How to Talk to Anyone - 92 Little

Tricks...
Introduction
How to Get Anything You Want from Anybody (Well, at Least Have the
Best Crack at It!)
Have you ever admired those successful people who seem tohave it all?
You see them chatting confidently at business meetings or comfortably at
social parties. Theyre the ones with the best jobs, the nicest spouses, the
finest friends, the biggest bank accounts, or the most fashionable zip codes.
But wait a minute! A lot of them arent smarter than you. Theyre not more
educated than you. Theyre not even better looing! So what is it? (Some
people suspect they inherited it. Others say they married it or were just plain
lucky. Tell them to think again.) What it boils down to is their more skillful
way of deaing with fellow human beings.
You see, nobody gets to the top alone. Over the years, people who seem
to have it all have captured the hearts and conquered the minds of hundreds
of others who helped boost them, rung by rung, to the top of whatever
corporate or social ladder they chose.
Wanna-bes wandering around at the foot of the ladder often gaze up and
grouse that the big boys and big girls at the top are snobs. When big players
dont give them their friendship, love, or business, they call them cliquish or
accuse them of belonging to an old-boy network. Some grumble they hit their
heads against a glass ceiling.
The complaining Little Leaguers never realize the rejection was their
own fault. Theyll never know they blew the affair, the friendship, or the deal
because of their own communications fubles. Its as though well-liked people
have a bag of tricks, a magic, or a Midas touch that turns everything they do
into success.
Whats in their bag of tricks? Youll find a lot of things: a sustance that
solidifies friendships, a wizardry that wins minds, and a magic that makes
people fall in love with them. They also posess a quality that makes bosses
hire and then promote, a chara teristic that keeps clients coming back, and an
asset that makes customers buy from them and not the competition. We all
have a few of those tricks in our bags, some more than others. Those with a
whole lot of them are big winners in life. How to Talk to Anyone gives you
ninety-two of these little tricks they use every day so you, too, can play the
game to perfection and get whatever you want in life.
How the Little Tricks Were Unveiled
Many years ago, a drama teacher, exasperated at my bad acting in a
college play, shouted, No! No! Your body is belying your words. Every tiny
movement, every body position, he howled, divulges your private thoughts.
Your face can make seven thousand diffeent expressions, and each exposes
precisely who you are and what you are thinking at any particular moment.
Then he said somthing Ill never forget: And your body! The way you move is
your autobiography in motion.
How right he was! On the stage of real life, every physical move you
make subliminally tells everyone in eyeshot the story of your life. Dogs hear
sounds our ears cant detect. Bats see shapes in the darkness that elude our
eyes. And people make moves that are beneath human consciousness but have
tremendous power to attract or repel. Every smile, every frown, every
syllable you utter, or every arbitrary choice of word that passes between
your lips can draw others toward you or make them want to run away.
Mendid your gut feeling ever tell you to jump ship on a deal? Womendid
your womens intuition make you accept or reject an offer? On a conscious
level, we may not be aware of what the hunch is. But like the ear of the dog
or the eye of the bat, the elements that make up subliminal sentiments are very
real.
Imagine, please, two humans in a complex box wired with cicuits to
record all the signals flowing between the two. As many as ten thousand units
of information flow per second. Probably the lifetime efforts of roughly half
the adult population of the United States would be required to sort the units in
one hours interaction between two subjects, a University of Pennsylvania
communications authority estimates.
With the zillions of subtle actions and reactions zapping back and forth
between two human beings, can we come up with cocrete techniques to make
our every communication clear, confdent, credible, and charismatic?
Determined to find the answer, I read practically every book written on
communications skills, charisma, and chemistry between people. I explored
hundreds of studies conducted around the world on what qualities made up
leadership and credibility. Intrepid social scientists left no stone unturned in
their quest to find the formula. For example, optimistic Chinese researchers,
hoping charisma might be in the diet, went so far as to compare the
relationship of personality type to the catecholamine level in subjects urine.
Needless to say, their thesis was soon shelved.
Dale Carnegie Was GREAT for the Twentieth Century, but This Is the Tw
e n t yF i r s t
Most of the studies simply confirmed Dale Carnegies 1936 classic, How
to Win Friends and Influence People. His wisdom for the ages said success
lay in smiling, showing interest in other people, and making them feel good
about themselves. Thats no surprise, I thought. Its as true today as it was
more than sixty years ago.
So if Dale Carnegie and hundreds of others since offer the same astute
advice, why do we need another book telling us how to win friends and
influence people? Two mammoth reasons.
Reason One: Suppose a sage told you, When in China, speak Chinese, but
gave you no language lessons? Dale Carnegie and many communications
experts are like that sage. They tell us what to do but not how to do it. In
todays sophisticated world, its not enough to say smile or give sincere
compliments. Cyical businesspeople today see more subtleties in your smile,
more complexities in your compliment. Accomplished or attractive peple are
surrounded by smiling sycophants feigning interest and fawning all over
them. Prospects are tired of salespeople who say, The suit looks great on
you, when their fingers are caressing cash register keys. Women are wary of
suitors who say, You are bea tiful, when the bedroom door is in view.
Reason Two: The world is a very different place than it was in 1936, and
we need a new formula for success. To find it, I observed the superstars of
today. I explored techniques used by top salespeople to close the sale,
speakers to convince, clergy to convert, performers to engross, sex symbols
to seduce, and atletes to win.
I found concrete building blocks to the elusive qualities that lead to their
success. Then I broke them down into easily digestible, news-you-can-use
techniques. I gave each a name that will quickly come to mind when you find
yourself in a communications conudrum. As I developed the techniques, I
began sharing them with audiences around the country. Participants in my
communications seminars gave me their ideas. My clients, many of them
CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, enthusiastically offered their observations.
When I was in the presence of the most successful and beloved leaders, I
analyzed their body language and their facial
expressions. I listened carefully to their casual conversations, their
timing, and their choice of words. I watched as they dealt with their families,
friends, associates, and adversaries. Every time I detected a little nip of
magic in their communicating, I asked them to pluck it out with tweezers and
expose it to the bright light of consciousness. We analyzed it together, and I
then turned it into an easy-to-do little trick others could duplicate and profit
from.
My findings and the strokes of some of those very effective folks are in
this book. Some are subtle. Some are surprising. But all are achievable.
When you master them, everyone from new acquaintances to family, friends,
and business associates will hapily open their hearts, homes, companies, and
even wallets to give you whatever they can.
Theres a bonus. As you sail through life with your new comunications
skills, youll look back and see some very happy givers smiling in your wake.
How to Talk to Anyone - 92 Little
Tricks...
 PART ONE
How to Intrigue Everyone Without Saying a Word
You Only Have Ten Seconds to Show Youre a Somebody
The exact moment that two humans lay eyes on each other has awesome
potency. The first sight of you is a brilliant holograph. It burns its way into
your new acquaintances eyes and can stay emblazoned in his or her memory
forever.
Artists are sometimes able to capture this quicksilver, fleeting emotional
response. My friend Robert Grossman is an accoplished caricature artist
who draws regularly for Forbes, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, Rolling
Stone, and other popular publications. Bob has a unique gift for capturing not
only the physical appeaance of his subjects, but for zeroing in on the essence
of their pesonalities. The bodies and souls of hundreds of luminaries radiate
from his sketch pad. One glance at his caricatures of famous pe ple and you
can actually see their personalities.
Sometimes at a party, Bob will do a quick sketch on a coctail napkin of a
guest. Hovering over Bobs shoulder, the onlooers gasp as they watch their
friends image and essence materialize before their eyes. When hes finished
drawing, he puts his pen down and hands the napkin to the subject. Often a
puzzled look comes over the subjects face. He or she usually mumbles some
politeness like, Well, er, thats great. But it really isnt me.
The crowds convincing crescendo of Oh yes it is! drowns the subject out
and squelches any lingering doubt. The confused subject is left to stare back
at the worlds view of himself or heself in the napkin.
Once when I was visiting Bobs studio, I asked him how he could capture
peoples personalities so well. He said, Its simple. I just look at them.
No, I asked, How do you capture their personalities? Dont you have to do
a lot of research about their lifestyle, their history?
No, I told you, Leil, I just look at them. Huh? He went on to explain,
Almost every facet of peoples personalities is evident from their appearance,
their posture, the way they move. For instance . . . he said, calling me over to
a file where he kept his caricatures of political figures.
See, Bob said, pointing to angles on various presidential body parts,
heres the boyishness of Clinton, showing me his half smile; the awkwardness
of the elder George Bush, pointing to his shouder angle; the charm of Reagan,
noting the ex-presidents smiling eyes; the shiftiness of Nixon, pointing to the