I have bad news for you folks okay we our social skills need a ton of work social skill really is a skill that can be learned people are very much The Gatekeepers of your success in this life however you want to define success you guys need to understand how to attract people to you these tips help you to make other people feel good around you as well as present yourself better in social situations a lot of them come from this book actually is called by Le this is a good starting point by Leo LZ these
are really just behavioral prescriptions like this is what you should do in XYZ situation it's very important to not only focus though on the on these behavioral outputs but you know don't only treat the symptom but but treat the cause so at some point we also need to do the the inner work to affect how we're doing internal authenticity I'll call Tip number zero which is the the golden rule of all social interaction we must remain authentic to who we are in our social interactions you how you're acting should be in congruence with how you
are actually feeling not being fake being real with people saying what you really think people love someone that's being real the one brave enough to be be real in a social situation and I can't tell you how many times the best answer was simply to be more authentic and real with people in that situation you got to be real when you start adopting these new social behaviors some of them are going to feel awkward you're going to hear that voice that says that's just not me I wouldn't say that Michael and you might be right
right now but the thing is that the more that you do these behaviors the more they start to really feel like you James Clear says that every time you do a certain Behavior you are casting a vote for the type of person that you want to be in the future so as you adopt these these new better social behaviors as habits it starts to become your identity I used to be someone that I would say sorry more often I would say oh I'm sorry am I in your way oh can you help me I'm sorry
no I learned through my assertiveness training that you don't you don't say sorry you don't say sorry unless you actually did something wrong so over time as I stopped myself and said oh no I'm not going to say sorry I stopped doing it and now I have become the type of person that doesn't say sorry unless they did something wrong and I still mess it up sometimes okay sorry one second the point is that your your persona is a lot more pliable than you might think you got to be willing to change and adopt these
new behaviors and the process of crystallizing them into habits is something very different than just intellectually knowing them it takes real work and getting out there and and really applying them in real life to actually start integrating them into your persona it turns out that a lot of your what what makes up your your personality is really just these behavioral habits and habits can be learned learned and unlearned one way that you can can do this is to start by being more self-aware not self-conscious but self-aware aware of your social behaviors and to start taking
pride in how you interact with people because the moment that you start taking pride in something is when you really start to you know you're on the road to to Lasting Improvement let's get into it the first tip is universally agreed upon by so many of these sources you got to smile more this is pertaining to when you're first meeting people you're first walking up to people you got to smile more it's going to give you a better result and it has to be a genuine smile it has to go reach up to the eyes
a genuine warmth it's going to get you so much further this doesn't mean that you need to smile throughout the interaction that would be weird if you're smiling the whole time just talking to while you're talking to somebody that would not make any sense you have to ride the emotions of the conversation as it's as it's going eye contact is very important eye contact is so powerful it creates intimacy it gets people's attention you know you can start a whole conversation just looking at somebody it's kind of has Authority it makes people respect you more
they did a study where they paired opposite sex people together didn't know each other but they asked one of the participants to count the blinks to count the blinks of their their conversation partner guess what the people whose blinks were counted reported stronger feelings of fondness and respect for the people that were just because they were making more eye contact fascinating one caveat if you're if you're like two men talking to each other that can be a little too intimate and can be threatening if you're really like locked on but definitely just don't be like
looking down like this and you know it's it's you're not really portraying yourself as as very confident in that way I contact matters use it this is a tip from the book hello old friend she calls it you may wonder when I go up to meet strangers of people that I don't know what should I say to them what energy should I bring to them I'm here to tell you the definitive answer unanimously agreed upon by by experts okay is you got to treat them like an old friend you got to treat them like you
know them from long ago hey what's up I know you you know hey what's going on over here what' you guys order that's that looks fancy as hell the problem is that most people they come up and they're too stiff or they're too formal people reflect the energy that you give to them when you come up nine times out of 10 they're going to give you back the vibe that you're bringing to them so you you set the energy at a playful tone early if you can oh goodness Lord this is this is a big
one active listening I had an adviser once that she would listen to the first 20% of my sentence cut me off right there interrupt me interpret that in her mind and respond to that which is mind you not a fully formed thought y'all need to listen to your conversation Partners when you're talking okay this is the problem is that people aren't present people are thinking of what am I going to say next they're not listening you need to be envisioning and and carefully being present and hearing what they're saying so that you know how to
respond only when they're done talking then you start processing and thinking of what to say and uh we should be able to say like this dear friends dear people I know that you suffer a lot I have not understood enough of your difficulties and suffering it's not our intention to make make you suffer more it is the opposite so please tell us about your suffering your difficulties I'm eager to learn to understand you has to thought like that loving speech and if you are honest if you are true they will open their heart and tell
us and then we practice compassionate deep listening and during the process of deep listening we can learn so much about our own perception and their perception and that that is the best way the only way to remove terrorism terrorism or even difficulties between your yourself and family members or friends yes this is a tip called put the spotlight on them you need to put the spotlight the attention of the conversation on them as much as possible people love talking about themselves talk to a man about himself and he will listen for hours it's true there's
another quote that says after talking to man a I felt that he was the most interesting man in all of England after talking to man B I felt I was the most amazing woman in all of England now which do you think that she enjoyed talking to more people love talking and hearing about themselves you're going to endear people to you so much more when you put more focus on them too often people talk too much about themselves now on the flip side of this me based communication statements about yourself is able to add value
you know you can gain people's respect that way you can also show vulnerability you know you can have openness that way so that both sides are important and it has to be a balance ultimately but most people got to got to put the spotlight on them more questions can often times be converted into statements to great effect and they can be made more assertive and confident once they're statements so for example if I'm asking someone Whitney you want to go to dinner on Friday question right versus Whitney you'll love this place let's go on Friday
option b is way more confident and it does two things first it makes a assertion let's go let's go by the way let's is a really great word for for really great assertive word like let's do this let's move let's make let's make moves second thing it does is that it actually saves her the energy of having to think about oh do I want to go like you want to go well she has to think about it do I don't know do I want people often times don't want to have to think they want to
be told if you want to make it ridiculously smooth instead of oh you want to go to dinner on Friday it's I'm thinking about where to take you out on Friday Whitney's not going to be standing vertically after that one she's going to be fainted on the ground okay that's that's the end of that conversation she's dead let's say say that you're asking someone out you could say oh you want to maybe get coffee on Friday option b is hey we should uh get coffee sometime maybe Friday that second statement you're making an assertion you're
making a suggestion let's we should do this maybe even better like hey I'm going to go do this you want to tag along I'm giving you the definitive answer of how you need to ask someone out right now this is golden level knowledge please please you can convert ey statements into you statements if someone said to you I like your suit versus they say that suit looks great on you even more warm is you look great in that suit the the latter options are more warm and it's more likely to make someone feel good about
themselves the first one I like your suit that's just a a statement about me it's like I like your suit or is a statement about the suit and that may be what you're trying to say but Leo goes goes around San Francisco it says she starts yelling out the window this is a experiment I can't find the Golden Gate Bridge where's the Golden Gate Bridge I can't find it people are like piss off what the are you yelling at I can't find the gold and then she she starts yelling out can you help me find
the Golden Gate Bridge can you help me find the Golden Gate Bridge now people oh of course we can help you can I take off on Friday versus are you okay if I take off or can you do without me on Friday the youu often triggers people's sense of Pride and it makes it more personal for them it's like a nicer way of asking that's more likely to get you what you want thread cutting when we are having a conversation with someone new we often go into small talk small talk is anything that is external
to both you and I and is of low emotional relevance or depth it's okay to actively halt or cut boring threads if you are yawning in the conversation it's partially your fault you want to really see it as your responsibility to direct the conversation towards things that you are authentically interested in the things that you want to talk about and by doing so you make it more likely that they will have a good time as well well and this is a concept called self-engagement or self- Amusement ask thoughtful and open-ended questions right not questions that
are how long you've been working there 2 years uh what else can we talk about how long spend a little time crafting a question that's actually going to probe someone's interests passions their motivations their values there was this fascinating study called the the 36 questions that lead to love these are great examples of questions that go deeper than small talk and the idea was that these psychologist put these questions together by having people answer these questions that didn't know each other they built a very strong sense of intimacy by the end it's very powerful so
this this matters Small Talk needs to be moved past soon if you're trying to connect with a person if you're not then who care you can you can do small talk or whatever do not talk about work politics religion Finance if you're trying to have a good time with people okay that's I'm going to leave it at that prosaic with passion you can be talking about something totally mundane but if you're speaking about it with passion people tend to listen more this is a technique for getting people's attention more Innovation is not that you have
an R&D Department who invents yes of course but it's much more like that the Innovation must be everywhere it must be from the receptionist who tells you one day hey I have an idea this is how we should handle blah blah blah Innovation must be everywhere but how do you make Innovation to be everywhere and not only the R&D Department by the boss because the boss is like the rain the rain comes from the top and goes down to earth and the same if the boss has inspiration ecological and protection of nature then it will
go down so it's the responsibility of the leaders even if you could care less about watches it's hard not to listen to somebody that speaks with that much passion there's a lot of books out there about body language this one's really good but you don't have to read these books you just have to pay more attention to people's body language when you're talking to them people will will share share with you so much without them saying a word the way they they're touching them themselves or the direction that their feet are pointing these These are
Clues these are called tells that tell you how they're really feeling and these are involuntary they're not even trying they're not consciously even knowing that they're expressing them here here's a couple examples if somebody's feet is pointed away from you in the conversation like this it most likely means that they want to leave because the feet he says are the is the most honest part of the body if your legs are crossed like this you're standing and you're kind of bouncing you know that position you're standing on one heel that's a position of like Comfort
if people are touching themselves like this doing any sort of touching of their body rubbing their legs like this those are called pacifying behaviors and they're used to soothe stress I was having lunch with this girl one time and she she takes her hand she just really smears it across her face like that and at the time I was like what did that mean what was that and now I know that that's it's a pacifying behavior to to calm yourself down so she stressed about something moving on it's this is a tip called the premature
we okay the words we our and US create a sense of intimacy and camaraderie you can actually use that to your benefit with people that you've just met you know what are we going to do where are we going how are we going to get our the these are ways to kind of get yourself in there with them a bit more it's just interesting another little language hack there okay now I want to move on to giving and receiving compliments let's start with receiving you have a nice hairstyle an appropriate response is simply to say
thank you thank you I appreciate that if you want to go above and beyond you want to pass that Joy back at them okay something to the effect of oh how kind of you or that's such a sweet compliment thank you whatever you do you want to infuse it with with warmth it has to be genuine warmth that's what they want to see they want to see that you had a good reaction to that and made you happy what you do not want to do oh it's nothing just brush it off like oh no it's
not no matter how small it is because you know what that does you invalidates what they said you're undermining what they said you're reducing your own confidence by not accepting that compliment as like yes you're right thank you like don't disagree with the compliment that's the idea now when it comes to giving compliments this is notoriously tricky because if you do it in the wrong way you may seem like you're manipulating or sucking up to somebody a real welld done compliment has to be one genuine coming from the heart two it has to be specific
something specific about them and three a really good compliment hopefully validates something that they would like validation on or appeals to you know something that they take pride in so like if somebody said to me oh Michael you have such a nice fashion sense and you I love the watch that you you chose I'd be like get get stay back stay back so one problem with compliments as well is that people will tend to linger awkwardly on the comment like oh you have such a nice house this is the I love the design I wish
that I had a house like this they're lingering there you need to move on actually the the the solution to this is that you want to actually slip a compliment in and move on quickly and this technique is called the parenthetical compliment where you slip in the compliment into the parenthetical part of the sentence so he says you look you oh well you look beautiful but you must know that blah blah blah in the book she gives the example guy says to her oh Le you're too young to remember this but blah blah blah and
then another example is someone as fit as you would have zipped up those stairs but me I was out of breath you deliver the compliment you kind of slip it in there and move on and that helps avoid that that issue that we discussed here's another interesting one very simple just use their name more not everybody does this including me I I have this friend we we were at this bar and he knows the bartender's name and he says hey Barbara or just Barbara another friend similarly we we leave this other bar and he says
thanks CJ the thing is that people's name is the favorite word in the English language gets more attention even than you the word you and it makes them feel warm and I've gotten texts that say like hi Michael exclamation point and I'm just like well I didn't like you before this now my heart is starting to melt just like that like it you don't want to abuse it but it's very powerful and you can do that more to great effect another interesting point from the book called tracking apparently Bill Clinton does this a lot this
is when you remember the little details that you hear about someone in conversation and then you save that for later and then later when you when you come back and meet them again you can tap into that and mention that and they'll be so surprised how's your little border collie doing you remembered the name of my little angel it's things that people wouldn't expect you to remember that that that makes them remember you a lot more and that that again goes back to like active listening you need to be listening to pick up on those
those details insinuate the quality you want what happens is that by complimenting someone on a certain character trait or by implying that they have it they will often rise to fill that role that character trait Bob I know you're a really great listener and that's why I want to talk to you about you seem like someone that's really spontaneous and blah blah blah I know you're someone who gives people the benefit of the doubt and that's why you need to work with me here on this he he'll say like oh yeah I am a good
listener I do give people the benefit of the doubt I am spontaneous yes what you about to do what we about to do here don't use that for manipulation use that to bring out the best in people when you really want to call out the best from people or get people to treat you better that's useful this is another crazy psychological hack called the Ben Franklin effect he observed that when someone does a favor for you that person's more likely to do another favor for you again if you ask someone for a favor it will
get them to like you more not inuitive right and the reason is because first of all asking them for a favor is kind of like flattery that's what Dale Carnegie says you're signaling that they have something that you don't it kind of creates a cognitive dissonance in their mind which is that why am I acting this way if I don't like this person why am I doing this favor so they they kind of start to like you because their action begets their mental state by acting in that way you start to feel like the person
who would act that way actions beget the mental States this is a great example of why you need to take action first okay at times I've gone out and I've started talking to different people out in the city like as a social challenge you know you start approaching different people the day didn't start off right it didn't start off that that happy or anything but as I start acting like someone who's more social and and upbeat you start feeling that way you start feeling like the person who would act in that way it's extremely powerful
and that what it means is that you need to take action first that that's one way to control how you feel essentially you need to take action and not wait for the motivation to strike here's one that I got to tell you I struggle with this don't get defensive don't defend yourself it's hard it's such an it's such an automatic response getting defensive I tell you I used to host events and I was at this event one time we showed up at this Museum everyone spread in all sorts of directions and I was freaking out
I was like I lost control of the group entirely I was like what's what's going on like how can I there was no way to Wrangle everybody back to the same area and at one point this person comes up to me and says Michael you should uh add more segments to your events like we go to a and then we go to B and C and D I immediately launched into this tie rate of like well the reason I don't do it like that is because the XYZ and it's actually really hard to add more
segments into an event because blah blah she of course you know is just like oh oh no it's okay so by her bringing that comment up it's triggering to me it's validating the very thing that I'm most afraid of in that situation and that's why I'm defensive so my point is that getting defensive all it really does is signal your insecurity does it doesn't look good you got to try to roll with the joke you got to roll with it and and just accept it and laugh at yourself even if you think even if you
might be the butt of the joke and if you are facing criticism you just say I appreciate your honesty thank you I'm going leave you with that this is only scratching the surface my God there's so much we have to learn you will only get better at this by actually practicing it and getting out there and using it please get better right now thank you all for listening I talk to you later peace out bye
