

This is also a pretty good conversation topic if you’re worried about running out of stuff to say.

Because once they realize you’re not judging them in any way, they’ll just keep on talking.

Another cool thing is that after the conversation is over, they’ll remember you for a LONG TIME.

This can make it pretty easy to make friends anywhere you go, and give you pretty powerful conversational skills.