Three skills to endear you to others at any gathering.
First… Make the other person feel good about herself. This is gold. Before you arrive, decide your sole mission of the evening is to elevate the confidence, pride, and esteem of anyone to whom you speak.
Too often people enter a conversation wanting to pound their own chest with words of self-importance. Do the opposite. Edify the other person. Be so interested in them that you almost forget to mention yourself. Be curious - Ask questions – build them up to others in the conversation. Take each answer deeper with another question. Dale Carnegie said any person’s favorite topic is himself, so play to that.
“Barry and Sue always throw such great parties. How did you come to know them?”
“You’re a project manager? I’ve always admired the assertiveness it takes to excel at that. How did you acquire the skill?”
“What’s the romantic story behind your marriage proposal?”
Marriage/relationship expert Ellen Kreidman said a woman is drawn to a man for how she feels about herself when she’s with him. Same for men with women. This applies equally to non-romantic situations. Make the other person feel important.
Second… Never try to one-up someone’s story. It’s not a competition. Let a speaker have his glory without you trying to upstage it. If you do have a tale to share after his, couch it with: “That’s a hilarious story. I can’t top it and wouldn’t try, but an odd thing happened to me last year when…”
Third… Make eye contact without drilling a hole in their forehead. A powerful way to say ‘you matter, you’re important, I care’ is to make eye contact. Conversely, nothing says you’re not the least bit interested like darting eyes. Don’t be that person.
Mary Kay Ashe, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics, was a master at this. It was said of her that in a crowded auditorium, she would maintain eye contact with only you, look around to no others, and make you feel like the most important person in the room. What a gift she gave. You can too.
ACTIONS FOR YOU
The 3 suggestions are themselves the action points. But one additional thought…
Conversations -- one-to-one or one-to-group -- are where the heavy lifting of life really gets done. Animals don’t do it. Machines can’t do it. Only people can. It is the ‘conversation’ that is the single-greatest tool you have to inform, to love, to sell, to achieve, to succeed.
Done well, you’ll have all those. Done poorly, you get very few, maybe none. Master the art of the conversation.
First… Make the other person feel good about herself. This is gold. Before you arrive, decide your sole mission of the evening is to elevate the confidence, pride, and esteem of anyone to whom you speak.
Too often people enter a conversation wanting to pound their own chest with words of self-importance. Do the opposite. Edify the other person. Be so interested in them that you almost forget to mention yourself. Be curious - Ask questions – build them up to others in the conversation. Take each answer deeper with another question. Dale Carnegie said any person’s favorite topic is himself, so play to that.
“Barry and Sue always throw such great parties. How did you come to know them?”
“You’re a project manager? I’ve always admired the assertiveness it takes to excel at that. How did you acquire the skill?”
“What’s the romantic story behind your marriage proposal?”
Marriage/relationship expert Ellen Kreidman said a woman is drawn to a man for how she feels about herself when she’s with him. Same for men with women. This applies equally to non-romantic situations. Make the other person feel important.
Second… Never try to one-up someone’s story. It’s not a competition. Let a speaker have his glory without you trying to upstage it. If you do have a tale to share after his, couch it with: “That’s a hilarious story. I can’t top it and wouldn’t try, but an odd thing happened to me last year when…”
Third… Make eye contact without drilling a hole in their forehead. A powerful way to say ‘you matter, you’re important, I care’ is to make eye contact. Conversely, nothing says you’re not the least bit interested like darting eyes. Don’t be that person.
Mary Kay Ashe, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics, was a master at this. It was said of her that in a crowded auditorium, she would maintain eye contact with only you, look around to no others, and make you feel like the most important person in the room. What a gift she gave. You can too.
ACTIONS FOR YOU
The 3 suggestions are themselves the action points. But one additional thought…
Conversations -- one-to-one or one-to-group -- are where the heavy lifting of life really gets done. Animals don’t do it. Machines can’t do it. Only people can. It is the ‘conversation’ that is the single-greatest tool you have to inform, to love, to sell, to achieve, to succeed.
Done well, you’ll have all those. Done poorly, you get very few, maybe none. Master the art of the conversation.