Tag Archives: Communication

Social Confidence

The Hidden Ingredient To Standing Out

When you go on a job interview, (or any kind of interview) what kinds of questions do they ask?

Lots of books have been written on the subject.

People spend lots of time role-playing and coming up with the best way to answer the more difficult questions.

But sometimes they throw you a curve ball.

They aren’t really interested in the answer itself, it’s how you behave when something unexpected happens.

The more money any job pays, the more these situations will come up.

Anybody can follow a simple, step by step process.

In fact, a lot of those jobs will be gone in the next couple decades.

Replaced by robots who ONLY know how to follow EXACT step by step instructions.

Since most high paying jobs involve a LOT of “thinking on your feet” they want to see how you actually “think on your feet.”

They ask silly questions like, “If you were an inch high and stuck inside of a blender, how would you get out?”

Knowing how to answer that relies on the SAME TRAIT that people find in “leaders.”

Knowing what to do when something unexpected happens.

When something goes wrong, and it even SEEMS dangerous, most people panic.

They look around, desperate to find somebody of “authority.”

Somebody who’s NOT panicking like them.

Somebody who’s calmly figuring out what’s what.

This quality will help you get VERY FAR.

Because the amount of UNEXPECTED things that happen in life will FAR OUTNUMBER the stuff you can expect.

Even most people PURPOSELY avoid any situations where they might have to “think on their feet.”

However, as harsh and unfair as it sounds, if you purposely avoid situations where you might feel “uncertain” about what to do, you’re not going to have a lot of fun.

Nobody got rich playing it safe.

Nobody met the love of their life playing it safe.

None of the great heroes of literature and history made their mark while playing it safe.

Does this mean they were FEARLESS?

Absolutely not.

But that didn’t hold them back.

How can you GET that quality?

You can BUILD IT, just like any other skill.

Click Here To Learn How

Make Life Easy

Resistance Isn’t Futile, It’s Optional

Make Life Easy

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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Social Confidence

How To Turn Heads

Social Confidence

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.

Click Here To Learn How

Social Confidence

Vampire Bats and Heaven

Social Confidence

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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Maximize Your Power

How To Play Both Sides

Maximize Your Power

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.

Click Here to Learn How.

Social Confidence

Create A Group of Admirers

Social Confidence

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.

Click Here to learn more.

Social Confidence

Why People Will Love Talking To You

Social Confidence

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.

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Social Confidence

How To Radiate Friendly Energy

Social Confidence

Nowadays, everything anybody famous does is always recorded.

However, most of those people KNOW they are being recorded and they act accordingly.

On top of that we have tons of “reality TV” showing people how they REALLY are.

Of course, it’s not REALLY how people are. They take a whole week of conversations, interactive behaviors and situations and edit them down to the BEST of the week.

So even those “reality TV stars” are more or less “packaged and sold.”

A long, long time ago, Nixon and his buddies got in trouble. Nixon secretly recorded everybody that came into his office.

And when the newspapers published the transcripts of what went on in those “secret” meetings between leaders of the free world, people were flabbergasted.

Not because of the CONTENT of their conversations, but the STRUCTURE.

Or the lack thereof.

Even when the leaders of the free world get together to have a powwow, if they think nobody’s listening, they speak like idiots.

“Uh, what about that thing?”

“Yeah, the, what, how do we, uh, that other stuff…”

Etc.

Unfortunately since most of us spend TONS of time watching FAKE PEOPLE behave as FAKELY as they can, when we act “normal” we don’t look so good in comparison.

But this is actually GOOD news.

Why?

Because if you ever need to make an impression on somebody, it’s pretty easy, since the competition ain’t all that.

But you DO need to do a LITTLE bit of practice.

But not much.

Luckily, there’s tons of opportunities to brush up on your social skills.

Chatting up people in line, for example, is a great way to practice.

Everybody’s bored, and wanting to pass the time (so long as they don’t have their eyes glued to their phones watching porn or something).

An EASY way to “break the ice” just for practice is to throw out a “pacing statement.”

These are verifiably TRUE statements about the environment.

It’s sunny today.

This line is slow.

That lady has a lot of pineapples in her cart.

The idea is to get the person you say these to to automatically agree. Say a couple of them, and you’ve effectively merged your frame with their frame.

Just this skill in and of itself is pretty useful, and will make you STAND OUT when people meet you.

Once because you will have practiced how to easily start conversations with anybody.

Two because you will radiate a different energy than most people.

One that says you’re friendly and easy to talk to.

Two things that will help people remember you from all the other people out there.

Click Here to learn more.

Social Confidence

How To Enjoy People

Social Confidence

If you’ve ever started an exercise program after a long period of inactivity, you’ve probably experienced the common phases.

The first phase is when you still have the motivation (usually from looking at yourself naked in the mirror) and can PUSH yourself through your internal resistance.

After a while of this, the next phase is when it’s habit. Your motivation has likely waned a bit, but if you’ve been doing it every day, you feel kind of guilty for NOT doing it.

The next phase is when it gets good. It’s when you enjoy doing it. Maybe not getting out of bed early, but once you get going, (whatever is you’re doing, jogging outside or riding an exercise bike in the garage), it’s a reward in and of itself.

Those who are lifelong runners wouldn’t DREAM of not going for their daily job.

Same for those who meditate on a daily basis. It might be boring and cumbersome to get started, but pretty soon it’s something you’d NEVER want to stop doing.

This is when any kind of “practice” becomes an end in itself.

Practicing social skills also follows this same pattern. Unfortunately, most people don’t see social skills as something to “practice.”

We tend to see it as something we’re either good at, or something we just suck at.

But if you look at it as a practice, and TREAT it like a practice, it will BECOME a practice.

And if you put in the effort, you’ll get to the point where you LOOK FORWARD to practicing your social skills.

Luckily, there’s a lot of ways to “cheat” your way to the level of “enjoying the practice.”

Because of most of the works is operating on those old beliefs that have been holding you back.

There are plenty of ways to go out in public, NOT talk to a single soul, but FEEL like you’ve created tons of conversations.

This will give you ALL of the benefits, without any of the risk.

And as I’m sure you know, no matter WHAT your “purpose” is in life, it will be much EASIER, and much more REWARDING, if you jack up your social skills as high as you possible can.

Which you’ll soon discover has no upper limit.

Click Here to learn how.

How Does She Know You’re Lying?

Congruence

I was reading this book a few weeks ago. It was an old, out of print book that I picked up in some old bookshop, by an author that wrote another, more popular book that I’d read. So naturally, I picked it up, since it was only a quarter. The first book “Dress For Success” by John Molloy was a bestseller, and although written back during the seventies had all kinds of useful advice for what kinds of clothes to wear in what kinds of situations.

The interesting thing about Dress For Success was that it wasn’t written as an opinion piece, it wasn’t just another collection of self-proclaimed fashion guru’s advice based on his own personal tastes and experience. The materials in the book were the results of scientific research. The author owned some kind of social research organization, and they would frequently conduct “experiments” by sending people out in public, and have them perform certain tasks. And the only variable they would vary was the clothes that the people wore.

Of course, many of the results were the results of surveys, e.g. asking people’s opinions after “experimenters” would pass by wearing certain clothes. One example is that they had a bunch of guys go out wearing black raincoats. Then they would follow them, and ask people what they thought of them. They would say they were doing an experiment, and have them fill out a questionnaire. Invariably, the people that were wearing beige raincoats were judged to be more professional, and more upper class than those wearing black raincoats.

Another interesting experiment was they sent several men out in public, and had them eat in a restaurant. After they’d finished eating, they’d explain to the waiter/waitress that they’d forgotten their wallet, that contained their ID’s, but they had their checkbook. (This was before debit cards were invented, and many people still paid by personal check). About 80% of the guys swearing button down shirts with ties had their checks accepted, while almost none of the guys without ties had their checks accepted.

The entire book was filled with useful information on how to dress if you are interested in how others perceive you.

But this other book, called “Live for Success,” was more about general lifestyle habits rather than what kinds of clothes you should wear.

For example, they had several guys that were wearing clothes and had bodies and faces as close together as they could get. The randomized them, and then had them walk into social environments, like bars or clubs, for a long enough period of time so that people would remember them when asked a few minutes later.

Half of the group walked with their shoulders slumped forward, and their head hanging down. The other group walked with erect posture, shoulders rolled back, and head straight up. Keep in mind that everything else between each group was as consistent as they could make it. Clothing, hairstyle, facial makeup, facial hair, etc. What the found, although not really surprising, was interesting nonetheless. The group with erect posture was rated an 8 out of 10, on average, while the guys with poor posture were rated at a 6.5 out of ten. The obvious take away from this is that simply by walking with correct posture, holding your shoulders back, and your head up will increase your “attractiveness” score by a full point and a half out of ten.

What I found to be the most interesting chapter was on congruence. They did a case study on a guy that, on paper, should have been a fairly likeable guy. Decent job, decent family, good income, decent education. But when they interviewed his friends and coworkers, they all described him in completely distasteful terms. The company that employed him had consulted with Malloy’s company (the author of the book) to try and determine what it was about this guy that turned people off so much. Many times people just couldn’t stand to even be in the same room him. The guy didn’t swear, didn’t have excessive body odor, didn’t leer at females inappropriately, nothing obvious that you would think of when you would hear somebody described with such obvious distaste. Nevertheless, whenever his coworkers would see this poor guy coming, they would make a beeline in the other direction.

After a few weeks of study, Malloy and his associates found out what it was. The guy was completely incongruent. His facial expression was incongruent with his message, his body language was incongruent with his speech, and even when he was agreeing verbally with what somebody was saying, his body language and facial expression was screaming the complete opposite. His body language, facial expressions and gestures were always completely opposite of his speech and his language.

Now this may have had some deep psychological reasons based on childhood or something, but Malloy and his associates weren’t there to fix that. All they were hired to do was to find out what it was about his guy that turned people off so much. Once they put their finger on it, they gave him some exercises and pointers to get his non-verbal communication more in line with his verbal communication. They had him do practice exercises in the mirror, hold his head and body still while he was talking, and other things that slowly brought his body language in line with what his verbal message was.

The interesting thing was that although everybody knew that didn’t want to be in the same room as this guy, nobody could quite put their finger on why. And it took a professional social research firm a few weeks to figure it out as well. After several week of practice, most people accepted him as “normal” and didn’t despise him as much. And he found it much easier to make friends, and be productive in his work when it involved interacting with others outside the company.

The clear take away from this is to always make sure you’re body language is in congruence with your verbal message. Any guy who has come home late at night, and tried to lie to his wife or girlfriend, knows how quickly significant others can pick up on incongruent communication, especially females. Females seem to be much better at picking up incongruencies in communication than males.

If you’re in sales, being incongruent can kill a sale before it even starts. Even if you believe in the product you are selling, your body language can shoot you in the foot. I used to work with this guy that would shake his head back and forth (the universal sign for “no”) whenever he talked about his product. This would turn of clients, as it appeared this guy had a distaste for his own product.

But the truth was, when he was speaking of his product, his thought was “nobody can do it better than us” which led to his head shaking. This was often misinterpreted by potential clients as a disbelief in his product’s quality. So even if you have a strong belief in something, you can project a conflicted message if you’re not careful.

The simple way around this is to simply get out of your head, focus on who you are speaking with, and focus on your message. Just like the guys in the bar, hold your head up, keep your back straight, and look them in the eye. You’ll have much more success this way.

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Success with NLP

Success with NLP